Sri PeriyavAccAnpillai's and Azhakiya manavAlap perumAL nAyanAr defence for Tamil

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Dear members,

 

To continue on the use of Tamil on par with Sanskrit, I would like to

quote the following

from Srivaishnava ManipravAlA by Sr. K. K. A. Venkatachari.

 

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Sri PeriyavAccAnpillai's defence.

 

Sri periyavAccAnpillai strongly defends the use of Tamil. In reference

to stanza 4 of

Thirunedunthantakam, where thirumangaiAlvAr has written the lines which

means

 

The one who is the personification of beautiful Tamil and Sanskrit

 

he mentions that certain persons had objected to the placing of Tamil

before Sanskrit,

for according to them Tamil was born from Sanskrit .

PeriyavAccAnpillai, in his

commentary on Thirunedunthantakam strongly argues against those who

want Sanskrit

first, since tamil is an independent language and its words convey their

meaning lucidly

and unambiguously. Moreover, he says that the AlvAr's words written in

Tamil are

self-explanatory and do not have to rely, as do the Vedas (in Saskrit)

on puranAs and

ithihAs for explanation. In other commentaries his love for tamil is

expressed in even

stronger terms. His elaborate discussion of TirumAlai goes as follows:

 

The One Who is lying with His head towards the west,

with His feet stretching towards the east, with His back

towards the north, and Who is facing south towards Lankai

is the Lord Who is of the color of the ocean, Who is seen

sleeping on the serpent couch. My body melts. O people

of the world, what should I do?

 

In reference to this stanza so popular in Srivaishnava tradition,

PeriyavAccAnpillai

exhaustively explains the posture of Lord Ranganatha. First he says that

the Lord

has His head towards teh west because He has the responsibility for the

protection

of the whole world. He wants to safeguard the people in that region.

With reference

to the Lord's stretching His legs towards the east, the commentator asks

why the

AlvAr uses the word "stretch His feet towards east" when he could have

merely said

"with His feet towards east". This reference to "stretch" says

PeriyavAccAnpillai, is

beacause the AlvAr wants to convey that the Lord desires to extend His

grace to him.

Moreover, He wants to extend His grace to a person who does not deserve

it. It is

also to be noted that tirumandankudi, the place where

ThondaradipodiyAlvAr was

born, lies east of Srirangam where Lord Ranganatha lies, and so the

AlvAr visualizes

the Lord lying with His feet (and His grace) stretched towards east (and

so towards

the AlvAr). regarding the Lords bach to the north, the AlvAr thinks that

the Lord has

a special pity for the north since:

 

a. It is an Aryan region where Sanskrit is spoken (this implies that

Sanskrit is not

on par with Tamil).

 

b. It is a place which has not been celebrated by the AlvArs.

Nonetheless, adds

PeriyavAccAnpillai, even when the Lord shows the beauty of his

backside to

the north, He is bestowing a special grace on the north.

 

Finally, PeriyavAccAnpillai, tells us that the Lord faces south

because, first of all, He

feels guilty about having killed RAvana, inorder to retrieve Sita after

her abduction.

Secondly, He wishes to show his affection to Vibhishana who had helped

(and

surrendered) to Sri Rama in Lanka.

 

This comment shows that PeriyavAccAnpillai has a high regard for Tamil.

His

frequent and reverent references to Tamil make clear that he esteems it

more highly

that Sanskrit. In his expalnation of Periyatirumozhi 7:8:7 by

TirumankaiAlvAr,

PeriyavAccAnpillai states that the reason for modifying the word Tamil

with

'cen' (good) is to denote that this language has the special quality of

unambiguous

expression. And in his expalanation of the phrase

centamizhpAduvArvanankumtEvar

(in Periyatirumozhi 2:8:2), he says that it means that God was worshiped

by the

first three AlvArs "who sang in pure and chaste Tamil" implying that

the divinity

of the Lord increased when such great AlvArs sang about Him in pure

Tamil.

 

Sri Azhakiya manavAlap perumAL nAyanAr's defense:

 

Very similar to this is an explanation given by Azhakiya manavAlap

perumAL nAyanAr

for the term 'vadavEnkadam', which he describes as the northern place

where people

cannot understand Vedas without the aid of PurAnAs and ithihAs, while

everyone

born in Tamil country can understand the poetry of TiruppAnAlvAr. The

Acharya

also states that the difference between Sanskrit and Tamil is only

superficial, like

the difference in the four sections of the Veda - the Rk, Yajus, Sama

and Atharva.

Tamil is an ancient language like Sanskrit; Tamil has fourteen

classifications like

Sanskrit.

 

 

 

AcharyarkaL thiruvadikalE SaraNam

 

Venkatesh.