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thiruppavai day twenty two song twenty two

From the Bhakti List Archives

Ramani Naidu • January 5, 2003 


THIRUPPAVAI – DAY TWENTY TWO – SONG TWENTY TWO

Transliteration

ankanmA gnAlaththu aracar apimAna
pankamAy vanthu nin paLLikkkattiRkIz
cankamiruppAr pOl vanthu thalaippeithOm
kinkiNi vAyc ceytha thAmaraip pUppolE
cenkan cirucciRithE em mEl viLiyAvO
thinkaLum Athithyanum ezunthAR pOl
ankan irantum kontu enkaL mEl nOkkuthiyEl
enkal mEl cApam iLinthElOr empAvAy.

Translation

We the maids have reached your abode
Like the kings of the wide world
Cured of their pride, driven by exigencies
To your throne for succour.
WonÂ’t you open your eyes gently to look at us
Like the bell shaped lotus.
When you look at us with eyes like the sun and the moon,
Spent are all our sins.

The twenty-second song, like the previous one, implores the grace of God.
The previous song referred to how the pride of foes is subjugated by the
might of God. They ultimately surrender to God. And even then they are only
at the doorsteps of GodÂ’s abode.

The kings cited in the twenty-second song are however not foes. Insofar as
they are in bodily existence, despite in an elevated status, they are
subject to the exigencies of life like defeat, poverty, frustration and
others. When such exigent conditions adversely affect such great persons
like the kings, they are cured of their pride that takes its origin from
ego-consciousness. One is rightly reminded of Duke Senior in ShakespeareÂ’s
As You Like It – “Sweet are the uses of adversity”.

When they are cured of their pride – apimana pankamay – they look up to the
throne of God as their source of succour. Thus the kings and their God
orientation is certainly different from the God orientation of the foes
vanquished by might. It is the realisation of the insignificance of the self
that brings them to God.

The maids compare well with such kings not because they had also suffered
the exigencies of life but because life as such has become an exigent to
them. Thus the sins they expect to be spent by the graceful look of God that
settles on them gently are not sins of particular commission or omission. It
is the elemental sin of the soul having had to spend it in living. The term
elemental sin is not to be taken for the original sin as in the Christian
context. Original sin in the Christian context is a sin of commission by
transgression. By elemental sin is meant the sum of the merits and demerits
of previous births.

An interesting episode will make the point clear. Nammalvar, for twelve
years after his birth, lay comatose. He drank nothing, ate nothing; spoke
not and moved not. Meanwhile, Mathurakavi, a brahmin on pilgrimage to
Benares, happened to see a moving star. It moved towards the south. He gave
up his pilgrimage and followed the star. It brought him to Kurukur where
Nammalvar lay comatose for twelve years. The star disappeared once
Mathurakavi reached Kurukur. On enquiry, he came to know that the place had
nothing miraculous about it. The child who lay under a tamarind tree in the
temple precincts there for twelve years eating nothing, drinking nothing;
speaking not and moving not was the only incidence out of the way.
Mathurakavi went to the place where Nammalvar lay. He took a pebble; made
noise tapping it on the temple floor. When Nammalvar opened his eyes, he
asked him, ‘cettatan vayirril ciriyatu pirantal ettait tinru enke kitakkum?
 – If the miniscule is born in the dead, where will it lie and what will it
suffer? The answer  was, ‘attait tinru anke kitakkum.’ – It will lay there
suffering it.
The soul will lay in the physical self until the accumulated merits and
demerits of the previous births are spent.
The point of interest here is something that is exclusively Hindu. Perhaps
all religions inspire virtuous living as a definite precondition for GodÂ’s
grace and sinful living as attracting GodÂ’s wrath. Thus ethics becomes an
inseparable part of religions in general. But the Hindu concept of
redemption is something unique. Unimpeded communion with God is the ultimate
purpose of the soul. It is not only oneÂ’s demerits but merits as well that
lead to successive births. Real renunciation consists of renouncing both
merit and demerit – both having been nullified in a total surrender to God.
Nammalvar will say,
vItumin muRRavum vItu ceythu ummuyir
vItutaiyAnitai vItu ceyminE.
“Give up all – giving up all, surrender your soul to God”. The ‘all’
includes merits as well as demerits. That makes Nammalvar almost immediately
implore man as follows:
nIr numathu enRu ivai vEr muthal mAyththu
cErmin uyirkku athan nEr niRai illE.
The soul has nothing as becomes it as when the soul gives up the
ego-consciousness and attachment or identity or merit and demerits and
surrenders to God.
Inability to do so is the curse attendant upon embodied existence. The maids
declare that once the graceful eyes of God fall upon them, they escape this
elemental curse of embodied existence.
Curiously, the nature of the glance gets a certain description that
complements the above interpretation. It is not as if GodÂ’s grace is a
one-time flooding in. It is a gentle process in stages – ciruccirite em mel
viliyavo’. Again, it is scorching as the sun and cool as the moon – curing
the ego and nurturing God orientation.
Thus the key word to the understanding of the twenty-second song is ‘capam’
in the last line. It is not the proceeds of oneÂ’s commissions or omissions
in the name of sins, though a literal translation of the word ‘capam’ will
be ‘sin.’ What the maids pray for is ultimate redemption in which the
accumulated merits and demerits of the process of living through several
births are liquidated once for all by the grace of God.






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