TY - JOUR
AU - Venkatesan,, Archana
AB - Abstract In this essay, I offer a close reading of Periya Tirumoḻi I.1 focusing on Tirumaṅkai’s emphasis on the experience of god as/through sound, specifically as embodied in the Śrīvaiṣṇavas’ foundational mantra, Om Namo Nārāyaṇāya (Obeisance to Nārāyaṇa). I bring the opening decad of the Periya Tirumoḻi into dialogue with the poet’s hagiography, and a festival called the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam that enacts Tirumaṅkai’s initiation into the Vaiṣṇava fold by Viṣṇu himself. The legend of Tirumaṅkai serves as a case-study to demonstrate the ways in which temple ritual, hagiography, and poetry work in concert to formulate complex theological arguments about the relationships between Viṣṇu and his devotees. Every year, in the month of Mārkaḻi (mid-December to mid-January), Śrīvaiṣṇava temples celebrate the Adhyayanotsavam or Festival of Recitation. Over twenty days, Śrīvaiṣṇava Brahmin men gather before Viṣṇu to chant the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham (The Divine Collection of Four Thousand), a compilation of the Tamiḻ compositions of the twelve āḻvār poets (sixth–ninth CE).1 The Adhyayanotsavam is believed to have been first instituted by Tirumaṅkaiyāḻvār (c. ninth century) at the Srirangam temple to commemorate the Tiruvāymoḻi, the monumental, 1102 verse poem authored by his possibly earlier contemporary,2 Śaṭakōpaṉ-Nammāḻvār (c. ninth century), the most important of the āḻvār poets.3 As performed today, the twenty-day festival is divided into two parts of equal length, known as the pakal pattu (Ten Days of Morning Recitation) and irā-p-pattu (Ten Days of Nightly Recitation). The irā-p-pattu is devoted to honouring Nammāḻvār’s Tiruvāymoḻi, and hence is also called the Tiruvāymoḻi Utsavam (Tiruvāymoḻi Festival). The primary purpose of the annual Mārkaḻi festival is a commemoration and memorialisation of the āḻvār through a systematic liturgical exegesis of their compositions, while sumptuous ornamentations for the deities and spectacular processions are a crucial complement to the daily performances of the āḻvār poems. At the more important temples, such as at Srirangam, gestural commentaries and fantastic ritual dramas further enliven the proceedings.4 The Nava Tirupati, a network of nine Viṣṇu temples south of Madurai, hosts some of the most elaborate Adhyayanotsavam celebrations, largely because one of these temples—Alvar Tirunagari—marks the birth-place of Nammāḻvār. It is worth noting that not far from the Nava Tirupati is the sacred site of Tirukkurungudi, where Tirumaṅkaiyāḻvār is believed to have attained mokṣa. The ways in which the Adhyayanotsavam unfolds at the Nava Tirupati highlights the significant contributions of these two most important of āḻvār poets: Nammāḻvār as the tradition’s first teacher, and Tirumaṅkai as the one who began the process of institutionalizing the Śrīvaiṣṇava traditions. And nowhere is this relationship between the two poets clearer than in the festival’s three main ritual dramas, which occur in a tight sequence during the Adhyayanotsavam’s final three days to culminate in an enactment of Nammāḻvār’s mokṣa.5 While Nammāḻvār’s mokṣa concludes the Adhyayanotsavam, the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam marking Tirumaṅkai’s initiation and conversion two days prior, is what paves the way for the festival’s final act. In these last three days, the Adhyayanotsavam points us in two directions: the first aspires to a life beyond this world and is exemplified by Nammāḻvār’s mokṣa. The second, roots us very much within this world, and is epitomised in Tirumaṅkai’s initiation as depicted in the wondrous Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam (Festival of the Hunt).6 The Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam recreates the circumstances that inspired Tirumaṅkai’s spontaneous composition of the Periya Tirumoḻi¸ and like so many other Śrīvaiṣṇava temple festivals, interweaves hagiography, poetry, and visuality (as manifest in the temple icon), to produce that particular affective religio-aesthetic experience that the Śrīvaiṣṇavas term anubhava (enjoyment). Anubhava is generally activated by the sight of the divine body, and in turn that body is refigured into words as a verbal icon. Within the āḻvar corpus, Tiruppāṇāḻvār’s meditation in ten verses on Viṣṇu’s body, itself apparently inspired by a vision of that divine form at Srirangam, is perhaps the most obvious and radical instance of the ways in which anubhava is generative. Indeed, Tiruppāṇār takes the generative potentiality of anubhava to its terminal limit when he declares in the final verse that eyes that have seen Viṣṇu’s improbable beauty can see nothing else: I saw him, lord dark as storm clouds cowherd, butter-thief who stole my heart I saw him, lord of gods, master of Araṅkam My eyes have seen him, my lord sweet as nectar7 Now they’ll see nothing else. Amalaṉātipirāṉ 108 Here, the poet’s vision ends and so too does the poem; yet where his words end, the vision remains, an anubhava in momentary stasis. In contrast, the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam, which draws from Tirumaṅkai’s hagiography and the opening decad of the Periya Tirumoḻi, foregrounds sound and the auditory experience as the instigation for anubhava, rather than sight and divine vision. The Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam, then, can be seen as crucial to the central goal of the Adhyayanotsavam itself: to make explicit the ability of sound to manifest deity on the terrestrial plane, this world of play (līlā vibhūti), and to stir the poet’s anubhava dormant within the poem, to life. Indeed, this kindling of anubhava is for Śrīvaiṣṇavas the goal of exegesis, where to make meaning is to recreate feeling and emotion. Commentary is not about fixing meaning, but about unfurling it, so it becomes a conduit to transfer and translate the āḻvār’s enjoyment of god through the voice of the commentator. It is for this reason that a commentary is referred to as an anubhava grantha, or a text of experience/enjoyment. Within this framework, theological meaning and aesthetic pleasure are not opposed, but symbiotic. For the Śrīvaiṣṇavas, commentary is capacious and protean, bursting beyond the limits of oral or written exegesis, to be experienced in multiple medial modalities—through oral text, written commentary, liturgical recitation, in visual form through alaṅkāra, and in temple festivals and rituals.9 Taking as my departure point Śrīvaiṣṇava notions of commentary as an anubhava grantha, I bring the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam, Tirumaṅkai’s hagiography and the opening decad of Tirumaṅkai’s Periya Tirumoḻi into conversation to demonstrate the ways in which the realms of sound and sight are configured as mutually sustaining within the temple and the narrative traditions of the Śrīvaiṣṇavas. I regard each of these—temple festival, poetry, and hagiography—as anubhava grantha-s, for their ability to elicit and sustain anubhava, and in doing so, to make specific kinds of theological arguments. This essay takes the reader from the tradition’s most elaborate interpretation of a poet’s sight and sound worlds to the poet’s own expression of the divine through sound and in sight, as both anubhava and anubhava grantha, where the poem functions as not only the first level of commentary, but also as an auto-commentary. I begin with the Vēṭu Paṟi’s spectacular recreation of Tirumaṅkai’s initiation, and then move to the hagiographic imagining of the genesis of the Periya Tirumoḻi to provide a close