Chapter 25 - Thirupachilachiramam or Tiruppaccilacciramam (Hymn 17)

I

A feeling of depression overcomes the poet when in his worldly view he feels that the Lord is loosening His grips on him. Certain amount of bitterness rises in his mind against the Lord and he cries, “Is there no patron but He?” It is the privilege of a lover to feel sulky about the acts of his beloved and about what one feels as the indifference on the part of the other whether the indifference is real or not. Boudaries (Utal) according to Valluvar sweetens and hightens the joy of love. It really represents the attempt at overcoming the feeling of duality and as long as this does not lead to any breaking away, it leads to the final union and ecstasy. The duality has to be overcome by these means of love: the recurring moods of sulkiness are so many steps. The poet himself in the last verse assures us that the verses, though they may seem to be so on the surface, are not really songs of derision or reproach. He feels that the Lord should put up with this kind of speech from a follower like him. The interrogation, “Is there no Lord but He?” implies a negative answer that there is no other Lord.

Our poet here satirically gives a description of his absolute surrender to the Lord which inspires the interrogation, “Is there no other Lord?” when he feels that there is no loving response. It is a cry of despair in the midst of the darkness he feels enshrouding him when the beloved leaves him in the twinkling of an eye. This hymn is, therefore, important as revealing to us his self-surrender and the spiritual height reached by our poet thereby.

II

“I have dedicated my trikarana— my head, my tongue and my mind—to Him alone. I have ordained myself to Him and to the service unto His beautiful feet. There has been no pretension or cheating, herein. If 1 begin to describe it, it may look as though I am describing something ideal to be compared with something real and that way my description may appear to be an exaggeration and self praise whereas it is the barest truth” (1). “Uraittakkal uvamane okkum’ has been a problem for commentators. ‘Uvaman’ has been interpreted as the dumb being by Tamil Lexicon, which probably interprets the phrase to mean, “If I begin to describe, 1 have to become one like the dumb”. Others have taken it to mean that the Lord is, like unto Himself. A few have taken the ‘uvaman’ to mean a pretension, something which looks alike on the surface though not the same in reality. ‘Uvaman’ corresponds to the Sanskrit word ‘upama’, something with which a thing described is compared with and according to books on rhetoric the ‘upama, should be representing the high watermark of perfection in the field in which the comparison is attempted—‘Uyarntatan merre ullunkalai" (Tol., S., 1224). It is this meaning we have attempted to explain.

“I do not cry Mother or Father. I remain satisfied by calling you ‘my Lord’. ‘My Lord’, think also of me as one who still exists and show me an iota of your holy love” (2). (This cry of surrender may mean that he has no longer any attachment to his father or mother. Perhaps this interpretation is not very important in the present context of the hymn, though that meaning will support our assigning a later period to this hymn. It is better to interpret this cry as meaning that the poet has not taken refuge in the Lord as his father or mother but as his Lord and Master expecting no parental love but merely the protection and sustenance which the slave usually expects at the hands of the Lord completely effacing his individuality, having no personality of his own except that of the Lord, thinking of the Lord, speaking His praises and performing His services. In the Ramayana, as the Vaishnavites point out, when Sumitra, the mother of Laksmana, advises him to follow Rama to the forest, she specifically warns him against thinking of the relationship of Rama’s brotherhood and advises him to go after him as his slave and servant; for, the thought of blood-relationship will lead to egotism whilst the feeling of service will inspire complete self-surrender, making him oray, “Thy will, will be done”. It is this kind of self-surrender that our poet is also hinting at, when he himself cries to reach he ears of the Lord).

III

At this stage the poet seems to read the mind of the Lord in his own way. He feels that the Lord is thinking of saving the followers at a later stage. Here our saint as a great poet reaches a higher stage and makes his personal grief, the universal grief of all the Bhaktas. God’s procrastination makes him all the more bitter and he cries, “If He were to bless His followers only later on, is there no other Lord but He?” (2).

