Poems from Nammāḻvār’s Tiruvāymoḻi
Born as Māṟaṉ to the Velālar community, Saṭakōpaṉ, best known as Nammāḻvār, “our own āḻvār”; considered the greatest of the twelve āḻvārs.
“Māṟaṉ Śaṭhakōpaṉ from Kurukūr
who wears a garland of fragrant makiḻ flowers
sang with love these ten verses from a thousand
on the one who rules, him who holds the disc.
Those who learn them reach Vaikuṇṭha, never to return.
Tiruvāymoḻi IV.10.11”
Anyone who reads his poems can see why: the poems are at once philosophic and poetic, direct in feeling yet intricate in design, single-minded yet various in mood — wondering, mischievous, tender, joyous, subtly probing, often touching despair but never staying with it. He composed four works, of which the 1,102 verses of Tiruvāymoḻi (Sacred utterances/sacred truth) are the most important. Very early, the Tiruvāymoḻi was hailed as “the ocean of Tamil Veda in which the Upaniṣads of the thousand branches flow together.” His poems have been chanted in temple services and processions since the eleventh century. Indeed, at the Śrīrankam temple a special ten-day festival is devoted to his work: a professional reciter (with the title araiyar, “king”), dressed in ritual finery, sings and enacts the hymns for the listening image of Lord Viṣṇu.
After Saṭakōpaṉ’s first exposition of the verses, the Tiruvāymoḻi is lost for an indeterminate number of years. Nāthamuni, a brahmin Vaiṣṇava teacher, chances upon a group of itinerant performers singing sweet Tamiḻ verses that begin with the words āra amutē (the nectar that does not sate), and end with the tantalizing information that the decad is part of a thousand verses. 20 Moved by the beauty of the songs that he had never heard before, he asks them to sing the remaining verses. To his disappointment, the singers tell him that these are all they know. He finds his way to Kurukur, where Madurakavi’s student instructs him to repeat his teacher’s Kaṇṇinuṇ ciṟu tāmpu 12,000 times. At the end of this liturgical meditation, pleased by Nāthamuni’s piety, Śaṭhakōpaṉ appears, and reveals his four compositions for a second time. In addition, he also shares three thousand verses composed by ten other poets. Nāthamuni compiles these four thousand verses into a book, which comes to be known as the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham (The Divine Collection of Four Thousand). Further, he establishes a performance tradition to ensure the accurate transmission of the texts and to guard against textual loss. The twelve authors of the Divya Prabandham are revered as the āḻvār (those who are immersed), and the poet[…]
In the Tiruvāymoḻi, god is Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa, a deity of a thousand names and thousand forms, who is singular, transcendent, inscrutable, formless, distant, multiple, immanent, knowable, embodied and intimate.
The mysterious lord is in my heart
it is so for everyone.
He’s body and breath, wind and fire
he’s both far and near
beyond thought, beyond the senses
the pure dazzling bewildering lord
rests on my shoulders.
Tiruvāymoḻi I.9.6
My life is a garland, my love is
your crown of light your countless jewels
your fine silks.
It is even the songs of praise
chanted in the three worlds
for Kaṇṇaṉ my lord my master
who wields the disc of time.
Tiruvāymoḻi IV.3.5
To place rare flowers each day at Nāraṇaṉ’s feet
that’s what we’re made for. What can you do
when alone, cleaved, forsaken by luck? Go ask him,
winter breeze, then return to pierce my bones.
He’s release from the cycle of birth, he’s life
and everything else. On the deep ocean he made himself
he sleeps, a fiery disc in his hand. Guileless heart, if you see him
tell him, you’ll stay until I am with him.
Śaṭhakōpaṉ of fertile Kurukūr with its rich fields
sang these ten from a thousand endless verses
on Kaṇṇaṉ, lord of all who live in the seven worlds,
Those who master them will gain the great wealth of heaven.
Tiruvāymoḻi I.4.9–11
He’s the faultless primordial source
of the immortals,
his body a dark-blue gem, his eyes red lotuses
he delights in riding his eagle with mighty wings
Śrī’s beloved fed me a taste of the only path
now he stays with me
He won’t leave.
Tiruvāymoḻi I.9.3
Translations by Archana Venkatesan; from Nammāl̲vār. Endless Song. India: Penguin Random House India Private Limited, 2020
other references: A. K. Ramanujan, Hymns for the Drowning. India: Penguin, 2005.
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