Confusion about the name Nappinnai

[Guest guest]

Sri:

Srimathe Ramanujaya nama:

Dear bhAgavathAs,

Accept my pranams. I have doubts about the name Nappinnai

and would like to hear with clarity(so that my mind becomes clear)as

to who Nappinnai refers to. I have heard that nappinnai is the tamil

equivalent of the samskrt name nILAdEvi. Lord has three wives Sri,BhU

and NILA. Sri BhUvarahacarya swami says that Nappinnai is the chief

queen of KrShNa and hence the recommending authority and also Swami

says that RukmiNi is Sri amsam(if this be the case why do we have

SriRukmiNi samEtha Srivenkatakrishnan instead of Nappinnai sametha

venkatakrishnan just as SriRama is always with Sita). Also Puttur

Swami says(in ANdAL's vaibhavam,NDP book): Lord SriRangantha tells

periyAzhvAr "like tiruppARkadal arasanaippOlEyum,janaka

chakravarthyaippOlEyum nIrum namakku mAmanArAgi vittIr". From

SriKrShNa's story we see that it is RukmiNi who is the chief queen of

SriKrShNa.

 

Lord vyUha vAsudEva(in tiruppARkadal)has consorts kadal

magaL nAcciyAr(nILAdEvi)and bhUdEvi. I am under the impression that

satyabhAma is an avatar of bhUdEvi(so is ANdAL)and Sita is "Sri"

amsam. Also the Lord Venkatakrishnan(Sri Parthasarathy temple in

Madras) is standing with only RukmiNi and the entire family(pradhumna

was born to rukmiNi). This implies RukmiNi is His chief queen(also I

think but not very sure that SriKrShNa admits in Srimad bhAgavatham

that rukmiNi is the most beloved to Him). Nappinnai can not refer to

rAdhA as the latter was not SriKrShNa's consort. Our sampradayam

being "Sri(who is never separated from Him and intercedes with the

Lord on behalf of us)" and keeping dwayam in mind,why does Sri

ParAshara Bhattar starts the thaniyan with "nILAthunga sthanagiri"?

Also kaliyan in his tirumozhi on Tiru allikENi says "than thuNai

AyarpAvai nappinnai". Can anyone please post the meaning of that

thaniyan and also clearly explain who this name Nappinnai refers to

quoting references?

Thanks and Best regards

 

AzhvAr EmperumAnAr JIyar thiruvadigaLE sharaNam

NC Nappinnai

[Guest guest]

Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha

 

Dear All,

Adiyens 2 cents worth on this topic. I do not have much references to

the purvacharya works and hence request your forgiveness on any

mistakes/misinformation.

 

First we need to understand what NAPPINNAI means. In tamizh, this

could be broken as NAR+PINNAI. NAR=Nalla, PINNAI=the one who came

later i.e mostly refers to a younger sister.

 

"Perumbudhur Maamunikku 'Pinnanaal' vaazhiye" says the Andal

Vazhithirunamam, that means that she accepted Swamy Emperumanar as

her elder brother by calling him "Anna"(elder brother) after he

fulfilled her 100 Vessel Akkara Adisil prayer i.e a South Indian

sweet delicacy that Shri Andal promised to serve the

Thirumaliruncholai Kallazhagar(Naaru narumpozhil pasuram - Nacchiar

Thirumozhi). Hence Pinnanal, pinnai should mean a younger sister.

 

So, Nappinnai, should probably be more of a role and not a name given

to any particular person. Nappinnai could probably address a female

who was married to the ultimate and became a consort, very much later

to the first two. This way, she becomes a Pinnai i.e a sister to the

first two and is a Nar+Pinnai, as she is being well accepted by the

first two.

 

Now, we all know that "SRI" the ultimate queen/consort of the supreme

came from Thirupparkadal and secured her place on the ultimate's

chest during the churning episode(Kurmavatharam). And we also know

that Bhumadevi, our mother earth, is another consort of him. So,

Nappinnai wouldn't refer to any one of them.

 

Based on the epics, we find that Sita was the very amsam of the

Periyaprattiyar and Shri Ramapiran was a perfect purusha in terms of

not marrying anyone else and hence Sita cannot be addressed by the

word Nappinnai.

