

| Vol 01.003 | Pre-SaraNAgati Issues |
25 September, 1996
|
| In this Issue:
1. Swami Desika's Rahasya Traya Saram Adhikara 9: Upaya Vibhaga Adhikara 2. What is Religion ?" from Chapter 1 of " Hinduism Rediscovered" 3. Tirumaliruncholai -Part 2 - Sampath Rengarajan | ||
1. Rahasya Traya Saram
ADHIKARA 9: UPAYA VIBHAGA ADHIKARA (Classification of the means
for attaining Moksha)
It is well known -
(i) that Rajayoga or Hatayoga can at best serve as means to discipline
the body and mind and cannot lead to Moksha.
(ii) that Karma yoga has to be of the Nishkamya variety and that while
we cannot give up Nitya and Naimittika karmas under any circumstances Karma
yoga by itself cannot lead to Moksha but at best serve to lead to Gnana
yoga and then possibly to Bhakti yoga
(iii) that Gnana yoga cannot by itself lead to Moksha because mere
'knowledge' will be 'useless tinsel' unless it blossoms into ' action in
.devotion.'(e.g) - Merely 'knowing' that a disease can be cured by appropriate
medicine cannot cure the disease unless the specific medicine is actually
consumed; - Merely 'knowing' that hunger will subside by taking food cannot
solve the problem of hunger unless one actually eats food; - Merely "knowing"
the way to reach a particular destination cannot help in taking one there
unless one actually moves towards the destination.
(iv) that Bhakti yoga while being counted as one of the direct means
to Moksha is difficult to practice as explained in the opening paragraph
of this series..
ARJUNA was therefore confused and frustrated and asked SRI KRISHNA as to what he should do in these intriguing circumstances. As an answer to this question, Sri Krishna advised Arjuna to totally surrender to himself and that as God incarnate he would himself stand in the place of these yogas. Having left all dharma (i.e) these upayas, if he thus surrenders, the Lord would certainly wipe off all his sins, and protect him. Having pledged his promise, Sri Krishna advised him not to entertain any grief any more.
WHAT WAS ADVISED TO ARJUNA IS APPLICABLE TO ALL OF US AND GOD WOULD CERTAINLY EXTEND THE SAME PROTECTION TO US IF WE UNCONDITIONALLY SURRENDER OURSELVES TO HIM.
Thus, over and above the four upayas listed above Bhagavan has provided in his Charamasloka, a fifth course , that of Prapatti - THE ONLY EASY BUT SURE MEANS TO ATTAIN MOKSHA.
The essential differences between Bhakti and Prapatti may be summarized
as follows :
Point of difference is indicated by Roman Numerals Bhakti a.k.a. Upasana
is indicated by letter (B) Prapatti a.k.a. Saranagathi is indicated by
the letter (P)
I.BIRTH
(B):One should be born within the first three Castes because Upasana
can be commenced only in the Sarira secured at birth though it can be continued
in any other Sarira in subsequent births. (P): Irrespective of Castes,
the only qualifications are i) One should feel incapable of following Bhaktiyoga
ii) Desire ONLY Moksha
iii) Desire it ONLY from Bhagavan knowing that ONLY He can grant it
II.KNOWLEDGE OF SASTRAS.
(B): One should know the Sastras properly (P) : Lack of knowledge of
Sastras is not a disqualification
III. FOLLOWING THE DISCIPLINES
(B): One should follow the disciplines prescribed in the Sastras scrupilously
and without fail
(P): Following the disciplines is RECOMMENDED as an ADJUNCT and not
as the main condition of Prapatti
IV.DELAY IN SECURING MOKSHA
(B) : One who does not mind delay in securing Moksha can adopt Bhakti
(P) : One who is anxious in securing Moksha without delay should adopt
only Prapatti
V. VARNASHRAMA DHARMA
(B) : The observance of Varna and Ashrama Dharmas is sin-quanon and
forms a necessary condition and includes several strenuous Nitya and Naimittika
duties.
(P) : The observance of Dharmas while cannot be dispensed with, is
NOT considered to be PART OF PRAPATTI. It is done to please the Lord with
angas detailed in Adhikara 11 below.