reading of the poet’s own pared down articulation of his awakening in Periya Tirumoḻi I.1. The Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam: the Festival of the Hunt As dusk falls, locals begin to trickle into the temple’s outer spaces.10 The chief priest and his assistant have already arrived several hours ago. They are behind a curtain, keeping Viṣṇu and his devotee, Tirumaṅkai, company. Viṣṇu is mounted on a massive gilded horse, dressed in rich silks and glittering gems.11 He holds a long, sharp spear, pointing it straight ahead as though ready to aim it with precision at a target that only he can see (Fig. 1). Figure 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Viṣṇu spear in hand before the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam begins. Srivaikuntham Temple, Tamil Nadu. Photograph by the author. Figure 1. Open in new tabDownload slide Viṣṇu spear in hand before the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam begins. Srivaikuntham Temple, Tamil Nadu. Photograph by the author. Below him, in a tiny palanquin, is Tirumaṅkai. He too is dressed quite finely, his hands folded in supplication; he’s missing his spear, his defining iconographic feature (Fig. 2). Figure 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Tirumaṅkai in his palanquin before the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam begins. Srivaikuntham Temple, Tamil Nadu. Photograph by the author. Figure 2. Open in new tabDownload slide Tirumaṅkai in his palanquin before the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam begins. Srivaikuntham Temple, Tamil Nadu. Photograph by the author. The musicians arrive, the Brahmin men who make up the goṣṭi (official reciters) trickle in next, and finally the women of the town line up, seeking the best vantage from which to observe the proceedings. Suddenly, the curtain is dropped, the musicians play a jaunty tune and the percussionists set up a rousing, throbbing rhythm as Viṣṇu and Tirumaṅkai emerge from behind the curtain. They enter the street. Tirumaṅkai in his palanquin hurries ahead. Viṣṇu chases after him. They run in circles, and at one point it becomes a little difficult to determine who chases whom. Eventually, the dance of hide and seek ends. Viṣṇu, spear still in hand, faces the street (Fig. 3). Figure 3. Open in new tabDownload slide The ledger accounts being read. Viṣṇu is on his horse facing towards the crowd. Tirumaṅkai is not visible, obscured by the crowd. Srivaikuntham Temple, Tamil Nadu. Photograph by the author. Figure 3. Open in new tabDownload slide The ledger accounts being read. Viṣṇu is on his horse facing towards the crowd. Tirumaṅkai is not visible, obscured by the crowd. Srivaikuntham Temple, Tamil Nadu. Photograph by the author. Tirumaṅkai in his palanquin, so far below him is turned towards him. A man steps forward ledger in hand—he is playing Viṣṇu here—and begins to recite accounts of god’s material possessions: his long ropes of milk white pearls, his glittering necklaces of the finest gems, gold crowns, ornaments of the rarest sort. You have taken these, he implies. The crowd titters in amusement. Tirumaṅkai is a legendary thief, and he has at last been caught and made to answer for his transgressions. Stunned by the confrontation, Tirumaṅkai is rendered momentarily speechless. An eerie silence—only a moment, but as though stretching into an age—envelops the space, until the quiet is shattered by the piercing opening lines of Tirumaṅkai’s Periya Tirumoḻi: vāṭiṉēṉ, vāṭi varuntiṉēṉ: I withered, I despaired. The playful levity of the festival gives way to gravitas. The slow, powerful recitation comes to a close, and the concluding refrain—nārāyaṇa eṉṉum nāmam, nārāyaṇa’s name—of Tirumaṅkai’s opening ten verses haunt the air. Viṣṇu and Tirumaṅkai make their way back into the temple, a small group trailing them eager for the blessing of tīrtha and saṭhāri.12 In their wake, in the now empty street, in the deep black of night, Nārāyaṇa’s name lingers, sweet and potent as the perfume of jasmine adorning the divine bodies absorbed back into the cool depths of the temple. Tirumaṅkaiyāḻvār: thief and lover The Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam13 memorialises the moment of Tirumaṅkai’s initiation, which is recorded in hagiographic narratives starting in the twelfth century.14 In these stories, the prince, Nīlaṉ15 served as a vassal to the Cōḻa kings, protecting the territory of Tirumaṅkai. But he was a hedonist, whiling his time in the pursuit of wine and women. An encounter with a beautiful Brahmin woman, Kumutavaḷḷi, (whom he eventually married), affected a change, and at her urging, he became a Vaiṣṇava, undergoing the conversion ritual that branded Viṣṇu’s conch and discus on his shoulders. Further, he vowed to feed a thousand Vaiṣṇavas every day for a year. Nīlaṉ soon ran out of funds, and began to embezzle from the royal treasury to fulfil his vow. He was arrested, brought before the Cōḻa king and imprisoned.16 Unbeknownst to Tirumaṅkai, Viṣṇu intervened, restoring the missing funds to the king, thereby ensuring the devout prisoner’s release. Still faced with depleted resources, Tirumaṅkai turned to highway robbery to support his service to fellow Vaiṣṇavas. This went on for a while, until Viṣṇu decided to put an end to his nefarious activities. Viṣṇu, accompanied by Śrī (and her presence is significant), descended to earth disguised as a wealthy newly-wed couple. Nīlaṉ waylaid them and stripped them of their jewels. But when it came time to make off with his bounty, he found himself unable to lift it.17 He accused Viṣṇu, disguised as a bridegroom, of casting a spell and demanded that he undo it. Viṣṇu replied that he had indeed practiced some magic, and that Nīlaṉ should draw closer to learn its secret. When he obeyed, Viṣṇu whispered the aṣṭākṣara, the sacred eight syllable mantra (oṃ namo nārāyaṇāya) in his ear. Instantly, Nīlaṉ burst into song, the opening verses of the Periya Tirumoḻi in which he speaks of his wretched past, of Viṣṇu’s grace,18 the power and glory of his name, spilled forth from his lips in a spontaneous flood of anubhava. Sacred names and sacred games: Periya Tirumoḻi I.1 I withered. My mind withered, I despaired Born into this world of pain and suffering Wedded to the seductions of young women I pursued them. And then, even as I ran That singular one turned my mind to the singular goal I sought, in seeking found Nārāyaṇa’s name          Periya Tirumoḻi I.1.1 Thus begins Tirumaṅkai’s riveting 1084-verse Periya Tirumoḻi (Monumental Sacred Words). This potent, moving beginning not only sets the confessional tone of the Periya Tirumoḻi’s first decad, but also provides the skeleton upon which the legend of Tirumaṅkai, in all its many iterations, is fleshed out. In these ten verses, he bitterly chastises himself for his past as a debauched philanderer and thief, and asserts that it is only Viṣṇu’s grace that turned his mind to the true goal (poruḷ/puruṣārtha). As the decad unfolds, a luscious tension is sustained between the divine grace that transforms him, and the poet’s own striving towards the goal. He is lost in the morass of life until Viṣṇu intervenes (he leaves unspoken the precise nature of this intervention), and it is then that he seeks and finds (nāṭi kaṇṭu k-koṇṭēṉ) the sacred name that is Nārāyaṇa (nārāyaṇa eṉṉum nāmam), identified in the commentaries as the tiru mantra, the most important of mantras for Śrīvaiṣṇavas. Although he does not reveal the mantra in its entirety in Periya Tirumoḻi I.1, it is clear from his deliberate emphasis on this particular name to the exclusion of all