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nacciyar thirumozhi introduction english

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Ramani Naidu • December 15, 2002 


 

The postings on Nacciyar Thirumozhi will appear in three parts. In the first part Ramani intends to trace the origin and nature of Andal Literature in the context of the literary history of Tamil. In the second part, he intends to write an introduction to the nature and course of Nacciyar Thirumozhi in Alwar literature in general and Andal literature in particular. During the next twenty eight days he intends to send the text, translation and interpretation in Tamil and English for the 143 stanzas in Nacciyar Thirumozhi at the rate of 5 stanzas a day.

The Origin and Nature of Andal Literature in the History of Tamil Literature

The history of Tamil Literature begins with the Sanga Literature. The Sanga Literature is two-fold : the akam and the puram. The songs of the puram present dramatic snippets from the life of the ancient Tamil society. There realistic pieces as well as exaggerated pictures drawn for the sake of the reader. The akam literature speaks of the element of love. And yet it cannot be said that the akam speaks about the psychology of love as much as the actions on the external world springing from a love-laden heart.

Think of that song wherein is described the sympathetic nature of the hero. He had been away from home for making money. He is on his way back home and his heart is filled with the anticipated meeting with his lady love. Just then he notices how the insects in the wayside bushes run helter-skelter at the noise of the bells of his chariot. He stops his chariot and asks his charioteer to remove the tongues of the bells. Though it cannot be said that we do not have poetry that speaks of the gentleness of love, the longing in the heart filled with love and the singleminded devotion of love in the akam poetry, we have to state that they speak more of bundled emotions rather than the finer aspects of love in terms almost psychological.

Coleridge is said to have been the first to bring in psychology when he accounted for the nature of genius in his literary criticism. Along with him other Romantic Poets like Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley and Keats brought in the personal passions of the individuals in their writings. There are feelings like desires, ambitions, frustration, helplessness and other such finding an expression for the first time in English literature. 

If the Romantic Movement in English had been a turning point in English Literature, it can be said that the Alwar literature in Tamil is the first of its kind in that it brought into play the psychological implications of emotions into literary composition.

The Sanga Age was followed by the Age of the Epics during which the first two extant epics in Tamil, the Cilappathikaram and Manimekalai were written. Still later the Ethical Literature appeared in Tamil. The period of the Kalappira Dynasty is said to have existed a little later or during or a little before the period of Ethical Literature in Tamil. Next came the age of Devotional Literature in Tamil. Particularly when the Vaishnava literature came into existence in Tamil, the new path towards the expression of emotional intricacies was laid in Tamil. Let us not try to reason out the why and wherefore of such development. On the other hand, accepting the literary phenomenon for what it had been, it would be in place to consider what a majestic course such literature pursued. That would take us to the content, nature and trends of Alwar literature in general and Andal literature in particular.

The Alwars were twelve in number. The first three of them had been Peyalwar, PoykaiAlwar, Bhuthathalwar. Their songs are said to have been on a particular occasion inspired by a particular instance of the manifestation of God. These three are not given human origin for their existence. They are not even said to have had normal human life or emotions. 

Beginning the Alwars who came next, though human origin is not suggested to all of them, almost every one is said to have a normal human existence with the exigencies thereof. Thiruppanalwar and Andal do not have human origin. But they had lived a very human life. Nammalwar had human origin. But he had not lived a normal human life of growth, maturity, realization and expression. Nammalwar and Andal make a contrastive pair in this respect. The others are said to have had this kind of birth and to have lived such and such a kind of human life. That is how the Guru Parampara Pirabhava accounts for the history of the Alwars.

So when we look at the Alwar literature excluding the songs of the first three Alwars, it will be fitting to look at Alwar literature as being expressive of the experiential aspects of life. We can even exclude Nammalwar literature from such a consideration. He is supposed to have answered the question, “When the miniscule is born in the dead, where and how will it remain?” as “It will remain there undergoing that”. The person who asked the question was an elderly Brahmin who became an ardent devotee to Nammalwar who was then a boy of 12 years. Nammalwar had been vegetating for twelve years in his life since his birth. That was the first occasion he came to his senses. After the answer, he is supposed to have come out with about 1000 stanzas of poetry which are composed as the Thiruvaymozhi. Whatever emotional content be there in Nammalwar’s poetry, they can be taken into discount as expressive of what is usually experienced by the living rather than as lived experience. His songs crystallize the human predi

The songs of Andal are directly on the other extreme. Every emotion expressed in her poems are those which had been experienced in finer details. In the case of AndalÂ’s songs also the literary critics have their own opinions. They are of the opinion that Andal who is said to have been just a girl before she merged with the Divine at Srirangam could not have expressed such adult passions as are to be found in her songs. Let us leave such questions of speculation to the learned pundits. Let us take the contents of the songs for what they are. While doing so, anyone can experience the psychological aspects of her poetry; the grace of the feminine therein. So the emotional overload in AndalÂ’s songs could verily had been experiential by nature rather than projected.

The thirty songs in Thiruppavai and the 143 stanzas in Nacciyar Thirumozhi are the extant Andal Literature. There had of course been love poetry written before Andal in the devotional literature. But there are plenty of differences between those poems and AndalÂ’s songs. We can see the details thereof during the course the next few days. Let us now stop with the following:

The thirty songs of Thiruppavai had been written for a particular ritualistic worship of God. The Thiruppavai extends to social devotion, the emotional surges thereof, the vows made as part of the ritual, and prayers for prosperity. But Nacciyar Thirumozhi had not been written for a particular occasion. There is no indication of social devotion in it. There are no prayers seeking a few and pleading protection from a few others. All that is prayed for is divine presence. Personal determination is spoken about in Nacciyar Thirumozhi. Colourful personal dreams are painted there. Personal longing is spoken about. All these are not born of hearsay or by tradition, literary or social. Andal has longed; had become happy; had celebrated; had enjoyed the bliss of union; had felt the pangs of separation and have expressed the emotional outcome of the varied experiences. Thus it has to be said that Nacciyar Thirumozhi is verily the climax of experiential literature. As such let us hail Andal as the origin of experienti

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