VI. ANTHIMA SMRITI
(B): The remembrance of the Lord at the time of death is necessary.
This can dawn ONLY in the LAST SARIRA when all the karmas get obliterated.
(P) : This is not necessary. Once surrendered, the Lord remembers and
so grants Moksha at the end of the CURRENT life itself or earlier as prayed
for at the time of Prapatti.( Vide Varaha Charama sloka also)
VII. REMOVAL OF KARMA
(B) : Bhakti yoga can not remove Prarabda Karma. (P) : Prapatti will
remove both Sanchita Karma and even Prarabda Karma till the performance
of Prapatti. If one desires Moksha HERE and NOW and prays for it AT THE
TIME OF PRAPATTI, the Lord would grant it right away.
This is called AARTHA PRAPATTI.
Any delay is only because the Prapanna had not prayed for an immediate release, being prepared to go through the unexpired portion of Prarabda Karma till the end of the CURRENT life. This is called TRIPTA PRAPATTI.
In this case, the sins committed without knowledge are ignored and those committed knowingly get expatiated by atonement (Nirveda and Prayaschitta) or by suffering minor punishments in the CURRENT life itself.
VIII : DURATION AND INTENSITY OF SAADHANA (B) : Has to be practiced
incessantly for long periods; Is beset with numerous impediments; Is a
difficult process for attaining Moksha because it involves the strict observance
of one or more of the 32 Vidyas attached to Bhakti yoga.
(P) : Prapatti guarantees Moksha INSTANTLY; Requires to be done ONLY
ONCE; No impediments or hard conditions to be fulfilled; Can be resorted
to even by one who does not have any clear knowledge provided one has the
mind and inclination to adopt the means.
Mr.A.K.RAMANUJAM, observes-
"Prapatti (unlike Bhakti) works for everyone, whatever be his state,
status. caste or previous history. Not merit but demerit may qualify the
soul for the grace. Not learning or high caste but their opposite may endear
one to God...for Prapatti , there are no conditions of place, time, manner,
fitness.The only condition is that the Lord and ONLY the Lord be the object.
Draupadi, the heroine of Mahabharata, performed Prapatti when she was menstruating
and unclean. Arjuna received the Lord's counsel and grace on the battlefield,
surrounded by vile and unclean people"
When this Supreme Lord is so Supreme and the individual soul is so worthless on account of sins, how would God stoop down to the level of the soul and lift him up?
Sri Ramanuja answers that God can and will do this in exercise of his immense accessability, grace and compassion (Saulabhya ) in preference to his Paratva ( omnipotent power) And,
JOHN.B.CARMAN quotes Sri Ramanuja asking and answering- "How can a lame man climb on an elephant, if you tell him to do so? Likewise, how can an insignificant soul in this imperfect world approach the Lord of all? The answer is surely that an elephant can accommodate itself lying down so that the lame man can mount"- All that is needed is the absolute confidence (Mahaviswasa) on the part of the lame man that the elephant would allow him to mount on by lowering itself down to his level.
Another question arises as to how Prapatti could destroy all the Sanchita karmas as also the Prarabda Karmas? These Karmas can be likened to a huge load of cotton bales stacked in a warehouse. And, if the entire stock has to be used up by taking out for purposes of spinning little by little, it would take an inordinately long time. But, by applying a single burning match STICK, the entire STOCK could be gutted. Likewise, the sparkling matchstick that the Acharya lights up at the time of Prapatti can and indeed does destroy all the accumulated sins.
Sri ANDAL puts it picturesquely:
"The entire stock of accumulated sins and those that had started to
yield results would be incinerated like dirt scorched by fire" " Poya Pizhaiyum
Pugu Tharuvaan Ninranavum Theeyinaal Thoosagum"
"It is said that the enormous debit entries appearing on the balance sheet of the individual's Karma account can be more than offset by one mighty stroke of credit entry of simple faith in the saving grace of God. And, Prapatti which represents this credit transaction demands no effort; not even an act of will. Rather, the abandonment of the will, the abandonment of all effort. It merely requires Absolute surrender to his will"
(To be continued )
2.
