Search:
Bhakti List Archives

Re: chitranchiru kaale!!

From the Bhakti List Archives

GOPALAN SRINIVASA SAMPATH KUMAR • September 19, 2002 


Dear all.,

granted tiruppavai was not scripted during the time.
But, lateron we have several publications (over the past
centuries)., all of them uniformly (edited by scholars) 
have the ! punctuation. 

And both in sanskrit and tamil grammar the bhAvam - 
vilithal or azhaithal or koovuthal is well known. the 
concept is very much there - as an inherent part of 
origin of a language and its development 
(may be the denoting sign -!- was not in general use).

(Sanskrit: hey rAma! hey rAmou! hey rAmaah! etc.. in the 
rAma sabdha - table; the first lesson in sankrit)

and thiruvadi - usually refers to a pair., but
I am not sure if kaale can imply a pair.

also if one looks in combination with Nachiar thirumozhi,
the immediate continuation of thiruppavai -

velvaraippadhan munnam thurai padindhu (Nachiar thirumozhi 1.2)

velvaraippadhan munnam - before dawn - which is also
chitranchiru kaalai pozuthu.

so, the meaning should not be taken out of context - that
is margazhi paavai nonbu.

kaale, as leg, may be a grammatically acceptable meaning, 
but is not apt and is out of context.

hope it is convincing enough..

- arulmari.


On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 20:14:25  
 Mani Varadarajan wrote:
>--- In bhakti-list@y..., "GOPALAN SRINIVASA SAMPATH KUMAR" 
> wrote:
>> Dear All.,
>> 
>> No problem with describing 'chiru kaale' as thiruvadi.
>> 
>> But, in general, if it is a vocative address it will be 
>> followed by exclamation mark (!) (vilithal in tamil) 
>> e.g. sridhara! maaya! vaamanane!
>
>Most ancient Tamil poems including Divya Prabandham were
>not written with punctuation, and I don't think Tamil 
>even had such a concept in the old days. This being the
>case, the presence or lack thereof of exclamantion marks
>is proof of nothing other than the modern publisher's
>idea of the intent of the words.
>
>> so, please let us stick to the traditional vyakhyanams 
>> which are a treasure and also to the simple literal
>> meanings. (sva- upadesam is entitled only to 
>> poorvacharyas and not to us who are least qualifed
>> not just in terms of anubhavam but also by the grammatical
>> knowledge of tamil..)
>
>The traditional vyakhyanams are certainly a wealth of information
>and must be studied by anyone who wishes to come to a firm
>understanding of the meaning of the paasurams, but I would
>be hesitant to restrict the freedom of others' to find new
>meanings in them. After all, is this not yet another anubhava?
>
>And it appears, contrary to what I thought earlier, that
>in this case 'ciRu kAlE' can very well grammatically refer
>to Kannan's tiruvaDi.
>
>regards,
>Mani


--------------------------------------------------------------
           - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH -
To Post a message, send it to:   bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com
Group Home: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bhakti-list
Archives: http://ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/
 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/