Part Three. Writings from the Arya (1914 – 1921
South Indian Vaishnava Poetry
Nammalwar. The Supreme Vaishnava Saint and Poet
Maran, renowned as Nammalwar (“Our Saint”) among the
Vaishnavas and the greatest of their saints and poets, was born in a small town
called Kuruhur, in the southernmost region of the Tamil country – Tiru-nel-veli
(Tinnevelly). His father, Kari, was a petty prince who paid tribute to the
Pandyan King of Madura. We have no means of ascertaining the date of the Alwar’s
birth, as the traditional account is untrustworthy and full of inconsistencies.
We are told that the infant was mute for several years after his birth.
Nammalwar renounced the world early in life and spent his time singing and
meditating on God under the shade of a tamarind tree by the side of the village
temple.
It was under this tree that he was first seen by his
disciple, the Alwar Madhura-kavi,– for the latter also is numbered among the
great Twelve, “lost in the sea of Divine Love”. Tradition says that while
Madhura-kavi was wandering in North India as a pilgrim, one night a strange
light appeared to him in the sky and travelled towards the South. Doubtful at
first what significance this phenomenon might have for him, its repetition
during three consecutive nights convinced him that it was a divine summons and
where this luminous sign led he must follow. Night after night he journeyed
southwards till the guiding light came to Kuruhur and there disappeared.
Learning of Nammalwar’s spiritual greatness he thought that it was to him that
the light had been leading him. But when he came to him, he found him absorbed
in deep meditation with his eyes fast closed and although he waited for hours
the Samadhi did not break until he took up a large stone and struck it against
the ground violently. At the noise Nammalwar opened his eyes, but still remained silent. Madhura-kavi then put to him the following enigmatical
question, “If the little one (the soul) is born into the dead thing
(Matter)[[The form of the question reminds one of Epictetus’ definition of man,
“Thou art a little soul carrying about a corpse.” Some of our readers may be
familiar with Swinburne’s adaptation of the saying, “A little soul for a little
bears up the corpse which is man.”]] what will the little one eat and where will
the little one lie?” to which Nammalwar replied in an equally enigmatic style,
“That will it eat and there will it lie.”
Subsequently Nammalwar permitted his disciple to live
with him and it was Madhura-kavi who wrote down his songs as they were composed.
Nammalwar died in his thirty-fifth year, but he has achieved so great a
reputation that the Vaishnavas account him an incarnation of Vishnu himself,
while others are only the mace, discus, conch etc. of the Deity.
From the philosophical and spiritual point of view, his
poetry ranks among the highest in Tamil literature. But in point of literary
excellence, there is a great inequality; for while some songs touch the level of
the loftiest world-poets, others, even though rich in rhythm and expression,
fall much below the poet’s capacity. In his great work known as the
Tiru-vay-moli (the Sacred Utterance) which contains more than a thousand
stanzas, he has touched all the phases of the life divine and given expression
to all forms of spiritual experience. The pure and passionless Reason, the
direct perception in the high solar realm of Truth itself, the ecstatic and
sometimes poignant love that leaps into being at the vision of the “Beauty of
God’s face”, the final Triumph where unity is achieved and “I and my Father are
one” – all these are uttered in his simple and flowing lines with a strength
that is full of tenderness and truth.
The lines which we translate below are a fair specimen
of the great Alwar’s poetry;[[ Sri Aurobindo’s translation of “Nammalwar’s
Hymn of the Golden Age” appears in Translations, volume 5 of THE
COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO. – Ed.]] but it has suffered considerably
in the translation,– indeed the genius of the Tamil tongue hardly permits of an
effective rendering, so utterly divergent is it from that of the English
language.
silent. Madhura-kavi then put to him the following enigmatical
question, “If the little one (the soul) is born into the dead thing
(Matter)[[The form of the question reminds one of Epictetus’ definition of man,
“Thou art a little soul carrying about a corpse.” Some of our readers may be
familiar with Swinburne’s adaptation of the saying, “A little soul for a little
bears up the corpse which is man.”]] what will the little one eat and where will
the little one lie?” to which Nammalwar replied in an equally enigmatic style,
“That will it eat and there will it lie.”