INTRODUCTION WHAT IS RELIGION? - Part 1
from CHAPTER 1 of " Hinduism Rediscovered "
1 : ORIGIN OF RELIGION
In his treatise on political theory "The Leviathan" HOBBES characterized
human life as selfish, brutish and short". Then came LOCKE. He was more
charitable. He held that everyone desired to have all the freedom for oneself
but was conditioned by the fact that one had to contend with similar desires
of all the others in society. As a necessary evil man consented to trade
in some aspects of his freedom for the protection and preservation of the
other aspects through what he called the`CONTRACT SOCIALE'. ROUSSEAU who
followed, disapproved of this altruistic motive and declared that Governments
were formed out of consideration for fellow beings which was inherent in
human nature.
All these people were talking about what caused the emergence of political organization in general and Governments in particular. But, millions of years before the concept of Government emerged, the human race scattered in different pockets all over the world had realized the concept of what we now know as `Religion'. Anthropology reveals that `Religion is very old'. Earliest societies in different parts of the world had one thing in common - some form of religion. How did this come about?
Man observed nature. He started wondering who ornamented the sky with luminous bodies like the sun, the moon and the stars; who painted the pleasing colors on the petals of flowers; who taught the spider to build its web from its secretion in a planned way; who stored the sweet water inside the tender coconut; who provided the sustenance to the toad living at the center of rock that lay enclosed all over, in fact, how did it get inside into it in the first place; how the child in the womb learnt to draw nourishment through the umbilical cord of the mother.
Looking at himself, he wondered who regulated the functions of the human organs - the head, the heart, the nervous system, the bone structure; the blood circulation, the digestive system and even the respiratory regimen with such perfect precision. He observed that changes in weather and seasons followed a certain cyclic pattern. He noticed that his own grandparents and even parents who WERE, were in due course ARE NO MORE. His own body showed signs of growth from birth to infancy to juvenile to youth and to old age and finally to the point of death. Though the person had remained the same throughout, the body was undergoing constant changes also in a cyclic pattern over a period. With every advancing day, he noticed that some portion of his own being was getting ticked away inexorably and he himself was advancing towards old age and ' non- being' This dimension, he realized as time.
He noticed that the sun, the moon and other heavenly bodies seemed to influence all events and moods in his life. By observing that these heavenly bodies and galaxy operated around some axis .and that he himself had to traverse long distances over vales and dales for water, for food, for fodder, for fuel and what not. Thus, he came to recognize the dimension of 'space'.
These very objects including his own immediate self and surroundings comprised of the sky above, the earth below, the waters around, the wind across and the fire aglow - all constituted what is known as matter. Thus, came into his cognition, the dimension of 'matter'.
This `awareness' was perceived in the famous disputations between Sage Gargi and Sage Yagnavalkya as seen from the Brihadaranyka upanishad.
"Verily O! Gargi! at the command of that Imperishable, the sun and the moon stand apart, the Earth and the sky stand apart, the moments, the hours, the days, the nights, the fortnights, the months, the seasons and the years stand apart. Verily O! Gargi! at the command of that Imperishable, some rivers flow from the snowy mountains to the east, others to the west in whatever direction each flows"
And when Sage Gargi asked Sage Yagnavalkya. "What is the warp and woof that links all that is above the sky, beneath the earth and between them both or that links what people call the past, the present and the future" Space' replied Yagnavalkya - "The warp and woof uniting space, time and matter and indeed all existence in an indissoluble whole is the self existent, imperishable, impersonal "Brahman" ( the great) - the unheard hearer, the unseen seer, the uncomprehended comprehender of all that ever was or is or shall ever be"
THUS, THE INTERACTION OF THE TIME - SPACE - MATTER TRIAD WAS PERCEIVED
BY OUR SAGES MILLIONS OF YEARS BEFORE ALBERT EINSTEIN CAME ON THE SCENE
TO LABEL THE CONCEPT AND PRESENT IT TO THE WESTERN WORLD AS THE
'THEORY OF RELATIVITY'.
Man's senses could help him only in observing. He could not reason out why they behaved the way they did but he knew that they seemed to be governed by fixed laws. The rising and the setting of the sun, and the moon and their diurnal and nocturnal peripatetic perambulations in rhythmic movements were conceived to be the handiwork of a guiding power. This attempt to understand, this`search for wisdom' was another name for `philosophy'.
