Silent Wisdom, Endless Shoots: The Plantain Metaphor of Dakshinamurti "Just as a plantain tree produces shoots at its roots, before yielding fruits and perishing, and these shoots, being transplanted, do the same again, so also the original primeval Master of antiquity (Dakshinamurti for Mahadev Shiva), who cleared the doubts of his rishi disciples in silence, has left shoots which are ever multiplying. The Guru is a shoot of that Dakshinamurti." — Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 17 Who is Dakshinamurti Dakshinamurti is the form of Shiva as the supreme teacher, seated under a banyan tree, facing south, surrounded by aged rishis who came to him with unresolved doubts about the nature of the self. What makes this form extraordinary is that Shiva does not speak a single word. He simply sits in silence, displaying the gesture of knowledge, and the doubts of the sages dissolve on their own. This form represents the idea that the deepest truths cannot ...