1.6.2
madhuvaar thaNNanthuzaayaan mudhuvEdha mudhalvanukku
edhuvEdhenpaNi enaadhadhuvE aatSeyyumeedE
The Lord is wearing the garland of Tulasi leaves oozing honey and He is the import of all the Vedas. To serve Him one should not hesitate thinking that nothing one could do to Him.
The Lord is wearing the tulasi garland which exclusive for His worship as it is offered to no one else. All the Vedas have only Him as their import.
The Vedanta suthra affirms this saying, `sasthrayonithvaath,' Brahman or Narayana is known only from the Vedas. But Vedas could not define or describe Him fully as He is beyond all pramanas. He cannot be cognized by sense perception or inference and as He is beyond the limit of sabda, even Vedas cannot describeHim fully. The Upanishad says, `yatho vaacho nivarthanthe apraapya mansaasaha,' (Tait. Up) The speech returned along with the mind without reaching Brahman. Desika says in His yadhvabhyudhaya that the Vedas, trying to describe the Lord fully, became tired even before they completed taliking about one of His guNas and He is ananths kalyanaguna visishta, possesses infinite auspicious qualities.
The word mudhuvedha mudhalvan means that He is the Brahman who existed before everything,f from whom Vedas emerged. His breath was the Vedas, as declared in the upanishats,
`thasya ethasya mahathaH bhoothasya niSSvasitham yath rkvedho yajurvedhaH.'
Hence one could feel that there is nothing one could offer to Him who is the cause of everything. and being insignificant there is nothing one could do to Him in the form of service. This is expressed as edhuvEdhen paNi.
But Azvar says that we should not feel like that and go away from Him considering our unworthiness., edhuvEdhen paNi ennaadhu, but do whatever we could within our capacity. To do everything sacred or secular as an offering to the Lord is the service one could do, adhuvE aatseyyumeedE. This is what the Lord said in the Gita, as `yath karishi yadhaSWnaasi yajjuhoshi dhdhaasi yath yaththapasyasi kountheya thath kurushva madharpaNam.'
"Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer , whatever you give and whatever austerity you practice, Arjuna, do it as an offering to Me"(BG.9.27)
Hence there is nothing not acceptable to the Lord nor anyone who has a pure heart full of devotion is unqualified to be in His service. The story goes that Rama fondled the squirrel which offerd the mud on his back to build the Sethu and that Lord Venketesvara valued he mud flowers offered by a potter more then the golden ones offered by a king. The mani point which Azvar wishes to stress is that, everything is a fit object for His worship and everyone is qualified to serve Him, only requisite being the devotion and surrender.
The Thiruvaimozi is in the form of anthaadhi, that is, thelast sylalable or word of the previous verse forming the first of the subsequent one. But here, though the last word of the first pasuram was `poovE ` while this pasuram starts with the word `madhu.' But it is justified on the grounds that the meaning of a flower and honey of a flower could be taken as the same and there are two kinds of anthaadhi, based on words. Iyal anthaadhi and meaning, poruL anthaadhi respectively. There is am alternative reading as vadhuvaar instead of madhuvaar in which case it forms iyal anthaadhi as the rest of the verses.Vadhu and madhu means the same as there is no difference between vakara and makara in poetry.
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