nNappiNnNnai

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the interesting article, Dileepan. A

long while back, Naga.Ganesan had posted about

some references on this subject (he has reposted

them now again in SCT). For those who don't read

SCT, here is the posting (which was in response

to Dileepan's posting).

 

--

nas_ng (Ganesan)

Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil

Re: Nappinnai and Radha

 

Re: Radha and Nappinnai

------------------------

 

In Azvars' era, the figure Radha has not crystallized into

what she is today. That is why her name is not found in Divya Prabandham.

 

She was a folk deity in Begal-Orissa region. After Jayadeva's

Gitagovinda, she acquires fame all over India.

 

Nappinnai legend is much earlier.

 

References:

 

1) Barbara S. Miller, Radha: Consort of Krsna's vernal passion,

Journal of Americal Oriental Society, vol. 95, no. 4, p. 55-71

 

2) Erik Af Edholm and Carl Suneson

The seven bulls and Krsna's marriage to Nila/ Nappinnai in

Tamil and Sanskrit literature.

Temenos, v. 8, p. 29-53, 1972

 

Yours

n. ganesan

nas_ng

--

 

None of the early sanskrit puranas mention

Radha. I read Bhagavatam (thamizh translation) 10

years back and I do not remember ever coming

across a reference to Radha. So "nappinnai" must

be clearly a southern legend.

 

nappinnai is not aaNdaaL. aaNdaaL herself refers

to nappinnai in thiruppaavai on many occasions.

That nappinnai is an adjective + the proper name

pinnai is quite obvious from the mentioning of

pinnai elsewhere in the prabandham (eg. pinnai

maNaalan in periyaazhvaar, don't remember offhand

the exact place).

 

The suggestion that pinnai is subhadra and a step

sister of krishna is quite ridiculous. As

Dileepan pointed out, aazhvaars as well as the

other old thamizh poets knew even the very

obscure facts in the puranas. It is utterly

inconceivable that they could have gotten

confused on this issue.

 

periyaazhvaar often times portrays pinnai as a

childhood playmate of kaNNnan. yasOdha fondly

calls for krishna to come and take a bath, and

says

 

"nappinnai kaaNil sirikkum"

 

(if nappinnai happened to see you so dirty, she

will laugh at you, aren't you ashamed?)

 

aaNdaaL must have learnt all these stories from

her father and we see her mentioning pinnai in

her works with quite a bit of envy at times. The

legend of pinnai and kaNNan must have been quite

popular in thamizh naadu during the times of

aazhvaars and must have travelled to North India

and superimposed on the local deity Radha.

 

It is widely believed that nappinnai is an

incarnation of neelaadhEvi though I have no idea

about the source that prompted this belief.

 

--badri

 

-----------------

S.Badrinarayanan

Graduate Student

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Cornell University

-----------------

[Guest guest]

Hello,

> thaNnthuNai aayar paavai nNappiNnNnai thaNnakkiRai maRRaiyORkellaam

> ...

> here nNappiNnNnai is referred to as the aayar girl to which aaNdaaL

 

Doesn't "aayar" refer to the cowherd tribe to which Yashoda/Nandagopan

belonged? I always thought so due to the association between "Aayppadi"

and Krishna. If that is so, AandaaL cannot be the one referred to, she

being the daughter of Periyaazhwar, a brahmin. Infact, this reference

of Tirumangaiyazhwar seems to indicate that Nappinnai could be Radha!

 

Also, what are the relative times in which Tirumangaiyazhwar and AandaaL

lived? Even if T. aazhwar is of a later period, would AandaaL have been

so famous a devotee by then that he would refer to her in his pasuram?

 

 

- Ranga

-----------------------------

Ranga Satagopan

 

Cambridge Technology Partners

rsata

-----------------------------

[Guest guest]

Doesn't aayar clearly exclude Andal from this? From what I have known of

Andal's life etc., she definitely is not an 'aayarpadi' girl/woman. According

to the story about her birth she is 'bhoomidevi'!!! This gets more and more

confusing. There is no doubt she wished to be in 'aayapadi' loving and

identifying with Krishna as she did.

 

 

vv