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Dear prapannAs,

Swami NammAlwar is renowned as prapannA jana kUtastha. His main contribution

was to have given the gist of vedAnta in his tiruvoimozhi. Tiruvoimozhi is

nothing but chAndOgya upanishad in its essence. Alwar in his first verse

"uyarvara uyarnalam..." gives a beautiful brief that vedAntArtha is nothing

but viSistadvaitA. Let us enjoy that.

 

The main points in viSistadvaita are: brahmam is guNa viSistam, vibhUti

viSistam, and vigraha viSistam. So it is viSista brahmam or saviSesha

brahmam that has to be reached by upAsanam / or prapatti and not nirviSesha

brahmam.

 

guNa viSistam : There is a saying : "sankyAtum naiva Sakyante guNA: dOshA:

ca sArNgina: - AnantyAt prathamO raSi: abhAvadEva pascima:". It means that

we cannot count the guNA and dOshA of our Lord. guNA's cannot be counted as

they are countless. And why dOshA's too ? As they are not even one in

number.

 

(Immediately a jIvAtma like us stood up and said : "Swami! even my guNA and

dOshAs cannot be counted". Why did he say so? vice versa. dOshAs are

countless and not even one guNA to count. We can feel happy that we are

equal to paramAtma in this one aspect - that our guNa dOshAs cannot be

counted)

 

Swami Ramanuja lists His kalyana guNAs in his gadyam. He is glorified as

"akhila hEya pratyanIka, kalyAnaika tana" - one who is devoid of all dOshAs

and full of guNAs. Nammalwar iterates this as "NALAMUDAYAVAN"

nalam = guNam.

 

vibhUti viSistam: Lord possess as his belonging , prakAra, SarIra the two

vibhUtis -namely nityA vibhUti and lIla vibhUti. Surprisingly in this

context all Srivaishnavas have to agree about vibhUti (which normally only

saivaites do, eventhough that denotes a different vibhUti). Alwar explains :

"ayarvarum amarargal adhipati" meaning he is the Lord for nitya sUrIs and so

nitya vibhUti. This represents both the vibhUtis.

 

vigraha viSistam: vEdAnta says " ApraNaghat sarva Eva suvarna: , hiranya

smaSru:, hiranya kESa:", " sahasraSIrsha purusha: sahasrAksha:..."

"nIlatoyatamadhyasthat vidyullEkhE vabhAsvarabhArUpa:" - all these

explain the great aprAkruta tirumeni of Lord Srimannarayana. Nammalwar puts

it as "Sudaradi"

 

How simple is alwar's explanation of viSistadvaita ? He adds more :

When he says "sudaradi tozhudezhu" i.e. he preaches to his manas to salute

and submit to the Lord's illuminous tiruvadi. There is a subtle but clear

point in this usage. If I have to salute someone, there must be a minimum

of two persons. The one who salutes and the one who accepts it. If I accept

two AtmAs then the basics of advaitam would be shaken. So in his first verse

itself alwar differentiates jIvAtma and paramAtma to emphasise that vaidika

matam is viSistadvaitam only. Thus he is well known as "vedam tamizh seyda

maran".

 

Nammalwar tiruvadigalE Saranam.

 

 

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