A Peep into Periya ThiruMozhi 175

[Guest guest]

Dear SrEvaishNavites,

Sri TCA Venkatesan swAmi has kindly agreed to write about bhaTTar's

explanation for the first pAsuram of the seventh ten -'kaRavA maDA

nAGu'.

 

A pioneer in 'A Day in the Life of AchAryAs' his contribution adds richness to the series.

 

kaRavA maDa nAgu

 

The first two lines of the pAsuram reads as follows :

 

kARavA mada nAgu than kanRu vuLLinAR pole ,

maRavAdhu adiyEan vunnaiyEa azhaikkinREAn" 7-1-1;

 

A superficial study of the pAsuram will give the meaning

"The Lord being likened to a unmlked cow thinking of the calf --the first line.

The second line says --The calf without forgetting calls for the Lord.

 

"Amudhanar tried to interpret the line "kaRavA madanAgu than kanRu

uLLinAr pOl" as "karavA mada nAgu,than kanRinai uLLinAr pOl" - that

is, like a cow which has not been milked yet thinking of its calf.

However, this did not go with the next line where Azhvar refers to

him (the calf) calling out to the Lord (the cow).When Parasara

Bhattar was presented with this pasuram,he explained it as follows:

"kaRavA mada nAgu thankanRu, (than thAyai) uLLinAR pOl". That is, the

calf(Azhvar) of the cow which has not been milked yet, thinking of its

mother (the Lord)."

 

 

DAsAn

TCA Venkatesan

 

That is the words 'nAGu than" is to be treated as iraNdAm vEARRumai

vurubu and considered as nagin than kaNRu and interpreted

accordingly. kaRavA maDa nAgin kanRu thannai

ninaikkumA-p-pOlE-maRavAmal azhaikkinREAn .

 

Thus the Lord is in the place of yet to be milked cow and AzhwAr in the place of the calf.

 

In fact, Sri kAnchi swAmi mentions that Sri piLLai amudhanAr

understood this artha vishEsham from one of the disciples of bhaTTAr

who was present in the ghOsthi.

 

dAsan

vanamamalai padmanabhan