“I do not experience the firmly established truth of the Lord except when I embrace Him (or, as some others take it, “when the miseries batter on me’). ‘therefore, I thought, it was enough if my mind was always contemplating on Him in mental embrace. He is the Lord who destroys the obstructions and the three ‘malas’ as the three castles of the air, swallowing poison to save His followers. InspAe ot whatever we may say in extenuation or otherwise, if He is happy when He gains us and is sulky when He is not so profited, “is there no other Lord but He?” (3‘. The idea of lovers lurks behind this hymn. The poet is happy and sure of his safety and salvation when he, so to say, is in embrace with the Lord, that is in communion with Him and in contemplation on the Lord. He thinks this contemplation is enough to give this pleasure, but in a moment of depression such a contemplation fails and he cries in despair. The Lord also is happy and elated (ukantu) only when the soul surrenders unto Him and when He values it as the greatest gift. In interpreting the phrase ‘Cutar ulz” of Nammalvar (1/l/1), Ramanujar states that the feet of the Lord beam up with Light and Joy when the lost soul is recovered and received afresh by the Lord. The same idea seems to have been expressed by our poet’s phrase ‘Perrapotu ukantu’. Naturally it implies that the Lord will be despising Himself and feeling miserable when the soul is not thus recovered and saved;—-of course this is the only way in which we can express the feeling of the Lord, in a mundane way, though it may not be correct. The poet, therefore, feels that when he feels miserable losing the loving embrace of the Lord, the Lord Himself feels miserable and remorseful (3).

“The Lord does not speak out, his tongue does not utter words like these—‘these are our men: those are others; this is good: that is bad’, for He makes no such distinction. There is no external show of his love. He accepts many a people as their Lord for

Saving them all but there is not a word of sympathy. He gives not a single thing. “Is there no Lord but He?” (4).

This cry gives expression to the Lord’s love for all trying to save us all. It is the story of the prodigal son where the good receive no extra word of kinaness or any present. The feeling of worldy suffering makes the good soul also cry not out of jealousy but out of the misunderstood feeling of separation and indifference.

It is true, He is the destroyer of the three cities (5). But once the soul turns to Him with love, incessantly praising and contemplating on Him, from that moment, He feels for it and blesses it as His servant worthy of all praise; He feels indeed so much that its moment of separation is felt as the moment of His death. (Or, this may mean that He blesses the souls from the very moment of their dedication to Him, those who love Him so much as to feel the day of cessation of their services as the day of their death). If He, whatever we may say, leaves us separated in a twinkling of one eye, is there no Lord but He?” (5).

“I do not even step into the place where had walked the people performing tapas or sacrifice of evil or cruelty. The cruel and evil karmas will certainly destroy us. Sure of this conviction, I know only the tapas of service unto His feet and I know not any one else. This, my Lord knows. But He carries the chief weapon of Trident, (something like a Cross of suffering for us all) and does nothing but is besmearing us all with the ashes. If this is all He does, is there no other Lord but He?” (6). Here is an assertion of our poet’s complete self-surrender and he calls the Lord himself to bear witness to this—renunciation of all attachment signified by the purity of the besmeared allies—a revelation, by the way, of the great spiritual development reached by our poet. (6).

The poet’s heart-rending cry continues: (What is it that He can give?”‘—the Lord of the skull and the graveyard? If He appears to be all true but does only acts of falsehood, “Is there no other Lord but He?” (7). The falsehood is his disappointment. The beloved feels that He will never leave the lover; the anxiety of tile beloved imagines His separation against His promise and thus arises the accusation of playing false to the beloved (7).

“This is a fattening body. I will never conclude that it is permanent. I have turned inwards and relied upon the mind, contemplating on Him, as my prop. [I have bathed myself as it were in the group of your followers—i.e., I have been in communion with them. I praise and worship with my hand, fall at your feet and rise up a changed man—all this I do, day and night, in a world of contemplation or thought. If unconcerned He dances on the graveyard of corpses, holding a serpent in His hand, is there no other Lord but He?” Is this not what we have described elswhere as the Dance of the Absolute in the Heart of renunciation and Love? (8).

“O, my mind! you melt in love, run in joy and embrace Him to perform daily the services however menial they be. He blesses those who do not waste away all their appointed days and who before that day comes, invoke Him as “My Lord” even though they may be devoid of Love, “lhe great Man of mine!. If inspite of all that we may say, He does not put up with our faults and give us nothing, is there no Lord but He?” (9). This cry reveals a Lord of love who is at the same time the Lord of morals, the latter form appearing more stern to the followers when they turn worldwards. The beloved feels that the lover has misunderstood one’s playful acts and, therefore, has taken them seriously, as to mean His leaving away without any token of love.

