thiru viNNagarath thEn - part 3 - maRaith thEn

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Srimadh Azhagiya Singar thiruvadikaLE saraNam

 

thiru viNNagarath thEn - part 3 - maRaith " thEn " ?

 

(In this part the question on use of uncommon words are discussed.

A brief analysis is attempted as to why tamil vEdham is called as

tamizh maRai and maRaith " thEn " ? The tamil word maRaiththEn means I

have hidden something).

 

Dear bAgawathAs,

 

In some of the poorvAchAryA vyAkyAnams on tamil prabhandhams

Samskritham has been referred as the " muRattu bAshai " (tough to

" learn & use " language). It is felt that the samskritha vada mozhi

is not understandable by many commoners. AzhwArs incarnated as per

Sriman nArAyanA's thiru uLLam and delivered the vEdhams in an

extremely easy to learn and talk language, ie. tamil. It is said

that those tamil vEdhams are not only easy to learn, they are also

undiluted, unambiguous and unadulterated in their meanings for

samskrtiha vEdhams. While it is said so, there are many AzhwAr

pasurams that contain certain complex or sometime compounded and

uncommonly used tamil words as main references. Some of these

references are hidden in a compounded word ( " thEn " references

of this series such as thuRan " thEn " , maRan " thEn " etc). Someone

may think why all these " muRattu vArtthaigaL " (words that are

somewhat difficult to pronounce and understand) are being used in

the supposedly easy to understand " tamil vEdham " ?. These references

are mostly on the surroundings of the divya dEsams. The compounded

and hidden words are mainly on the beauty and specialty of the

buildings, fields, trees, gardens, flowers, honey, bees and the

rivers in a divya dEsam? Why not they simply refer to the divya

dEsams alone and be upto the point (*)? Is it simply to fill in the

lines to suit the poetic meter and standards alone? ie..They fill

in the poetic meter adopted in that pathigam. It is common to any

poetry. However, a person who is not so familiar with poetic tamil

may get tired of some of these repeated references.

 

We are all taught that the AzhwAr Sri sukthis are not mere

mortal poems such that one can simply look at them in the poetic

sense alone and be content with that. It is said that they are

embedded with layers of inner meanings. That is why AchAryA after

AchAryA incarnated and delivered so many wonderful vyAkyAnams that

are so unique only to Srivaishnava Sri Sukthis. (Though shaivaites

have their own score of tamil granthams in numbers, it is said that

they donot have many meaningful vyAkyAnams such as ours). If these

pasurams are using very complex compounded & hidden words and have

layers of inner meanings, then comes the question as to how one can

call the tamil prabhandhams as very something that is very " clear,

unambiguous " and so on in their effort to provide clear meanings

for vEdhams. It is a very valid question.

 

The tamil word " maRai " means hide something. ie..They (samskritha

vEdham) hide the thatthuvam of " param poruL " such that many are not

clear about it. Hence the samskritha vEdham is named as " maRai " .

Since tamizh is so sweet as " thEn " the tamil vEdham can be called

as maRaith " thEn " . However thamizh vEdhams never hid the concept of

para thaththuvam. They were pretty open about it and forth coming

and straight forward as to who is the paramAthmA. In this sense,

the tamil vEdham or the 4000 pAsurams are what they are meant to be

and known for (Swami dEsikan's reference " theLiyAtha maRai nilangaL

theRiginROmE " ). But many poorvAchAryAs call divya prabhandhams also

as " thamizh maRai " . Is it a simple common terminology to call them

as vEdham? If these pasurams are NOT hiding the para thatthuvam,

then why is it called as " maRai " again? or else what is it hiding

this time around? It is said that these pasurams are also somewhat

secretive and not " very open " in describing about the many of the

paths that lead to the said paramAthmA. ie.. One may ask, " What's

the point in simply learning who is the paramAthmA and not knowing

what to do with that knowledge (on " who is the paramAthmA " )?.

 

One must also learn that the purpose of the jeevAthmA is to

serve the paramAthmA (divya dampathis) eternally. Such " kainkarya

prApatthi " is " always " possible only by attaining mOksham. There

were many mArgAs that the vEdhAs have preached for one to attain

brahmam. However our AchAryAs emphasis that many of these mArgAs

are not possible for the " kali yuga boolOga vAsis " to do, as they

require extremely rigorous pursuit that are not feasible for the

samsAris of kali. The tamil vEdham incarnated in boolOgam towards

the beginning of kali. Their purpose was not only to establish very

clearly as to who is paramAthmA, but also to part with some

knowledge as to how the kali yuga vAsis can attain the same.

 

The only mArgam that " suit " the boolOga vAsis in kali is the

saranAgathi or prapatthi mArgam. There were several references to

AzhwAr doing saranAgathi to the Lord. However, these references

were interpreted differently by different SrivaishnavAs. Some of

them argue that these references are not necessarily talking about

prapatti or saranagathi mArgam as such and question these mArgams.

These references were somewhat implicit about the yAgam or ritual

saranagathi. Hence it somehow makes one feel that these tamil

vEdhams as " thamizh maRai " . ie, These also hide the true nature of

the main and only mArgam that is easy to pursue in kali. It is said

that due to some reasons divya dampathis made only Srivaishnavas

know about the para thatthuvam very clearly. It is also said that

due to some other reasons only a few among them were made to

understand the implicit references to the prapati mArgam. Thanks

to many of our poorvAchAryAs who wrote about these. The references

to saranagathi, its angAs, angis are derived and understood

from these pAsurams from AzhwAr Sri sukthis due to these vyAkyAnams(*).

 

Many poorvAchAryAs beginning from Sri peria vAcchAn pillai have

explicitely mentioned about this prapatthi mArgam in their

vyAkyAnams for these pasurams. This is a knowledge one may have to

obtain from the sadAchAryA's kAlakshEam of these pasurams. Of this

knowledge, the most important knowledge is to do a " saranAgathi " or

" Athma samarpanam " at the holy feet of the divya dampathis " through

a sadhAchAryA " . How can one do such saranAgathi and what does

one do after doing saranAgathi ? In what way all these analysis

and the current flow of thEnARu can explain this ?

 

Sri kumuthavaLLi nAcchiyAr samEtha Sri thirumangai AzhwAr thiruvadikaLE

saraNam

Sri boomidEvith thAyAr samEtha Sri Oppiliappan thiruvadikaLE saraNam.

adiyEn irAmAnusa dAsan

thiruk kudanthai Sampath Rengarajan

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