by Nammalwar
In his discussion of the dangers of the wasteland, Piḷḷai offers an odd reference to the youth who keep themselves fit by using rasāyana, an oblique reference to alchemy, and perhaps Siddha practices.
Piḷḷai lavishes attention on the mother’s utterance, aruvinaiyēn—I who have difficult/terrible deeds, which I have translated as ‘I am ill-fated’. He provides a multi-tiered explanation for the mother’s use of this phrase. First, the daughter knowing that the mother would disapprove of her love affair has chosen to run away. Second, instead of helping unite the lovers, the mother acted as an obstacle. In this, Piḷḷai compares the mother to Bharata in the Rāmāyaṇa, who blames himself for Rāma’s exile. Finally, he compares the mother of this wayward girl to Devakī, who observed several vows to earn Kṛṣṇa as her son, only to be separated from him.
In the svāpadeśa, the ālvār is seen as abandoning saṁsāra which no longer interests him.
Tiruviruttam 46
She Said:
Some send their heart as a messenger
to do their bidding
thinking ‘It’s an innocent heart, it’s my heart.’
They should abandon such notions.
My steadfast heart left to place a message
at the feet of the one
who ripped the broad chest of the golden one
but it abandoned me, wanders even now.
In the anyāpadeśa, this verse is spoken by the heroine (talaivi).
The commentary for this verse is an explication of the nature of the relationship of the devotee’s heart and god. The central question is: why does the ālvār praise the heart (vāli maṭa neñcē) in Tiruviruttam 45 only to immediately chastise it in this verse? The answer is that the heart is both the reason for bondage in this world and the means to be released from it. Therefore, the heart causes despair and pain. It whips up the emotions, takes the devotee to the very final point, but abandons the quest at the crucial juncture without reconciling the god and the heroine. But isn’t the heart also the cause of the union? That is, is it not the heart that provides the reason and the motivation to seek union? Piḷḷai answers in the negative, because the heart can only function as an aid (upākārakan). God is the only cause and instigator (karaṇan). The heart is needed because it desires the puruṣārthas (the ‘goals of life’, but in the context of the commentary it is understood as mokṣa). It is merely instrumental in securing fulfilment, but it is by no means the primary or essential reason.
We think of the heart as our own, but it is not the case. Viṣṇu gave us a body in order to apprehend the world, and with this he gave us the senses that are for both knowing and acting in this world. The heart resides in the body; it is a śeṣa (servant) and is to be used as such.
Piḷḷai offers two illustrative examples to discuss the relationships of the heart to the devotee and of the heart to god. In the first, he compares the heroine to Prahlāda who was tormented by Hiraṇya, his father, yet remained steadfast in his devotion to Viṣṇu. The heart is Hiraṇya, who betrayed a natural relationship to tread an evil path. Similarly, in this verse, the heart has abandoned the heroine, yet she must remain single-minded in her love for Viṣṇu. Given the allusion to the Narasiṁha myth in the verse, it is no surprise that Piḷḷai chooses it to embellish his primary concern, which is the nature of the heart’s relationship to the devotee and to god. The second example is taken from Piḷḷai’s favourite, the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa. He parallels the heroine’s state to the second separation between Rāma and Sītā, where although she was abandoned and waited patiently, Rāma remained steadfast in his course of action.
Tiruviruttam 50
He Said:
O skilled charioteer, drive quickly
Take me to her of the lustrous brow
before her colour fades
Take me to the great mountain
where waterfalls crash on the foothills
like strings of pearls from the tall crown of
Vaikuṇṭha’s master,
one sweet as nectar.
In the anyāpadeśa reading of this verse, Piḷḷai tells us that the hero (talaivan) urges his charioteer to return him to the heroine in order to preserve her beauty and his honour. In the time they have been separated, memories of her beauty have sustained him; he is like Rāma during Sītā’s captivity. The beauty of her forehead shores up his spirits like the small package of food one takes on a journey. He wants to return to his love quickly for he knows she will not survive, like Rāma hurrying back to Ayodhya from exile, well aware that Bharata’s life hung in the balance.
