thiruppavai day twenty five song twenty five

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TIRUPPAVAI - DAY TWENTY FIVE- SONG TWENTY FIVE

 

Transliteration

 

oruththi makanAyp piRanthu Oriravil

oruththi makanAy oliththu vaLarath

tharukkilAnAkith thAn thInku ninaintha

karuththaip piLaippiththuk kancan vayiRRil

neruppenna ninRa netumAlE unnai

aruththithu vanthOm paRai tharuthiyAkil

thiruththakka cEvakamum celvamum yAm pAti

varuththamum thIrnthU makilnthElOr empAvAy.

 

 

Translation

 

Born the son of the best one, overnight

You became the son of another best,

To be brought up in stealth.

Unable to bear with your Being,

Kancan thought of the evil.

Great Lord! You scorched him

Like fire from within.

Grant us our prayers, come abegging for You!

We will sing in praise of your wealth and our service,

Get rid of our distress and become happy.

 

The twenty-fifth song is again a prayer in the true Vaishnavite spirit.

 

The first part of the song refers once again to the childhood of Krishna and

Kamsa’s evil but fruitless designs to exterminate Krishna. Krishna was born

in the prison as the son of Devaki, Kamsa’s sister and overnight was taken

to Yeshodha to be brought up as her son.

Both Devaki and Yesodha are called ‘orutti’ literally meaning ‘one woman’

and ‘another woman’.

 

But traditional interpretation will look at the word to mean the especial

one – the woman who gave birth to Krishna is an especial one and so also is

the one that brought him up. The significant word is ‘olittu’ which means

brought up in stealth. Change of one letter will give us a different meaning

which will not be commensurate with the attributes of the Divine. Had it

been ‘olintu’ it would have meant ‘grew up in stealth’. There is no

necessity for God to grow up in stealth in His manifest form. But the foster

parents knew not that it was the Divine that they were fostering. It was

their concern for the child that made them bring up the child in stealth.

Krishna was held back from going to the fields along with the others to tend

the cattle, afraid of harms to him. Parental concern is a very significant

aspect of the Hindu society. A babe in arms will not be taken out during

dusk because that is the time for both forces good and evil to roam about.

Lest the baby should be under the spell of both the angelic and the

devilish, the baby will be held withindoors. That is but one example of the

concernful protective ring around babies and children in the Hindu society.

Thus Krishna was brought up under the zealous concern of Yesodha.

 

Kamsa could not bear with the fact that his potential terminator was growing

up. So he despatched several monsters to kill Krishna but to no avail. What

is more significant in the context is the simile, ‘neruppenna ninra netu

male’. A literal translation would read, ‘Great Lord! You stood like fire in

the stomach of Kancha’ which in effect can be understood to refer to the

scorching presence of the awareness of Krishna being brought up safe from

his evil designs. That anxiety is a scorching force is well brought out by

the simile. The Tamil idiom ‘vayirrile neruppaik kattikontu iruttal’

describes an intensely anxious state of mind and Andal has very effectively

exploited a turn of speech in this context.

 

Traditional interpretation is more interesting. Anxiety which scorched the

maids when they could no more bear with separation from God was altogether

collected and thrown into Kamsa’s self. Further, as a child, Krishna was a

blessing in Devaki’s womb and was at the same time scorching fire in Kamsa’s

stomach. Though a little far fetched, the traditional interpretation makes

quite some sense to the mind that is trained in the Vaishnava pantheon and

Tamil interpretation.

 

Perhaps the most significant message of the song lies in the later half. “If

you were to grant us our prayers, O Lord, we will sing in praise of your

wealth and our service. And when we sing so, dispelled is our distress.” The

Tamil word in the song is ‘varuttam’ which can be variously translated as

sadness, grief, difficulty, pain, distress. The last is chosen in the

context in spite of the complementary antonym that follows it – makilntu.

When grief is dispelled, happiness need not necessarily fill its place as a

natural corollary. The meaning of Andal is ‘distress at separation from God

is dispelled’. That is to say there is no more separation. When there is no

more separation, there is an unimpeded communion with God. And it is the

bliss of unimpeded communion with God that is the happiness as opposed to

the distress in the second half of the poem.

 

Logically too, this interpretation falls in place. Subsequent to the

twenty-third song, God appeared in all His splendour and grandeur as praised

in the twenty-fourth song. Naturally, the twenty-fifth song is in the form

of a submission to God. The submission is ‘It is not a brief moment of Your

august presence as obtaining now but an ever and ever presence amidst us

that we pray for’. Such eternal blessing of God’s presence is the boon that

can dispel the distress of separation. Certain songs earlier had been a

declaration of eternal commitment to God on the part of the maids. The

twenty-ninth song, the penultimate one in the series of the thirty, also

reiterates this longing for constant communion with God. Erraikkum elel

piravikkum untannotu Urreme avom unakke nam atceyvom. ‘Forever and for seven

times seven births, we will be in communion with You and remain Your

devotees.’