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nAcciyAr tirumozhi VIII - viNNIla mElAppu

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Kalyani Krishnamachari • Wed Apr 21 1999 - 14:47:48 PDT 


			SrI:
      SrI ANDAL samEta SrI rangamannAr tiruvaDigaLE SaraNam

             nAcciyAr tirumozhi VIII -  viNNIla mElAppu
      pASuram 8.1 (eighth tirumozhi - pAsuram 1 viNNIla mElAppu)

viNNIla mElAppu virittARpOl mEga~ngAL
 teNNIr pAi vEnkaTattu en tirumAlum pOndAnE
kaNNIrgaL mulaik kuvaTTil tuLi Sorac cOrvEnaip
 peNNIrmai IDazhikkum idu tamakku Or perumaiyE


A. Translation from SrImAn SaDagOpan's tamizh treatise:

Oh clouds who cover the whole sky like a blue carpet!  Did my 
emperumAn, who is stationed in tiruvEnkaTam full of beautiful 
clear water falls, come along with you?   His not coming with you 
is making me shed tears because of my suffering.  Is destroying my 
femininity a great act of pride for tiruvEnkaTam uDaiyAn?

B. Additional thoughts (from SrI PVP ):

viNNIla mElAppu virittARpOl:  SrI PVP's anubhavam is that godai 
feels that the wide-spread clouds form a canopy for her and
her nAyakan to be seated together in the wide open space under 
this canopy.  She sees that one of the reasons for His creating 
the Universe is so that He can be seated with her under this 
beautiful canopy.   For perumAL and pirATTi, the paramapadam 
(nitya vibhUti) and this world (leelAvibhUti) are meant 
to be for their enjoyment.

mEga~ngAL:  Note the plural here.  sitA pirATTi had only one 
messenger (hanumAn) to send to rAma; godai is not constrained 
like that, and has many clouds to send as messengers. 

SrI PVP makes one other observation on the reference to 
"clouds" by ANDAL. Among all the thousands of vAnara-s who 
were searching for sItA, hanuman was the only one who had the 
bhAgyam of finding sItA and having her darSanam.  In the case 
of the clouds, a lot of clouds can convey the message to  
bhagavAn in ve~nkaTam Hills.  

In rAmAyaNam sundara kAnDam 30-3, hanumAn says:  
"yAm kapInAm sahasrANi SubhahUnyayutAni ca
  dikshu sarvAsu mArgantE SeyamAsAditA mayA"

(I found the one person, who is being looked for by thousands and 
ten thousands of vAnara-s in all the directions).  HanumAn is sad 
in one sense that those other vAnara-s who wanted to find Her, 
did not get the bhAgyam to see Her; only he got that bhAgyam.  
Here, in godai's case, all the clouds are going to get to see emperumAn.

When kings go for jala-kr*TA (water sports), a set of people 
called "mEkar" precede him and do jalakrITA with him.  In the 
case of the clouds (megham), it is godai's thought that these 
"mEga~ngAL" did jalakrITA with emperumAn and because of His
making them wet, they are now the water-bearing clouds.

teN-NIr pAi vEnkaTattu:  The waterfalls in tiruvEnkaTam are pure 
(not muddied), because of the sAnnidhyam of emperumAn stationed in 
tiruvEnkaTam.  Unlike this, by comparison, in the place where 
ANDAL is right now, the rivers etc. have become dry because of 
the absence of emperumAn ("tirumAlum pOndAnE").  This is what 
happened when Lord rAma left for the forest - 
 "upataptOdakA nadya: palvalAni sarAmsi ca
 pariSushka palASAni vanAnyupavanAni ca" (rAmAyaNam 
ayodhyA kANDam 59-5)

en tirumAlum pOndAnO - SrI PVP points out the incident in 
SrImad rAmAyaNam where Lord rAma follows sItA pirATTi when they 
walk in the forest - 
"yadi tvam prasthito durgam vanamadyaiva rAghava
agratastE gamishyAmi mr*dnatI kuSa kaNtakAn"  (rAmAyaNam 
ayodhyA kANDam 27-6)

