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nAcciyAr tirumozhi III-kaNNan's vastrApaharaNam 9

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Kalyani Krishnamachari • September 9, 1998 


                                         SrI:
                SrI ANDAL samEta SrI rangamannAr tiruvaDigaLE SaraNam

                   nAcciyAr tirumozhi III-kaNNan's vastrApaharaNam 
              pAsuram 3.9 (third tirumozhi - pAsuram 9 ka~njan valai)


A. Translation from SrImAn SaDagOpan's tamizh treatise:

"Oh, shameless kaNNA! The pranks you play! Oh, dark-hued krishNa! When 
kamsan wished to destroy you, you managed to survive by being born to one 
mother and being brought up by another mother  ("orutti maganAi piRandu orutti 
maganAi vaLarndu").   Was that all for having this kind of fun by making us 
stand like this without any garments? For all the injustice you commit, your 
mother is letting you grow with no discipline whatsoever.  Instead of chiding 
you for the mischievous pranks you do, she delights in learning about them.  
To whom can we go and voice our grievances? Oh You who put up a show of deceit 
by drinking pUtanA's poisonous milk as if it was amr*tam and sucked her life 
out of her! Kindly give us back our garments!

ka~njan valai vaitta anRu  kAriruL ellil pizhaittu
 nenju dukkam Seyyap pOndAi ninRa ikkanniyarOmai
a~nja urappAL asOdai ANADa viTTiTTirukkum
 va~njagap pEycci pAluNDa maSimai ilI! kURai tArAi

B. Some additional thoughts:

"kAriruL ellil pizhaittu" - Knowing the fact that child kr*shNa escaped 
in the darkness of the night, the devotees would feel glad for His escape and 
praise the darkness that protected Him.  It is that same darkness which the 
girls thought will protect them from kr*shNa and came here, but they got into 
this trouble.  

When kr*shNa was born in the middle of the night and had to leave devaki 
immediately after being born, she was obviously saddened  ("pUNDu anRu annai 
pulambap pOi angu Or Aykkulam pukkadum" - tiruvaimozhi 6-4-5).  Just like her 
sadness, the girls are also feeling sad today. 

In rAmAvataram, when the r*shis surrendered to rAma and asked for His 
protection, He felt shy  that instead of His seeking them out and asking them 
for their grievances, they approached Him first and told Him their 
difficulties.  While rAma was thus shy because of His magnanimity, the girls 
are chiding kr*shNa for lacking any element of shyness by depriving them of 
their garments.      

sarvam SrIman nArAyaNAyEti samarpayAmi.

adiyEn,
Kalyani Krishnamachari
(kkrishnamachari@lucent.com)