Introduction to Section 1.1

[Note: This work comprises ten centums, or hundred decades, each of which is called a ‘Tiruvāymoḻi’, which means ‘Inspired utterance’ as well as ‘Divine speech’, the speech from the holy mouth of the Saint. This is a skilled poetic composition in which each stanza begins with the closing word of the previous stanza or the phonetic sound thereof. Unlike the other hymns of the ‘Divya Prabandha’, Tiruvāymoḻi is accorded the special status of being chanted only inside the temples or at homes when the Deity is seated for congregational worship, and not when the Deity is taken out in the streets in ceremonial precession.]

In the opening song, the Saint exhorts his chastened mind to adore the dazzling, distress-dispelling feet of the Lord, the Supreme Benefactor, and attain salvation. Right at the very start, and that too in the opening line itself, the Āḻvār characterises God as one with perfections, all of the nature of bliss and love, the natural repository of innumerable auspicious traits of unlimited dimensions and thus easily scores over the ‘Upaniṣad’, which made a futile attempt to gauge the immeasurable bliss of the Supreme Lord and had to acknowledge defeat.^[1]

Such a beginning is the natural corollary to the manner in which the Lord captivated the Āḻvār. It was by exhibiting His innumerable auspicious qualities that the Lord attracted the Āḻvār, and therefore it was that he began with an ardent adoration of those very qualities, literally strangling those philosophising on a God devoid of form, attributes etc. as the illustrious Kūrattāḻvāṉ would put it. Exulting over the fact that we have, on Saint Nammāḻvār’s authority, a God of attributes, which ought to silence all those who philosophise on a God devoid of attributes, Kūrattāḷvāṉ would say Viṣṇupurāṇa (VI-5-84) corroborates this: it says the Lord is the essence possessing all blissful perfections. Does not Karṇa say, in the Bhīṣmaparva of the Mahābhārata, that even if all the worlds were assembled together and they were all to praise the perfections of the great victorious Viṣṇu (born as Kṛṣṇa, son of Vasudēva, bearing the discus, conch and sword) for millions of years it would not be exhaustive? Did not Tārā tell Vāli, her husband, that, in Rāma, the noblest glories meet? Again, did not the subjects, assembled in King Daśaratha’s court, proclaim that in all the earth none possessed the excellence of Rāma who, richly blest with graces, was to their hearts very dear? In the eleventh verse of his ‘Stotra Ratna’, Saint Yāmuna describes the Lord as one possessing an infinitude of super-excellent, auspicious perfections, conformable to His divine character”.

It may, however, be questioned how the Āḻvār relegated himself to the lower order of submission to the Lord through an appreciation of His auspicious traits instead of being automaticaḷḷy linked up with the Lord by virtue of the inherent trait (Śeṣatva or servitude) of the Individual Soul, as His eternal servant. Actually, it is not a case of relegation, as such, and it has to be taken that all the noblest qualities that converge in the Lord constitute yet another tangible source of attraction for the individual soul. That there has been no departure from the basic stand of Master-servant relationship between the Lord and the Āḻvār is brought out clearly in the fifth centum, third Tiruvāymoḻi, fifth stanza (indicated here and elsewhere by the notation V-3-5). There, in a moment of desolation caused by the snapping of his communion with the Lord, Nammāḻvār bitterly reproaches the Lord, as extremely selfish, unsympathetic, elusive, time-serving, deceitful, unfathomable etc. and yet he finds his ‘tyrannical’ mind clinging to the Lord, as the Sole Refuge, under all circumstances. The examples of Lakṣmaṇa and Sītā can also be brought in here, to clarify the stand of the Āḻvār. According to his own admission to Hanumān when Lakṣmaṇa first met him in the mountain slope of Ṛśyamūkha parvata,^[2] Lakṣmaṇa was enthralled into serving Śrī Rāma and following him, even in exile, by the latter’s sweet qualities. This does not, however, detract from Lakṣmaṇa’s basic stance. Being an incarnation of Ādiśeṣa (first servant), Lakṣmaṇa was devoted to Rāma, right from the cradle.^[3]

And in the above context, Lakṣmaṇa merely adduced yet another consideration for his constant attendance on Rāma. Service unto the Lord by virtue of the essentialnature of the individual soul (Śeṣatva), not conditioned by any extraneous consideration or inducements is, no doubt, of primary importance and all else is relegated to a secondary place. At the same time, it has to be noted that the Lord and His excellence can never remain apart. Felicitating Sītā on her fidelity to her husband (giving up the Palace and all its wealth and relatives and following Rāma into exile), Anasūyā Dēvī, wife of Sage Atri, exhorted that the husband needs to be venerated as God Himself, be he in town or wood, well or ill. Swayed by modesty, the bashful Sītā stood with down-cast eyes and spoke out: “My love for Rāma is spontaneous and yet, people are likely to construe that I love him because of his excellence, both physical and mental. It is indeed difficult for me to prove that my fidelity to Rāma has no strings attached to it and stands by itself without any external provocation or inducements, as Rāma and his excellence can never remain apart. My fidelity will remain constant even if he were the exact reverse of what he is”.

The philosophy of ‘Tattva’ (truth), ‘Hita’ (Path) and ‘Puruṣārtha’(goal), elucidated in this work, is presented in a summarised form, in the opening stanza itself, by indicating that ‘Tirumāl’ (Mahāviṣṇu) is the Supreme Lord, worshipping His lustrous feet, the Supreme path, and attainment of those very feet, through His redemptive grace, the highest goal. What a grand start, going straight to the subject on hand! Of the five-fold manifestations of God, namely, ‘Para’, Vyūha’, ‘Vibhava’, ‘Antaryāmi’ and Arcā this decad deals with the ‘Para’ or the transcendental Form of the Lord and the cognate activities.^[4]

Footnotes and references:

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[1]:

yato vāco nivartante aprāpya manasāsaḥa.

[2]:

“ahamasyāvaro bhrātā guṇair dāsyaṃ upāgataḥ”.

[3]:

bālyāt prabrti susnigdha.

[4]:

Actually, the first two decads of this great work embrace all that has been said in all the four cantos of the ‘Brahma Sūtras’, (the Mīmāṃsaka Śāstra [mīmāṃsāśāstra], already referred to in the Introduction), elucidated in Śrī Rāmānuja’s Śrī Bhāṣya. The first six songs of the first decad cover the first Adhyāya of the Brahma sūtras, the next five songs of that decad convey the contents of the second Adhyāya of the Sūtras, the first eight songs of the second decad (Viṭumiṉ) embrace the third Adhyāya of the sūtras and the next three songs of that decad summarise the fourth and the last canto of the Sūtras. Again, decads three to hundred of Tiruvāymoḻi only elaborate what is already set out in the first two decads.

Other Vaishnavism Concepts:

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Discover the significance of concepts within the article: ‘Introduction to Section 1.1’. Further sources in the context of Vaishnavism might help you critically compare this page with similair documents:

Mahavishnu, Upanishad, Supreme goal, King Dasharatha, Transcendental form, Transcendental form of the Lord, Sweet qualities, Higher goal, Immense bliss, Master-servant relationship, Constant attendance, Divine character.

Concepts being referred within the main category of Hinduism context and sources.

Divine speech, Noble qualities, Poetic composition, Sacred utterance.