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Arunagiri naadhar and nayanmaars

From the Bhakti List Archives

K. Srinivasan • September 16, 1998 


Dear friends

I would like to clarify that Arunagiri naadhar (author of thiruppugaz)
was a Modern Carnatic
music composer and not a Nayanmaar.

I am quoting from my home page:
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/3030
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Modern Composers
Arunagiri naathar (1450 AD.), a Bengali by origin is supposed to have
composed 16029 Tamil songs.
Of those, 1311 songs called thiruppugazh are now available. He set them
to ragams and thaaLams.
When sung according to his rules they are believed to produce a yogic
state of mind.

Annamacharya (1408-1503 AD.) composed mostly in Telugu. He was born a
Smartha and
converted to Sri Vaishnavam. People familiar with aazhvaars' works claim
that many of his compositions
are literal translation of the Tamil paasurams of the aazhvaars.
....
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Actually Arunagiri naadhar's thiruppugazh falls more in line with
Advaitham than the
works of ancient nayanmaars. The later is saiva sidhhantham and not
advaitham.
The language of the nayanmars is remarkably similar to that of the
aazhvaars.
May be even the philosophy has similarity to Vishistadvaitham. So is the
case
with Basavanna (of Karnataka). Some even call that Saiva
Vistitadvaitham.

Thiruppugazh language is highly Sankritized Tamil, similar to that of
the
Modern Tamil music composers (except Bharathiyaar).
---------------------------------
Many of the thiruppugazh compositions go on sermonizing
(so do many of Basavanna's compositions in Kannada).
One of the thiruppugazh that botheres me is:-
"santhatham bandha thodaraalE chanchalam thunji thodaradhE....."
I understand it as "Do not let your mind wander in confusion, due to
family relations..." May be I am wrong.
--------------------------------
adiyEn
K. srinivasan.

> From: "narayanan kazhiyur" 
> Subject: Re: paramanin aruL-arunagiri nadar.
> Srimathe ramanujaya nama:
> Dear Bhagavatas,
>
>now our Mr.chandrasekar has talked about arunagiri nadar and
thirupukaz.
>
>infact any person (incl. srivaishnavas) would appreciate if one reads
>works in tamil by saivaite nayanmaras and esp. works by ramalingaswamy
etc.
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