Re: nNappiNnNnai
From the Bhakti List Archives
• May 30, 1995
Thanks for the interesting article, Dileepan. A long while back, Naga.Ganesan had posted about some references on this subject (he has reposted them now again in SCT). For those who don't read SCT, here is the posting (which was in response to Dileepan's posting). -- From: nas_ng@lms420.jsc.nasa.gov (Ganesan) Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil Subject: Re: Nappinnai and Radha Re: Radha and Nappinnai ------------------------ In Azvars' era, the figure Radha has not crystallized into what she is today. That is why her name is not found in Divya Prabandham. She was a folk deity in Begal-Orissa region. After Jayadeva's Gitagovinda, she acquires fame all over India. Nappinnai legend is much earlier. References: 1) Barbara S. Miller, Radha: Consort of Krsna's vernal passion, Journal of Americal Oriental Society, vol. 95, no. 4, p. 55-71 2) Erik Af Edholm and Carl Suneson The seven bulls and Krsna's marriage to Nila/ Nappinnai in Tamil and Sanskrit literature. Temenos, v. 8, p. 29-53, 1972 Yours n. ganesan nas_ng@lms461.jsc.nasa.gov -- None of the early sanskrit puranas mention Radha. I read Bhagavatam (thamizh translation) 10 years back and I do not remember ever coming across a reference to Radha. So "nappinnai" must be clearly a southern legend. nappinnai is not aaNdaaL. aaNdaaL herself refers to nappinnai in thiruppaavai on many occasions. That nappinnai is an adjective + the proper name pinnai is quite obvious from the mentioning of pinnai elsewhere in the prabandham (eg. pinnai maNaalan in periyaazhvaar, don't remember offhand the exact place). The suggestion that pinnai is subhadra and a step sister of krishna is quite ridiculous. As Dileepan pointed out, aazhvaars as well as the other old thamizh poets knew even the very obscure facts in the puranas. It is utterly inconceivable that they could have gotten confused on this issue. periyaazhvaar often times portrays pinnai as a childhood playmate of kaNNnan. yasOdha fondly calls for krishna to come and take a bath, and says "nappinnai kaaNil sirikkum" (if nappinnai happened to see you so dirty, she will laugh at you, aren't you ashamed?) aaNdaaL must have learnt all these stories from her father and we see her mentioning pinnai in her works with quite a bit of envy at times. The legend of pinnai and kaNNan must have been quite popular in thamizh naadu during the times of aazhvaars and must have travelled to North India and superimposed on the local deity Radha. It is widely believed that nappinnai is an incarnation of neelaadhEvi though I have no idea about the source that prompted this belief. --badri -------------------------------------------------- S.Badrinarayanan Graduate Student Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Cornell University --------------------------------------------------
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