others, that it is the power and efficacy of the tiru mantra that he means to evoke. This half-silence, keeping part of the tiru mantra hidden in the opening, is significant, for such coyness is nowhere in evidence in later sections of the Periya Tirumoḻi, in which he celebrates it. For example, in Periya Tirumoḻi I.8.9 and VIII.10.3 he invokes it as the sacred eight syllables (aṣṭākṣara),19 while in VI.10 ‘namo nārāyaṇa’ (obeisance to Nārāyaṇa), the mantra itself, is the concluding refrain of each verse in this decad. Although other āḻvār poets also draw attention to the status of this mantra and to the name Nārāyaṇa,20 Tirumaṅkai’s recurring meditations on both throughout the Periya Tirumoḻi, suggest that it held special significance for him, one that has been expanded on in the Śrīvaiṣṇava hagiographic and festival traditions. For Śrīvaiṣṇavas, the aṣṭākṣara is the first of the rahasya traya, the three (esoteric/secret) mantras that distil the path to complete surrender to Viṣṇu. It is also called the mūla mantra, referencing its place as a primordial statement of faith and as the root of the tradition, and as the tiru mantra (sacred mantra) to indicate its privileged status within the Śrīvaiṣṇava sampradāyas. The tiru mantra (oṃ namo nārāyaṇāya/obeisance to Nārāyaṇa) establishes the relationship between the devotee and Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa, orients the eternal self to the goal (Nārāyaṇa), and articulates the ideal of that self/devotee’s dependence on Viṣṇu. The two remaining mantras, the dvayam and the carama śloka expand on these fundamentals. The two-line dvayam elaborates on the succinct pronouncement of the tiru mantra. It is as follows: śrīman nārāyaṇāya caraṇau śaraṇam prapadye, śrīmate nārāyaṇāya namaḥ I take refuge at the feet of Śrī and Nārāyaṇa Obeisance to Śrī and Nārāyaṇa. The final rahasya is not a mantra at all, but is verse 18.66 of the Bhagavad Gītā. Known as the carama śloka it urges the devotee to relinquish all other paths (dharmān), and points to the means of perfect surrender: sarva dharmān parityajya mām ekam śaraṇam vṛaja aham tvām sarva pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ Abandoning all other paths, take refuge with me I will make you free from all sins. Do not despair. All three mantras lay out the essential compact between god and devotee as one of dependence and perfect surrender, because Viṣṇu is understood to be both the means (upāya) and the goal (upeya). In the following sections, I offer a close reading of Periya Tirumoḻi I.1 focusing on Tirumaṅkai’s emphasis on the experience of god as/through sound, as anubhava and anubhava grantha. In the final section, I return to the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam in light of my analysis of the Periya Tirumoḻi’s opening verses. I bring poetry, hagiography, and ritual into conversation, to demonstrate the legend of Tirumaṅkai’s life can be read as the rahasya traya embodied and enacted, with the opening ten verses of his Periya Tirumoḻi providing a sophisticated exegesis of the tiru mantra in profoundly personal terms.21 The story of Tirumaṅkai is certainly not unique in its seamless incorporation of the rahasya traya. The rahasya traya is so significant to the Śrīvaiṣṇavas, commentators and hagiographers hear their echoes in the lives of all the āḻvār and indeed, in their moving Tamiḻ compositions. Tirumaṅkai’s explicit use of the tiru mantra in the opening confessional decad of the Periya Tirumoḻi lays the foundation for his hagiography, which in turn spawns the temple festival celebrating the initiation, thus serving as an ideal case-study to unpack the dynamic and inter-penetrating worlds of anubhava and anubhava grantha. Singing god, seeing god: Periya Tirumoḻi I.122 Tirumaṅkai’s singular focus in the opening decad of the Periya Tirumoḻi is not on the body of god or a vision of god, so common to āḻvār poetry, but on a particular, sacred name: Nārāyaṇa. Each verse of the opening decad of the Periya Tirumoḻi ends with the refrain nārāyaṇa eṉṉum nāmam, ‘the name that is Nārāyaṇa’. After the poet seeks and finds this name, he recites it, calls it out, sings it, and characterises it as his perfect companion. He does not specify that this is the holiest of mantras, nowhere alludes to its eight syllabled form, and scrupulously refrains from speaking it in its entirety. Yet his emphasis on the particularity of this name to the exclusion of all others makes his purpose clear. The penultimate verse (I.1.9) in which he lists the good that the name brings, while assuring the reader/listener that it offers greater succour than a mother’s love, leaves us in no doubt that it is the tiru mantra/aṣṭākṣara to which he refers. And when we finally arrive at the phala śruti (verse for merit), the decad’s concluding verse, Tirumaṅkai deftly stitches together the esoteric power of Nārāyaṇa’s name into the mundane concerns of earthly living. While most phala śruti-s function as meta-poems that praise the poet’s prowess and extol the miraculous benefits of his composition, Tirumaṅkai offers us something quite distinctive. Even as he praises his own words as a divine garland (teyva nal mālai) and urges the listener/reciter/reader to hold firmly to them, he quickly pivots to remind them to utter Nārāyaṇa in happy times and in ill. In seeding Nārāyaṇa through the Periya Tirumoḻi’s opening ten, and always bringing the argument back to it, Tirumaṅkai’s garland of words effectively become indistinguishable from the name. Each verse becomes both a benediction and an initiation, as the listener/reader/reciter is told of the name, speaks it and accrues its benefits almost accidentally, much like Tirumaṅkai himself. Within the Periya Tirumoḻi’s opening decad, its first five verses follow a discernible formula. They begin with a litany of Tirumaṅkai’s crimes—his debauchery, his thievery, his mindless living—and midway, turn to speak of his conversion, and to praise the efficacy of Nārāyaṇa’s name. I.1.2 is exemplary of this approach: ‘My life’ ‘My nectar’ I cried out, dissolved Wanting only the breasts of countless women What a fool, I was. Understanding nothing How many years did I while away; how many days wasted Now in Kuṭantai where pairs of geese mate In Kuṭantai surrounded by its cool pools I’ll recite what I found Nārāyaṇa’s name The verse begins with the poet exclaiming, ‘My life, My nectar’ (āviyē amutē), words that any reader of āḻvār poetry knows are used to describe Viṣṇu, words meant to convey the intimacy between god and devotee. Thus, the reader/listener anticipates that this verse too will lead them to hear of Tirumaṅkai’s love for god, of his greatness, his beauty. Instead, we are fooled, like Tirumaṅkai, and are drawn into the (his) delusion that mistakes earthly, ephemeral desire for the unshakable, unbreakable relationship between Viṣṇu and his devotees. Half way through the verse, the lost poet (and we, the voyeur-audience) finds himself in the city of Kudantai (present-day Kumbakonam). Again, he defies the familiar modes of āḻvār-bhakti poetry, and does not localise Viṣṇu, offer a description of either the temple or the icon within it. There is no desire to savour the divine body, no identification of that divine body as the source of ecstasy, and no celebration of the unique qualities of the site.23 It is not that Tirumaṅkai is averse to the visual dimensions of bhakti; indeed, seeing god and locating him at specific sites fills the Periya Tirumoḻi, as in this lovely verse on the temple of Indalur from a much later section of the text:24 In primordial time you are white as milk In end times dark as