Who is Andal?

(Conjeevaram)

‘C.R.’ contributed an article to the September 1946 issue of Triveni maintaining that Andal, the well-known South Indian Vaishnavite Saint, was not any real girl or foster-daughter of Perialwar but a creation of his own poetic imagination. Though ‘C.R.’ disclaims any originality for this novel interpretation and attributes the same to an esteemed friend of his, the following facts will clearly indicate that such an interpretation is quite untenable.

It is true that some South Indian Saints have been led in certain moments of their darkness and despair to modify the usual mode of Bhakti poetry, in which religious experiences are cast in the figure of a love-sick girl’s anguish, but they have always left no room for doubting the real authorship of such songs. For instance, Saint Sadagopan (Nammalwar) and Kalian (Thirumangai Mannan) attained to the state of a bride on many occasions and gave vent to the overflow of their excessive devotion in the words of a mother or a daughter or a girl-mate, but they invariably concluded such songs with the words ‘sung by Sadagopan’ or ‘sung by Parakalan Kalian’ and thereby made explicit the real authorship. In such songs, any reference to the daughter will be a reference to the state of the Alwar himself who is the author.

Taking Perialwar himself, he too has sung two sections (about twenty stanzas) in the guise of a mother complaining against her daughter’s celestial love for the Almighty as her sweetheart. The first of these sections begins thus:

“She has not yet left her playing in sand,
Nor has she learnt yet to speak well, nor to dress properly;
Such playthings as toy-buckets and baskets are still in her hands.
Yet she seems to have had a hand in the love-affair with the Eternal Bride-groom,
Who is reclining on His Cobra-seat.”

The object of this section is to illustrate that Bhakti in the case of this Alwar had begun to assert itself even from the days of his childhood. The first stanza of the next section runs thus:

“Like a full-blossomed beautiful lotus in a resplendent lotus-tank,
my daughter lived;
As the tank will lose all its beauty by its only flower being blown off by a dew storm,
My house looks all deserted; for I find her nowhere in the neighbourhood;
Has she run after the great
Hero and taken to His residence?”

In the fourth stanza of this section Perialwar says:

“An only daughter have I and she is of universal fame,
I nursed her as such, as the great Goddess herself;
And it is He himself that has, by the beauty of His lotus-eyes,
enticed her away.”

These stanzas really indicate the ‘bereavement’ and the conflict between the critical faculty and the intuition or grace that takes one to God, referred to by ‘C.R.’ in the article in question, though there are some who would interpret the ‘daughter’ mentioned here as a reference to Andal herself. But that it is not so, and that the reference is only to the child of Perialwar’s own poetic imagination is made clear at the end of this section by Perialwar himself, for he has explicitly stated that he has sung these songs attaining to the state of a mother complaining against her daughter’s romance.

These sections express Perialwar’s own mental state and there is no reference to Andal here. Here we are in agreement with ‘C.R.’ that the reference is not to any separate entity as Andal, but it is only to the daughter of Perialwar’s own poetic imagination. But the case is different with the songs of Thiruppavai and Natchiar Thirumozhi sung by Andal. They clearly end with the words ‘sung by Battarpiran Kothai’ or ‘sung by Villipuduvai Vishnu Chittan Kothai,’ i.e., Perialwar’s daughter Andal. If these songs also were by sung by Perialwar himself, there is nothing to prevent him from acknowledging his own authorship of them, as he has done in the case of his songs sung in the feminine garb.

There are other clear indications in the poems of Andal that she was a distinct person other than Perialwar, who was her father and spiritual teacher (Acharya). In one of the stanzas in Natchiar Thirumozhi she addresses, her mate thus:

“My true friend, our Lord, who is reposing in all His divine splendour
On His transcendental Cobra-seat high up above, is rich; He is great.
And we are but little earthly creatures devoid of the least virtue.
Thus there seems to be no way at all for us to approach Him:
Only if Vishnu-chitta, who is such a stout devotee as to have
Him at his beck and call, should manage to get Him,
We too will have a chance to see Him!”

In another stanza she says:

“Our Lord, who now resides in Srirangam, is the self-same God,
Who once gave the great words of assurance to Arjuna;
The same words would make Vishnu-chitta too to rest fearless;
If the saying ‘He who loves shall in turn be loved’ proves false,
Who can achieve anything?”

Though it will take volumes to bring out the full import of the subtle religious truths enunciated by Andal in these stanzas, it is enough for our purpose to point out that she here refers to two great virtues of her father and spiritual teacher, viz., strong devotion to the Almighty and unshakable confidence in getting his salvation. These stanzas cannot fail to convince us that Andal here refers to her father Perialwar as a distinct Saint other than herself, for whom she has the greatest respect.

If stronger proof of the existence of Andal as a separate Saint is required, the same will be furnished in the following stanza in Natchiar Thirumozhi itself. Obsessed with an intense feeling of separation from her sweetheart and pining in a mood of soul-killing anguish, she sees a plant of jasmines in full blossom and addresses it thus:
“O Jasmine damsel, that shineth in all thy splendour in the prime of thy life, I surrender to thee and implore thee not to hurt me with thy smiles in my present state; but, if the words of assurance given by that Prince of Princes who cut the nose of that Demoness Surpanagai prove false, then can the fact of my birth too be proved false?”