In the moment of self-surrender when the poet is overcome by a feeling of renunciation, he contemplates on the form of the Lord, as the great Lord of renunciation, appearing with the loin-cloth and the finely powdered white ashes. By the force of this contemplation the vision of the Lord appears—the Lord of the sapphire throat—the Lord of Love, feasting on poison for others. The trikaranas of the poet are converted and transformed. “I speak of Him; I think of Him—I am always in His service (Tontan)—with all my mind. He holds the serpent in His hand—this Lord of Paccil. He accepts me as His servant. He has embraced me hard but if he were to loosen His embrace, is there no other Lord but He?” (10). (This interpretation proceeds on the basis of the reading ‘Pinippilar’: There is another reading ‘Panippilar’ when the phrase will mean “If He does not speak or order, is their no other Lord but He?”. ‘Pinippata’ may also mean that he accepted destroying the other fetters or diseases).

“Not only in this birth alone but in all the sevenfold births, I have been His servant and slave. I have become also the servant of His servants. I am His, by right. My heart melts in love. My Lord of Paccil who blesses those of rare fame! Pray, show me your russet feet! If He talks big and acts low, is there no Lord but He?” (11). Talking big and acting low mean the same thing as ‘Meyyare ottor poy ceyvatu (7)—to appear Truthful and to act Falsely.

“These are not words of reproach; these are not words of contempt. My fame has spread as of one who ever cries, ‘O, My Lord! (I have taken refuge in Him with all my trikaranas). Many a day I have fallen at His feet. I have spoken of Him with my own mouth and contemplated on Him with my mind. If the Lord will not put up with the words (of love) thus spoken by Aruran of Naval of fertile fields, is there no Lord but He?” (12).

V

Knowing His eternal relationship with us, taking refuge as of right in Him in all the three spheres of our activity—mind, body and tongue, all of wh ch sincerely hanker after Him, dedicating himself for ever and all the day and night to His services, and to the services of His followers, feeling as His beloved as though dead when separated from His service, never being in the company of others of wasteful tapas, the poet is seen at the height of his divine spirituality. It is not without significance that he applies his own description of the worshipful followers to himself (9 and 11). He includes other followers with Himself and utters the cry as the all piercing cry of the Lovers or Bhaktas (2). The cry goes up from his heart, when as the beloved of the Lord he feels His embrace loosening round him. In this way is also revealed the Love of the Lord—the Mad in love—the Lover of Lovers—the Lord who blesses those renouncing all their attachments and crying up to Him.

VI

The puranic personality of the Lord is described in this hymn, as explained above to fit it with the cry of his heart—the loin cloth (1, 10), the ashes (6, 10), the serpent in His hand, (8, 10), the madness (1), the destruction of the three cities (3, 5), the sapphire throat (3, 10), the trident (6), the skill (7), the graveyard (7, 8), the skeleton (7), the sacred thread (7), the mat-lock (7), the crescent moon (7), the form of art (vikirtar) (7), as opposed to Nature are all referred to.

VII

The beauty of the place is not forgetten; it appears as the very loving form of the Lord—the cool and natural tank full of swarming swans (2), (or the tank which transforms itself into our food whilst feeding the paddy fields and becoming the sap and the ripening there after into the paddy of the plants)—the tank which resounds with the swarming of birds of the fields of growing gold of paddy (4) where bathe the beautiful doll-like damsels (7). The beauty is also holiness and it is there those who have cut away all their attachment, throng and it is there the Lord blesses them.

VIII

The place is called ‘Paccilasramam’—the Asramam of Paccil, one of the parts of the country on the northern banks of Coleroon, perhaps reminiscent of the Asramas of the Rsis described in the Ramayana. Paccil—pacu ni il—may mean the house of green leaves. Our poet has referred to it as Kuta-p Paccil” and it has been suggested that Paccil itself may be a corruption of the word ‘Pratici’ (West).