rain clouds Perhaps your beautiful body Shines like gold, glitters like gems How will I know if you won’t show yourself to me Lord of Intalūr? Periya Tirumoḻi IV.9.825 Legend tells us that when Tirumaṅkai arrived at the Parimala Raṅganātha temple in Indalur, he found the doors locked. And despite singing of his overwhelming desire to see Viṣṇu here, the temple doors remained stubbornly closed. It is only when Tirumaṅkai in frustration threatened to leave, telling Viṣṇu to keep the temple to himself, essentially condemning god to not be seen, that the doors magically opened, and god and devotee could at last see each other. Similarly, in Periya Tirumoḻi VI.10, he deploys the tiru mantra as a refrain, but also situates Viṣṇu at specific sacred sites. If in Periya Tirumoḻi I.1, the identity of Nārāyaṇa is largely an abstraction, in VI.10, the effort is to link Viṣṇu’s concrete mythic acts and iconic forms with the overwhelming potency of the tiru mantra; the mythic deeds affirm his identity as the primordial lord, Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa, while also gesturing to his paradoxical nature—a transcendent, ineffable deity (paratva) who is simultaneously accessible, loving and manifest (saulabhya). Just so, Periya Tirumoḻi VI.10.1 with its refrain of ‘namo nārāyaṇa’ sets the tone for the decad: Our lord reclines in Kuṭantai Our lord became a boar, raised the earth Our lord razed Laṅka, vanquished the demon Our lord measured worlds Say his sacred name, Namo Nārāyaṇa Periya Tirumoḻi VI.10.1 Thus, despite how the rest of the Periya Tirumoḻi progresses and utilises this special name, the opening decad is anomalous for the concerted subordination of the visual (which so often in āḻvār poetry is linked to touch and a profound corporeal intimacy), to the auditory experience as figured in Nārāyaṇa’s name. If in most āḻvār poems, including those of Tirumaṅkai, the focus lies in the interrupted vision, the inability to see god, of a gaze clouded by tears, and the self dissolving to accommodate the presence of god,26 here, in this decad, it is the ability to say and to speak the right things that falters. Tirumaṅkai stutters, his throat thick with tears, yet still he calls out the name day and night (I.1.5). He does not call out in longing, yearning to be united with Viṣṇu. Rather, the name itself is Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa, making him always present, quite literally emerging from within the poet’s interior, in his heart27 to manifest in verbal, auditory form.28 Accordingly, the poet must urgently caution fellow poets from offering praise to petty kings. Of what use are these wasteful words, panegyrics to mortal kings (I.1.7)? Just as Tirumaṅkai too used his words poorly, calling his women ‘My life, My nectar’ (āviyē amutē) earlier in this decad, so are these poets, who think that a local chieftain could be refuge to all. Even as he urges these misguided poets to go to the sacred site of Kudantai, first evoked in I.1.2, which is the very verse in which Tirumaṅkai lavishes praise on the wrong object, to ‘see the highest goal’ (nal poruḷ kāṇmiṉ), he quickly subordinates the vision to the aural, for the verse ends by exhorting poets to sing, and in singing (not seeing) find Nārāyaṇa in his name. Despite the resolute focus in the opening decad on the divine being found in and through sound, there is a single, telling visual moment in Periya Tirumoḻi I.1. It occurs in the fourth verse, and presents us with a dramatic description of Viṣṇu as Varāha raising Bhū Devī from the depths of the ocean. That he should choose to evoke this image, of Viṣṇu with his consort, is no accident. It speaks to the integral, entwined nature of god and his consort as asserts the dvayam, the second of the rahasya traya. Equally, the story of Viṣṇu’s Varāha avatāra is one of transformation. The rescue of the earth, Bhū, from the depths of the waters, sets the stage for a reimagined world, one that Viṣṇu crafts anew. It is of course, a fitting symbol of Tirumaṅkai’s awakening, of a man drowning in saṃsāra, who too is lifted up like Bhū, and is reborn, renewed, and reshaped. Such is Viṣṇu’s grace. It is this grace that turns Tirumaṅkai towards piety, but again, he is quick to tell us that it does not manifest in a vision. Instead, in Periya Tirumoḻi I.1.4, the sole visual moment in the poem, grace sets the poet on a quest, with an end point that envisions god as sound, embodied in the abstraction of a secret (rahasya) name that he nonetheless reveals to anyone who would care to listen. We are back to the auditory once again, with the promise that the name Nārāyaṇa implies that he (Viṣṇu) contains all things, and thus fully encapsulates him as well. Therefore, in the end, the equation that Tirumaṅkai proposes in Periya Tirumoḻi I.1 is simple. In finding the name, Tirumaṅkai has also found Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa. Returns: hagiography and the Festival of the Hunt Even while Periya Tirumoḻi I.1 employs a relentless confessional tone and is generally read by Śrīvaiṣṇavas as biographical, the hagiographies and the festival it inspires offers an understanding of this opening decad from a different vantage. Friedhelm Hardy is correct in his assertion that the many iterations of the Tirumaṅkai’s story reveal the process of the Śrīvaiṣṇava community’s self-definition during its formative period between the twelfth and fifteen centuries. Thus, although Tirumaṅkai bitterly regrets his dalliances with women, and sees them as the source for his downfall, in the hagiographies, it is love for a woman, Kumutavaḷḷi that sets him on a righteous path. Given how important the goddess becomes in the Śrīvaiṣṇava traditions, a position signalled by her integral place in the dvayam, the second of the rahasya traya, that Tirumaṅkai’s story should be altered to make the woman the agent of change is unsurprising.29 Further, the goddess’ role as the ideal mediator (puruṣakāra) between god and devotee makes Kumutavaḷḷi’s role in Tirumaṅkai’s transformation all the more obvious. Yet, lest we forget, despite his initial, nominal conversion, he remains an unapologetic thief, stealing to serve devotees, jailed by the Śaiva king for embezzlement. There is of course much that can be said of the politics of Tirumaṅkai’s story—his caste identity, the rivalry of Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava communities for limited resources and patronage, exemplified by the diverting of funds from wealthy non-Vaiṣṇavas towards devout Vaiṣṇavas, the challenge he represents to the power of imperial Śaivism, all loom large.30 As Tirumaṅkai himself says, why should one praise mortal kings, when one can sing of Viṣṇu whose sovereignty is permanent and inviolable (Periya Tirumoḻi I.1.7)? Further to the obvious politics at work here, the story also has something significant to say about the relationship between god and devotee. Fundamental to Tirumaṅkai’s story, and in many ways quite distinctive in the āḻvār hagiographic corpus, is his general satisfaction with his life prior to his encounter with Viṣṇu. He is quite happy playing vassal to the Cōḻa king and filling his days with pleasure.31 He is no Viṣṇucittan-Periyāḻvār who spent his days as a pious garland maker, or Kōtai-Āṇṭāḷ who yearned to be Viṣṇu’s bride, and for whom ordinary life was unbearable, or Nammāḻvār, who emerged fully enlightened from the womb to sit in silent meditation for sixteen years. It is Tirumaṅkai’s distinctive complacence that necessitates a curious reversal, in which Tirumaṅkai assumes the part of thief and Viṣṇu that of his willing mark. In any number