nAcciyAr tirumozhi VIII - viNNIla mElAppu

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SrI:

SrI ANDAL samEta SrI rangamannAr tiruvaDigaLE SaraNam

 

nAcciyAr tirumozhi VIII - viNNIla mElAppu

pASuram 8.1 (eighth tirumozhi - pAsuram 1 viNNIla mElAppu)

 

viNNIla mElAppu virittARpOl mEga~ngAL

teNNIr pAi vEnkaTattu en tirumAlum pOndAnE

kaNNIrgaL mulaik kuvaTTil tuLi Sorac cOrvEnaip

peNNIrmai IDazhikkum idu tamakku Or perumaiyE

 

 

A. Translation from SrImAn SaDagOpan's tamizh treatise:

 

Oh clouds who cover the whole sky like a blue carpet! Did my

emperumAn, who is stationed in tiruvEnkaTam full of beautiful

clear water falls, come along with you? His not coming with you

is making me shed tears because of my suffering. Is destroying my

femininity a great act of pride for tiruvEnkaTam uDaiyAn?

 

B. Additional thoughts (from SrI PVP ):

 

viNNIla mElAppu virittARpOl: SrI PVP's anubhavam is that godai

feels that the wide-spread clouds form a canopy for her and

her nAyakan to be seated together in the wide open space under

this canopy. She sees that one of the reasons for His creating

the Universe is so that He can be seated with her under this

beautiful canopy. For perumAL and pirATTi, the paramapadam

(nitya vibhUti) and this world (leelAvibhUti) are meant

to be for their enjoyment.

 

mEga~ngAL: Note the plural here. sitA pirATTi had only one

messenger (hanumAn) to send to rAma; godai is not constrained

like that, and has many clouds to send as messengers.

 

SrI PVP makes one other observation on the reference to

"clouds" by ANDAL. Among all the thousands of vAnara-s who

were searching for sItA, hanuman was the only one who had the

bhAgyam of finding sItA and having her darSanam. In the case

of the clouds, a lot of clouds can convey the message to

bhagavAn in ve~nkaTam Hills.

 

In rAmAyaNam sundara kAnDam 30-3, hanumAn says:

"yAm kapInAm sahasrANi SubhahUnyayutAni ca

dikshu sarvAsu mArgantE SeyamAsAditA mayA"

 

(I found the one person, who is being looked for by thousands and

ten thousands of vAnara-s in all the directions). HanumAn is sad

in one sense that those other vAnara-s who wanted to find Her,

did not get the bhAgyam to see Her; only he got that bhAgyam.

Here, in godai's case, all the clouds are going to get to see emperumAn.

 

When kings go for jala-kr*TA (water sports), a set of people

called "mEkar" precede him and do jalakrITA with him. In the

case of the clouds (megham), it is godai's thought that these

"mEga~ngAL" did jalakrITA with emperumAn and because of His

making them wet, they are now the water-bearing clouds.

 

teN-NIr pAi vEnkaTattu: The waterfalls in tiruvEnkaTam are pure

(not muddied), because of the sAnnidhyam of emperumAn stationed in

tiruvEnkaTam. Unlike this, by comparison, in the place where

ANDAL is right now, the rivers etc. have become dry because of

the absence of emperumAn ("tirumAlum pOndAnE"). This is what

happened when Lord rAma left for the forest -

"upataptOdakA nadya: palvalAni sarAmsi ca

pariSushka palASAni vanAnyupavanAni ca" (rAmAyaNam

ayodhyA kANDam 59-5)

 

en tirumAlum pOndAnO - SrI PVP points out the incident in

SrImad rAmAyaNam where Lord rAma follows sItA pirATTi when they

walk in the forest -

"yadi tvam prasthito durgam vanamadyaiva rAghava

agratastE gamishyAmi mr*dnatI kuSa kaNtakAn" (rAmAyaNam

ayodhyA kANDam 27-6)

 

Now she hopes that He has followed the clouds, and so asking

the clouds whether Her tirumAl has followed them. The usage of

the word "en tirumAl" shows her relationship to Him as His pirATTi

and also her purushAkAram.

