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Thirumaalai-59

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Varadarajan Sourirajan • September 19, 2002 


Sri Parthasarathi thunai,

Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha

 

“ Mattrondrum vEinda Maname Madhilarangar

  Kattrinum meitha kazhalinai keezh- uttra

  Thirumaalai paadum seer Thondaradipodi Emperumaanai

  Eppozhudum peesu”

 

“ Srimat Krishna samahvaya Namo yaamuna soonave 

  yetkadAkshai kalakshyAnAm sulabha: Sridara: sadaa”

 

Pranams,

 

Paasuram-38 (contd)

 

In the previous posting we saw the meaning of the dvaya mahA manthram in brief.  Now let us see how this has been conveyed by alwar in this paasuram.  We saw earlier that dvayam, as the name suggests has two parts, the poorva kandam and the uttara kandam.  In this paasuram, Sri thondaradipodi alwar gives the meanings of the two parts in two lines each; only thing is that the order of the parts is changed.  The first two lines of the paasuram give the uttara kandArtham of the dvayam and the last two lines the poorva kandArtham.

 

mEmporul pOga vittu meimayai migavunarindhu:  AdiyArs are those who are totally different from the lowkikas.  Those who have left all the sAdhanas both in samsAric matters and pAramArthikam are called as adiyars.  Whichever the lowkikas consider being the most precious are like ordinary stones to bhAgavatas.  KoorthAzhvan left all his wealth and came to fall under the feet of his acharya, rAmanuja.  He didn’t consider the lowkika money and matter as important.  Similarly Swami vedAntha desikan considered only kanchi deva perumal as his wealth and ignored all other wealth.  So here alwar says, mEmporul pOga vittu, leaving all that which are considered as wealth in this world, the bhAgavatas realize the ultimate truth.  What is the ultimate truth?  In tamil ‘mei’ refers to both sareeram and truth but actually the body is not true.  These bhagavatas realize the truth that the body is temporary and hence false, and only the athma is true.  Alwar says ‘migavunarindhu’.  First stage is realizing that the athma is 

 

  Amparisarindhu kondu I-mpulanagaththadakki:  After realizing that the athma is a seshan(dependent) to the emperuman, then next thing he should wish for is bhagavat/bhAgavata kainkaryam.  Kainkaryam is the best gift to the dependent jeevatma.  After that ‘I-mpulanagaththadakki’ we have to control our sense organs.  When alwar said leaving all the lowkika matters, in the very first line, it itself needs the control of all our senses.  But then why does alwar repeat that here after the jeevan has passed so many stages of realization and accepting bhagavat kainkaryam?  Here alwar fixes the meaning of the term ‘nama:’.  While doing bhagavat kainkaryam one may feel that he has been blessed with this divine kainkaryam and that he is enjoying the same.  Actually even this kainkaryam should be for the enjoyment of bhagavan and hence controlling of our senses, which enjoy the kainkaryam we are doing, is what is mentioned by alwar in ‘I-mpulangaththadakki’.

 

Thus in the above two lines alwar has given the uttara kandArtham of the dvayam (srimathE nArAyanAya nama:).  Before we see the poorva kandArtham let us clarify one doubt, which may arise in all our minds.  Why did alwar change the order and give the uttara kandArtham first and the poorva kandArtham second.  When we do a practical experiment then we have to give the procedure first and then give the inference or the result whereas when we have to teach a subject then we first give the theory and what result it will give and then when the listeners are interested to obtain the result, we tell them the procedure.

 

Similarly dvaya mahA mantram is a practical experiment, which gives the procedure followed by the result.  But the alwars actually wanted us to get interested in the same so they first gave the result made us get attracted towards the same and then gave the procedure.  There is one nice legend in our guru paramparai.  One person went to one acharya and asked what he should do to attain moksha.  That acharya told him all the ways of nithya karmAnushtAnam, bhakthi, prapatti etc and finally said if you do all these you can attain moksha.  The person felt the procedure to be very difficult.  He then went to another acharya and asked the same question.  That acharya first explained all the good things in the moksha lOkam and all the bad things in this world and then slowly told him the ways to attain moksha.  Though the ways specified by both of them were same still, now the person realizing the importance of attaining moksha and getting released from this samsAric miseries started doing everything as per the ach

 

So before telling any hard way to attain something we should make a person realize the importance of attaining the result irrespective of all the difficulties to attain the same.  That is what alwar has done in this paasuram also.  We will proceed with the poorva kandArtham in the next posting.

 

(To be continued)

 

AzhwAr emberumAnAr jeeyar thiruvadigaLE saraNam

Adiyen Ramanuja Dasyai

Sumithra Varadarajan

 

 



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