of āḻvār poems, including those of Kōtai-Āṇṭāḷ, Nammāḻvār and Tirumaṅkai himself, Viṣṇu (particularly in his avatāra as Kṛṣṇa), is characterised as a thief and scoundrel. He is the one who steals the devotees’ clothes, their hearts, loves them, and abandons his women (i.e. the devotee), leaving them hollowed out and impoverished, absent his love. For example, here is Nammāḻvār in the voice of a woman: Who is to save me now? My soft breasts yielded to his touch, my hips too When he pushed into me, plunged deep into my self Then he left, abandoned me, cast me aside, thief. Now that solitary young lion, my mysterious lord won’t return Still his lotus eyes, his lush lips, his cool dark curls His four wide shoulders torment my heart This is my wretched fate. Tiruvāymoḻi IX.9.3 Unlike Nammāḻvār, this is not Tirumaṅkai’s position in either the hagiographies or in the opening decad of the Periya Tirumoḻi. He is content until the very instant of initiation, a moment he only refers to obliquely in Periya Tirumoḻi I.1.1. In his zealous quest to serve fellow devotees, he steals from Viṣṇu and Śrī, without recognizing their divine nature, and wrests unwittingly from them the most precious of treasures, the sacred, divine name. Viṣṇu allows himself to become a victim of Tirumaṅkai’s enthusiastic, if misguided thievery, as a demonstration of love of a different kind. Viṣṇu and Śrī appear before him—a vision he will long for in later verses of the Periya Tirumoḻi—but he, an incomplete devotee, wearing only the external markers of devotion, is blind to their true nature, as he is to the nature of the world. It is only in hearing the name whispered to him by Viṣṇu, and then in repeating it, that he can apprehend a new hyper-reality. Tirumaṅkai’s tale of awakening, thus delicately unfurls the relationship between the power of sound and the power of the gaze, of the necessary complements of sound and sight. It is only in hearing the divine name is he able to discern divine form. Tirumaṅkai’s story and the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam it inspires not only places the power of sacred sound at its center, but also encapsulates the Śrīvaiṣṇava sampradāyas’ foundational principles as encapsulated in the rahasya traya. The starting point is the tiru mantra, which offers a concise articulation of the dependence of god and devotee and implies that Nārāyaṇa is both the way and the goal. Tirumaṅkai’s initiation, in which he receives this most precious of mantras directly from Viṣṇu makes the point eloquently. Pray to me, take refuge in me, says Viṣṇu, in whispering the mantra to him, and when Tirumaṅkai does, he actualizes that relationship. The two part dvayam, which is also called the mantra ratna (the jewel among mantras) expands on the tiru mantra, and leaves the initiated in no doubt that Nārāyaṇa along with Śrī, from whom he is never separated, is both the way (upāya) and the goal (upeya). What is only implied in the tiru mantra is explicitly stated in the dvayam. Furthermore, it establishes the primacy of loving service (kaiṅkarya) as an expression of one’s devotion to Viṣṇu. That the story necessitates the presence of both Viṣṇu and Śrī for the initiation to take place, that Tirumaṅkai in many versions literally touches the feet of Viṣṇu’s (or Śrī’s) feet, and that the initiation reorients his service, becomes a lived distillation of the esoteric power of the dvayam. Finally, the last of the rahasya traya, the carama śloka, advises the devotee to seek refuge in Viṣṇu alone, giving up all other paths and such perfect surrender (prapatti) will free him from sins. This indeed is how Tirumaṅkai’s story concludes and how the Periya Tirumoḻi opens, with the poet surrendering completely to Viṣṇu, placing himself fully in his care, comforted in the relationship of dependence promised by both the tiru mantra and by the dvayam. Even as he chastises himself for his terrible past, and recounts his numerous sins, the conscious shift towards Viṣṇu and his name that he makes at the midpoint in each verse, enunciates the cardinal principle of complete surrender (prapatti) that the carama śloka requires, and to which both the tiru mantra and the dvayam, allude. A reading of Tirumaṅkai’s story and the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam in light of the rahasya traya is not misplaced, and offers us one way to read the use of sound in the festival and in the Periya Tirumoḻi’s opening ten verses. Indeed, one of the most important Śrīvaiṣṇava teachers, Parāśara Bhaṭṭar (1122–74) interprets Tirumaṅkai’s extraordinary thirty-verse poem the Tiruneṭuntāṇtakam as an elucidation of the rahasya traya, with three sets of ten verses expressing the principles of each of the three mantras.32 Even with such emphasis on the efficacy of sacred sound, Tirumaṅkai is still very much an āḻvār poet, for whom divine vision and sacred speech are not antithetical but complementary. Mediated by anubhava, that particular affective condition, which is figured as the source of poetry in Śrīvaiṣṇava oral commentaries, sound produces sight and vice-versa. Indeed, the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam visualises the encounter between Viṣṇu and Tirumaṅkai, giving a kind of definitive form to the abstraction inherent in the poet’s opening verses, and in turn functions as a commentary on both Tirumaṅkai’s text and his life. The Divyasūricaritam, a fifteenth-century Sanskrit hagiography, makes precisely this point, where Tirumaṅkai’s initiatory moment (his experience, anubhava of the divine) is followed immediately by a grand and complete vision (an anubhava of a different sort) and a torrent of words (yet another anubhava): 13.107   When    because of his initiation    darkness lifted and knowledge dawned     and grew   Mukunda who is the world   revealed his form   which is the essence of the eight syllables.   13.108   Seeing him    seated on Garuḍa’s shoulders    with Śrī and Godā on either side    his arms like scepters    bearing his five weapons    praised by the gods with Brahmā at their head,   his eyes filled with tears,   his hair stood on end   and from his heart,    that was on ocean of joy,    emerged songs of praise. The Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam captures the mutually sustaining worlds of sight and sound that the Divyasūricaritam describes and that so much of āḻvār poetry celebrates. Viṣṇu, spear in hand, taking on for this festival Tirumaṅkai’s defining accoutrement, chases his devotee-thief. The massive gilded horse obscures the image of Viṣṇu placed atop it, suggesting something of the visual trick and the delusion in which our thief-poet finds himself. When their mad running around finally ends, Viṣṇu is facing the street, looking out at all his gathered devotees. In contrast, Tirumaṅkai has eyes for none but Viṣṇu. He is turned towards him, gazing simultaneously at Viṣṇu atop the horse and the one enshrined within the temple, in essence in both his arcā (manifest/iconic) forms and paratva (transcendent) forms. Viṣṇu, as in the story, intervenes in manifest form to awaken his devotee. The Viṣṇu-Tirumaṅkai visual tableau in the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam expresses the essence of the tiru mantra, oṃ namo nārāyaṇāya, which is at the centre of not only Tirumaṅkai’s story, but also the opening verses of the Periya Tirumoḻi. It affirms the dynamic relationship between god and devotee, and the latter’s dependence on the former. Thus the pregnant heartbeat-silence that follows the humorous accounting of missing jewels and precedes the keening recitation vāṭiṉēṉ varuntiṉēṉ (I