Delving deeper in his quest for wisdom, man tried to find out who created
the world and why. He could only conclude that there must be a purpose
behind all these. This belief led to the concept of `Religion' - The word
is derived from Latin `Religre' meaning `To be involved',.'to bend back'
Humanity from the earliest times and even now could not meditate on
abstractions. So, the Ancients hooked their ideas to symbols accompanied
by appropriate rituals. In spite of differences in their practices and
beliefs - each group had a kind of religion. And, the wonderful thing is
that there was a simultaneous, almost telepathic parallel development in
different parts of the world seemingly torn away from each other by vast
expanses of land and sea.
The major religions of the world originated in remarkably small areas -Judaism and Christianity in the area of modern Israel; Islam around Mecca in Western Arabia ; Hinduism in the Indus valley of Northwest India and Buddhism in North East India."
2. FEAR IS THE KEY
The human race had to face three kinds of fear which played a key role
in the development of religion. Viz; what Hindu scriptures call Adhyathmika,
Adhibouthika and Adhideivika . Adhyathmika refers to afflictions generated
by human behavior and conditioning like lust, anger, fear, illness and
pestilence. Adhibouthika refers to fear from wild animals, birds, other
grotesque creatures, in fact, all other living beings like serpents, insects
etc. Adhideivika refers to heat, cold, floods, droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes
and the like. Man believed that the power that created these dangers had
also the power to control and direct them which transcended the Space-Time-Matter
constraints. The worst fear of all was fear of death .Death and total non-existence
were totally unacceptable. How to escape death became the constant preoccupation.
Religion seemed to provide an explanation , if not an answer.
It is by knowing how religion responds to pain and death, we can get inside of any religious tradition. Most religions addressed themselves to cope with the universal fact of human suffering. This religion does by revealing a clearer vision of reality by which what previously appeared unbearable now became insignificant and ignorable. Religion does not remove anxiety but my means of relativizing it does minimize the pangs of suffering making it bearable.
3. Why Religion?
A regulated and disciplined life was the only insurance against the
myriad threats facing humanity. To set their house in order first, they
established `codes of conduct and behavior' and clothed them with rituals
and ceremonies. This is what differentiates human beings from other creatures.
Beasts have other facilities better than man : (.e.g) horns of cattle, nails of the tiger, sheepskins for sheep to protect them from cold, speed for the horse. But, man has one thing they don't have. `Intelligence' of a special kind with which he creates for himself what he lacks naturally.
As WILLIAM HOWELLS, Leading American anthropologist puts it: "Man unlike other animals is the creature who comprehends things he cannot see and believes in those he cannot comprehend"
But, is this comprehension comprehensive? Let us take the example of a 3 year old girl. When her doll gets broken she feels that her whole world had shattered. This seems to us to be insignificant. The child is not able to see it as a passing event viewed against the caravan of events in a whole lifetime and hence her despondency. We as adults are mature and take things on stride. But how far? We are only comparatively mature. But, more often than not, we behave like `grown-up-children' no better qualified in viewing our present miseries against the back drop of our total existence. Our attention is rivetted to our present evanescent moment - not even our present lifespan. If only we could visualize the events in our lives in the background of an entire lifetime, if only we could realize that our total being is immeasurably longer than even our present life time - then and then only could we claim to have attained real maturity. It is religion that helps us in discerning this maturity.
What is this maturity of mind? It is the middle point of not taking extreme views. There is a popular saying - If you have not become a communist by 20 years of age, you are immature. If you continue to be a communist even after 30 years of age, you are a fool.
In Hinduism which advises maturity of mind, philosophy is not an intellectual exercise; it is a spiritual experience. It does less in stimulating thinking in void abstract nothings than in inculcating a vivid, vibrant, living presence. The philosopher in Hinduism is as much fascinated by this world as in the world hereafter.
