vaNduNum

vaNduNum

thiruviNNagar 1

In three tirumozhi’s AzhwAr sings on tiruviNNahar divya dESa. In these ten pASuras he talks of his liking for BagavadanuBava and dislike for samsAra anuBava.

vaNDuNum naru malariNDai koNDu
paNDainamvinai keDavenru aDimEl
toNDarumamarum paNiyaninru angu |
aNDamODahaliDamaLandavanE
ANDAi unnai kANbadOr aruLenakku aruLudiyEl
vENDEn manaivAzhkkai viNNahar mEyavanE ||

Oh! emberumAn! Even dEvas like brahma and others worship Your tiruvaDi asking for help. You immediately give Your consent and measure the worlds after begging three feet from the asura mahA bali. You are very much pleased by the simple act of offering flowers by them and grant them their wishes when they utter a word to You. ‘We are Yours’. This made me Your dAsa. You stay in tiruviNNahar in order to help those who seek Your tiruvaDi. If You can show Your grace on me i shall certainly renounce the samsAra suKa and come to You alone.

ahaliDam aLandavanE—When He placed His tiruvaDi, He placed them on all-sentient and insentient, non-Baktas and Baktas and so on. Hence i am sure You would not reject me and my pleadings.

ANDAi—You revealed Your glories, roopa, guNa, etc. to me that made me Your slave and renounce the world

aNNalSeidalai kaDalkaDainda adanuL
kaNNudalnanjuNNakkaNDavaNE
viNNavaramuduNavamudilvarum
peNNamuduNDa emberumAnE |
ANDAi unnai kANbadOr aruLenakku aruLudiyEl
vENDEn manaivAzhkkai viNNahar mEyavanE ||

emberumAn revealed His sarvaswAmitva by ordering Siva to drink the poison (that came out of the pArkaDal while churning) called kAlakooTa; gave the dEvas the ‘pura amudu’ (a mere nectar) and Himself took periya pirATTi who is uLLamudu (the inner essence of nectar).

peNNamudu—periya pirATTi whose very form is nectar

pura amudu—a mere ‘salt solution’—a mere ‘amudu’ which gives only longevity, nothing else

nudal kaN—the third eye of Siva.

emberumAn! i don’t want ‘pura amudu’ or ‘kAlakooTa’—i need only Your tiruvaDi which can give me Your abode. i am ready to sacrifice the earthly pleasures.

kuzhalniravaNNa nin koorukoNDa
tazhal niravaNNan naNNAr naraham
vizha nanimalaiSilaivaLaivuSeidu angu
azhalniravambadu AnavanE |
ANDAi unnai kANbadOr aruLenakku aruLudiyEl
vENDEn manaivAzhkkai viNNahar mEyavanE ||

emberumAn! viNNahar mEGavanE! Oh! kuzhal nira vaNNa! You have offered one portion of Your body to Siva who is red like fire. You entered into the arrow of Siva to burn the city of asuras called tripura. Without You Siva could not have defeated them.

nin kooru koNDa—reveals His souSeelya guNa (the act of mixing with one who is very low without caring for His greatness) ‘valattanan tiripuram erittavan’ (nammAzhwAr) ‘paSya EkAdaSAn rudrAn dakShiNam pArswamASritAn’ (look at these eleven rudras who have occupied my right side of the body).

nilavoDu veyil nilaviruSuDarum
ulahamum uyirhaLum uNDorukAl
kalaitaru kuzhaviyinuruvinaiyAi
alaikaDalAlilai vaLarndavanE |
ANDAi unnai kANbadOr aruLenakku aruLudiyEl
vENDEn manaivAzhkkai viNNahar mEyavanE ||

emberumAn! You took a tiny baby roopa and lay on the tiny banyan leaf after eating all the worlds, hills, oceans, the hot sun and the cool moon and all luminaries all jeevas etc.

kalai—An 1/16th part . It means tiny, small. It can also mean not an ordinary child but an extraordinary infinite one.

pArezhukaDalezhu malaiyezhumAi
Seerkezhum ivvulahEzhumellAm
ArkezhuvayiTTrinil aDakki ninru angu
OrezhuttOruruvAnavanE |
ANDAi unnai kANbadOr aruLenakku aruLudiyEl
vENDEn manaivAzhkkai viNNahar mEyavanE ||

You are the niyAmaka of everything. You, out of great compassion put all the worlds, seas, mountains and everything else that is created into Your stomach in order to protect them from being destroyed by praLaya.