withered, I despaired) is not without reason deeply affecting. In the festival, the initiation occurs in silence and stillness; the aṣṭākṣara is not uttered. It is a secret, a rahasya, which passes between Viṣṇu and his devotee unheard by anyone else, and revealed only when the silence is broken by Tirumaṅkai’s words. In retrospect, it is in that absence of (audible) sound that the fullness of Viṣṇu’s self is laid bare. It is in that moment that Tirumaṅkai both hears and sees Viṣṇu. Here is god, unheard and unintelligible to any but his devotee, naming himself (Nārāyaṇa), and through that name manifesting himself just as vividly as he does in arcā form. It is this that Tirumaṅkai conjures in the simple repeated phrase: nārāyaṇa eṉṉum nāmam, the name that is Nārāyaṇa. In Periya Tirumoḻi I.1., he deliberately leaves the aṣṭākṣara incomplete—a profound silence—that serves to point the devotee, like Viṣṇu’s razor-sharp spear, to the singularity of purpose embodied in Nārāyaṇa’s name, and to place them on a path to seek it, and in seeking it, to complete it for themselves. The opening decad of Tirumaṅkai Āḻvār’s Periya Tirumoḻi I.1 I.1.1 I withered. My mind withered, I despaired Born into this world of pain and suffering Wedded to the seductions of young women I pursued them. And then, even as I ran That singular one turned my mind to the singular goal I sought, in seeking found Nārāyaṇa’s name I.1.2 ‘My life’ ‘My nectar’ I cried out, dissolved Wanting only the breasts of countless women What a fool, I was. Understanding nothing How many years did I while away; how many days wasted Now in Kuṭantai where pairs of geese mate In Kuṭantai surrounded by its cool pools I’ll recite what I found Nārāyaṇa’s name I.1.3 I wanted only good fortune, accrued misfortune instead Enticed by the comely form of young women My days slipped away, like dreams unspoken by the mute Those long-gone days wasted Kāma’s father, our lord lives in the hearts of devotees who seek him alone I’ve found that name Nārāyaṇa’s name I.1.4 I craved success, longed for ephemeral things Single-minded in my lust for women with eyes sharp as spears My fickle heart was never still. What can I do? A glorious boar wide as the sky lifted up the earth That great one with his disc His grace alone turned me towards good I’ve found it Nārāyaṇa’s name I.1.5 I was a rogue, unprincipled and unscrupulous I wandered aimlessly. Now I’ve found clarity I’ve found a new path received the full measure of his grace I dissolve. My body grows wet with tears My voice falters, I stutter Into the long night and the bright day I call out Nārāyaṇa’s name I.1.6 My lord, my father, every kind of kin My king, he is all my living days Demons quivered in fear as arrows flew from his bow He ended their lives. He is my master Fragrant groves and mighty forts encircle Tañcai I am in his great, glittering temple there, seeking a higher good I’ve found it Nārāyaṇa’s name I.1.7 You don’t know their kin, don’t grasp their stupidity You offer praise thinking little of their qualities “Creeper of Wishes, Men of Wisdom, Refuge of All” You sing indiscriminately, slaves to mortal masters Listen, worship at Kuṭantai encircled by swirling waters See the highest goal Sing, find Nārāyaṇa’s name I.1.8 I have no learning. Ruled by the five senses My heart wandered, I gained nothing Only stupidity. To the creatures of this wide world I brought pain and death Now I’ve turned from this life I seek the right path my perfect companion Nārāyaṇa’s name I.1.9 It gifts you a good life, grants you great wealth It grinds to dust the suffering of the faithful It graces you with a place high in the ethers It gives you the whole wide world, such grace It strengthens you, bestows bounty Nourishes more than a mother I’ve found that word, a world of goodness Nārāyaṇa’s name I.1.10 Cool clouds move gently, ponds thick with flowers Invite honey bees, this is the land of Tirumaṅkai Kalikaṉṟi who wields a shining sword His lovely words are a divine garland. Hold them firmly At death call the name In trouble think the name Even in times of ease say the name Nārāyaṇa’s name On Intalūr: Tirumaṅkai Āḻvār’s Periya Tirumoḻi IV.9 IV.9.1 I worship you, bow before your feet As your devotee, I find joy O father, lord of Intalūr If only you would listen to all that binds me If only you would be kind If only you would take a few steps toward us How my spirits would lift. IV.9.2 You are my heart’s eternal goodness Sweet prince, Māl of cool Tiruvāli wild elephant roaming cool groves brilliant flame, lord of Naṟaiyūr My father, lord of Intalūr Take pity on me. IV.9.3 In two strides you measured the worlds Such is your legend, lord who wears a crown of fragrant tulasī I drown in an ocean of longing, ache to see you So many others cry out, lord of Intalūr, They want to see you too. IV.9.4 My love is steadfast, but it’s useless I am bound to you alone, even the world knows this But you my lord, won’t show yourself Won’t reveal your body brilliant as gold Live well, lord of Intalūr May you prosper. IV.9.5 My lord is fire, my lord is water Even when he becomes the directions, the worlds I can’t see him lord to my mother, lord to my father’s father lord of Intalūr Aren’t you mine as well? IV.9.6 I cannot not say this, so I’ll just tell you what I feel, You seem to think of me as just one of your many devotees You can discern the virtuous from the wicked You may know everything about this world But you don’t know how to give me grace lord of Intalūr. IV.9.7 You refuse us, won’t accept our service Won’t allow us that pleasure—we say all this openly lord of Intalūr You refuse to reveal your feet, if you did Won’t your devotees who fill this wide world Find release? IV.9.8 In primordial time you are white as milk In end times you are dark as rain clouds Perhaps your beautiful body Shines like gold, glitters like gems How will I know if you won’t show yourself to me lord of Intalūr? IV.9.9 My father, his father, seven generations of fathers Before him have served you But you won’t stay in our thoughts You won’t show us your lovely form for even a moment lord of Intalūr. IV.9.10 Kaliyaṉ king of Maṅkai sang of his father The lord of Intalūr, city of lush groves Those who learn this fine garland of sweet words Will reign as a god among gods. Footnotes " 1 The āḻvār (literally those who are immersed) are the twelve poet-saints of the Tamiḻ Vaiṣṇava traditions. They lived in the Tamiḻ speaking south between the sixth and ninth centuries. In the Ubhaya Vedānta (dual Vedānta) system of the Śrīvaiṣṇava sampradāyas, their Tamiḻ compositions are revered as revealed. " 2 The dating of the āḻvār poets remains problematic because corroborating historical evidence is scant. The Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition places Nammāḻvār placed fifth in its chronology, while Tirumaṅkai is last. The internal evidence in Nammāḻvār’s poetry dates him between the late eighth and mid-ninth centuries. In his Periya Tirumoḻi, Tirumaṅkai devotes an entire decad (II.9) to a celebration of Tiru Parameśvara Viṇṇakaram in Kacci (Kanchi), the temple known today as Vaikuntha Perumal in Kancipuram. This temple’s patron was the Pallava king Nandivarman II (720–796 CE). Tirumaṅkai does not mention Nandivarman by name, but each verse extols his valour and his virtue with a version of the phrase ‘pallavar kōṉ paṇinta paramēccura viṇṇakaram atuvē’ (the Parameśvara Viṇṇakaram worshipped by the Pallava king.) The pointed reference to a specific Pallava king and his royal temple has led some scholars to suggest that Tirumaṅkai knew the monarch. It is primarily on the evidence of Periya Tirumoḻi II.9 