 

The only next choice is to see if any of the Krishna Paramatma's

consorts would fit that role. Once again, based on my assumption,

Nappinnai could address only that person who is not an amsam of the

first two consorts namely Sri and Bhu. And by consort it does not

mean the one who the supreme married as per the rules of our vedic

scripts as they are applicable only to us. A consort of the lord is

none but that the jeevatma that understood the atmaswaroopam and due

to that very fact, is being loved the most by the ultimate. And

hence, the Vedas call only him as Purusha and all the Jeevatmas are

referred to as a sthree as per our tradition(though the physical body

might be that of a male/female whatever). Now, in the Bhagavadam

episode, we find that Radha was one of his most beloved. She is a

good candidate for the term Nappinnai. All that she did was, to love

Shri Krishna all the time. So did the other Gopikais, but the best of

them all being the Radha:

 

"Nanda gopalan marumagale nappinnai"

- Thiruppavai - Andal

Here marumagal does not literally mean the daughter-in-law. It refers

to a potential candidate for being a marumagal i.e the daughter-in-

law.

 

"Inthunaippadhumatthu Alarmagal thanakkum inban (SRI)

Narpuvi Thanakku Iraivan (NARPUVI - BHU)

Thamthunai AAYAR paavai nappinnai thanakkirai,

matrayorkkellam vanthunai"

- Periyathirumozhi - Thiruvallikkeni padhigam - Chathushkavi

Thirumangaimannan

Mangaimannan says, "Nappinnai thanakku iRai", for nappinnai he is the

only lord and "matrayorkkellam vanthunai", for others jeevatmas in

the ayar kulam, he is the protector.

 

Going by the above, Nappinnai should probably mean the consort who

was accepted as one, by the ultimate, and the one who was not an

amsam of the first two i.e the SRI and the BHU. So, any jeevatma from

this leela vibhuthi, who is being accepted as a consort, who won HIS

love, could be addressed as Nappinnai, as this word refers more to

the role and not one particular person.

 

Later on, Shri Andal herself became the consort of the Archavadhara

Murthy Shri Ranganathan and hence, she herself too was addressed by

the word "Nappinnai" which, to me, is definitely correct. This way,

Andal talking about someone named Nappinnai, and Andal being called

as Nappinai, are justfied and correct.

 

All mistakes are solely due to my ignorance and mandha bhuddhi and

hence my sincere apologies again in case I have told something that

is Shastra Virodham or incorrect things.

 

Yatheendra Pravanam Vandhe RAMYA Jamataram Munim

 

Adiyen RAmanuja Dasan,

Lakshmi Narasimhan

[Guest guest]

Sri:

Srimathe Ramanujaya nama:

Dear Sriman Lakshmi Narasimhan,

 

Accept my pranams. In the process of explaining rAdhA as

a good candidate for nappinnai,you have overlooked the "fundamental"

aspect of our sampradayam. ANdAL very clearly says "eththanaiyElum

pirivARRakillAyAl thaththauvam anRu.." and this clearly tells

that "nappinnai" is nothing but "Sri/Mahalakshmi/periya piratti".

ALso keep in mind "akala killEn..." of nammAzhvAr. So RAdhA

is "absolutely" ruled out. None of the 10 AzhvArs have referred to

rAdhA in their works(please correct me if I'm wrong). So why would

ANdAl refer to her when her father hasn't and imagined himself as

yashOdha? As far as I know gOpikas are lovers not wives. And ANdAL

considers herself as the foremost gOpika(rAdhA is the prime among the

gOpikAs). SriKrShNa had 16 thousand wives. In SriRamavathara,16

thousand sages/rshis wanted to unite with PerumAL and SriRama

couldn't fulfil their wishes as he had taken a vow of "Ekapatni

vratha" and so he told them that he would do it in the next

incarnation. SriKrShNa married the 16000 women(apart from other

queens) who were held captives in narakAsura's palace. Please correct

me if I'm wrong.

 

Now let us see whether ANdAL would fit. ANdAL who clearly

says in all her pAsurams "bhattarpirAn kOdhai sonna sanga thamizh

mAlai" or "AyanukkAga thAn kaNda kanAvinai vEyap pugazh villipuththur

kOn kOdhai sol" and so on and so forth,could have said,if she

wanted,"kOdhai kongai mEl vaiththuk kidandha malar mArbAy" or "nandha

gOpAlan marumagaLE kOdhai" or "kOdhai nangAy thiruvE thuyil ezhAy".

