Pearls of Wisdom ~ Azhaikindran Arangan Episode June 18th 2012


The basis of bhakthi is namakeerthanam. This is the only path the 12 azhwars showed us. The period and the places where these azhwars manifested were all different but all of them attained the bhagavan using the bhagavannamakeerthanam as the only means. Bhakthi means bhAvam. bhAvam is actually the emotion that arises in one's mind. These emotions when centered around the bhagavath vishayam is bhakthi. What exactly is the bhAvam contained. The relationship a mother has with her child, say if a small child is sleeping in a room the mother doesn't sleep at all, when the child turns this way or that in its sleep the mother wakes up. The mother doesn't think that milk has to be given to the child at 8 am or 10 am, instead whenever child cries the mother gives milk. 


She can find out if the child is hungry or tired. If the child cries due to stomach pain or headache, the mother takes the child onto her shoulders and worries with her mind. Starting with such a relationship, once the child becomes an adult and is a manager with 100s of people working under him, as he returns home the first question his mother asks, 'enda saptiada'..Have you had food? This relationship has to be given a name and that is called "VATHSALYAM". 

Thus all the mahans of the world who wish to show the kripa of the bhagavan usually would use something which is known to describe the unknown. How will perumal eyes be, like a lotus, legs be, like a lotus. Because we have not seen the eyes of the bhagavan nor the legs of the bhagavan we use the lotus to describe it. So a thing that is not seen nor experienced can only be mentioned using a known thing. "Petra thaiyinum ayina seiyum" as Thirumangai azhwar says, bhagavans kripa is more than a mother. Say there is a manager or boss, the people working under him will have a relationship as yajamana viswasam. This is called dasam or dasyam. Because the subordinate works under the manager performing the duties as ordained by the manager, the relationship is called dasam or dasyam. There is a friend, who is always with us, tells us to do the good things, whenever there is a danger he is close to us and helps, a friend should not ask if you require a help, at the moment it should come on its own and this is called "natpu" or sakhyam. The "natpu" should be like 2 bodies but with a single mind. Thus the relationship between friends is "sakhyam"; the relationship between mother and child is "vathsalyam"; the relationship between the manager and his subordinate is called "dasyam", we say. Thus the relationship between a lover and his love is called "kathal" or premai. Some have performed bhakthi thinking of the bhagavan as a child and this form of bhakthi is called "vathsalya" bhakthi. For Yashoda the vathsalya bhakthi came of its own accord as Sri Krishna came as her own child. But amongst the azhwars, periazhwar sang the pillai paruvam of Sri Krishna as if he was his own. Similarly thirukoshtiyur soumyanarayanaperumal, the place thirukoshtiyur itself is being treated as the place of birth of Sri Krishna as if it were  Gokulam itself. "Vanna Madangal Soozh Thirukoshtiyur Kannan Kesavan Nambi Pirandhinil". In the bhagavatham "Haridra Churna tailabdhiHi". The Gopikas ran, "citrambarah pathi sikha-cyuta-malya-varshah nandalayam" - ambaram means dresses, the colourful picturesque dresses worn by the gopikas, their hairs braided with flowers (pathi sikha-cyuta-malya-varshah nandalaya), they ran towards the home of nandagopan which azhwar describes as told by Suka brahmam as "ODuvAr, vizhuvAr, uhandu AlippAr nADuvArhaLum" likewise azhwar describes the childhood of Sri Krishna in Tamil. Periazhwar thought of Sri Krishna as his own child. Similarly there are devotees who think of the bhagavan as a friend. For Arjuna, Sri Krishna came as a charioteer and why was he called Parthasarathy, he was a friend and a friend can come to help a friend in need. For Arjuna and krishna the relationship is friendship, therefore friends will eat together, sleep together and talk several things together such a natpu they had together. The seva hanumar did for Sri Rama is called dasyam. As a dasan, Sri Hanuman did all the things that Sri Rama had asked him to do and does it beautifully. "Go and find Sita" as Rama instructued. We find Hanuman possessing "Buddhir Balam yasas dairyam we find all this in Hanumar. Such a great power of the mind, yukthi, courage, strength and able to do the right thing at the right time. In the ashoka vanam, looking at Sita from afar he thought he should not approach her directly as she may be afraid of him, he hides himself first and listens to what Ravana speaks to Sita first, to find out the strength of Ravana he enters the court of Ravana, as we see all this the qualities of a dasyam is well founded in Hanumar.

