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Source: The Hindu (http://www.the-hindu.com)

 

Literary masterpiece of Saivite saint

 

CHENNAI, FEB. 13. A deep and analytical study of our valuable

religious literature will reveal that apart from giving

guidelines for improving one's character for adopting moral

values and resorting to the path of eternity, they contain

scientific theories concerning evolution of man, the growth of an

embryo, the formation of the universe and other topics about

which modern wisdom describes in later day research. They are

interspersed in the prayers while adoring God. One such immortal

work, for instance, clearly spells out how a tiny, insignificant

creation, has developed over several years into a human form

endowed with several faculties.

 

``As grass, shrub, worm, tree, as full many a kind of beast, bird

and snake, as stone, man, goblin, demon, as mighty giant,

ascetic, in the prevalent world of mobiles and immobiles, I have

been eager to appear in every kind of birth and now I am wearied.

But, from the time I had seen Your Golden Feet, I had gained

deliverance from re-births,'' was the inspiring message of Saint

Manickavachagar in his prayers, appearing in his work,

Thiruvachagam, written centuries ago. He is one of the few who

have left such thought-provoking accounts. People are blessed

indeed to have this literary masterpiece in Tamil.

 

In his supplication to Lord Siva to rid him of this cycle of

births and deaths and induct him into the fold of devotees,

Manickavachagar refers to the globular concourses of this section

of the universe with their immeasurableness and lush appearance

and the way they excel each other in beauty, and adds that if one

were to speak of these, they will sprawl a hundred crores and

more, making them all look small before God like crowded specks

in a ray of sunlight streaming into a house. He says that when a

cataclysm occurs ending one aeon, the whole universe is withdrawn

into God. In another decad, the saint mentions in detail, the

birth of a soul as a human being, the dangers it has to escape

while even in the mother's womb, the sorrows it has to face in

the world, the innumerable obstacles which the world places in

its path, the dawn of the thought of existence of God in its mind

and the manner in which it can surmount the hazards. Explaining

how the saint has given an exhaustive account of the development

of soul step by step every month from the amorphous state, till

delivery after full growth, Sri K. P. Arivanandam, in a lecture,

said Thiruvachagam points out that even during the days of the

saint, there were atheists and sectarian disputants. However

believers in God were firm in their faith, like nail driven into

the trunk of a green tree.

 

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