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Subject: thiruvempavai 9 english
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2001 21:46:47 +0530
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From: "Ramani Naidu"
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THIRUVEMPAVAI - DAY NINE - SONG NINE
Transliteration
munnaip pazam porutkum munnaip pazamporuLE
pinnaip puthumaikkum pErththum appeRRriyanE
unnaip pirAnAkap peRRa un cIratiyOm
un atiyAr thAL panivOm Anku avarkkE pAnkAvOm
annavarE em kanavar AvAr avar ukanthu
conna parisE thozumpAyp pani ceyvOm
inna vakaiyE emakku emkOn nalkuthiyEl
enna kuraiyum ilOm elOr empAvAy.
Translation
You are the oldest of the oldest
You are the newest of the newest
Aren’t we your ardent devotees, our Lord?
We will devote ourselves to Your devotees.
They would become our husbands.
Their desires would become our duties.
When our Lord grants us such a state
We lack nothing, dear maids!
The first two lines of the ninth song of Thiruvempavai are oft quoted by
many.
It had been earlier said that there is a change of direction with the sixth
song of Thiruvempavai. There are those who say that such a change of
direction is to be found in the ninth song. It was said that in the first
five songs the maids on pavai observance wake the sleeping maid and implore
her to join them. From the sixth song, the conversation between the maids on
the pavai march was presented. But it is said that the first few songs speak
about how the nine Sakthi’s were invoked to grace the pavai observance.
The first Sakthi, Manonmani wakes the second Sakthi in the first song and
subsequently one after the other the remaining seven Sakthis are woken up.
So it is perhaps better to assume that the change in the dramatic direction
is found in the ninth song rather than the sixth song.
The maids make an appeal to Siva in the ninth song.
You are older than the oldest known to us.
You are newer than the newest known to us.
We are blessed in that we have such a One for our Lord.
We will devote our attention to your devotees.
We will be associated with them.
They would become our husbands.
Their desires would become our duties.
If Siva could grant such a life of devoted service to His devotees our life
will be fulfilled.
In another song Manikkavasakar would describe the God as the Beginning, End
and Middle and at the same time none of them. His hurried remark that He is
none of them makes us understand that God is not to be confined to such
limitations. The Tamil word katavuL has its English equivalent in
Transcendent Reality. He who transcends is God. By his very nature He
transcends the oldest known and the newest extant.
In his speech on Taoism, Osho uses the term inexhaustible to refer to God.
He is so inexhaustible that he has been there before the existence of even
the Primordial. If God were to be taken for the Primordial, there would be
the implication that He had a definite beginning. That would be to ascribe a
time limitation to God however distant the time be. That made Manikkavasakar
describe God as the Beginning, End, Middle and none of them.
Khalil Gibran, while talking about the thirsty soul, says that he had been
at the beginning of Creation and that he would be at the time of the Deluge.
His spirit would never wither away.
The message is that the soul does not begin with the beginning of life,
birth; nor does it end with the end of life, death. The soul has its
beginning at the beginning of Creation and will end at the time of the
Deluge. But God transcends even the beginning of Creation and the Deluge. It
is in such sense that God is here described as older than the oldest and
newer than the newest.
Everything including the soul is limited by time scale. So it is difficult
indeed to comprehend God who transcends such limitations of time. That is
why He is called KAlAtheethan.
The devotees who have for their Lord the Unlimited however have certain
limited goals. They want to make obeisance to the devotees. They want only
devotees to be their husbands. They want to serve them with whatever
direction their desire goes. They want to have such a life and appeal to God
to grace them with the same.
Such is the implication of the ninth song of Thiruvempavai.
Vaishnavam reiterates the significance of being devoted to the service of
the devotees as something greater than even being devoted to God. Saivism
also toes in line. It is a nobler grace indeed to be a devotee to the
devotee rathen than be a devotee oneself.
Thayumanavar would say, “O Lord! If you design me for devoted service to the
devotees, bliss will follow as a matter of fact.”
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