 

kaNNIrgaL mulaik kuvaTTil: ANDAL has posed the question to the

clouds - Has my tirumAl come with you? - and expects a response

without realizing that they are acetana. She thinks that they are

not responding because He did not come with them. And tears start

welling in her eyes. When sItA pirATTi's eyes started filling

with tears because of her separation from Lord rAma, at least

she had hanumAn to notice her tears:

 

"kimartham tava nEtrAbhyAm vAri sravati Sokajam

puNDarIka palASabhyAm viprakIrNam ivodakam (rAmAyaNam sundara

kANDam 33-4)

 

("pirATTi! Why are your eyes shedding sorrowful tears which

resemble water falling out of lotus leaves?")

 

Since there is no one to notice godai's tears, she sympathizes

with herself.

 

kaNNirgaL mulaikkuvaTTil: emperumAn is never leaving tirumalai

because the clouds stationed on the mountain are always sprinkling

water droplets (like the sweet-smelling pannIr); godai is

simulating tirumalai on her own self here; just as rain water

collects and falls over mountain tops in the form of waterfalls,

tears from her eyes are collecting and falling over her chest.

 

tuLi SOrac-cOrvEnai - As the tear drops (tuLi) are falling

(SOra), godai is becoming tired (SOrvEnai). She is not feeling

tired just because tears are falling, but it is because of the tears

that are falling like sparks of fire.

 

peN nIrmai Idazhikkum: When hanumAn offers to carry sItA pirATTi

on his shoulders right and then there back to Lord rAma from

lankA, sItA pirATTi tells hanumAn that it is befitting to rAma

if He Himself comes and gets her after destroying the rAkshasa-s.

 

Saraistu sa~nkulAm kr*tvA la~nkAm para balArdanah |

mAm nayet yadi kAkutsthah tat tasya sadr*Sam bhavet ||

(sundara kANDam 39-30)

 

This should be the nature of strIttvam. It is feminine nature to wait

for emperumAn's grace instead of using own power. Here bhagavAn is

making ANDAL violate all this natural femininity and forces her to

take the initiative of sending the clouds as her messenger etc.,

which is quite unnatural for a strI. So He is destroying her femininity.

 

ANDAL's femininity is such that she will not live if she is to be

associated with any other human - "mAniDavaRku enRu

pEccuppaDil vAzhagillEn" (nAcciyAr tirumozhi 1-5); she will not

bear to live if there is any anya sambandha prastAvam. Such is

the limit of ANDAL's pAratantr*yam. His masculinity is such that

His own paraphernalia, namely, vishvaksEnar, AdiSEshan, catram, cAmaram,

ornaments, weapons, jn~Anam, Sakti, SrI vaikuNTham, His own

mangaLa vigraham etc, etc are made by Him purely for the benefit of

His devotees. Such is the limit of His svAtantr*yam. But in

ANDAL's case He is not exhibiting his masculinity that way; He is

making godai say "tirumAlum pOndAnE" and making her send the clouds

as messengers, thus destroying her femininity.

 

tamakkOr perumaiyE - ANDAL is conveying to the clouds: BhagavAn has

His greatness because He is Sriyah-pati. His tejas is because of

His being with janakAtmajA or SrI - yasya sA janakAtmajA aprameyam

hi tat-tejah. ANDAL, periAzhvAr's own divine daughter, is an

aspect of SrI, a part of SrI, and not different from SrI

(avaLODu ananyarAi iruppAr), and here He is making her suffer.

This is not greatness for Him, it can only be considered a

deficiency instead. Only He can rectify this deficiency of

His, and no one else can.

 

sarvam SrIman nArAyaNAyEti samarpayAmi.

 

adiyEn,

Kalyani Krishnamachari