that a date in the mid-late eighth century is proposed for Tirumaṅkai. See Venkatesan (2013, pp. 84–8), for a comprehensive discussion of Nammāḻvār’s date. For the arguments pertaining to Tirumaṅkai’s eighth-century date, see Hudson (2008, chapter 3). For a general overview of the dating of the āḻvār poets, see Hardy (1983) and Ramanujam (1973) " 3 Despite Tirumaṅkai’s purported efforts to institutionalise the Tiruvāymoḻi, legend tells us that the poem was forgotten. It was recovered by the Śrīvaiṣṇavas’ first ācārya, Nāthamuni, who re-established the Adhyayanotsavam in Srirangam. The sacking of the Srirangam temple by Muslim forces in 1311, its subsequent closure, and the establishment of the short-lived Muslim Sultanate in the southern city of Madurai (1335–78) mark in the remembered pasts of the Śrīvaiṣṇavas, a third interruption in the festival’s celebration. While the fall of the Madurai Sultanate was represented in local histories as rekindling ritual activities in both Śaiva and Śrīvaiṣṇava temples, it is not until the period of the Nāyaka kings based in Madurai (1529–1736) and Tanjavur (1532–1673), and the Pāṇṭīyas located further south in Tamiḻ county, that the Adhyayanotsavam began to assume its current form. Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava texts composed during the period of the volatile but brief Madurai Sultanate represent the reign as disruptive. Contemporary nationalist histories read it as a time during which Muslim invaders oppressed and displaced Hindu communities, until the Hindu Vijayanagara kings defeated them and re-established Hindu rule. The work of Phillip Wagoner and Richard Eaton has demonstrated the complexity of these interactions, and has problematised the notion of characterising the Vijayanagara empire (1336–1646) as unequivocally Hindu. For a thorough discussion that complicates the notion of a Hindu Vijayanagara, see Wagoner (1996), Eaton (2000), and Eaton and Wagoner (2014). " 4 In Śrīvaiṣṇava temples that support Araiyars, a community of hereditary male Brahmin performers, their service known as Araiyar Cēvai (Service of Kings) is an integral part of the Adhyayanotsavam. Whereas in most Śrīvaiṣṇava temples, groups of Brahmin men simply recite the four thousand verses of the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham over the course of the twenty days of the Festival of Recitation, those sites with a lineage of Araiyars still in service, dramatic gestural interpretation and commentary complement the recitation. Indeed, at these temples, locals and priests use the first line of the verse to be explicated as shorthand for the festival day. That is, rather than say that it’s the fourth day of the pakal pattu, the priest or local devotee will simply identify it as ‘Ūnēru’. This one word tells us the poet whose work to be recited (Kulaśekhara Āḻvār), the title of the work (Perumāḷ Tirumoḻi), and the verse to be explicated (Perumāḷ Tirumoḻi 4.1). Today, Araiyar Cēvai survives in three temples in Tamil Nadu: Srirangam, Srivilliputtur, and Alvar Tirunagari and at Melkote in Karnataka. For a discussion of Araiyar Cēvai at Srirangam, see Narayanan (1994), Younger (1982). For a discussion of Araiyar Cēvai at Srivilliputtur, see Venkatesan (2014) and Venkatesan (2005). There is yet to be a sustained engagement with the Araiyar Cēvai at Alvar Tirunagari. Narayanan (1994, pp. 123–31) offers a brief overview of some elements of the Alvar Tirunagari festival. For a comprehensive discussion of Araiyar Cēvai in Tamil, see Venkataraman (1985). " 5 The three main festival dramas at the Nava Tirupati are the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam (Hunting Festival), Kaṇayāḻi Tēṭal (The Search for the Ring), and the Praṇaya Kalaka Utsavam (Quarrel Festival). At the temple of Alvar Tirunagari, which continues to support Araiyar Cēvai, a fourth drama, the Muttukkuṟi (Divination with Pearls) is performed on the final day of the pakal pattu. " 6 At the conclusion of the Adhyayanotsavam, Nammāḻvār is commanded by Viṣṇu to return to the world to act as a guide to humans. Narayanan (1994, p. 128) discusses this return in the context of the Srirangam Adhyayanotsavam. " 7 The juxtaposition of two senses to articulate an experience of god is typical of āḻvār poetry. It is a means of conveying the immersive and interdependent sensory worlds in which god is experienced. While most poets bring sight and sound into conversation, in Tiruppāṇār’s verse, it is sight and taste that come together. " 8 All translations are by the author. " 9 For a general discussion of anubhava and anubhava grantha, see Hopkins (2002) and Venkatesan (2010). For a discussion of anubhava and anubhava grantha in relation to written commentary, see Venkatesan (2014). For a discussion of anubhava and anubhava grantha in the context of Śrīvaiṣṇava ritual, see Venkatesan (2014). For a discussion of alaṅkāra as anubhava, see Venkatesan and Branfoot (2015). " 10 I offer here a truncated description of the Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam as it takes place in Srivaikuntham, the first of the Nava Tirupati temples. The Vēṭu Paṟi Utsavam is performed at several temples in Tamil Nadu, including at Srirangam, on the eighth day of the irā-p-pattu utsavam. Among the nine Nava Tirupati temples, Srivaikuntham, Tenttiruperai, and Alvar Tirunagari celebrate it in an elaborate fashion on the evening of the eighth day of the irā-p-pattu utsavam. On that day, it is performed first in Srivaikuntham, followed by Tenttiruperai and finally at Alvar Tirunagari. " 11 For Śrīvaiṣṇavas, the temple icon is one of the five forms of Viṣṇu. Known as the arcā, it is apprehended to be wholly and fully deity. It is no less fully divine than any of Viṣṇu’s other four forms: the transcendent form known as paratva, his four manifestations known as the vyūha, his avatāras called the vibhava, or the in-dwelling deity referred to as the antaryāmin. To reflect this Śrīvaiṣṇava understanding of images in worship, I describe Viṣṇu and Tirumaṅkai as a living, embodied presence. I do not qualify that I am speaking of festival icons of Viṣṇu and Tirumaṅkai. For Śrīvaiṣṇavas, these icons are not representational, pointing to some other abstract truth. To devotees, the icons are Tirumaṅkai and Viṣṇu wholly present as themselves. " 12 Tīrtha-saṭhāri is the blessing conferred on devotees at Śrīvaiṣṇava temples at the conclusion of any ritual activity. Tīrtha is sanctified water that the devotee drinks. The saṭhāri is a crown that has an image of feet, understood to be Viṣṇu’s, at its crest. This is placed on the bowed head of the devotee. In receiving the saṭhāri, devotees perform their surrender and affirm their dependence on Viṣṇu. Saṭhāri is also another of Nammāḻvār’s names, and therefore is emblematic of this devotee’s special intimacy with Viṣṇu as well as his role as an efficacious mediator of Viṣṇu’s grace. " 13 Vēṭu Paṟi is most appropriately translated as The Festival of Highway Robbery. " 14 The most important Śrīvaiṣṇava hagiographies that record the Tirumaṅkai hagiographies are the Maṇipravāḷa Guruparamparaprabhāvam 6000 and 3000 (twelfth tofifteenth century), the Sanskrit Divyasūricaritam (fifteenth century) and Prapannāmṛtam (eighteenth century). A sthala purāṇa, also in Sanskrit, the Bilvāraṇyakṣetra Mahātmyam (traditionally dated to the twelfth century) is yet another source for Tirumaṅkai’s story. " 15 The poet, who comes to be known as Tirumaṅkai, is known by several names, including, Nīlaṉ, Kaliyaṉ, Kalikaṉṟi and Parakālaṉ. He is most well known as Tirumaṅkaiyāḻvār, a title which foregrounds his status as a member of this