You are the letter ‘a’. You are the sarva kAraNa. The seven islands are –nAvaLam, irali, kuSa, krauncham, Salmali, tengu, puShkara.

The seven seas are—salt sea, sugar cane juice, honey, ghee, curd, milk and pure water.

The seven kula parvatas are—himAlaya, mandara, kailAsa, vindhya, niShAdha, hEmakooTa, neelagiri.

Orezhuttu—He is represented by ‘a’ kAra. As the ‘a’ is the first letter and the cause of all the subsequent letters, so also He is the primal cause and the cause for all others.


kArkezhukaDalhaLum malaihaLumAi
Erkezhum ulahamumAhi muda
lArhaLum arivaru nilaiyinaiyAi
Seerkezhu nAnmaraiyAnavanE |
ANDAi unnai kANbadOr aruLenakku aruLudiyEl
vENDEn manaivAzhkkai viNNahar mEyavanE ||

emberumAn! You are the oceans, mountains and all the worlds and everything in this creation. All of them are Your ‘Sareera’ You being their ‘Sareeri’. Your swaBAva (nature) and swaroopa (form) are difficult to understand even by brahmAdi dEvas (what to talk of us simple folks). If You reveal Your form to me as revealed by vEdas then i shall not return to this dirty samsAra.

mudalArhaL—brahma, rudra, and others. They are called ‘lords’. Since they think so of themselves and the others think of them so.

urukkurunaruneikoNDArazhalil
irukkurumandaNar SandiyinvAi
perukkamODu amararhaL amararnalhum
irukkinil inniSaiyAnavanE |
ANDAi unnai kANbadOr aruLenakku aruLudiyEl
vENDEn manaivAzhkkai viNNahar mEyavanE ||

The brAhmaNas who are eligible to chant vEdas and do sacrifice, and pour the pure melted ghee in to the sacrificial fire by chanting mantras in every twilight (sandhya) in order to please the gods who shower aiSwarya on them and fulfill their worldly desires.

emberumAn! You are the ‘Om’ kAra, the essence of all vEdas. You are symbolized by this mantra.

iSai—Normally means music. But here in this context it means praNava mantra. ‘yat vEdAdou swarah prOktah’ (swara means ‘Om’ kAra )

kAdalSeidu iLaiyavar kalavitarum
vEdanai vinaiyadu veruvudalAm
Adalin unadaDi aNuhuvan nAn
pOdalar neDumuDi puNNiyanE |
ANDAi unnai kANbadOr aruLenakku aruLudiyEl
vENDEn manaivAzhkkai viNNahar mEyavanE ||

BagavAn—My karmas make me seek the carnal pleasures of young and beautiful women. Alas! This ends up in duhKa alone! When i think of all the pApas that i might have done in many births i fear and shiver. Oh! viNNahar mEyavanE! Your tiruvaDi alone is the refuge for the fearing souls like me! You wear flowers on Your crown revealing Your ASrita rakShakatva. In fact it is Your sankalpa that made me seek Your tiruvaDi. i entreat You to make a sankalpa to reveal Your form to me!

SAdalum pirattalum enrivaTTrai
kAdal SeiyyAdu unakazhal aDaindEn
Odal Sei nAnmaraiyAhi umbar
Adal Sei moovuru vAnavanE |
ANDAi unnai kANbadOr aruLenakku aruLudiyEl
vENDEn manaivAzhkkai viNNahar mEyavanE ||

emberumAn! You are the niyAmaka of the three vEdas—brahma, rudra and indra and offer them posts to create etc. You are the creator of vEdas which are propagated through guru SiShya parampara through hearing and chanting. The vEdas talk of mOkSha which the jnAnis desire deserting the samsAra which involves repeated births and deaths. The mOkSha is to be got if one seeks Your tiruvaDi alone.

emberumAn! i detest this samsAra which is nothing but deaths, sufferings, naraka, births in lower species etc. in short it is the regions of thick darkness of ignorance.

Thus AzhwAr spits on the samsAra to seek the nitya viBooti.

poomaru pozhilaNi viNNahar mEl
kAmaru Seer kalikanri Sonna |
pAmaru tamizhivai pADavallAr
vAmanan aDiyiNai maruvuvarE ||

tirumangai AzhwAr who possesses the much sought after Sree vaiShNava Sree has sung these tamizh pASuras on emberumAn residing at tiruviNNaharam. He has expressed his desire for His tiruvaDi and disgust for the samsAra. Those who read and sing these pASuras will reach His tiruvaDi and do nitya kainkarya.