Dear sri vaishNava perunthagaiyeer,
I was going through the mudhal thiru andhaadhi paasurams for their specialties
[of poigai aazhvaar] as suggested by my good friend sri T.Madhavan swamy of
triplicane. I was struck by the greatness of this wonderful paasuram no 74,
which I want to share with you all.
[Incidentally sri madhavan swamy is also the proofreader of the 4000
prabhandham book published by sri vara mangai naachchiyaar sabha triplicane
chennai. This is the book, which I refer / use regularly].
First the lines of paasuram no 74.
ERRaan puLLoornthaan eyileriththaan maarvidanthaan
neeRRaan nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan - kooRRorupaal
mangaiyaan poo magaLaan vaar sadaiyaan neeL mudiyaan
gangaiyaan neeL kazhalaan kaappu.
As stated in this aazhvaar's thanian he is really a kavignar pOr Eru - a
warring lion, or a warring ox - rishabham - among poets - a "poet par
excellence". These words aptly and fully describe the marvel in this paasuram.
Nowlet us go into the details how this verse is great.
1. In the first line, there are four words, fours past tense verbs -
vinaich choRkaL. In the next three lines four pairs of nouns are given
[ezhuvaai]. [Just to recall, in the previous post on the special paasuram it
was first two lines nouns and second two lines verbs]. Here the same is in
reverse order.
The order of giving four verbs is another special viz. The first and thirdverbs
are pertaining to sivan's actions. The second and fourth verbs are pertaining
to naaraayaNan's actions.
Similarly the four pairs of nouns in lines 2, 3, and four are also in the same
alternating way - first sivan, then naaraayaNan, third sivan, fourth
naaraayaNan, and so on.
This is one specialty in the paasuram construction.
Now let us see how it is appearing actually.
Related to sivan related to naaraayaNan
verbs
ERRaan puLLoornthaan
eyileriththaan maarvidanthaan
nouns
neeRRaan nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan
kooRRorupaal mangaiyaan poo magaLaan
vaar sadaiyaan neeL mudiyaan
gangaiyaan neeL kazhalaan
Now mix the 2 verbs and the four nouns of sivan - you have eight sentenceseach
standing on its own. Similar is for naaraayaNan.
sivan:
neeRRaan ERRaan
neeRRaan eyileriththaan
kooRRorupaal mangaiyaan ERRaan
kooRRorupaal mangaiyaan eyileriththaan
vaar sadaiyaan ERRaan
vaar sadaiyaan eyileriththaan
gangaiyaan ERRaan
gangaiyaan eyileriththaan
naaraayaNan:
nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan puLLoornthaan
nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan maarvidanthaan
poo magaLaan puLLoornthaan
poo magaLaan maarvidanthaan
neeL mudiyaan puLLoornthaan
neeL mudiyaan maarvidanthaan
neeL kazhalaan puLLoornthaan
neeL kazhalaan maarvidanthaan
2. Coming to the second specialty in the paasuram construction
Related to sivan related to naaraayaNan specialty in common between two
ERRaan puLLoornthaan vaahanam - vehicle
eyileriththaan maarvidanthaan act of destruction
neeRRaan nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan colour of body
kooRRorupaal mangaiyaan poo magaLaan identity with wives
vaar sadaiyaan neeL mudiyaan hair care
gangaiyaan neeL kazhalaan body part special
How it is, we will be able to appreciate more, when we take the meaning.
Now to go for meanings:
ERRaan - (1) sivan, (2) one who accepted, (3) one who has the ox as his
transport vehicle - ERu +aan - ERu - the rishaBham - the kaaLai.
puLLoornthaan - to be split as puL oornthaan - one who travels on the bird- puL
- garudan - oornthaan - crawled - garudan does not crawl but flies -it is
poetic license to say flying as oorthal - crawling.
eyil eriththaan - burnt the boundary wall of thripuram - eyil means boundary
wall - madhiL suvar.
maarvidanthaan - maarbu idanthaan - broke open the chest - ba - va
interchanging is permitted both in tamil and sanskrit grammar.
neeRRaan - thiruneeru poosiyavan - one who adorns the sacred ashes all over his
body and by virtue of that white colour in appearance
nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan - nizhal is shadow, mani is gem, vaNNaththaan is
coloured person - here it means one who is dark in colourand shiny, like the
blue jaguar.
kooRRorupaal mangaiyaan - kooru is part of the body, oru paal is one
side,mangaiyaan is one who possess/ has the lady -full meaning - one who has
the lady in part of his body - ardha naareesvaran.
poo magaLaan - poo is flower, magal is daughter, magaLaan is one who owns her -
one who owns the daughter of the flower - mahaalakshmi - born out of lotus
flower.
vaar sadaiyaan - vaar is belt - sadai is the hairdo - one who has his hairdo in
belt like strips.
neeL mudiyaan - one who has long hairdo.
gangaiyaan - one who supports river ganges in his head.
neeL kazhalaan - one who has very long foot - in his thrivikarama avathaaram
lord had such a big foot that the whole world was measured with his one foot.
Such big feeted lord.
Now go back to each of the 16-word combination above, and you will be ableto
appreciate the uniqueness in this paasuram.
3. This 'nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan' is a very special usage available here.
Nizhal is shadow and is always dark and cool. MaNi is gem and bright in colour.
Sri uththamoor swamy quotes nizhal mani is blue coloured gem which hasblue
cool, at the same time bright rays. Neela neeradha samaneeyan.
4. nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan' - How dark shadow and bright gem both can be
combined. Just think of 'agalagillEn enru alarmEl mangai uRai maarba' - she is
golden hued. She shines as a bright gem in the chest of the dark body ofthe
lord. That is why this special usage of nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan. Learned
bhagavathaas can quote availability of this particular 'special' usage in other
paasurams.
5. This nizhal maNi vaNNaththaan' and kooRRorupaal mangaiyaan can also be
attributed to naaraayaNan, for when she is inseparable from the chest,
naturally she also forms part of his body - mangaikku oru kooru koduththavan
thaanE. Then that is also another additional special point here.
Hope it is enjoyable. We will see more from mudhal thiru andhaadhi in
subsequent post.
Dhasan
Vasudevan m.g.
|
Home Page
http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia |
ramanuja-subscribe@yahoogroups.com To subscribe to the list |