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pachchai mA malai pOl mEni

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Vijay Triplicane • August 11, 1998 


As Venkatesh pointed out, very often to describe the physique of a man,
their shoulders, chest are compared to mountain. There are lots of
references to this.

In periya thirumozhi 7'th paththu
"thaaraaLum varaimaarbaNn thaNchERai"
8'th paththu
 "varaimaarbaNn' eNnkiNn RaaLaal,"  (varai = malai = mountain), His
chest is compared to the mountain.

In perumAL thirumozhi
"mallaNaintha varaitthOLaa valvinaiyEn"
"thaararntha thadavaraitthOL thayarathanRaan"
His Shoulders are compared to mountains...

But I don't remember His entire body (thirumEni) being compared to
mountain other than in "pachchai mA malai pOl mEni". Could somebody
point out more references?

BTW, I feel   'pachchai maa malai pOl mEni'  refers to thiruvaraN^gan.
One can argue that any reference to malai implies thirumalai because the
perumAL Himself is in the form of the malai there (like the forest in
naimisAraNyam and the pond in pushkariNi). But that is just an
interesting poetic interpretation. This is my opinion.

Moreover any reference to thirumalai would atleast have vada (North) or
vEN^kata prefix.

I remember a story that Sri vELukkudi svAmi used to say. There was an
old priest in Srirangam. He had always wanted to go to thiruvEn^katam
but could never make it. He was getting old.  One day he went to the
perumAL and told him his wish and asks for permission. PerumAL couldn't
bear the absence of his beloved bhAgavatha for such a long time. He
tries His best to retain the priest in Srirangam itself. But the priest
was steadfast in his plan.

So PerumAL asks him to do one last kaimkaryam before he leaves. He asks
him to recite amalanAdhipirAn. The priest happily starts the recital.
while reciting third stanza,
"man^dhi pAy vada vEN^kata mA malai
 vAnavargaL san^dhi seyya n^inRAn araN^gath tharavinaNaiyAn..."
the priest realizes there is no other dhivya dhEsam that could match the
thiruvaraN^gam and decides to stay there...

So even the reference to vada vEN^kata mAmalai brings his mind back to
thiruvaraN^gam. Such is the glory of the dhivya dhEsam.

I was in Srirangam this April for the thiruththEr. What an experience!! Just the very thought

that almost all of our AcharyAs lived there and served perumAL makes one feel really great.

(In fact I stayed in a house which used to be ALavan^dhAr's maTam! ) I visited the place

where piLLai lOkAchAr wrote his rahasya granthams (rahasyam viLaindha maN), the pillar near which

Sri nampiLLai delivered his bhagavadh vishaya kAlakshEbams, the house where Sri parAsar bhattar

lived ... No place can match this.

--
Vijay Triplicane