Once again, the poet meditates on the contrast of Viṣṇu in his transcendent form (evoked here through the phrase viṇ-mutal: cause/first of Vaikuṇṭha) and in his accessible, local form (māmalaikku—to the great mountain). Piḷḷai asks why the poet invokes Viṣṇu in his transcendent aspect, but then chooses to go to the great mountain, a local site? Nammālvār’s thoughts are solely fixed on his form in Vaikuṇṭha, and he describes the great mountain (note that he doesn’t specify a specific mountainous site like Venkatam in this verse) according to his apprehension of that world. In this world one can only understand god’s nature through sight, but when one experiences him, one can intuit that nature. This is like seeing the smoke from a forest fire and deducing that there is a fire on the mountain.
In the svāpadeśa for this verse, the heart is the chariot. It describes the bhāgavatas (Nammālvār’s assembled disciples) rushing to Nammālvār’s aid on account of his suffering. The poet has forgotten saṁsāra and this world and has a single-minded focus only on the lord of Vaikuṇṭha, like Sītā who forgot Mithila upon arriving in Ayodhya.
Tiruviruttam 74
Her Friend Said:
His long eyes closed, he slumbers
upon his bed resting
on rolling rising ocean waves
When he comes awake
he swallows worlds
A fresh gentle breeze wafts
having devoured the fragrance of tulasī
adorning the crown of that same one
who uprooted the great mountain
turned it on its head.
In this verse the heroine’s friend (tōli) comforts her when the cool breeze arrives. Recognizing her despair, the friend says that this is no ordinary breeze, but one that comes bearing the fragrance of Viṣṇu’s tulasī. This must surely mean that Viṣṇu is not far behind. After all, doesn’t the fragrance of sandalwood herald a king’s arrival? This is why the breeze is described as fresh—as it stops nowhere on its way to the heroine, it is unpolluted with the fragrance of other, lesser things.
Viṣṇu’s eyes are lovely and long because they speak of his greatness. He is not truly asleep, instead he is in a deep meditation (yoga nidrā), considering the protection, creation and destruction of the world. Even so, he is right at hand at the time of dissolution (pralaya) to take care of his devotees. This is why at the time of pralaya, he swallows the world and in this manner protects it.
Tiruviruttam 99
These may be simple words. But this is the good I’ve seen
There is only the master of knowledge
that one who took the form of a boar
lifted the world submerged in crashing waves.
Neither for the gods
who possess the great tree of wishes
nor for all the others
is there anyone else.
The verse begins with the phrase īnaccol (base/low words) to describe the poem. This presents the commentators with a problem. How can the words of Nammālvār be considered base? Piḷḷai offers an extensive and thoughtful reading of not just this phrase, but the entire verse.
Nammālvār feels that to some people his words are without love, without goodness, without meaning. To these people, what he says is useless. But more importantly, these words are base because they run contrary to one’s nature. After all, the burden of mokṣa should rest on Viṣṇu alon
e. Surrender is contiguous with one’s dependence (pāratantriya), which is the soul’s essential nature. Thus for Piḷḷai, īnaccol evokes the core Śrīvaiṣṇava concept of prapatti. He goes on to explicate that people do not have the means to get rid of their sins (pāpa), and ignorance is the obstacle to mokṣa. But Viṣṇu is the only one with the power and the knowledge to get rid of one’s transgressions. Piḷḷai also suggests that one shouldn’t take īnaccol as completely negative. Rather, there is slight irony in the statement. In this second reading, our commentator says that although only a few people may respect Nammālvār’s words, and many will simply dismiss them as baseless, the poet still reveals them. It is like a flowering plant which produces flowers that are sometimes useful (when plucked from the tree and used in worship) and sometimes not (when they just fall to the ground).
