a special paasuram -2

[Guest guest]

Dear sri vaishNava perunthagaiyeer,

 

I was going through the mudhal thiru andhaadhi paasurams for their specialties

[of poigai aazhvaar] as suggested by my good friend sri T.Madhavan swamy of

triplicane. I was struck by the greatness of this wonderful paasuram no 74,

which I want to share with you all.

 

[incidentally sri madhavan swamy is also the proofreader of the 4000 prabhandham

book published by sri vara mangai naachchiyaar sabha triplicane chennai. This is

the book, which I refer / use regularly].

 

First the lines of paasuram no 74.

 

ERRaan puLLoornthaan eyileriththaan maarvidanthaan

neeRRaan nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan - kooRRorupaal

mangaiyaan poo magaLaan vaar sadaiyaan neeL mudiyaan

gangaiyaan neeL kazhalaan kaappu.

 

As stated in this aazhvaar's thanian he is really a kavignar pOr Eru - a warring

lion, or a warring ox - rishabham - among poets - a "poet par excellence". These

words aptly and fully describe the marvel in this paasuram. Now let us go into

the details how this verse is great.

 

1. In the first line, there are four words, fours past tense verbs - vinaich

choRkaL. In the next three lines four pairs of nouns are given [ezhuvaai]. [Just

to recall, in the previous post on the special paasuram it was first two lines

nouns and second two lines verbs]. Here the same is in reverse order.

 

The order of giving four verbs is another special viz. The first and third

verbs are pertaining to sivan's actions. The second and fourth verbs are

pertaining to naaraayaNan's actions.

 

Similarly the four pairs of nouns in lines 2, 3, and four are also in the same

alternating way - first sivan, then naaraayaNan, third sivan, fourth

naaraayaNan, and so on.

 

This is one specialty in the paasuram construction.

 

Now let us see how it is appearing actually.

 

Related to sivan related to naaraayaNan

verbs

ERRaan puLLoornthaan

eyileriththaan maarvidanthaan

 

nouns

neeRRaan nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan

kooRRorupaal mangaiyaan poo magaLaan

vaar sadaiyaan neeL mudiyaan

gangaiyaan neeL kazhalaan

 

Now mix the 2 verbs and the four nouns of sivan - you have eight sentences each

standing on its own. Similar is for naaraayaNan.

 

sivan:

neeRRaan ERRaan

neeRRaan eyileriththaan

 

kooRRorupaal mangaiyaan ERRaan

kooRRorupaal mangaiyaan eyileriththaan

 

vaar sadaiyaan ERRaan

vaar sadaiyaan eyileriththaan

 

gangaiyaan ERRaan

gangaiyaan eyileriththaan

 

naaraayaNan:

nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan puLLoornthaan

nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan maarvidanthaan

 

poo magaLaan puLLoornthaan

poo magaLaan maarvidanthaan

 

neeL mudiyaan puLLoornthaan

neeL mudiyaan maarvidanthaan

 

neeL kazhalaan puLLoornthaan

neeL kazhalaan maarvidanthaan

 

2. Coming to the second specialty in the paasuram construction

 

Related to sivan related to naaraayaNan specialty in common between two

 

ERRaan puLLoornthaan vaahanam - vehicle

 

eyileriththaan maarvidanthaan act of destruction

 

neeRRaan nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan colour of body

 

kooRRorupaal mangaiyaan poo magaLaan identity with wives

 

vaar sadaiyaan neeL mudiyaan hair care

 

gangaiyaan neeL kazhalaan body part special

 

How it is, we will be able to appreciate more, when we take the meaning.

 

Now to go for meanings:

 

ERRaan - (1) sivan, (2) one who accepted, (3) one who has the ox as his

transport vehicle - ERu +aan - ERu - the rishaBham - the kaaLai.

 

puLLoornthaan - to be split as puL oornthaan - one who travels on the bird -

puL - garudan - oornthaan - crawled - garudan does not crawl but flies - it is

poetic license to say flying as oorthal - crawling.

 

eyil eriththaan - burnt the boundary wall of thripuram - eyil means boundary

wall - madhiL suvar.

 

maarvidanthaan - maarbu idanthaan - broke open the chest - ba - va

interchanging is permitted both in tamil and sanskrit grammar.

 

neeRRaan - thiruneeru poosiyavan - one who adorns the sacred ashes all over

his body and by virtue of that white colour in appearance

 

nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan - nizhal is shadow, mani is gem, vaNNaththaan is

coloured person - here it means one who is dark in colourand shiny, like the

blue jaguar.

 

kooRRorupaal mangaiyaan - kooru is part of the body, oru paal is one side,

mangaiyaan is one who possess/ has the lady -full meaning - one who has the lady

in part of his body - ardha naareesvaran.

 

poo magaLaan - poo is flower, magal is daughter, magaLaan is one who owns her -

one who owns the daughter of the flower - mahaalakshmi - born out of lotus

flower.

 

vaar sadaiyaan - vaar is belt - sadai is the hairdo - one who has his hairdo in

belt like strips.

 

neeL mudiyaan - one who has long hairdo.

 

gangaiyaan - one who supports river ganges in his head.

 

neeL kazhalaan - one who has very long foot - in his thrivikarama avathaaram

lord had such a big foot that the whole world was measured with his one foot.

Such big feeted lord.

 

Now go back to each of the 16-word combination above, and you will be able to

appreciate the uniqueness in this paasuram.

 

3. This 'nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan' is a very special usage available here.

Nizhal is shadow and is always dark and cool. MaNi is gem and bright in colour.

Sri uththamoor swamy quotes nizhal mani is blue coloured gem which has blue

cool, at the same time bright rays. Neela neeradha samaneeyan.

 

4. nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan' - How dark shadow and bright gem both can be

combined. Just think of 'agalagillEn enru alarmEl mangai uRai maarba' - she is

golden hued. She shines as a bright gem in the chest of the dark body of the

lord. That is why this special usage of nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan. Learned

bhagavathaas can quote availability of this particular 'special' usage in other

paasurams.

 

5. This nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan' and kooRRorupaal mangaiyaan can also be

attributed to naaraayaNan, for when she is inseparable from the chest, naturally

she also forms part of his body - mangaikku oru kooru koduththavan thaanE. Then

that is also another additional special point here.

 

Hope it is enjoyable. We will see more from mudhal thiru andhaadhi in subsequent

post.

 

Dhasan

 

Vasudevan m.g.