nAcciyAr tirumozhi X - kArkkODal pUkkAL 2

[Guest guest]

Dear BhakthAs :Srimathi Kalyani Krishnamachari has been

involved with a major kaimkaryam for the past few months .

This is about the annotated commentary on the individual

paasurams of Sri NaacchiyAr Thirumozhi with copious notes from

th commentaries of PoorvAchAryAs . Number of you on

the Malolan list may not be aware of her Kaimkaryam .

These postings appear on the Bhakthi list .Hence I am

attaching the latest posting in this series .

 

She has come to the stage of the 102 out of the 143 paasurams

that our Mother GodhA Devi blessed us with . Please contact her

directly for the earlier postings in this series , as needed.

NamO NaarAyaNA ,

V.Sadgopan

 

Kalyani Krishnamachari <kkrishnamachari

nAcciyAr tirumozhi X - kArkkODal pUkkAL 2

Fri, 22 Oct 1999 04:25:27 -0700 (PDT)

 

SrI:

SrI ANDAL samEta SrI rangamannAr tiruvaDigaLE SaraNam

 

nAcciyAr tirumozhi X - kArkkODal pUkkAL

pASuram 10.2 (tenth tirumozhi - pAsuram 2 mEl tOnRIp pUkkAL))

 

emperumAnuDaiya jyotiyil ennaic cErppIrgaLA?

 

mEl tOnRIp pUkkAL! mel ulaga`ngaLin mIdu pOi

mEl tOnRum SOdi vEda mudalvar valankaiyin

mEl tOnRum Azhiyin ve`njuDar pOlac cuDAdu emmai

mARROlaip paTTavar kUTTattu vaittuk koLkiRRirE!

 

A. Meaning from SrImAn SaDagOpan's tamizh treatise:

 

godai turns her eyes towards the sky trying to avoid

the kAndaL flowers which remind her of emperumAn. She

sees some other kANdaL flowers blossomed on top of the tall

trees. The dark color of these flowers again reminds

her of kaNNan's hue and godai feels all burned up. She

appeals to them not to burn her as cakkarattAzhvAn (who is in

the right hand of paramapada nAthan sung in the veda-s as

the Prime Deity) burns up His enemies, but instead to

cool her down by taking her to the crowd of aDiyArgaL

(followers) of " em param SOdi gOvindan " .

 

Additional thoughts: Godai's looking up after being

reminded by the kAndaL flowers is suggestive of her

looking up in the sky for the garuDa vAhanan to

be coming to her.

 

B. Additional thoughts (from SrI PVP ):

 

mEl tOnRip pUkkAL: Because godai could not stand to

bear the tApam caused by the kAndaL flowers, she turns her

eyes away from them and looks up. She is not spared the

pain by this action, since she sees there , the mEl tOnRip pUkkaL,

which are of the same family as the kAndaL flowers, but

grow on tops of the trees. It looked like the mEl tOnRip

pUkkaL took a different name and grew on top of the trees

just to finish godai off , if she had escaped the kAndaL flowers

at the ground level. Out of the four varieties of

life forms, namely, deva-s, manushya-s, animals and

plants, godai feels that these flowers which belong to

the plant form have been explicitly created by Him for

her destruction.

 

 

mEl tOnRum Sodi: This is the reference to

paramapadam.

 

emperumAn's abode ,SrI vaikunTham , is described in

mahAbhArata as having a brightness far exceeding that

of the sun and the moon, and a blissful place from which

those who are fortunate enough to go will never have

to return back to samsAra,tatra gatvA punarnemam lokamAyanti

hArataeva ||(AraNya. 136-18).

 

veda mudalvar: He who is praised and revealed by the

veda-s as the Prime Deity. Sri kRishNasvAmi aiye`ngAr

gives several quotes from paripADal declaring that

bhagavAn is the veda mudalvar; just to give few examples:

" tolliyal pulava " , " kAla mudalvanai " , munnai marabin

mudumozhi mudalva " etc.

 

Azhiyin ve`njuDar: Having described the greatness of

paramapadam and then the greatness of veda mudalvan

whose abode is paramapadam, now godai comes to the greatness

of the Azhi that is in His right hand. We know the Sun

to be extremely bright. The tEjas of indra and other

devas is more than that of the Sun; brahma's tejas is

greater than that of the devas; much brighter than

that will be tejas of mUla prakr*ti which is the cause of their

bodies; the brightness of paramapadam will make this

mUla prakRti look like darkness by comparison. The tEjas of

emperumAn's divyamangaLa vighraham is what gives the

brightness to paramapadam. SrI PVP's anubhavam is

that the tejas of the tiruvAzhi that He is carrying in His

right hand is higher than that of emperumAn Himself -

hence ve`njuDar Azhi. SuDar Azhi.

 

Azhiyin ve`njuDar pOlac cuDAdu - not scorching her

like the tiruvAzhi in His right hand. Could ANDAL

have not said " Don't scorch me like the bright hot

Sun " which we can all directly feel and see, and

instead why is she using His tirvAzhi which we can only

imagine? SrI PVP gives a couple of reasons. One is

that for godai, objects belonging to His nitya vibhUti

are as visible as are the objects in this world, and so

she can give the analogy of His tiruvAzhi just as

easily as she can give the Sun as the example. In one sense,

for godai the nitya vibhUti is even closer since she

can enjoy it to her heart's content, whereas she is unable

to reach Him in this world. To her, the anubhavam of

His nitya vibhUti is like a downward slope which she can

easily maneuver whereas the anubhavam of Him in this

world is like an uphill slope. SrI PVP notes that

nammAzhvAr also first talks about emperumAn as

" amarargaL adipati " in the first pASuram of tiruvAimozhi,

and then only in the third pASuram , he talks about

bhagavAn's leelA vibhUti.

