Introduction to Section 10.10

It was indeed a rude jolt to the Āḻvār, who was shocked into a sense of stark reality, when he opened his eyes and found that he was still seated where he was, namely, the hollow inside the trunk of the tamarind tree, in the precincts of Lord Ādinātha’s temple in Āḻvār Tirunakari. It now transpired to him that his ascent to heaven, through the exhilarating ‘Arcirādi mārga’, the honours lavished on him by the various agencies all along the route and at the destination, his stay in the midst of the ‘Nityās’ and ‘Muktās’ in the gem-set hall, where the Lord and His Divine Consort were holding Durbar, all these, expatiated on by him in the preceding decad, were but the figments of his imagination, a mere mental comprehension and nothing more. Eaten up by the cruel pangs of frustration at that he is still lingering in the unenviable mesh of ‘Prakṛti’ (matter), the Āḻvār now cries out his heart unto the Lord, in a manner that is bound to melt even those utterly devoid of tenderness of heart. Oh, what a pity! the Lord, who is fully aware of the Āḻvār’s utter helplessness and sole dependence on Him, has chosen to keep him still tethered to the material body. Like unto the suckling, tormented by deep thirst and pinching hunger, despite the parents being near at hand, crying out lustily, the Āḻvār calls out the Lord. Voicing forth his deep yearning with the utmost effort, like the full-throated call for relief from one engulfed by wild fire, the Āḻvār compels the immediate attention and succour of the Lord. It would indeed be well-nigh impossible for the Lord, at this stage, to stick to His seat in Heaven anymore, without responding to the ardent call of a devotee of the calibre of Nammāḻvār.

Weighed down by a gnawing sense of guilt, the merciful Lord, of remarkable tenderness of heart, felt even more depressed than the Āḻvār himself. And so, the Lord and His Divine Consort rushed down, mounted on Garuḍa, flying at supersonic speed. The Lord cut out the Āḻvār’s material contacts in toto and led him to the transcendental sanctum (Śrī Vaikuṇṭa). And there, in the high Heaven, the ultimate destination of the yearning soṇṭ, the Āḻvār entered the august gathering of the great devotees of Lord Vaikuntanāthaṉ and mingled freely with them, the joyous intercourse with this holy band in the exalted land, pined for by him since long, thus becoming an accomplished fact. According to the Āḻvār’s own admission, in this decad, vide stanza 10, the Lord’s love for him outgrew his own and made it dwindle down to naught. The Āḻvār’s love for the Lord progressed by stages, as one can perceive, going through the entire gamut of this grand hymnal and currently, it hat attained its full stature (Parama Bhakti), outstripping all else, assuming supra-cosmic proportions, even to the extent of enveloping the Lord Himself. The Lord, however, forestalled the Āḻvār, enveloped his ‘avā’ (deep love) and thereby held him in His sweet embrace. In the concluding stanza of this decad, which is also the grand finale of this great hymnal, the Āḻvār gives vent to his sense of completion and fulfilment, saying that he has reached the ultimate destination, all the impediments having been eradicated, root and branch.

The Supreme Lord, Śrīman Nārāyaṇa is the Subject sung about in this hymnal which, in the Āḻvār’s own words, is styled as ‘avāvil antāti’, a species of prosody, charged with ‘Bhakti’, in which the closing word of each song is the opening word of the next one. Saint Śaṭhakopa, the Lord’s own poet, endowed by Him with divine knowledge, full and perfect, clear and concise, is the grand author of this glorious hymnal. The Āḻvār’s advent in this world was indeed on a par with that of the Lord, both being due to the great, good fortune of the meritorious ‘sādhius’, the devout, immersed in incessant contemplation of the divine.