The words with which this stanza ends would appear, in the light of the present controversy, to be in the nature of a dramatic irony, as if Andal had anticipated the doubting of her very existence by some future historians. But the point she wishes to emphasise here is that, even as the truth of her birth cannot be denied, the truth of Sri Rama’s words too cannot be denied. Or she may mean thus: “At the time of Vibhishana’s surrender Sri Rama vouchsafed that He would never reject a devotee, even though he should take to Him as a pretender. I am really pining from the depths of my heart to get at Him. But I see so far no sign of His coming. Even though His words may fail in my case, and even though, contrary to his own assurance given then, He should reject me on the ground that my devotion is false, the fact cannot be denied that I am born as a daughter of Saint Perialwar. By virtue of this relationship at least, He cannot afford to dismiss me.” Either way, the note of optimism struck by Andal here, in her mood of despair, is on the strength of her own birth. She swears, by her very birth as a daughter of Perialwar, that she will never miss her salvation. This stanza coupled with those cited above should carry the most fastidious critic beyond the limits of doubt regarding the birth of Andal and prove that the authoress of Natchiar Tirumozhi could not have been the same person as Perialwar. It would be too much to assume that Perialwar himself has here identified himself with the states expressed by Andal, by a stretch of his own poetic imagination.

Certain facts handed down to us by tradition also bear out the fact that Andal must have been a distinct figure in history. Srivilliputtur, the birth-place of Andal, is to this day known as Natchiar Thirumaligai, the residence of Andal. In commemoration of the well-known ‘garland episode’ the garland worn by Andal in Srivilliputtur is to this day being taken with due pomp and ceremony to the temple of the place for the decoration of the presiding deity (Vadaperunkoiludayan) as the first act of worship every day. There are allusions to this episode in the earliest records dealing with the lives of the Alwars, such as ‘Divya Suri Charitam’ and ‘Guru-parampara Prabhavam’. Vedanta Desika, with whom no false tale could pass muster, refers to this more than once in his ‘Kotha Sthuthi’ and Pillai Perumalaiyengar quotes this in his works very freely.

In a stanza of Natchiar Thirumozhi, Andal has sung that it was one of her heart’s desires to dedicate one hundred vessels full of butter, and one hundred vessels full of rice cooked in milk with sugar, to the presiding deity of Thirumalirumcholai known as Alagar, but she was so poor that her desirecould be fulfilled only by word of mouth. When Sri Ramanuja first came to know of this stanza, he took a few of his disciples with him to Thirumalirumcholai and fulfilled Andal’s desire by actually dedicating to the deity what she expressed in the stanza. Immediately after this he took a trip to Srivilliputtur to pay his homage to the idol of Andal there, and tradition has it that the image actually embraced Sri Ramanuja addressing him as Annare (Art thou my elder brother!) and thereby transcended even the limits imposed on her idol state. In evidence of this miraculous incident, Andal is being praised in all Sri Vaishnavite temples from that time onward as the younger sister of the great sage of Sri Perumbuthur (Ramanuja), though Sri Ramanuja came many centuries after Andal in actual history.

‘C. R.’ ends his article with the words, “A figure of poetry was vitalised into a separate legend so effectively that, perhaps, now this sort of interpretation would be put down as heresy, as if it were more pious to keep an additional Saint going than to make Perialwar both himself and his daughter.” It may not be heresy against piety to take two Saints as one, but it will certainly be heresy against Truth to merge a separate and distinct historic entity into another, in the absence of any clear and reliable proof, and contrary to the long cherished belief based on strong and authentic evidence.

If a similar doubt had been raised in respect of certain works of other Alwars, which make no mention at all about their authorship, the point would not admit of easy clarification. For instance, the songs of Poigaialwar, Perialwar, Bhuthathalwar, Thirumalisaialwar and Thirupanalwar are silent about their authorship. The same is the case with two of the four poems of Nammalwar, viz., ‘Thiruvasiriyam’ and ‘Periathiruvanthadai’. Similarly, three of the six poems of Thirumangaialwar, viz., ‘Thiruvelu Koorrirukkai’ and the two ‘Thirumadals’ contain no reference to their authorship. If the authenticity of any of these works is questioned, we have to rest content with the only argument that, in the absence of strong proofs to the contrary, there need be no change in the version handed down to us by tradition and maintained by our great elders and ancient teachers (Poorvacharyas), whose zeal for truth was no less than ours. But the poems of Perialwar and Andal leave no doubt as to their authorship and the proofs given above should clear all clouds in the matter. Even dismissing all other evidences, the one stanza quoted above, which ends with the words “Can the fact of my birth too be proved false!” is enough to establish Andal’s case that she was a separate and distinct Saint other than Perialwar.