nAnmugan thiruvandhAdhi-19

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Sri Parthasarathi thunaiSrimathe Ramanujaya NamahaSri Vara Vara MunayE

NamahaSri vAnAchala mahA munayE Namaha

 

Paasuram-12

 

“madhiththAipOi nAngin madhiyAr pOi veezha

madhiththAi madhikOL viduththAi!-madhiththAi

madukkidandha mAmudalai kOLviduppAn Azhi

vidarkiraNdum pOyirandin veedu”

 

In the previous paasuram, azhvar advised others to turn all their

sense organs towards emperuman and his kalyana gunas. It is our

usual practice not to accept anything without questioning even if it

comes from such a great person like azhvar. So the question arised,

why should we do so? So now in this paasuram azhvar continues to say

the merits and demerits in honouring emperuman. Instead of pointing

to us azhvar here talks with emperuman himself how the persons who

disrespect emperuman are put to difficulty and how gajendrAzhvan, who

left all his efforts and shouted for help from bhagavan (“sa tu

nAgavara: sreemAn manasAchintayath harim”- sreemAn gAjendrAzhvan

thought of hari mentally) benefited with the grace of emperuman

indirectly advising us to follow the footsteps of gajendrAzhvan.

 

(nAngil pOi madhiyAr pOi veezha madhiththAi) You make those who do not

understand your greatness, even after going through all the four

Vedas, to fall.

(nAngil madhiyAr)

“chaturvEda dharO viprO vAsudEvam na vindhathi I

vEdapAraparAkrAnthas sa vai brahmaNakarthapa: II”

[That brahmin who even after learning the four Vedas do not understand

vAsudEvan is equal to a donkey carrying a bag of saffron on its back]

 

(madhiyAr nAngil pOi veezha madhiththAi) You send those who don’t

understand you to fall to various births, (deva, manushya, triyak,

stAvar janmangal)

“thAnaham dvishadha: kroorAn samsArEshu narAdhamAn I

kshipAmyajasramashubhAN AsureeshyEva yOnishu II” [gita 16-19]

[i put those who consider me as enemy, who are harmful and cheap men

filled with sins into low births (Asura yOni)]

 

(madhikOL viduththAi) You removed the suffering of madhi-chandran who

fell to your feet. So it is clear that you remove the sufferings of

those who respect you and put others who disrespect you to inferior

births. Is there any other instance where this has happened? Azhvar

continues,

 

(madukkidandha mAmudalai kOL viduppAn Azhividarkku madhiththAi) To

remove the strong hold of the harmful crocodile in the lake you

decided to leave your chakrAyudam. To save gajendrAzhvan just a

single sankalpam of emperuman will do. Then why did emperuman come

running and what was the necessity of using his powerful sudarsana

chakra for killing this small animal. Here azhvar says, mAmudalai

that was a big, powerful crocodile when compared to gajEndrAzhvan but

to kill it just one sankalpam (thought) was sufficient but then

emperuman wanted to do shistaparipAlam (saving his devotee) along

with dushtanigraham (killing the enemy). For dushtanigraham one

thought was enough but for shistaparipAlanam it was not enough, since

gajendran wanted to have the divine darshan of emperuman and submit

the flower into the divine feet of emperuman. So emperuman came

running to the call and sent his chakrAyudam to kill the crocodile.

The purpose of his svaroopam, thirumEni and divyAyudams are for the

enjoyment of the bhakthas declares the jitanthE stotra, “na thE

roopam na chAkArO nAyudhAni na chAspatham” The same has been declared

by nammazhvar also in thiruvaimozhi 3-1-9 “mazhungAdha vainudhiya...”

 

(erandum pOi erandin veedu madhiththAi) Both the crocodile and

elephant shed their body. The crocodile was earlier a gandarvan (hoo

hoo) who reached the crocodile body due to a curse (of dEvalar, a deva

rishi) so now he reached his earlier form. The elephant that was a

pandiya king (endradumnan) earlier reached this elephant form again

due to a curse (of agastiya muni) and hence now due to the divine

grace of emperuman he was blessed with moksha. In other words, the

crocodile was realized from the curse (shApamoksha) and the elephant

was realized from the whole samsAra (samsAra moksha)

 

(To be continued)

 

Azhvar emperumAnAr Jeeyer thiruvadigalE sharaNam

 

Adiyen ramanuja dAseeSumithra Varadarajan