Introduction ? Continued.
We are continuing with the Introduction, since there are some
additional points that I would like to cover.
We will see in Slokam 4 of the avatArikA (Introduction) of svAmi
deSikan to his tAtparya ratnAvaLi, that he profusely praises the
tamizh language, and gives various reasons for its greatness. And
yet he has taken the effort to write a summary of the tamizh
tiruvAimozhi in the samskRt language in the form of tAtparya
ratnAvaLi. This leads one to wonder about the reason for this work.
One writer notes that the reason might be found in the relative
status accorded to the two languages at the time of deSika. samskRt
was the common language used for communicating religious and
philosophical ideas at that time. This was even more true at the
time of rAmAnuja, partly explaining why he had used samskRt as the
sole language to communicate his ideas and philosophy, especially to
his advaitic opponents. The samskRt language had established itself
as the language of the royal courts throughout the country. svAmi
deSikan wanted to share the divine joy given to us by nammAzhvar,
with the community of devoted scholars, especially non-vaishNavaite
scholars, who did not understand tamizh. This could also explain why
he extracted the essence of tiruvAimozhi into a condensed form (one
Slokam for each decad, with one phrase in the Slokam for each pASuram
of tiruvAimozhi giving the key guNa that is enjoyed in that pASuram),
and presented it in the form of tAtparya ratnAvaLi.
As much as svAmi deSikan chose the samskRt language to communicate
the message of nammAzhvAr's tiruviAomizhi to the devoted that were
non-tamizh knowing people, he probably also had as his target those
who did not accept tamizh as a valid language for praising the
Lord. SvAmi deSikan's vociferous defense of the appropriateness of
the tamizh language for praising the Lord, as expressed in Slokam 4
of the avatArikA that we will study in the near future, confirms that
this latter view was prevalent at his time. He uses the language
that they considered `appropriate' - samskRt, and praises the
devotional outpouring of nammAzhvAr in the tamizh language as the
dramiDopanishad ? the upanishad in the tamizh language, and gives it
the status of vedAnta. He has also referred to tiruvAimozhi
as `samhitA', and as `dramiDa nigama', in different places. In fact,
svAmi deSikan has expressly stated that he has found that AzhvArs'
SrI sUkti-s (divine outpourings) have helped him clarify many points
of doubt in the vedic texts.
In addition to tAtparya ratnAvaLi, svAmi deSikan has composed another
companion work called dramiDopanishad sAram. As the name conveys,
this is a further level of extraction (sAram) of the bhagavad-guNa-s
(attributes of bhagavAn) conveyed in tiruvAimozhi, perhaps for the
benefit of those who may not find the time to go through and enjoy
the guNa-s extracted from each pASuram and conveyed through tAtparya
ratnAvaLi. While tAtparya ratnAvaLi consists of 130 Sloka-s, the
dramiDopanishad sAra consists of only 26 Sloka-s. In this work,
svAmi deSikan only describes the guNa conveyed by each `pattu' (the
group of approximately 100 pASuram-s). For each groups of 100
pASuram-s, he has allocated two Sloka-s. The first one describes the
guNa sung in the given pattu (group of 100), and the second Sloka
gives the connectivity between this pattu and the previous one. We
will get into the details of the organization of the Sloka-s when we
deal with the dramiDopanishad sAra, after completing the tAtparya
ratnAvaLi.
SrI azhagiya maNavALa jIyar has also composed a work in samskRt,
titled dramiDopanishad sa'ngati, consisting of one Slokam for each
tiruvAimozhi (each decad). However, this gives only the sequence of
the theme in each tiruvAimozhi, and does not identify the key guNa of
emperumAn that is praised in each pASuram.
-dAsan kRshNamAcAryan
(To be continued)
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