4. WHAT THE SCHOLARS SAY ABOUT HINDUISM?
Even the Greeks who came to India were wonderstruck by this amalgam
of Hindu philosophy which in the words of RENOU "Can still be of some efficacy
again to our '`blase' culture and Hinduism can be better defined as Wisdom
rather than the equivocal term `spirituality"
MAX MULLER thunders - "If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most deeply pondered over the greatest problems of life and has found solutions for some of them, which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied PLATO and KANT - I should point to India. And, if I were to ask myself from what literature we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of the Greeks and the Romans and of one Semitic race - the Jewish, may draw corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal- in fact, more truly human a life-not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life - again, I should point to India" He observes further: " It is surely astounding that such a system as Vedanta should have been slowly established by the indefatigable and intrepid thinkers of India thousands of years ago, a system that even now makes us giddy,, as in the mounting the last steps of the swaying spire of the ancient Gothic Cathedral"
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU, the first Prime Minister of India writes in his "Discovery
of India"
"We can never forget the ideals that have moved our race; the dreams
of the Indian people through the ages; the wisdom of the ancients; the
buoyant energy and love of life and nature of our forefathers; their spirit
of curiosity and mental adventure; the daring of their thought; their splendid
achievement in literature, art and culture; their love of truth and beauty
and freedom; the basic values that they set up; their understanding of
the life's mysterious ways; their toleration of other ways than theirs;
their capacity to absorb other peoples and their cultural accomplishments,
synthesize them and develop a varied and mixed culture; nor can we forget
the myriad experiences which have built up our ancient race and lie embedded
in our subconscious minds"
HENRICH ZIMMER declares- " We of the Occident are about to arrive at crossroads that was reached by the thinkers of India hundreds of years before Christ "8
TROY WILSON ORGAN is wonderstruck at the strange amalgam that India is. He observes: "Probably nowhere else do people live in so many centuries simultaneously. Sun worship and atomic research, Ox carts and jet planes, Astrology and theoretical physics, Magic and modern medicine, Ultra-modern multistoreyed buildings and mud huts-- These do mix in India."9
ARNOLD TOYENBEE who surveyed the history of the human race predicts: " In 50 years, the world would be under the hegemony of the U.S.A. but in the 21st century, as religion captures the place of technology, it is possible that India the conquered will conquer the conqueror... It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in self- destruction of the human race. If human race has to be saved, it has to embrace the Hindu way".10
ASHBY PHILIP of Princeton University echoes: "The Hindu argument that all religions are equally valid may well sweep the world in the next 25 years. It may well be that within the foreseeable future, it will be Hinduism which will be challenging Christianity not only in India but in the west as well. Hinduism indeed has a new vitality not only suitable for defense but also adaptable for offense against Western religions" 11
HEGEL, the great German philosopher agrees: "India has created a special momentum in world history as a country to be searched for"12
OPPENHEIMER, the great World Scientist who was responsible for the development of the atom bomb says:- " Access to the Vedas is the greatest privelege this century may claim over all previous centuries. There is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life; It will be the solace of my death"13
CARL SEGAN, the famous Astro -physicist observes:- " The Hindu religion is the Only One of the World's great faiths dedicated to the idea that cosmos itself indergoes an immense, indeed an infinite number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern cosmology... And, while our intelligence has recently provided us with awesome powers, it is not yet clear that we have the wisdom to avoid our own self-destruction".14
RABINDRANATH TAGORE, the Nobel Laureatepredicted " India is destined to be the teacher of all lands" 15
ROMAN ROLLAND, another Nobel Laureate states " If there is one face on this earth where all the dreams of living men and women have found a home from the very earliest days when man and woman began to dream of existence, it is India... For more than 30 centuries, the tree of vision, with all its thousand branches and their millions of twigs, has sprung from this torrid land, the burning womb of the Gods. It renews itself tirelessly showing no signs of decay" 16
WILL DURANT declares " Nothing should more deeply shame the modern student than the recency and inadequacy of his acquaitance with India...This the India that patient scholarship is now opening up like a new intellectual continent to that Western mind which only yesterday thought civilization an exclusive European thing" 17
N.A. PALKIWALA, the eminent jurist says " India is eternal, everlasting. Though the beginnings of her numerous civilizations go so far back in time that they are lost in the twilight of history, she has the gift of perpetual youth. Her culture is ageless and is as relevant to this present 20th century as it was to the 20th century before Christ"18
MR. HARCHARAN SINGH JOSH, President of the Indian Council of World Affairs said in a recent seminar on " Ethical and moral values in business and professions" organized by the London borough of Croydon at Croydon College, referred to India's record of representative institutions. said " India's heart still beats for justice, liberty, equality, fraternity and tolerance, even when many countries , including those in the neighbourhood, have cast off democracy and assumed open or veiled dictatorship under the impact of religious fundamentalism. The West has often judged Asian nations struggling to remove poverty, hunger, ignorance by yardsticks which they themselves took a few centuries to evolve while they built their wealth and prosperity on ruthless exploitation of labor and enslaved nations. Their preachings of human rights, patent laws and other similar impositions on struggling developing nations, therefore sound hollow" 19
To conclude : Man to remain as human must have religious belief; Man to avert degenerating into a beast must have religious belief which regulates human behavior to be true to himself and to the world around him. And, religion seeks to help you to keep your records straight in this world and in this life so that when the eschatological time arrives, you can look forward to stand before God for receiving a favorable final judgement.