elite group of Tamiḻ Vaiṣṇava pioneers. " 16 In his confrontation with the king whom he serves, Tirumaṅkai’s story is similar to that of the Śaiva poet, Māṇikkavācakar, who spent the gold given to him by the king for the purchase of thoroughbred horses on a Śiva temple. When the king asked him to return with the horses and Māṇikkavācakar came back empty-handed only with a promise, he was thrown in prison. Śiva aided his devotee by bringing magic horses to the king at the appointed hour. But the story continues with Śiva tormenting the king in a number of ways, until he proves Māṇikkavācakar’s exemplary devotion. " 17 The hagiographies describe this moment in a number of ways. In some versions, he is unable to lift the loot, and Viṣṇu tricks him into the initiation. In other accounts, he tries to remove a ring off Viṣṇu’s finger, and when unsuccessful, tries to bite it off. In still other iterations, it is a toe-ring that he wants to remove, which requires him to touch Viṣṇu’s feet, and again he tries to remove it by biting it off. In a story that gives primacy to the role of the goddess, Śrī-Lakṣmī, Tirumaṅkai attempts to pull her toe-ring off, a symbol of her auspicious married state, and her inseparability form Viṣṇu, and again tries to bite it off. It is in seeing such desperation that she intervenes on his behalf and facilitates the initiation. For a discussion of the different versions of the Tirumaṅkai legend, see Hardy (1992). " 18 For Śrīvaiṣṇavas, grace is a dynamic, fluid feeling that moves between god and devotee. In the poetry of the āḻvār, grace (aruḷ), is often connected to the gaze—a divine glance that can soothe the woes of being bound to this world. For Śrīvaiṣṇava theologians it encompasses the qualities of compassion (kṛpā) and mercy (dayā) that are inherent to Viṣṇu. But the question of how divine grace (svāmi-kṛpā) works is a point of contention, and is one of the fundamental points on which the two schools of the Śrīvaiṣṇava sampradāyas differ. While for the Teṅkalai (southern school), Viṣṇu’s grace does not depend on the devotee’s merit or effort, the Vaṭakalai (northern school) argues that grace is contingent on the meritorious actions of the devotee, and the devotee must prepare to earn divine grace. Mumme (2014) offers a sensitive reading of Nammālvār’s mokṣa to explicate the differences in the Teṅkalai and Vaṭakalai interpretation of the relationship between grace, effort, and karma. " 19 In I.8.9, Tirumaṅkai evokes it as tirunāmam eṭṭu eḻuttu (the eight syllables of the sacred name), while in VIII.10.3, it is simply tiru eṭṭu eḻuttu (the sacred eight syllables). " 20 The first three āḻvār, Poykai (Mutal Tiruvantāti 51 and 95), Pūtam (Iraṇṭām Tiruvantāti 2 and 20), and Pēy (Mūṉṟām Tiruvantāti 8) all invoke the tiru mantra, as does Tirumaḻicai Āḻvār in Tiruccanda Viruttam 77. Viṣṇucittaṉ-Periyāḻvār also praises its power in his Periyāḻvār Tirumoḻi (V.1.3, V.1.6), while poets like Śaṭakōpaṉ-Nammāḻvār and Kōtai-Āṇṭāḷ simply use the name Nārāyaṇa. " 21 These opening verses, anticipates the crucial theological question in Śrīvaiṣṇava doctrine on the nature of mortal effort and the place of divine grace in securing mokṣa. The differences in the understanding between grace and effort eventually lead to a sub-sectarian split within the Śrīvaiṣṇava community. For a discussion of the historical issues that precipitated the division and the nuances in theological positions, see Raman (2007) and Mumme (1988). " 22 A complete translation of Periya Tirumoḻi I.1 is provided at the end of this essay. " 23 In this verse (I.1.2), the commentaries read the pair of mating geese as an allusion to Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa and his inseparable primary consort, Śrī-Lakṣmī. " 24 Sites and sight are dominant features of Tirumaṅkai’s poetry, and he is systematic about documenting the most important sacred sites. The Periya Tirumoḻi functions in some ways like a pilgrimage manual with ten verse cycles and some times more, dedicated to specific temple towns. The celebration of specific sites begins in Periya Tirumoḻi I.2 and runs through continuously, culminating in the cycle of ten praising several sacred sites in Periya Tirumoli X.1. There are roughly hundred verses that remain in the text (Periya Tirumoli X.2−XI.8), which are composed in different modes and on a variety of topics. The two maṭal poems attributed to Tirumaṅkai conclude with a breathtaking list of temple towns. " 25 A translation of the decad on Indalur (Periya Tirumoḻi IV.9) is provided at the end of this article. Like several other sections in the Periya Tirumoḻi, this decad emphasises vision and the intimacy that sight provides. The section is anchored by the poet’s desire to know god by seeing him, and in his orientation, Tirumaṅkai is certainly not unique, for this is a central argument in the many poems of the āḻvār and in those by their Tamiḻ Śaiva counterparts. " 26 The following from Nammālvār’s Tiruvāymoḻi is typical of the manner in which sight, vision, and overflowing emotion function: " She dances dances, dissolves. Sweetly " She sings, sings. Her tears flow. Everywhere " She searches, searches calling “Narasiṃha” " She shrivels shrivels, this girl with a bright forehead. " Tiruvāymoḻi II.4.1             " 27 In I.1.3, Tirumaṅkai explicitly states that Viṣṇu lives in devotees’ hearts (tām aṭaintār maṉattu iruppār). " 28 Thus it is that in I.1.6, even as the poet finds himself at the center of his fine temple in Tañcai (Tanjavur), he does not describe his form, does not describe the intense pleasure that such a vision excites. Instead, here within the temple it is name not form that he finds. The beginning of this verse also contrasts very nicely to I.1.2, in which he calls out ‘My life, My nectar…’. " 29 In some of the hagiographies, Kumutavaḷḷi is seen as an emanation of Bhū, but in most versions, she is an apsaras, sent by Lakṣmī or Viṣṇu to look after Tirumaṅkai’s spiritual welfare. As Hardy points out, another reason for Kumutavaḷḷi’s celestial origin has to do with the cross-caste romance and marriage between the non-Brahmin Nīlaṉ and the Brahmin Kumutavaḷḷi. Their mutual Vaiṣṇava devotion ultimately trumps the division of caste, but her divine origin offers yet another out. The story also makes it clear that although a non-Brahmin, as a vassal to the imperial Cōḻa, Tirumaṅkai is a member of the elite. See Hardy (1992, p. 87). The story implies that the problem for Tirumaṅkai is not his caste—he is supposed to be a kaḷḷar—but how he uses his life. It is his hedonism that needs correction, and Viṣṇu and Lakṣmī administer the initial corrective via the celestial-Brahmin woman, Kumutavaḷḷi, and finally sublimate his transformation themselves. " 30 The Tirumaṅkai story makes it clear that he does not rob Vaiṣṇavas, and the one time he does it unknowingly, he seeks out the pious Vaiṣṇava couple to return their possessions. However, Tirumaṅkai does not entirely give up his thieving ways even after his initiation. A famous episode in his hagiography celebrates his raid on a Buddhist temple in Nagapattinam to steal its gold icon of the Buddha. He is said to have then melted down the Buddha and used the gold to build the third enclosure of the Srirangam temple. 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TI - Speared through the Heart: The Sound of God in the Worlds of Tirumaṅkai
JF - The Journal of Hindu Studies
DO - 10.1093/jhs/hix015
DA - 2017-11-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/speared-through-the-heart-the-sound-of-god-in-the-worlds-of-tiruma-kai-nrr2sRqNv0
SP - 275
VL - 10
IS - 3
DP - DeepDyve
ER -