Chapter 3 - Thiruvathigai Veeratanam or Tiruvatikai Virattanam (Hymn 38)

I

The starting point of the next hymn (38) is his remembrance of his past disregard for the Lord; but here, there is no sorrowful feeling of remorse. The disturbance, therefore, in his mind has come to an end. “Will I ever slight Him even for a moment”?—that is the refrain of the verses in this hymn. It amounts to saying he shall not. “I live in the hope of being crowned with the feet of the Lord”, he cries (1). Is there any one in this world who does not know his father or Lord?”—he asks (1). He, it is true, calls himself a foolish dog (1), but this is an expression of self-surrender—revelling in the service of God rather than an expression of self-condemnation. There is a feeling of hope colouring this hymn. The poet escapes from the burden of sinfulness and asserts, “What does it matter if I had forgotten in the past, my Lord? What if I had remembered Him then? Today I live happily blessed with a heart which shall never forget Him” (2). His is an experience of bliss. The Lord is as precious as gold, good rubies, white and shining pearls and He is like the coral mountain (2). He is the nearest of the nearest, the father (and the mother) (3); nay, He is the father of his father (4)—perhaps the saint feels that his heritage has been purified. God is sweet like the sugarcane and the candy (3). He is everything sublime—the four directions, the wind, the fire, the sea and,the mountain top (4). He is the Great Beyond, who is at the same time the very ‘I’ (4). Like other great mystics, our poet revels in his feeling of identity with God. The identity and uniformity reveal the Absolute of the great law (vidhi) (4, 6). It is the law of union of the loving Lord inseparable from the loving saint (3). “Even he had been saved”, (7) this our saint had already expressed. The Lord, out of His love and pity, showers the blessing of salvation on the souls struggling in the sea of Karma (7).

He loves all, the sinner and the saint, and this harmony, our poet sees in its concrete form, in the matted hair of the Lord where sleep together the crescent moon and the serpent (3, 6). There is the eternal Grace in the form of the mother (3, 5, 6). He is the great father of the beautiful Muruka (5, 8) and He is with the Mother overflowing with beauty and sympathy (5). The sufferings, He destroys. Has He not swallowed the poison and does not the throat shine ever blue? (1, 7). He has killed the elephant and covered Himself with its skin (1, 6). He is the Lord of the bull of Dharma (1, 10). He has destroyed the three cities, the three castles of the air (7, 9). Egoism can never stand before Him and the pride of Ravana came to naught (9). He dances on the burning ghat (1) with the bones as His ornament (10), that eternal dance of the Absolute spreading its hands (7) on the eight points of the compass, when nothing but that exists swallowing everything within its omnipresence. “I have disregarded Him in my speech. But all the same He is my lover though unknown to others. How can I slight Him even for a moment?” (10).

II

The Lord is impersonal and personal. The beauty of the Lord, like the red glow of sunset, captivates our poet’s heart (8). “Though He is the Lord of the Devas, He is mine” (8) exclaims the saint

III

Our poet feels that God has a special love for this Tamil land which lies on the South (8) and this probably makes him all the more happy. He repeats the significance of this name he has coined for the Lord, Tennan, by explaining it as the One whose mind never goes to the North, East or West. He is the Southerner on the crown of the great Southern Pandya, Netu Moran, the contemporary of Campantar. (8).