BY M. YAMUNACHARYA, M.A.

Seekers of refuge in God impelled by love are those saintly souls, the Alwars of the Dravida country. Their utterances are in the language of the people and to this day they are sung in the temples dedicated to Vishnu. These simple songs are sung in the remotest villages of South India. Many an untouchable draws his solace from tuning to himself the hymns of these Alwars.

One of the best known of the Dravida prabandhas, as they are usually called, is Nammalwar's Thiruvoimozhi. Thiruvoimozhi holds the pride of place in the ritualistic orisons of a Srivaishnava house-hold. It is held so sacred by the Srivaishnavas of the Ramanuja persuasion that it is given the name of Upanishad, and Saint Nammalwar is hailed as an Avatar.

Regarded from a purely literary point of view, the lovesickness that overcomes the ecstatic mystic when separated from the Divine Lover,– "The Hound of Heaven," in Francis Thompson's characteristic phrase,–is perhaps nowhere described with such wonderful elaboration and elusive beauty as in the lyrical utterances of Nammalwar who was born in Alwar Thirunagari, 18 miles from Tinnevelly. His life is enveloped in mists of legend. We fortunately possess his songs. Love, universal and all compassionate love, is the keynote of his Thiruvoimozhi. The lure of the lute of Sri Krishna that melted the heart of a Radha is felt in every line of this love lyric.

Thiruvoimozhi is a long story of Divine love. In his songs, in his ecstasy, Nammalwar fancies himself as a love-lorn maiden. He puts himself in all possible predicaments in which a love-lorn woman is placed in her intense longing for an absentee lover.

The theme of Thiruvoimozhi unrolls itself thus. The maiden (Nayika) has had a glimpse of the Divine beauty of the Divine Lover and falls in love with Him. It is a case of love at first sight. As is usual, the course of love does not run smooth. The girl's thoughts are concentrated on the fugitive Lover ever after-wards. She neglects her household duties. She does not listen to the importunities of her mother and friends, but is ever thinking of the "truant and the philanderer." Her one object is to seek union with her beau-ideal and to bind herself to Him without a moment's separation. Her only ambition in life is to live, move and have her being in Him.

The Divine Lover does not appear. Day after day passes without His ever turning up. She fasts, prays and keeps vigil, He haunts her sleep. Her soul knows no peace. While all the house is plunged in deep slumber, she alone is awake and fills the still night with her frantic cries. She is almost mad with love and longing. Her neighbours in the village who do not know her mind begin to whisper that she had gone irreparably crazy. They shun her society and scoff at her madness (the shunning and scoffing neighbours, say the commentators, represent the worldly-wise men who do not understand the workings of the Mystic mind and thoughtlessly dub him a dreamer).

To resume the story, she waits for the coming of her Beloved the livelong day in trysting places hoping to see Him. She wanders hither and thither, up hills and down dales, in groves and arbours and other enchanting places, for they are the usual haunts of her wilderness-loving Lord. She seeks Him in the lonely hills, on the beautiful banks of streams, in the shady groves of trees in which the birds have built their nests and sing their wild wood- notes, in the lakes where the silver beams of the full moon break into ripples on the surface of the water, and in all those places where our minds are wafted above the changes and chances of mortal life and where the Eternal Life flows, as it were, spontaneously through us. The blue sky reminds her of Him. The sunrise and the sunset send a thrill through her frame which tingles with a joy and a restless longing for Him. The early streaks of dawn remind her of the tinge of the rose-bud on His cheeks. Wind and wave, fruit and flower, bird and beast are full of Him. And yet she feels she is no nearer to Him. He still eludes her. He is not yet hers. He does not lie in her power utterly. She wishes to have His limbs under her mastery.

This fruitless quest for her Beloved only excites ridicule in her unsympathetic kinsmen and neighbours. They arraign her for lack of modesty in thus shamelessly calling on her Lover to come and abate the storm in her heart. After numerous vigils kept, after fasting and heartrending scenes of despair, the rumour that her Lover comes in a while floats abroad.

In the meanwhile the mother and friends are very much concerned for the health and well-being of the distraught girl. She is so worn out with longing that her bangles slide down her emaciated wrists. She is wan and wasting away.

The poet at this juncture feels the presence of the ‘Tremendous Lover,’ to borrow Francis Thompson's phrase, whose poem The Hound of Heaven has a good deal of poetical and mystical affinity with the work of the Tamil poet-saint of South India. The Lord has answered the call of the devotee and has come "down the days and down the nights" in hot haste, thinking that further delay in vouchsafing a vision of Himself may prove fatal to His beloved. The expectant heart of the maiden is calmed and anger takes the place of despair. A lovers' quarrel or pranaya kalaha ensues. She rails at Him and reprimands Him for His heartlessness in making her wait so long. (The poet warns God of the opprobrium that will ever cling to Him if He does not fulfill His pledges to man). The Divine Lover comes down on His knees and pleads forgiveness at the hands of His beloved who suffered such acute pangs of separation for His sake.

At this point quite a new turn is given to the mood of the songs. The poet plays on the whole gamut of human emotion.

Now this maiden is full of a feeling of troubled joy and fear at the fact that her desires have come too near realization. She remembers how unworthy she has been to deserve the love of her august Lord. She dreads His holy contact. She thinks it a sacrilege if she allows Him to become polluted with her profane touch. But His irresistible and spontaneous grace (nirhetuka kripa) is blind to all the faults that attach to the human soul, just as a cow-mother is blind to the dirt on her calf’s body and licks up the dirt with great relish.

To her, anyway, her faults are the more glaring now than before, in contrast to the nearness to her of the All-holy, All-pure, and All-perfect. She flees from Him in fear of contact. But the persistent footsteps of the "Tremendous Lover" pursue her till she is overcome with weariness and can run no further. The moment of utter helplessness and self-surrender arrives. "Thy will be done, not mine," becomes the dominant note of the human heart. She falls down with a panting heart and swoons at the feet of the Divine Lover. Then she regains consciousness with a smile on her face that betokens the happiness of her dreams; she unwarily looks into the immense depths of the radiant Divine eye and she finds herself in His generous arms, face to face with Him, the God of sweet curls and lovely wreaths. Thus ends the Divine epic of love depicted by Nammalwar. The earlier portion of Thiruvoimozhi represents the quest of man for God and the latter portion represents the quest of God for man, which is a theme dealt with by Francis Thompson in his surpassingly beautiful poem–The Hound of Heaven.

BACK