Introduction to Section 3.2

We have only to imagine the pangs of a person unable to quench his extreme thirst, notwithstanding the availability of plenty of water near at hand, just because his mouth is sealed up (like Tantalus in the Greek legend). We will then be able to appreciate the most unenviable predicament in which the Āḻvār found himself, suffering from the figurative lock-jaw. Here is the Lord in His worshiṛpable form, of insatiable beauty, near at hand, and yet, the Āḻvār is not able to comprehend and enjoy Him as well as He would like to, severely handicapped as he is, by the heavy limitations inherent in his earthly existence, tethered to this material body. No doubt, the Lord, in His unbounded mercy, has dowered on us limbs and sense-organs to impart mobility and put us on a career of gainful activity. Not stopping with this alone, He condescended to present Himself before the Subjects during His Avatāras and mixed with them freely. And yet, all these benefits do not currently fill the Āḻvār’s bill. On the other hand, he is regretting his inability to enjoy the Lord, in His ‘Arcā’ (Iconic manifestation), in toto, and give the fullest expression to such enjoyment. God is limitless but the Saint has his limitations although his craving is very great.

The present agony of the Āḻvār is thus due to his inability to limit the limitless, rather, the small range of the powers of his mind and the senses vis-a-vis the enjoyment of the boundless beatific vision of the Lord. It is, however, seen that, towards the end of this decad, the Lord consoles the Āḻvār by telling him that the Celestials, shorn of material contacts, are also on the same footing as the Āḻvār and they too have their limitations. The Āḻvār is, however, beckoned by the Lord to enjoy His iconic form at Tiruvēṅkaṭam, to his heart’s content. Thus consoled, the Āḻvār ends this decad on a happy note.

When Śrī Parāśara Bhaṭṭar discoursed on this song, his younger brother, Śrīrāmappiḷḷai raised the following point.

“I find that the Āḻvār’s distress is neither due to his longing for the heavenly bliss, right from here, nor due to his craving for the enjoyment of God in His incarnations in by-gone times. His distress seems to have arisen after the Lord was pleased to grant him the enjoyment of His worshippable (Arcā) form as Aḻakar, in ‘Tirumāliruñ Cōlai’, when, in fact, one should have expected him to go on revelling in the enjoyment of the Lord, so sweet and exquisite. It is indeed puzzling in this context how the anguish has, at all, arisen”.

The illustrious Bhaṭṭārya elucidated, as follows:

“The different manifestations (Para, Vyūha, Vibhava, Antaryāmi and Arcā) of one and the same God cannot affect His Solidarity. God is immense and infinite. When His beatific vision was presented to the Saint through the medium of Aḷakar he could enjoy it only as much as his limited capacity could permit, even as one visualises the vast ocean, only as much as the eye apprehends. Here then is the tussle between the Āḻvār’s limited capacity, on the one hand, and his enormous longing on the other, and the resultant mental agony”.