Piḷḷai goes on to elucidate Viṣṇu’s nature in relation to Nammālvar’s identification of Varāha as the jñāna-p-pirān (master of knowledge). Piḷḷai explains that you must attach yourself to only one who has the capability to offer and give protection. Such a being is Varāha because he protected the earth (Bhūmī) without even being asked. He transformed himself and took a form contrary to his nature in order to offer protection. This avatāra thus demonstrates that Viṣṇu not only has the strength but also bears the responsibility to shelter the world. Viṣṇu has jñāna (knowledge), śaktī (power) and prāpti (attainment) that enable him to guard the world, and so we must attach ourselves only to him. We are his wealth and so it behoves him to care for us. Furthermore, Viṣṇu as Varāha is a refuge to people like us who are lacking, and even the gods in heaven (who may appear to have everything) seek his protection. One can become a god after performing many sacrifices, but Piḷḷai asks, why would one only desire svarga (heaven), when one can return from it? Shouldn’t one desire a place from which one cannot return (Vaikuṇṭha)? Even the nityasūris who are always with him have need of him.
We who are mortals require his aid perhaps most of all, as we do not even know we have an ātma (the eternal self). We need him to prepare us as knowledge alone is insufficient. The gods, the nityasūris may have knowledge (jñāna), but this is not equal to mokṣa. In fact, jñāna can well act as an obstacle to mokṣa.
Piḷḷai is also concerned with the verse’s definitive statement—jñāna-p-pirān allāl illai—there is no one other than the master of knowledge. He cautions that this must not be taken to mean that there is nothing other than Viṣṇu. Instead, he clarifies that it means that only Viṣṇu is capable of granting mokṣa. Effort and various paths are simply obstacles to mokṣa as knowledge is unreliable, and god’s intervention is the only reliable means to mokṣa. Piḷḷai’s exegesis of this verse hints at what will eventually become the Teṅkalai position regarding the relationship between one’s effort and Viṣṇu’s grace.
Appendix 1
Index of Characters
There are four major characters in the poem—the heroine, her friend, her mother and the hero. The fortune teller makes only one brief appearance in the poem. In addition to these stock characters, familiar to us from reading Indic love poetry, the poem also has a number of verses that eschew any persona and appear to be composed in a direct address. Such verses are read purely as svāpadeśa, where Nammālvār speaks to the audience in his own voice. Although most verses can be clearly classified according to persona and voice, the Tiruviruttam also deliberately obliterates the demarcations between heroine/friend/mother, and a number of verses can be attributed to any of the three characters. Nonetheless, the heroine’s voice dominates the poem accounting for almost half of the verses. The friend gets thirteen verses, while the mother and hero receive eleven verses each. The remaining twenty-six verses are purely svāpadeśa in content.
* * *
Persona
Verse Numbers
* * *
The heroine (talaivi)
3, 4, 8, 12, 13, 16, 17, 25, 27–32, 35, 36, 38–46, 48, 49, 51, 54, 56, 58, 61, 63, 70–72, 76–80, 82, 84–86
The friend (tōli)
2, 5, 7, 15, 18, 20, 22, 34, 52, 68, 69, 74, 81
The Mother (tāy)
19, 24, 33, 37, 47, 59, 60, 62, 73, 83, 87
The Hero (talaivan)
6, 9–11, 14, 23, 26, 50, 55, 57, 75
The Fortune Teller (kuratti)
53
Metaphysical Verses (svāpadeśa). No persona, although assumed to be spoken in the voice of the heroine, who is the poet (Nammālvār).
1, 21, 39, 42–45, 61, 64, 79, 84–86, 88–99
* * *
Appendix 2
Index of Motifs and Typology of Verses
In the Tiruviruttam, Nammālvār exploits the full range of motifs available in the corpus of Tamil love poetry. Some motifs are more common than others, and some occur in slightly different forms through the poem. Such an index allows us to chart Nammālvār’s use of specific tropes, motifs and ideas across the poem, although these ideas may not occur in sequential verses, or indeed in verses close to each other.
