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nAcciyAr tirumozhi IX - Sindurac cempoDi - Introduction

From the Bhakti List Archives

Kalyani Krishnamachari • June 16, 1999 


                            SrI:
      SrI ANDAL samEta SrI rangamannAr tiruvaDigaLE SaraNam

      nAcciyAr tirumozhi IX - Sindurac cempoDi - Introduction 


A. Translation from SrImAn SaDagOpan's tamizh treatise 

ANDAL had always had a special liking to 
sundararAjapperumAL stationed in tirumAliruncOlai.   
>From her early childhood, she had heard her father's 
devotional pASurams expressing his anubhavam of 
this perumAL.    In particular, the following pASuram 
where periAzhvAr sings the words of the young girls 
of AyarpADi who are in deep love with kaNNan, 
was fixed fresh in her mind always:

"cuRRi ninRu tazhaigaL iDac curuL pangi nEttirattAl aNindu
 paRRi ninRu Ayar kaDait talaiyE pADavum ADak kaNDEn
 maRRavaRkku ennai pESal oTTEn mAliruncOlai em mAyaRkku allAl
  koRRavanukku evaLAm enRu eNNik koDumingaL koDIrAgil kOzhambamE"

In this pASuram, periyAzhwAr becomes a tiruvAippADi 
girl and declares his love for kaNNan through her 
words;  he describes, how he as the AyarpADi girl 
watched through her window the scene of kaNNan's 
pals making umbrellas out of leaves and holding them 
over His head to protect Him from direct sunlight, 
decorating His dense hair with peacock feathers making 
Him stand in front of their houses and doing dr*shTi 
SuRRal for Him, and dancing in glee around Him. Having 
seen such great beauty of kaNNan, the girl vishNucittai 
(the AyarpADi girl whose character periAzhvAr has assumed), 
declares that she will marry only tirumAliruncolai manan 
and no one else. She declares that if her parents 
try to marry her to anyone other than this Great Lord 
of tirumAlirum Solai, the world will laugh at them 
saying that they are out of their mind.

godai never forgot this pASuram; treading in her 
father's path, she also declares to the world through 
the coming 10 pASurams that she will marry only 
tirumAliruncOlai kaNNan. In the previous 10 pASurams 
(viNNIla mElAppu), she tried to send the clouds as 
her messenger to tirumalai, but they did would not 
cooperate.  Instead, as if to show how much they 
enjoyed her 10 pASurams, they showered profusely in 
tirumAliruncolai and cooled the ground. Butterflies 
started flying around; flowers started blooming; bees 
started singing after drinking the nectar in the flowers. 
Watching all this, godai becomes even more intensely 
aware of her separation from the tirumAliruncOlai kaNNan. 
In the next 10 pASurams, she declares her love for 
tirumAlincOlai kaLLazhagan in sundarattamizh. The 
thoughts expressed by godai in these pASurams closely 
reflect the bhagavad anubhavams portayed by godai's
anju kuDi (ancestors) - periyAzhwAr, nammAzhwAr, 
kulaSekara AzhwAr, tirumazhiSai AzhwAr, pEi/bhUtam/poigai 
AzhwArs.  Cross-references will be given as we go along.

B. Some additional thoughts (from SrI PVP):

SItA pirATTi tells hanumAn as she sends him back 
to Lord rAma with her message - "pRANAnAapi sandeho 
mama syAt nAtra samSayah - I may not be alive by the 
time you come back.  At least sItA pirATTi had hanumAn 
to go and give this message to rAma.  Here ANDAL has 
no one who will go and give her message to bhagavAn.  She 
pleads with the clouds to go and give her message to 
tiruvE~nkaTamuDaiyAn, but they don't listen.  They 
stayed stubbornly where they were; not only that, 
they showered heavily right then and there, making the 
fragrant flowers blossom.  Some flowers bloomed well, 
and some were just in the form of buds, and all this 
beauty around her only helped to remind ANDAL of 
bhagavAn, His tirumeni, and His beautiful eyes even 
more intensely, and made her suffering increase even more.  
This worsening state of ANDAL finds expression in the 
next 10 pASurams.  Even further deterioration, leading 
to a stage where ANDAL is unsure if she can continue to 
hold on to her life, is described in the 10th tirumozhi 
which will follow.  The ninth and tenth tirumozhis 
together convey the state in which nammAzhvAr finds 
himself as expressed in tiruvAimozhi 9.5 - innuyirc 
cEvalum.  Here nammAzhvAr says that the cuckoos around 
him are enjoying themselves with their mates, and as if 
this is not enough, they keep cooing merrily, while he 
is suffering intensely because of his separation from 
kaNNan.  It look as though the cuckoos are doing all 
this only with the intent of making nammAzhvAr feel 
miserable, and in the process kill him through 
intense mental suffering.     

sarvam SrIman nArAyaNAyEti samarpayAmi.

adiyEn,
Kalyani Krishnamachari


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