 

SuDAdu emmai: tiruvAzhiAzhvAn will punish only those

who do not have any love for emperumAn; he will

bless those who are His devotees ( " aruLAr tiruccakkaram " ,

tiruviruttam 33 and aruLAzhi " - tiruvAimozhi 1-4-6).

" But, you, mel tOnri pukkAL, are destroying me even

though I am His devotee " .

 

mARROlai paTTavar kUTTattu: The term mARROlaip

paTTavar is given two different interpretations.

One is that this term refers to those who are seeking only

AtmAnubhavam (Kaivalyam )and not bhagavad anubhavam.

In this interpretation,the reference is to those who have been

" designated " to not have bhagavad anubhavam. SrI tirumalai nambi's

interpretation is as follows: " ANDAL is beginning to

feel that she is undergoing this kind of suffering

only because she is seeking bhagavad anubhavam; so now

she feels she better join those who have been designated

not to have bhagavad anubhavam, and so will not seek bhagavad

anubhavam any more, but instead seek to join the crowd

of the kevala-s, who only seek AtmAnubhavam, and not

the bhagavad kaimkarya anubhavam " . This is a stage

that is somewhat intermediate between the state of the

acetana-s and the parama cetana.

 

SrI embAr gives a different interpretation here: Since

the word 'kUTTam " or gathering is used, and kevala-s

are those who seek AtmAnubhavam by intense meditation

in isolation, we should not take it to refer to the

kEvala-s. kevalar try to indulge in their own AtmAs

individually, not in a crowd; so, here it should be

taken to mean mukta-s. (like tiruvAimozhi 2-3-10 says

" aDiyArgaL kuzhAngaL " ). Thus here the term " mARROlaip

paTTavar " refers to those who have been " designated "

to be relieved from the bondage of samsAra and instead be

in the crowd of mukta-s.

 

kurattAzhvAn's disciple SrI AppAn gives yet another

explanation; which is obviously a reflection of

kUrattAzhvAn himself. His explanation is:

" sarvEsvaran has sent you to destroy me; there are some

whom He chooses to destroy Himself. Please take me away

from the crowd who are ordained to be destroyed by you

and put me in the crowd who are ordained to be destroyed directly by

Himself. If He asks you why you brought me in that crowd,

tell Him that the Order document got mixed up (mARROlai).

Even if He will destroy me anyway, at least I would get the

satisfaction of seeing Him in person " . [what a great

anubhavam that kUrattAzhvAn and AppAn had!].

 

Another anubhavam is that ANDAL feels so tortured by

these mEl tOnRip pUkkaL that she thinks it can only

be less painful for her even if she is put in the

crowd of those who are considered by Him to be His enemies.

 

SrI PBA gives yet another anubhavam: Instead of

reading the text as " mARROlaipaTTavar kUTTattu " , we can read

it as " maRROLaip paTTu, avar kUTTattu " . Sometimes, even

though yama specifically writes the order to his dhUta-s to

get a person X, they may by mistake, get a different

person Y.ANDAL is telling these flowers that even though these

flowers have been given the order to torture ANDAL,

they can make a mistake (mARROlaip paTTu - Olai mARRap

paTTu),and instead, take Him to the crowd of His devotees

(avar kUTTattu).

 

C. Additional thoughts from SrI uttamUr vIrarAghavAcAriyAr

(denoted by SrI UV from now on):

 

In the last pASuram, we had the reference to kArkkODal

pOOkkAL. KAr also means " cool " . These flowers also

resembled bhagavAn's tirumeni, and thus represent

perumAL. In the current pASuram, we have the

reference to the mEl tOnRip pUkkAL, which are hot like the tiru

Azhi, who is a mahA bhAgavta. In our sampradAyam,

bhAgavata is worthy of even higher respect than perumAL.

he reference to mEl tOnRip pUkkAL can be understood in

this context as well.

 

The term jyoti occurs in the vedas to describe parama

padam - yada kah paro divo jyotir dIpyate viSvatah

pRshTheshu anUttameshu lokeshu. The use of the word

jyoti must have reminded ANDAL of the veda vAkyam, and

so she immediately refers to bhagavAn as veda mudalvan.

 

emmai: The use of the plural here refers to ANDAL's

request to include her tozhi-s also in the anukUlar

kUTTam along with her.

 

Regarding the different explanations for the phrase

" mARROlaip paTTavar kUTTattu " , SrI UV points out that

this is an instance which illustrates that pirATTi's

SrI sUkti has a lot of inner meanings. Our acAryAs

have considered that these need to be deeply

researched in order to have the full anubhavam of

hese SrI sUkti-s.The same is true of all of our AzhvArs'

SrI sUkti-s.

 

In the first pASuram, the kAndaL flowers appeared to

be decorated for war on her. In the second pASuram,

the kAndaL flowers seem to be set to torture her like

the Azhi. When someone is set for a war with someone

else, the only way they will stop their onslaught is

if the opponent surrenders. Here ANDAL seems to be

surrendering to them so that they will all be on

her side - she is going to befriend everything which

has an aspect of bhagavAn in them.

 

[Abbreviations: SrI PVP=Sri periyavAccAn piLLai;

SrI PBA=SrI prativAti bhayankaram aNNangarAcAriyAr;

SrI UV=SrI uttamUr vIrarAghavAcAriyAr]

 

sarvam SrIman nArAyaNAyEti samarpayAmi.

 

adiyEn,

kalyANi kRshNamAcAri