As the list below indicates, evoking the night as an aeon and the relentless passage of time are two motifs that clearly dominate the poem. Indeed, the poet in his persona as the heroine indicates a certain awareness (can we call this meta-textual?) of the recurrence of the night. For example, in verse 49 she points out that she has encountered the night before, but this night is different. Commentators find it hard to reconcile these multiple evocations of the night, and often simply gloss the recurrence as an index of the intensification of the heroine’s suffering. So, on the one hand we can read Nammālvār’s use of the motif of the night in such a way that it becomes a character in its own right and, as I have argued in the introduction, is one horizon in the puzzle that is the Tiruviruttam.
Three additional motifs of central importance to the poem are:1) the comparison of Viṣṇu’s eyes/gaze with lotuses; 2) the girl’s mad repetition of the names of god; and 3) swallowing, eating, consuming and devouring. Although the motif of the eyes is scattered throughout the poem, it is used in a tight sequence almost at the centre of the poem. It is one of the very few motifs that occur as a set. The second motif of the repetition of Viṣṇu’s names can be set against the poet’s claims of revelation and possession. In the Tiruvirutttam, Nammālvār claims only to repeat the words he has been taught by Viṣṇu. Motifs of swallowing, eating and consumption occur numerous times in the Tiruviruttam. It is not just Viṣṇu eating and spitting out the worlds. Clouds, the sea, the tulasī and even the hero participate in mutual gustatory relish.
* * *
Type of Motif/Typology
Verse Numbers
* * *
Kāla Mayakkam (Confusion of the Seasons)
7, 18, 52, 68, 69
Night as Aeon/without End
12, 13, 16, 36, 49, 59, 70, 72 (possibly 90, 97)
The Passage of the Night
13, 35, 40, 69, 73, 77, 80, 85, 93
The Sea
17, 18, 62, 71
The Torment of the Breeze
4, 5, 13, 27, 28, 35, 41, 47, 51, 56, 74
Messenger Verses
29, 30, 31, 32, 54, 55
Messenger Verses: Heart as the Messenger
3, 4, 46
Verses of Elopement
26, 37
Verses Addressed to the Tulasī
3–5, 12, 19, 20, 24, 25, 27, 28, 34, 35, 40, 47, 49, 51, 53, 56, 59, 70, 72, 74, 76–78, 81
Verses Referencing Swallowing, Eating and Consuming
18, 20, 21, 26, 29, 49, 56, 64, 65, 66, 71, 74, 79, 86, 91, 98
Metaphysical Verses (Verses Purely in the Svāpadeśa Mode)
1, 21, 39, 42, 43, 44, 45, 79, 61, 64, 84–86, 88–99
The Poem as Revelation
48, 94 (possibly 99)
The Repetition of Viṣṇu’s Names
20,* 48, 59, 60, 64, 71, 83, 87, 94†
Verses Comparing the Heroine (and Her Female Companions) to Viṣ�
�u’s Celestial Cities and/or Its Natural Features
10, 11, 16, 23, 55, 66–68, 75
Verses Comparing Viṣṇu’s Eyes to Lotuses
39, 42, 43, 45, 58,‡ 63, 94
Direct Reference to Caṅkam Poems/Poetics
26, 55, 68
* * *
Appendix 3
Indices of Myths, Places and Names
Myths
* * *
Varāha
45, 99
Vāmana/Trivikrama
35, 38, 42, 58, 61, 64, 68, 69, 76, 79, 80, 85, 89, 91
Kṛṣṇa
Flute Playing
3
Pūtanā
4
Stealing Butter
21, 54, 91, 98
Stealing Butter and Being Bound by a Rope
86
Winning Nappinnai
21
Dancing with Pots
38
Narakāsura
78
Bāṇāsura
78
Narasiṁha
46
Churning the Ocean of Milk
51, 52, 57