Nayanar 57: Pugazh Kotpuli

The 57th saint is Kotpuli Nayanar. The words of Arurar are, “Atal culnta vel Nampi Kotpulikkum atiyen”— ‘I am the servant of Kotpuli, the Lord of the spear conspiring to kill the enemies or the spear crowded with victories’. He was one of the contemporary chieftains of Arurar who praises him in another verse as the Lord of Nattiyattankuti of old fame in the Cola country, the obstinate Kotpuli who conquered the enemy kings when they came in a crowd. Kuttam or crowd is the accepted reading but in one edition the reading is kutam. It is not clear whether this is the name of a battlefield or whether it means secret strategy.

Nampiyantar Nampi makes him the chief of Nattiyattankuti and states that he received the blessings of Arurar, that he became glorious by killing away his relatives who broke his oath uttered in the name of the Lord.

According to Cekkilar, he was a member of the Velan community and a commander-in-chief of the Cola army. He made his plant of fame flourish through war, which, however, made the plant of misery flourish in the lands of others. All the wealth received from his king he utilized in storing up paddy like the mountain of gold for feeding the Shaivites. Before starting on one of the expeditions against the enemies as ordered by his king, he sealed his store of paddy and told the relatives that in the name of the order of the Lord which does not hasten, the paddy should not even be thought of by them. In a few days, a famine devastated the country and the relatives preferred the breach of that order to their death and ate the paddy.

Kotpuli, hearing of this on his return, conspired to bring them all inside his house under the pretext of making a gift of the great wealth he had amassed in war and keeping his grandson or his grandfather (Peron) killed them all for eating away his paddy. There was a child which escaped this slaughter and the grandfather or grandson pleaded for it, stating that it had not tasted the paddy and therefore it should be left to continue their line. Kotpuli, however, threw it and cut it away with the sword, because it had tasted the milk of the woman who had tasted the forbidden paddy. Then and there, Shiva appeared to take the saint away to his own abode.

Cekkilar does not mention anything about Arurar meeting this saint in this Purana describing the saint’s life, though he refers to the reception given by Kotpuli to Arurar and the gift of his own daughters to the latter in the Eyarkon Kalikkama Nayanar Puranam. This makes one suspect that Cekkilar is thinking of some other Kotpuli Nayanar probably an ancestor of this Kotpuli met by Arurar. If there was not even a child left, how can there be any one left to meet Arurar? But the grandson rather than the grandfather must be taken to be the meaning of the word ‘Peron’ or ‘Peyaran and he must have escaped the universal slaughter because he went with his grandfather and thus avoided the necessity of eating the paddy. This seems to be the suggestion of Cekkilar though Nampiyantar will make this saint Kotpuli the very Kotpuli who met Arurar.

Then the question will arise how could Arurar who had sung Thiruthondathogai wherein he included the name of this saint sing of his escaping the fetters of relationship and reaching the abode of the Lord, thanks to the great attachment to the name of God, and meet the very same Kotpuli sometime after he had sung the hymn. This question has to be studied in some detail when we come to fix the time when Thiruthondathogai was sung.

This story is given in one of the Darasuram sculptures with the inscription Kotpuliyandar underneath it. In the right half we find Kotpuli holding the sword after having thrown up the child which is falling on the sword; there are also three persons probably those attacked by his sword, being in three progressive grades of falling down. The left hand half shows Shiva, Parvati and the bull in front of whom stands Kotpuli holding his hands in an anjali pose.

The Sanskrit and Kannada traditions speak of him as Kotpuli Nayanar, translate the name as Virasardula and give the story as found in Cekkilar, We have shown already in another place that this victorious battle which Kotpuli fought against a crowd of enemies is taken by Dr. Minaksi and others as referring to the battles which Tellarerinta Nampi fought against these southern kings. But if Kotpuli belong to the age of Rajasimha as we hold, the battle should be one of the many battles which Paramesvara as the king and Rajasimha as prince fought against Vikramaditya I, who with the help of Gangas and probably some southern kings and chieftains tried to avenge the sack of Badami by the Pallavas during the reign of his father Pulakesin II.

Periyapuranam speaks of a series of northern expeditions, both offensive and defensive, in which a number of Shaivite saints had taken part—Kalippakai, Aiyatikal, Kalarcinkan, Kotpuli, Ninracir Netumaran and Ciruttontar. Probably all these are referring to the Chalukyan invasion and the Tamilian counter invasion.