Chapter 69 - Thiruvenpakkam or Tiruvenpakkam (Hymn 89)

I

This is the place which our poet visits next. The place is called Thiruvenpakkam and from the hymn we find that the temple was called Venkoyil (verse 10), probably because of the white colour of the plaster work. The verses of this hymn are in ‘koccaka’ form, of four lines each of four feet of kayccir. Every fourth line ends with the words ‘Ulampakir enrane as its last two feet. In the third line, the poet raises the question, “Are you here inside this temple?” and it is to this he says he got the reply, “Ulom pokir”— ‘We are here, you get away or you go your way’. The whole hymn is a complaint against this Lord and every verse elaborates this complaint: “I thought that great people would excuse faults and under that impression I committed mistakes; but without caring for the scandal, you have blinded my eyes.” I asked, “Are you in the temple?” and the Lord remaining there inside said, “We are here, you go your way” (1).

II

“I know neither the intermediate nor the initial. I declare, I cry, My Lord, I take refuge in you. Without caring for the facts, that we are your slaves and your refugees, Ye, my Lord, said ‘You may go” (2). “I know not how to act. Even if I, your false slave commit any mistake, saying, i.e., pretending that your beautiful feet are my refuge, is it not necessary that you should excuse me?” When I asked, “Are you here?” the Lord who is capable of sympathizing with me, and helping me to attain salvation, said, “We are here, you may go” (3).

“O, Our Prince! Are you here?”—thus as soon as I asked Him, He replied, “We are here, you go your way” (4). He was there moving on the bull, by the side of the Mother, and I His slave inquired of Him in a high pitch, and He at once replied, “We are here, you may go” (5). “You have blinded the apple of my eye. Are you here?”, I asked, and He replied, “I am here, you may go” (6). “O, Lord of the throat, blue like the blue gem, served by the bhaktas and the followers of the Vedas! Are you here?”, I asked, and He said, “We are here, you may go” (7). The Lord of Thiruvottiyur said, “We are here, you may go” (8).

“Are you here, inside this white temple?”, I asked, and the Lord blessed me with a walking stick as a prop and said, “We are here, you go your way” (10).

III

In two verses, our poet refers to the Cankili incident. “I told you to go and be under the ‘makilam’ tree. Without my knowledge you said that the vow should be taken under the ‘makilam’ tree. You are so capable, O, Great Lord”! “Are you here?”, I asked, and He as though He had sighted His enemies said, “We are here, you go your way” (9). (This verse, it was suggested by us might not have originally been in the hymn— Vol. I). “You have given me Cankill, shining like a deer and you blessed in such a way that the good effects flowing therefrom became manifest” (10).

IV

Our poet refers also to some puranic descriptions of the Lord: His long dangling ear-ring (1), His deer (1), His bull (2), His poisonous serpent (2, 3), His white sacred ash (2), His tiger’s skin (2), His covering of an elephant skin (4), His throat with the poison (4, 7, 8), the skull (Kapali) (4), His beautiul red form, like the coral (4), His company of the Mother (4), His shining golden konrai on the mat-lock (5, 6, 9), His destruction of Manmata (6), His Ganges on His crown (6), the serpent on His waist (7) and His dance on the burning ghat with the Mother surrounded by the ghost (8).

V

Though the hymn begins with a complaint and expresses the miserable feeling of the poet at the Lord curtly replying as though to an enemy that he should get away, yet in the end our poet gets a walking stick to lean on and walk. This must have inspired the poet with hope and our poet says he has sung this poem in love of the Lord since he is passionately attached to Him.

Our poet describes himself as one who has the name of ‘Shiva of Tiruranir’ which we had explained as referring to the first part of his name Aruran. The gift of a walking stick—our poet would have considered the gift from any one as the gift from the Lord—makes him feel that he has been relieved of all his karmas and that they would afflict him no more. That is why he assures those who masters the Tamil of his, that the cruel karma will never come near them.