Likewise some mahans will be sitting and performing dhyanam on the paramAtma residing in their heart. This bhAvam of being in dhyanam is called shantha bhAvam. Similarly the bhAvam which is like that of a nayaka-nayaki is called prema bhAvam. Such a prema bhaktha we saw in the Gopikais in Srimad Bhagavatham. Meera as a bhaktha we have seen, similarly Sri Andal pAsarum depicts the nayaka-nayaki bhAvan in nacchiar thirumozhi with very beautiful pAsurams. Sri Andal however was a girl, but we see nammazhwar, Thirumangaiazhwar also performing the bhakthi towards the perumal with a shringara bhAvam as well. Nammazhwar right from his childhood performed meditation being in yoga under a tamarind tree for 16 years. Even that is not surprising as Thirumangaiazhwar  but holding a sword in his hands had the bhAvam of meditating upon the perumal in his heart. In the Bhagavatham we see there is an asuran called vritrasura who also performed such a bhakthi. If we go to Madurai we see that the important divyadesam being Tirumazhizhancholai where the perumal is kazhazhaghar. We see a very picturesque mountain like the chitrakoota, nearby in Thirumogur where there is Sri Kalamegha perumal - if we see the mountain itself its like an elephant hill, like the Gajendrazhwar. Koodazhazhagar, Thirukoshtiyur are divyadesams in Madurai. Abhimanasthalam is Madanagopalaswami. When we go to worship kazhazhaghar in Tirumazhizhancholai we see a samadhi (brindavanam) there and we find that it is named for Natanagopalanayaki swamigal. In the recent past there was one such who performed bhakthi in a nayaka-nayaki bhAvam and lived in Madurai, his fathers name was Rangachariar, mothers name was lakshmibai, they named the child as Ramabhadran. Ramabhadran right from his childhood was performing yogabhyAsam, prAnayamam, asanas and because he used to do this from childhood itself he got a name called Sadananda siddhar. Performing yatra to various divyadesams he comes to a kshetram called Alwarthirunagari, the avatara sthalam of Nammazhwar. In this place there was a mahan by name of Vadabhadra araIar and when Sadananda siddhar was speaking to him the depth and ruchi of bhakthi was realised by him. There was no use just trying to control the asanas and the pranas without knowing the depth of bhakthi. Sadananda siddhar takes upadesam from him and is now given a dasar nama as Natanagopal. Natanagopal was born in 9-1-1843, Marghazhi masam, mrigasirisha nakshatram and when he came to Srirangam always he used to sing to the perumal with a nayaki bhAvam. But the difference between him and thirumangaiazhwar is that though thirumangaiazhwar performed in a nayaki bhAvam himself his swaroopam did not change, he had a sword in his hands with a moustache whereas natanagopal heart was full of mrudu (soft) swabhavam and shringara bhAvam, the way he used to relate to people was very soft and graceful. So whomsovers chittam has become mrudu (soft) and graceful he becomes the adhikari of this kind of bhakthi. Just like showering love and playing tenderly with a small child, similarly he showered love to the bhagavan and did not just perform pooja. You are so beautiful, you have performed so many leelais, thinking so all the time was his bhAvam. Thirumangaiazhwar did not change his swaroopam, nammazhwar was in yogam, Meera and Sri Andal were women, vritrasura but the difference in natanagopal was that he had a bun on his head, wearing a dress like a woman, anklets on his legs and always dancing. Being in a nayaki bhAvam not only in his heart but in his Adai, alankaram, vesha bhushanam as well made him unique from the others. Although he was christened as ramabhadran, later as natanagopal and only when he came to Srirangam where at that time there was Sriranganarayana Jeeyar, natanagopal whose mother tongue was saurashtra sang many many keerthanams in saurashtra. He was told that he will need to obtain the kripa of Sriranganathar and the only easy way to get that would be to sing HIS glories. So he sang many keerthanams and had many disciples and performed day and night bhajans. He even mentioned the time of his siddhi before itself and he also determined the place of his thiruarasu as well. That place is Tirumazhizhancholai the way to go to kazhazhaghar sannadhi. As we walk along the path we can see the swami's thiruarasu on our left. The remarkable thing about him is that he was born on 9-1-1843 and attained siddhi on 8-1-1914 same date. The last keerthanai he sang in saurashtra language was 'Look there, the bhagavan is coming on the Garuda bhagavan to take me, can you not see HIM". Being the month of marghazhi the day he attained siddhi was Vaikunta ekadasi, next day when we was cremated it was mrigasirisha, his birth and death nakshatrams were the same as well as the english month was same, that was the greatness of this mahan. The cymbals he had used, his anklets, his dresses worn in a nayaki bhavam are all kept at his samadhi even today for bhakthas to have darshan, this natanagopal also came to our Sri Ranganathar to become natanagopalanayaki which shows the greatness of our Ranganathar.
Radhe Radhe
Subham!
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