Notes:
7.-Discovery of India" ( p. 187) by Jawaharlal Nehru, Doubleday &
Co., Garden City, NY,1960
8. The Philosophies of India by Heinrich Zimmer, Columbia University,
Bollingen Series, xxxvi. Pub. Joseph Campbell, NY,1974
9. "Hinduism-its historical development" by Troy Wilson Organ , Prof.
of philosophy, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, Pub: Barron's Educational
Series Inc.,Woodbury, NY, 1974
10. Address delivered by Armold Toyenbee, Edinburgh University in 1952
11 "Christian Century" (p.2) by Ashby Philip of Princeton University
Pub: LIFE Magazine
12.Hegel
13. Quoted in News India Times datedDecember 8,1995 (p.55)
14, 15, 16. 17 and 18 : Quoted in News India Times dated December 8,1995
(p.55)
19. Quoted in The Hindu International Edition dated February 18,1996
(P.6)
3. TITUMALIRUM
CHOLAI - PART 2
Sampath Rengarajan
thirumAlirunchOlai,the manifestation of thirumaal or Lord Vishnu: This hill is considered to host maal or thirumaal or lord vishnu. The tamil literature " paripAdal" says that people used to worship at the direction of this hill from wherever they are, believing that such worship is directed to worshipping and reaches Lord Vishnu who is living as this hills HIMself. People believed that Lord Vishnu is permanently residing in this hill and hence worshipped from all the remote places around and wherever they are just by looking at the direction of this hill hoping that Vishnu at the center of these worship will accept their worship from this hill and bless them. This is conveyed as
"mAyON oththalin nilaiththE
senRu thozhugal seer kaNdu paNi manamE ..."
i.e. considering this nilai or hill station AS equivalent to mAyOn or thirumaal and nilaiththE senRu thozhugal is worshipping towards such direction (nilaththE is both at the direction and as the hill station used twice but written once). thus believing that this hill is mAyOn people worshipped at the direction this hill was situated from where ever they are.
AndAL delivered 10 pAsurams in nAchiyAr thirumozhi on this kshEthram praising Lord kaLLazhagar. Among his HIS various manifestations, it is also believed that Lord Vishnu is in the form of this hill. This is conveyed earlier in paripAdal explicitly. In Srimath Bagwath geetha Lord Krishna says that among kunRu's or hillock he is in the form of mEru. AndAL expresses this sentiment in her first pAsuram on thirumAlirunchOlai kaLLazhagar.