Now she hopes that He has followed the clouds, and so asking 
the clouds whether Her tirumAl has followed them.  The usage of 
the word "en tirumAl" shows her relationship to Him as His pirATTi 
and also her purushAkAram.

kaNNIrgaL mulaik kuvaTTil:  ANDAL has posed the question to the 
clouds - Has my tirumAl come with you? - and expects a response 
without realizing that they are acetana. She thinks that they are 
not responding because He did not come with them.  And tears start 
welling in her eyes.   When sItA pirATTi's eyes started filling 
with tears because of her separation from Lord rAma, at least 
she had hanumAn to notice her tears:

"kimartham tava nEtrAbhyAm vAri sravati Sokajam
puNDarIka palASabhyAm viprakIrNam ivodakam (rAmAyaNam sundara 
kANDam 33-4)

("pirATTi!  Why are your eyes shedding sorrowful tears which 
resemble water falling out of lotus leaves?")

Since there is no one to notice godai's tears, she sympathizes 
with herself.

kaNNirgaL mulaikkuvaTTil: emperumAn is never leaving tirumalai 
because the clouds stationed on the mountain are always sprinkling 
water droplets (like the sweet-smelling pannIr); godai is 
simulating tirumalai on her own self here; just as rain water 
collects and falls over mountain tops in the form of waterfalls, 
tears from her eyes are collecting and falling over her chest.

tuLi SOrac-cOrvEnai - As the tear drops (tuLi) are falling 
(SOra), godai is becoming tired (SOrvEnai).  She is not feeling 
tired just because tears are falling, but it is because of the tears 
that are falling like sparks of fire.

peN nIrmai Idazhikkum: When hanumAn offers to carry sItA pirATTi  
on his shoulders right and then there back to Lord rAma from 
lankA, sItA pirATTi tells hanumAn that it is befitting to rAma 
if He Himself comes and gets her after destroying the rAkshasa-s.  

    Saraistu sa~nkulAm kr*tvA la~nkAm para balArdanah    |
    mAm nayet yadi kAkutsthah tat tasya sadr*Sam bhavet   ||  
(sundara kANDam  39-30)

This should be the nature of strIttvam. It is feminine nature to wait 
for emperumAn's grace instead of using own power.  Here bhagavAn is 
making ANDAL violate all this natural femininity and forces her to 
take the initiative of sending the clouds as her messenger etc., 
which is quite unnatural for a strI.  So He is destroying her femininity.  

ANDAL's femininity is such that she will not live if she is to be 
associated with any other human -  "mAniDavaRku enRu 
pEccuppaDil vAzhagillEn" (nAcciyAr tirumozhi 1-5); she will not 
bear to live if there is any anya sambandha prastAvam.  Such is 
the limit of ANDAL's pAratantr*yam.  His masculinity is such that 
His own paraphernalia, namely, vishvaksEnar, AdiSEshan, catram, cAmaram,
ornaments, weapons, jn~Anam, Sakti,  SrI vaikuNTham, His own 
mangaLa vigraham etc, etc are made by Him purely for the benefit of 
His devotees.  Such is the limit of His svAtantr*yam.  But in 
ANDAL's case He is not exhibiting his masculinity that way; He is 
making godai say "tirumAlum pOndAnE" and making her send the clouds 
as messengers, thus destroying her femininity.

tamakkOr perumaiyE - ANDAL is conveying to the clouds:  BhagavAn has 
His greatness because He is Sriyah-pati.  His tejas is because of 
His being with janakAtmajA or SrI - yasya sA janakAtmajA aprameyam 
hi tat-tejah.  ANDAL, periAzhvAr's own divine daughter,  is an 
aspect of SrI, a part of SrI, and not different from SrI 
(avaLODu ananyarAi iruppAr), and here He is making her suffer.  
This is not greatness for Him, it can only be considered a 
deficiency instead.  Only He can rectify this deficiency of 
His, and no one else can.  

sarvam SrIman nArAyaNAyEti samarpayAmi.

adiyEn,
Kalyani Krishnamachari