Chapter 13 - Thirunannilam or Tirunannilam (Hymn 98)

I

The ecstasy of experience in the harmony of God slowly starts to ebb away in the midst of the world of conflicts anil dualities. The feeling of harmony is still there, but the conflict becomes more pronounced at the subsequent stage. The Lord, however, is aware of the conflict and the need of the message of the harmony, and comes down on this earth to save the prodigals and the stray lambs, incarnating Himself in forms of beauty, in the images and the architecture of the temples. It is because of this according to Nampi Arurar, that the great Lord of varied feats and flowing love has become fond of the great temple of Nannilam.

II

The poet begins with the contraries in the physical world, viz., heat and cold, the symbols of all dualities of the world resulting in happiness and misery—“Tanniyal vemmaiyinan’ (1). Ye, He is the very harmony of the heat in the cold (according to another interoretation of the phrase) (1).

He is the beggar and clandestine lover and yet He is praised by the spiritual scholars of the righteous path (1). He woos two women and yet He is the ascetic of the mat-lock (2). He is the Lord of the Pallava capital, yet He loves the ordinary but sweet citv of Karuppur (3). He lives on alms but yet He is the Lord all the Universe (3). He sings the highest truths of the Vedas though a devil dancer (4). He kills Jalandhara with a discus; but He bestows the very same discus to the Lord of the Damsel of Earth i.e., Visnu (5). He is white with the ash but His throat is dark blue (6). His ruddy mat-lock hides a woman; yet He deprived Brahma of his greatness and head alike (6). He is the ascetic of the konrai flower decked mat-lock but He carries the battle-axe and covers Himself with the skin of the elephant He flayed (7). His mat-lock is a harmony of conflicting objects, the moon, flowers, serpent and the Ganges and He is the Lord of the Bull or Dharma (8). He fights with and blesses Arjuna (9). He crushes down Ravana and blesses him (10). Is not all this a vivid representation of His form of the Mother of Love and His form of Lordship—Umapati? (10).

This is He who is fond of the great temple of Nannilam, where come the great to fall at His feet and to praise Him (1); where the groves, like unto Him, reach the crescent moon, to adorn it, on their crown (2). There shines the harmony of plants and animals represented by the beautiful walk of the swan on the great lotus (7), the harmony of the varied flowers reflecting the divine harmony shining on the crown of the Lord (8) and the harmony of the festivities where throng the troupes of worldly relatives and the other-worldly tapasvins and Shaivites of our fold (9), the latter coming to serve with an outward form of strenous discipline but with an inward form of love, very much like the Lord going to Arjuna (9). This is the place where the temple was built by the great Cola King Cenkanan, the Lord of the Kaviri whose devastating flood was conquered and dammed so that it could be blissful in feeding the world (10) as another symbol of harmony, reflecting Shiva vanquishing and blessing Ravana (10).

Vedic scholars pray and worship (1,6) but anything is good for performing His loving worship, any green leaf and pure water (3). The worshippers take refuge in His feet with all their heart praising Him with many hymns, raising up their hands above their crown (4)—the trinity of thought, speech and art in the harmonious unity of worship. The poet is sure of the redemption of the world; The Lord becomes the very crown of the followers, the crown of those who contemplate on Him with a heart melting in love (3).

III

The riddle of contradictions has been solved in the very form of the Lord and the love of the Absolute. Our poet giving expression to this has gone beyond the sphere of contraries to the divine bliss of harmony and he feels that those who master this hymn will similarly enter like him, the great Beyond (11).