nappinnai

[Guest guest]

Hello,

This has reference to badri's posting reg nNappiNnNnai2

badri wrote:

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).

-------

 

Just because aaNdaaL refers to nappinnai, i dont think that way. we

cannot conclude that she she wouldn't have referred herself. It should

be viewed this way: the "bhavam" in which the author conveys something

should be given utmost importance. The entire thiruppavai is set in the

aayarpaadi backdrop. the author assumes herself as one of the aayar

chiRumi. the self identity of the author- a pious brahmin girl, is not

at all brought to light throughout the literary work. the author

herself is one of the characters of the drama which is a separate

identity not to be confused with the author who just gave the work to

the world. the drama consisting of 30 paasurams, talk about calling the

aayar girls early in the morning for praying krishna,...etc. one of the

aayar girl is the author herself, the nNappiNnNnai who is aaNdaaL. when

u look at the 18th paasuram, "unNdhu madha kaLiRRaNn Odaatha ..nNanNdha

gOpaNn marumagaLE nNappiNnNnaay.." nNanNdhagOpaNn is krishNnaNn's

father. the author who was madly in love with krishNa, and always dreams

of marrying krishNa and becoming nNanNdhagOpaNn's marumagaL, just

introduces herself as one of the aayar girl character and satisfies her.

i think no other character fits in this particular context of

nNanndhagOpaNn's marumagaL.

 

Other than this, it has been in our family's practice to name the girls

who were born in "pooram" nakshatram as nNappiNnNnai. ( thiruvaadip

pooraththil chegaththuthuththaaL vaazhiyE)

 

another anecdote comes to my mind regarding this. raamaanNujar who was

an ardent devotee or even more than that of aaNdaaL, once was going

along the streets of sriraNGgam on an early morning maargazhi day

singing thiruppaavai. he was crossing periya nambi's house and was

singing unNdhu mathagaLiRRaNn. when he was singing this particular line,

" nNanNdhagOpaNn marumagaLE nNappiNnNnaai.." ,periya mnambi's daughter,

"aththuzhaay" (tamil name for thuLasi) came out to draw kOlam in front

of her house. raamaaNnujar who was all the while thinking of aaNdaaL

immediately, overcome by the devotion to aaNdaaL, went near aththuzhaay

and fell on her feet. then periya nambi came out and realised this and

explained. ( i am 90% sure, it is periya nambi, if wrong pls let me

know)

 

viji

 

 

--

Vijayaraghavan T. R.

viji

[Guest guest]

Triplicane Vijayaraghavan <viji wrote:

 

* Hello,

* This has reference to badri's posting reg nNappiNnNnai2

 

* badri wrote:

* nappinnai is not aaNdaaL. aaNdaaL herself refers

* to nappinnai in thiruppaavai on many occasions.

 

[deleted]

 

* Just because aaNdaaL refers to nappinnai, i dont think that way.

 

[and some more arguments as well as anecdotes suggesting that

nappinnai refers to aaNdaaL, deleted]

 

* viji

 

There is not much of an argument here. aazhvaarkaL as well as

other poets well before aaNdaaL's time have mentioned pinnai

in their copious works. Chronologically, paripaadal precedes

the entire aazhvaar works and I suspect the same must be true

of silappadhikaaram. As Dileepan mentioned clearly, both

these ancient thamizh works mention pinnai. periyaazhvaar

does, and he might have done that even before the birth of

aaNdaaL. So aaNdaaL is not nappinnai.

 

That said, aaNdaaL could have very well wanted to act the

part of nappinnai. She does indeed consider herself as a

gopika in aayarpaadi just as periyaazhvaar imagined himself

to be yasOdhai. That does not make periyaazhvaar, a yasOdhai

and likewise, aaNdaaL, a nappinnai.

 

--badri

 

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

S.Badrinarayanan

Graduate Student

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Cornell University

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