But she doesn't say so. Just because EmperumAnAr fulfilled her

wish,as an elder brother would do for his younger sister,that does

not mean "nappinnai" refers to "ANdAL". It is only in this context

she is called as "perumputhur mAmunikku pinnAnAL vAzhiyE". Moreover

ANdAL's period is much later to those of some other AzhvArs like

mudhal AzhvArs,nammAzhvAr etc. And nammAzhvAr has referred to this

name nappinnai and hence he couldn't have referred it to ANdAL.

Chances are very remote for this type of analogy.

 

We are now back to language problems. I have heard(could

be false) that NAlAyira Divya Prabandham employs 75% of samskrt words

with tamil syntax. If that be the case then nappinnai could actually

be a "samskrt" word na+bhinna. Tamil is the most economic langauge

(hence the supreme)with least alphabets. In my opinion,any language

which is able to cover the most/all with least alphabets is the best

language. Since in tamil there is only one "pa"(applies to other

alphabets too) for the samskrt equivalent "pa/pha/ba/bha" the

word "nappinnai/nabhinna" has to be pronounced according to the

context. We don't say "padhari nArAyaNan" but "badharinArAyaNan".

Bhinna means something separable. Nabhinna would then mean

something "inseparable". Who/what is "inseparable" from the Lord? It

is "Sri/Mahalaskhmi" only. Not rAdhA or ANdAL. In Tamil,this word

must have been employed as nappinnai due to the lack of alphabets to

exactly mimic the samskrt letter "bha". If saTakOpa is written as

sadagOpan and if people split sadagOpan as "sada+gOpan" it would not

make any sense. But if we split the samskrt word "saTa" +"kOpa" it

makes all the sense.

 

Above all,I'm pretty sure that Sri ParAshara Bhattar,who

even addressed his wife as mother,would not have composed that

thaniyan "nILAthunga sthanagiri...gOdhA thasyai nama idhamidham bhUya

EvAsthu bhUya:"[another confirmation for you that gOdhA is not nILA]

with the thought that "nILA" refers to someone other than Sri. I

strongly feel that in this thaniyan "Sri" is "degenerated" to "nILA".

SriKrShNa "conquering seven bulls" is famous only in south. The

possibility is that "thAyAr/Sri" could have incarnated as "nappinnai"

and could have married the Lord and since He is from "Ayarkulam" she

would only be classified as "AyarpAvai/nandhagOpAlan marumagaLE". Sri

bhUvaracaraya swami says rukmiNi is "sri" amsam. This is what

confuses me. I remember my mother(my mother had not done any research

in SV and whatever she had learnt/heard from her elders,without

questioning,was imparted to us who have questioning mind)telling me

that nappinnai refers only to "sri/thAyAr" and she named me so

because I was born the day before AdipUram. AzhvArs are very smart

and genius and they must have given clues. I request learned

bhAgavathAs to throw more light on this to have clarification.

Please forgive if I,with the questioning mind, had said anything

wrong.

 

AzhvAr EmperumAnAr JIyar thiruvadigaLE sharaNam

NC Nappinnai

[Guest guest]

Sri:

Srimathe Ramanujaya nama:

 

Dear saha bhAgavathAs,

Accept my pranams. My mind will become clear if some

learned bhAgavathAs can post Sri PVP's vyAkhyAnam(what Sri PVP thinks

ANdAL could have meant and EmperumAnAr also made a statement that

only ANdAL can explain her TiruppAvai!). According to Sri PVP who

exactly this nappinnai in TiruppAvai 18,19,20 refers to? Does it

refer to Sri/bhU/nILA or someone different from the former three?

What does nILA sUktham talk about? What exactly nILA means? What is

the duty of nappinnai if she is different from Sri? Would be glad if

someone can explain Sri PVP's explanation for T.18,19,20 in parallel

with Sri ParAshara Bhattar's thaniyan.

Thanks and best regards

 

AzhvAR EmperumAnAr JIyar thiruvadigaLE sharaNam

NC Nappinnai