Nayanar 13: Arivattaya

The 13th saint is Arivattaya Nayanar. Arurars words are, “Encdta val Tayan atiyarkkum atiyen";—‘I am the servant of the servants of the never decreasing Val Tayan . One would ordinarily interpret the word ‘val’ as sword and thus Tayan would appear a warrior chieftain, a patron of Shaivism. ‘Val’ is however taken to mean the ‘arivaV or the scythe, which, by its harvest, ever increases the wealth and happiness of a country as opposed to the sword which kills and reduces the number of living people. Or, ‘encata’ may be applied to Tayan himself when we will have to interpret the word Tayan as one who is like the mother unto all. It must have become a proper name.

Nampiyantar Nampi gives the native place of this saint as Kanamankalam, which Cekkilar identifies with a village of that name in the Cola country.

According to Periyapuranam, the saint belongs to the Velan community. Whilst the saint was carrying the food for Shiva, it fell down and he not only swore that if the Lord did not partake of the food he would cut away his head but also proceeded to behead himself with his scythe. This is all that Nampiyantar has to say. Cekkilar explains the full story in detail. The saint first undertook to feed the Lord with precious rice (cennel), red greens and tender mango. He sold away his land; he worked as a cooly later on for carrying out this undertaking. He had to live on leaves and then on water alone. It was because of this his wife and he fell down when they were carrying food and other articles of worship to the Lord.

As usual with Cekkilar, the wife of the saint is found to co-operate in the service of the Lord. Whilst he was trying to cut away his head, the saint heard the noise of Shiva eating of the mango and felt the Lord’s hand preventing him from his suicide. The omnipresence of God, His receiving the worship at any place, and in the custom of offering of rice, herbs and mango are all brought out in this story. The Kannada and Sanskrit traditions give his name as ‘Arival tonda nayanar or ‘Sankuladaya’ which latter expression is simply a translation of ‘arival’ (scythe) and a corruption of the name Taya.