Parathvam

[Guest guest]

Sometime back in one of his excellent posts sri Madhava Kannan

wrote about this thiruvAymozhi pAsuram - TVM 2.2.2. I nostalgically

recall sri vELukkudi svAmi's beautiful reference to this pAsuram in

one of his thiruppAvai upanyasams. Let me first quote from sri Madhava

kannan's posting. This would help establish the context and the mood

of the AzhvAr.

 

****************Start Quote - Madhava Kannan**********************

"He is the One who can remove all our sins with His grace and

mercy. He is the One who removed the sin of Siva when Siva comitted

the sin of plucking one of Brahmaa's heads; He is such a Graceful,

Merciful Emperumaaan! That Male Lion Gopalan- withou Him, who else

can shower mercy on ALL BEINGS? It is a PITY THAT We are wasting OUR

TIME having this burden of talking and reasoning out His parathvam

without enjoying and contemplating on His kalyANa guNAs.

(What an anubhavam of our Sweet NammAzhwAr!)"

**************End Quote*********************************************

 

The last part of this is indeed interesting. He (AzhvAr) calls

it a waste of time to talk about parathvam without enjoying His kalyANa

guNAs.

 

Sri vELukkudi svAmi in his characteristic style tells a story

for this. The story is narrated by sri nammAzhvAr when some of his

sishyAs asked him to deliver a discourse and establish the parathvam

of sriman narayana. AzhvAr couldn't start the discourse. He felt

pretty bad about something. Noticing this, his sishyAs asked him what

his problem was. And nammAzhvAr tells this story.

 

"There were a lot of people sitting in a huge well lit hall. One

guy was busy searching something. He said, "I was having a small, thin

needle and i have dropped it somewhere. could you guys please help me

search it?" Everybody groped the ground in search of the needle and

found it.

 

Then there was this second guy who was also searching for

something. He said, "I was having one small seasame seed in my hand

and i have dropped it somewhere. Could you please help me out?" Once

again everybody searched for it and found it.

 

Then there was this third guy who looked very puzzled. The

people in the huge hall, by now, got the pattern and asked him what

his problem was. He said, "I am the elephant trainer at srirangam

temple. I take care of a big, huge elephant. I brought the elephant to

this big hall. And i don't see it now. I am really puzzled..."

People laughed at him as the elephant was right there and nobody even

paid attention to him. His case was so illogical and makes no sense

whatsoever. It would just be a waste of time 'searching' for this

huge elephant in this big well lit hall."

 

"Likewise", nammAzhvAr continued, "Trying to establish/reason

out His parathvam seems to be a waste of time for me. Only if the

thing that we are searching for is very small and insignificant, the

search makes sense. Otherwise, if what we are searching for is so

obvious, like this huge elephant in a hall, does the 'search' make any

sense?. Just open your eyes and you can see it. sriman nArAyaNa being

the param poruL (The supreme entity) is well known and obvious. We do

not have to 'prove' it! "

 

Look at how authoritatively sri nammAzhvAr talks about His

parathvam, so subtly. Look at his expression of the anubhavam of the

Lord.

 

My sincere thanks to Sri Madhava Kannan for leading me down

this nostalgic memory lane...

 

adiyEn

-Viji

(Vijay Triplicane)