nAnmugan thiruvandhAdhi-22

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Sri Parthasarathi thunaiSrimathe Ramanujaya NamahaSri Vara Vara MunayE

NamahaSri vAnAchala mahA munayE Namaha

 

Paasuram-15

 

“paladEvarEththap padikadandhAn pAdham

malarERa vittiraNji vAzhththa-valarAgil

mArkaNdan kaNda vagaiyE varunkaNdeer

neerkAndan kaNda nilai”

 

Many people get betrayed due to falling into the feet of incapable

devas declared azhvar in the previous paasuram. Now azhvar talks

about the state of those incapable devas, who many people consider to

be their sole saviour, and what they are actually doing under the

divine feet of emperuman and hence shows the way for everyone to fall

to emperuman’s feet and get uplifted.

 

(paladEvarEththap padikadandhAn) Amidst the praise of the devas

including the head of the devas, nAnmuka brahma the supreme lord

measured the three worlds. With the lord’s feet on top of their

heads what other go does the devas have other than to accept his

supremacy even if they had taunted on their own supremacy at other

times. Thirumazhisai azhvar himself in another paasuram says,

“kuraikonda nAnmukan kuNdikai neer peidhu maRaikonda mandhiraththAl

vAzhththi” When brahma himself does this what is left for the other

devas, other than to follow the leader?

 

(pAdham malarERa vittiraNji vAzhththa-valarAgil) If you pray to that

supreme lord and do pooja to his divine feet with beautiful flowers

(“kallAr tuzhAyum kaNavalarum koovalaiyum mullAr mulariyum Ambalum”)

said azhvar.

 

We replied: Oh! We have already done that pooja.

 

Azhvar: Yes you have done it but not to the divine feet of emperuman

but instead to those devathas who once themselves prostrated to the

lord’s divine feet. They are his servants. Why waste time praying

to them? The same could be done to the divine feet of emperuman as

per the sastras. Whatever pooja you do to those devas they instead

are doing the same to the divine feet of emperuman then why don’t you

directly do the same to the supreme lord. We don’t need anyone to

mediate between the lord and us as we have a direct connection with

him.

 

(valarAgil) Azhvar shows a sign of doubt here as the number of people

who directly fall to the feet of Sriman Narayanan is very less when

compared to those going astray (Asaipattu Alwar palar)

 

Ok! If we follow your advice then what will happen?

 

(neerkaNdan kaNda nilai mArkaNdan kaNda vagaiyE varum kaNdeer) Here

the words of the paasuram have been rearranged for easy understanding

of the meaning. This is called as ‘anvayam’

 

The state of neerkaNdan-Sivan/Rudran (Rudran swallowed the alakAla

poison that appeared from the parkadal during the churning of ocean

for the benefit of all. While the poison was in his throat parvathi

caught hold of rudran’s throat and hence the poison was stopped from

going into the stomach. Thereby the throat of rudran remained blue

in colour and hence he is called as neelakaNdan/neerkaNdan).

MarkandEyan, the son of mrugandu maharishi came to know about his

death in a few days and hence went to rudra and asked for extended

lifetime and then moksha. Rudra hesitated and then slowly told

markandEya that he cannot grant moksha as lord janardhana is the sole

head who can grant moksha and that he was also one among the many who

do sAdhanAnushtAnams. Thereby markandEya did tapas towards the

supreme lord and became a great vishnu bhaktha and finally his wish

was fulfilled by the nirheduka krupai of emperuman. So markandEyan

fully understood the state of rudra. So if we pray to that emperuman

with doing pooja to his divine feet we will be able to realize the

actual state of other devas like markandEya and if we continue to

fall into his divine feet then we are sure to be blessed with the

state obtained by markandEya.

 

Note: MarkandEya vriththAntham has been clearly stated in 12th skandam

of Sri bhagavatham and mahabharatham Aranya parva. Number of azhvar

paasurams can also be quoted to indicate to the same episode.

 

(To be continued)

 

Azhvar emperumAnAr Jeeyer thiruvadigalE sharaNam

 

Adiyen ramanuja dAseeSumithra Varadarajan