cinthurac cempodipOl"thirumaaliruNY chOlaiyenkum" - in thirumAlirun chOlai (azhagar malai) where ever you look
thirumaaliruNY chOlaiyenkum,
inthira kOpankaLE
ezhunthumparan^ thittanavaal,
mantharam naattiyanRu
mathurakkozhuNY caaRukoNda
suntharath thOLudaiyaan
chuzhalaiyinin RuythunkolO! (2) 1 nAchchiyaar thirumozhi
There are also other deeper meanings in this pAsuram: We would like to atleast see his shoulders (in the form of this azhagar malai) that saved the dEvas when surrendered the other day (aNdAL compares this hill to the shoulders of the Lord who saved dEvAs by supporting the mEru hill on HIS shoulders in his koorma avathAram). (is it possible that she was always making garland for the Lord such that She can put it only on the most suitable and majestic shoulder of this perumaal). But the butterflies with their red color spread out and hovered over this hill makes it invisible to my sight. Oh what is this misfortune ? In certain tamil ilakkiyam it is commonly said that " avan naatil kunRum kodiyavO onRum thOnRaa?" when thalaivi (the female) goes out to see the thalaivan to his country but fails to see him. However "thalaivi" or the female would like to see a kunRu or hillock that would have seen him last ? In this case aNdAL touches that sentiment as she goes around to several kshEthrams and is unable to see her thalaivan the Lord and when she hears that HE is present in this hill, she came here and is unable to see him but she would have felt happy to see the hill that hosts him. She is unable to see the hill also as they are covered by the butterflies allover. It is also observe in an another way that the hill looks like a mad elephant (so strong and tall and majestic). It is customary to apply senthooram on the foreheads of mada yAnai or mad elephant. aNdAL compares the red blanket provided by the butterflies as the senthooram applied to the strong hills that is standing similar to a mad elephant. This hill ia also known as vrishabAthri and the details are discussed in part4. Periyaazhwaar comparess "sinthura milangath than thiruneRRimEL" in his pasuram and comapres the senthuram as applied to Lord'S thiru neRRi or fore head.
They (dEvars) brought the manthara malai with the help of Sri Garudan to the thirup pARkadal and placed it in the centre of thirup pARkadal or nucleus of the whole universe (the whole universe is considered thirup pARkadal by many realised souls (both srivaishnava faith and non srivaishnava faith) and for symbolising this the count in santhiyAvandhanam is routed through the 10 peripheral joints of the 4 fingers considering them as the periphery of the universe and excluding the middle joints as they are considered as mEru malai. It is believed that noone must cross over mEru malai as a mark of respect and one can only go around it. mEru malai is even now considered to be the nucleus of the universe by these souls (as per science it is nothing but dense particles or a black hole that is in the centre of this universe and no physical object can possibly cross it) As a respect for the malai no one ever will cross it even while they are traveling or doing japam, while counting gAyathri japam. Same way while many ahObila mutt followers do ashtAksharam as a part of their nitya karmA they also count the 10 external joints of the fingers and exclude the two middle joints of long finger and ring finger considering them as perumal and pirAtti in an anushtAnam that one goes around in pradhakshinam of the divya dampathis. The hill that was so strong and powerful that when it was used as the agitator, it churned the sea in such a way that the sea by itself will bring out and surface its rich contents. It is also conceived that HE agitated the unagitable philosophies and brought the best out of them through HIS charam slOkam of varAha avathAram and that HE alone can do so with HIS supreme nature and that all the philosophies are born out of HIM only. It is also contented that the amirtham is nothing but the extract of the thirup pARkadal while the precious and sweet extract (madhura kozhunchAru) was the piraati HERself who went to perumal. A thought comes to the mind that amirtham might have got its properties due to its association with piraati in the ocean bed ? This is also summarized by thirumangai on Lord Oppiliappan as "viNNAvar amuthuNNa amuthil varum peNNamuthuNda emperumAnE" ie the comparison is such that though the dEvas thought that they got the best out of churning the ocean it is still the Lord who got the best out of the thirup pARkadal ie the piraati and that piraati's presence with HIM glorifies HIS opulence.
At the outset one can read the meaning collectively as "Lord Azhagar with HIS thiN thOL (or majestic shoulders that helped dEvAs churn the ocean but then served HIM ultimately (by bringing piraati on board with HIM in offering HIS divya darsaNam to us) yielded me. Thus with his opulence HE also spreads out his trap for me & also at the same time hides and denies me the sight (or divya darsanam) of HIM as the "thirumalai" by using the butterflies to blanket and cover them. I am saddened by this oodal and will I ever get to survive this separation ?
AT the outset AndAL also compares this hill to the Lord thirumaal (and his shoulders) or vishnu HIMself as similar to the belief summarised in "paripadal"
AndAL thiruvadikaLE saraNam
anathasayanan samEthara sridEvi sundaravalli thaayaar kaLLazhagar thiruvadikaLE
saraNam
Sampath Rengarajan
