"maRRai nam kaamangaL maaRRu"- (PART 19)

[Guest guest]

The Story of Tondar-adipOdi: Conquest of “kaama”

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through Reduction (“unification”) of Desire --

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“karma yOga” (continued from Part 18)

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The events in the life of Vipranarayana are a grim and

graphic reminder to us of what happens when “kaama”,

our Desires in life, are kept “unified” -- on a tight

leash, as it were -- and what might happen too when

they swerve away from such unity of purpose.

 

So long as Vipranaryana’s only passion in life, or

predominant “kaama”, remained “bhagavath-kainkaryam”

(resolute service to a cause far higher than his own

narrow individual interests), it was possible for him

to attain and experience the Elysian pleasures of an

entirely different sort of “kaama” -- that which only

a true “karma-yOgi” feels and savours in life. The

moment that singleness of Desire was disturbed by the

onset of other desires, carnal and other –- i.e. the

moment his “kaama” became “maRRu Oru kaaamam”, to use

the TiruppAvai paraphrase -- the perfect “yoga” he had

all along engaged in, and which had all through life

sustained and inspired him, was immediately shattered.

(We find a striking similarity here in the life of the

Christian medieval saint, St.Augustine who wrote

poignantly of his mortal struggle with the problem of

“kaama” in life in a celebrated autobiography entitled

“Confessions”). To what terrible extent such

destruction was wrought upon the AzhwAr’s life and

personality is told with frightening vividness indeed

in the annals of SriVaishnava hagiography.

 

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Having triumphed over Vipranarayana’s virtuous nature,

the femme-fatale, Devadevi proceeded next to humiliate

him. Slowly and surely, one by one, step by step, she

divested Vipranarayana of all his material means and

household effects too. Soon enough she rendered him a

virtual pauper. She took away his family heirloom of

gold and precious gems that were used in the worship

of the household deity; she took away his silverware;

his fine silks; his stock of rice and grain intended

for the SriRangam temple-kitchen; she took away all of

the crop his fruit-orchard yielded and the

flower-garden too…. She took it all away --- ripping

him thereby off every vestige of self-respect and

personal dignity.

 

Vipranarayana, now an abject slave blinded by sheer

lust for Devadevi (“kaama”), surrendered everything of

worth he possessed unto the villainess whom he now

held to be his very life-breath. After ruthlessly

reducing him to utter penury, and satisfying herself

that the conquest of the pious Vipranarayana was now

well and truly complete, Devadevi finally left him,

high-and-dry, in the lurch, so to say, and returned

home to her own former station in life.

 

Poor Vipranarayana, sunk now in the lowest depths of

depravity, had really nowhere else to go. He had no

kith and kin, no sympathetic friends in SriRangam, no

land, no property, no well-wishers, none. It was a

pathetic, desperate situation. In his classic work of

Tamil verse, the “tirumaalai”, he alluded to his

abject condition in a single, truly moving line

(Stanza 29):

 

“UrilEn kaaNi illai* uRavu maRRoruvar illai*

 

Vipranarayana thus followed Devadevi to her doorsteps

and beseeched her to let him live with her, swearing

he would serve her as life-long slave if only she

would deign to share her bed with him. Devadevi, being

the consummate “dEvadaasi” she was, had no use for

Vipranarayana. She promptly turned him out of her

house, slamming the door upon one she now regarded as

nothing but contemptible wretch.

 

Still Vipranarayana would not learn his lesson. He

slunk lower and lower. He hung around Devadevi’s

doorsteps, languishing there for days without food or

drink, crying out to her to let him in…… Finally,

after weeks of such self-debasement, he collapsed in a

pitiable heap at her doorsteps. Exhausted, he lay

slumbering there like a wasted, rotting piece of log.

Again, in the “tirumaalai”, there are a couple of

verses of heart-rending pathos that allude to his

sordid state in that unfortunate phase in his life:

 

 

“peNdiraal sukankaL uyppaan* periyathOr idumpai

pooNdu*

uNdiraak kidakkum pOdhu* udalukkE karainthu nainthu,*

(5: “tirumaalai”)

 

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When one reads the life-story of Tondar-adi-podi

AzhwAr one cannot help tears welling up to choke one’s

heart. Every reader would silently ask, “Why should

one so noble and virtuous of heart have to undergo

such pain and travail in life? Why should such a

terrible and cruel stroke of fate befall one who was

so utterly blameless and undeserving of it? Why would

the Almighty choose to sit back and do nothing about

it? If God forsakes even one as good, pure-hearted and

devoted as Tondar-adipodi had been, can we expect Him

to act any differently in respect of mere mortals like

us whose sins in life are probably a hundred times

more witting and heinous?”

 

It is seen to be in the nature of God that He comes to

the rescue of Man not a second sooner than in the

latter’s direst moment. It is often said, and truly

too, that “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity”. The

Almighty rushes to redeem Man only when almost all

hope of redemption for him is written off. And sure

enough, for Vipranarayana too, the Divine revealed its

Hand at the very moment when all seemed lost for the

poor, wretched soul.

 

It is in the life of Tondar-adipodi that we see the

Almighty go about playfully re-writing that old,

commonplace quip, “It is better to have loved and lost

than never to have loved at all” into the much more

profound one, perhaps re-phrased as: “It is better to

have loved and lost than never to have lost at all!”.

 

If we contemplate upon and truly understand

Vipranarayana’s “lost” plight, we would surely be led

into believing that our own souls, with all its

imperfections, venality and ugliness, may be utterly

“lost” indeed, and our spirit may flounder out too in

the tempestuous sea of life, but there will yet be

some ray of hope perhaps for Divine redemption at the

very end?

 

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(to be continued)

Regards,

dAsan,

Sudarshan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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