thiruppavai day twenty two song twenty two

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THIRUPPAVAI – DAY TWENTY TWO – SONG TWENTY TWO

 

Transliteration

 

ankanmA gnAlaththu aracar apimAna

pankamAy vanthu nin paLLikkkattiRkIz

cankamiruppAr pOl vanthu thalaippeithOm

kinkiNi vAyc ceytha thAmaraip pUppolE

cenkan cirucciRithE em mEl viLiyAvO

thinkaLum Athithyanum ezunthAR pOl

ankan irantum kontu enkaL mEl nOkkuthiyEl

enkal mEl cApam iLinthElOr empAvAy.

 

Translation

 

We the maids have reached your abode

Like the kings of the wide world

Cured of their pride, driven by exigencies

To your throne for succour.

Won’t you open your eyes gently to look at us

Like the bell shaped lotus.

When you look at us with eyes like the sun and the moon,

Spent are all our sins.

 

The twenty-second song, like the previous one, implores the grace of God.

The previous song referred to how the pride of foes is subjugated by the

might of God. They ultimately surrender to God. And even then they are only

at the doorsteps of God’s abode.

 

The kings cited in the twenty-second song are however not foes. Insofar as

they are in bodily existence, despite in an elevated status, they are

subject to the exigencies of life like defeat, poverty, frustration and

others. When such exigent conditions adversely affect such great persons

like the kings, they are cured of their pride that takes its origin from

ego-consciousness. One is rightly reminded of Duke Senior in Shakespeare’s

As You Like It – “Sweet are the uses of adversity”.

 

When they are cured of their pride – apimana pankamay – they look up to the

throne of God as their source of succour. Thus the kings and their God

orientation is certainly different from the God orientation of the foes

vanquished by might. It is the realisation of the insignificance of the self

that brings them to God.

 

The maids compare well with such kings not because they had also suffered

the exigencies of life but because life as such has become an exigent to

them. Thus the sins they expect to be spent by the graceful look of God that

settles on them gently are not sins of particular commission or omission. It

is the elemental sin of the soul having had to spend it in living. The term

elemental sin is not to be taken for the original sin as in the Christian

context. Original sin in the Christian context is a sin of commission by

transgression. By elemental sin is meant the sum of the merits and demerits

of previous births.

 

An interesting episode will make the point clear. Nammalvar, for twelve

years after his birth, lay comatose. He drank nothing, ate nothing; spoke

not and moved not. Meanwhile, Mathurakavi, a brahmin on pilgrimage to

Benares, happened to see a moving star. It moved towards the south. He gave

up his pilgrimage and followed the star. It brought him to Kurukur where

Nammalvar lay comatose for twelve years. The star disappeared once

Mathurakavi reached Kurukur. On enquiry, he came to know that the place had

nothing miraculous about it. The child who lay under a tamarind tree in the

temple precincts there for twelve years eating nothing, drinking nothing;

speaking not and moving not was the only incidence out of the way.

Mathurakavi went to the place where Nammalvar lay. He took a pebble; made

noise tapping it on the temple floor. When Nammalvar opened his eyes, he

asked him, ‘cettatan vayirril ciriyatu pirantal ettait tinru enke kitakkum?

– If the miniscule is born in the dead, where will it lie and what will it

suffer? The answer was, ‘attait tinru anke kitakkum.’ – It will lay there

suffering it.

The soul will lay in the physical self until the accumulated merits and

demerits of the previous births are spent.

The point of interest here is something that is exclusively Hindu. Perhaps

all religions inspire virtuous living as a definite precondition for God’s

grace and sinful living as attracting God’s wrath. Thus ethics becomes an

inseparable part of religions in general. But the Hindu concept of

redemption is something unique. Unimpeded communion with God is the ultimate

purpose of the soul. It is not only one’s demerits but merits as well that

lead to successive births. Real renunciation consists of renouncing both

merit and demerit – both having been nullified in a total surrender to God.

Nammalvar will say,

vItumin muRRavum vItu ceythu ummuyir

vItutaiyAnitai vItu ceyminE.

“Give up all – giving up all, surrender your soul to God”. The ‘all’

includes merits as well as demerits. That makes Nammalvar almost immediately

implore man as follows:

nIr numathu enRu ivai vEr muthal mAyththu

cErmin uyirkku athan nEr niRai illE.

The soul has nothing as becomes it as when the soul gives up the

ego-consciousness and attachment or identity or merit and demerits and

surrenders to God.

Inability to do so is the curse attendant upon embodied existence. The maids

declare that once the graceful eyes of God fall upon them, they escape this

elemental curse of embodied existence.

Curiously, the nature of the glance gets a certain description that

complements the above interpretation. It is not as if God’s grace is a

one-time flooding in. It is a gentle process in stages – ciruccirite em mel

viliyavo’. Again, it is scorching as the sun and cool as the moon – curing

the ego and nurturing God orientation.

Thus the key word to the understanding of the twenty-second song is ‘capam’

in the last line. It is not the proceeds of one’s commissions or omissions

in the name of sins, though a literal translation of the word ‘capam’ will

be ‘sin.’ What the maids pray for is ultimate redemption in which the

accumulated merits and demerits of the process of living through several

births are liquidated once for all by the grace of God.