"yen thIrthanE".. ?

[Guest guest]

Mani Varadarajan says :

 

ovaath thuyarp piRavi utpada maRRev evaiyum,

moovaath thani muthalaay moovulakum kaavalOn,

maavaagi aamaiyaay mIn aagi maanidam aam,

thEvaathi thEva perumaa Nnen_thIrththanE. 2.8.5

 

I was hoping someone could shed light on why aazhvaar

addresses perumaaL as his "thIrththan" in the last line.

What exactly is he saying? I don't know of any temple

where the deity is known as thIrththan, nor does it

seem particularly appropriate for the word to simply mean

the "sanctifier" or "sanctified".

 

***

 

Connecting back to the "ovaath thuyarp piravi" line of thought, how about

if Nammaazhvaar is addressing Perumal as

 

" yen vinai thIrthanE"

 

or

 

"yen kali thIrthanE"

 

- in the sense of He who ended ( theerthavan ), finished the cycle

of birth, sin, death ? , rather than the sanctifier ( sanskrit 'tIrta" )

 

Just a thought,

 

Sundar

[Guest guest]

Purely from a tamil poetry grammar point of view Sundar's interpretation is not

acceptable. To mean what he implies ( in terms of vinai or kali -----) the word

should read as thIrthananE, for the period of these poems and as this or

thIrthavanE in more recent poetry. In the original quote it is used as an

address- very often in Tamil poetry poems end with addressing a person and we

are taught to recognize this and in explaining its meaning use it as the

beginning. I think that is the case with this poem too.

 

yen is more of an expression of belonging he to God an dGod to him arising out

of an intense devotion and longing for God. The poem could very well be ad

addressed to: "tIrththanE" and usually God's glory or an incident or

charateristicstics

tics are praised for the benefit of wordly people in such form of address.

 

Purely from this aspect I would tend to go with the interpretation presented

by Dileepan.

 

How about this: since Vishnu's abode is considered to be ThiruppaaRkadal,

could it imply addressing Him with an identification with water or theertham in

more common parlance. Also the rivers associated with many a temple are

considered very pure and enjoy as much significance as the temple itself, and

more so as it is believed to imbibe the roopam ofthe presiding deity.

especially in the times of these poems, you wouldn't have seen a 'dry' river

by a temple. As so much of reverence is attached to these waters, could it be

that thIrththan implies all of this and thus the deity of the place of worship

for this poem?

 

To sum up:

 

"Gangai aruviyaal thIrthan AnaanO?

Cauveri nNeeraal thIrthan AnaanO?

paaRkadal paLLiyinaal thIrthan AnaanO?

paavam pOkkiyathaal thIrthan anaanO?

parinNthuvanN thiNGu colveer bhakthargaaL"

 

Vaidehi V.