Thiruppaavai
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Thiruppaavai is a Tamil work of poetry attributed to the Hindu saint Andal.
ANDALs THIRUPPAAVAI – an epitome of Tamil Classic, Literature and Poetry created about 1300 years ago – yet lives in the heart of Tamil culture. THIRUPPAAVAI belongs to the Paavai genre of songs and was composed by Andal. It has 30 PASURAMS. Thiruppaavai is considered as the seed of four Vedas and the essence of the Tamil vedas, the 4000 divya Prabhandham.
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- In the first stanza, Andal explains that in the month of dec-January, the people ought to do a vrata, a religious observation(possibly for rains and wealth) and she calls on everyone to do so.
- 2nd: She explains the do's and dont's of the vow (which is a metaphor for a code of conduct for all srivaishnavism followers).
- 3rd: She explains the benefits of the vow(the whole world will be prosperous).
- 4th: She instructs the rain god to fetch water from the ocean and pour as rain over the good and bad alike(metaphor for spreading knowledge to everyone).
- 5th: she says that the task will not appear difficult if one thinks of God constantly, all karma accured from delibrate or accidental acts will disappear(metaphor for: by spreading knowledge, will we interfere with natural order and cause misery?)
In the process of reciting this poem, Andal transports herself and the context from 8th century agricultural south india to the mystical life of the cowherds in the time of krishna. The identification with gopis gets stronger as the poem unwinds. In the next 10 stanzas, Andal explains the state of various girls who ought to be going to the temple to perform the vow. these are metaphors for the psychological state of various people who are walking on the path towards saranagati.
- 6th: she calls to a girl who is still asleep and is woken with the words "the birds are chirping and the priest in the temple is blowing a conch to signal the morning's worship" (signaling a person who is not awake to the fact that he/she has to seek moksha).
- 7th: she calls a girl who insists on sleeping although she has heard the birds (a person who is surrounded by information about saranagati and yet is blind to it). *8th: andal calls to a girl who is isolated saying that she has stopped others from going to the temple and they are all waiting on her(metaphor: every devotee will aid the naive seeker to help them on the way to realization).
- 9th: Andal calls on a girl who is asleep in a palace. She also asks that girl's mother to wake her from her stupidity/intoxication.(metaphor: many humans are ensnared in the material world, their ties start from when they are babies, with the love of their parents. Andal wants to wake them to the reality of seeking moksha).
- 10th: she addresses a girl who is lazy because she has achieved heaven through hard work, she calls on her to not be complisant(metaphor: people may reach a sense of satisfaction after doing all their duties but they ought to yearn for a greater union with god).
- 11th: she calls a girl who she describes in detail as being very beautiful and has powerful family yet asleep(metaphor:not all people are equally gifted in the pursuit of realization. Some are specially gifted with power yet they let their gifts go dormant).
- 12th: she calls a girl who is so immersed in prayer that she has neglected to milk her buffalo (metaphor: it is important not to let go of our daily duties in the pursuit of mystic union).
- 13th: she calls on a girl who think she has understood moksha and is waiting for it to come to her to leave her tricks and strive daily(metaphor: at some point you may realize a state of perfect grace but you have to focus on working towards it every moment).
- 14th: she calls on a girl who is their leader and who had promised to wake first and wake everyone else but is still asleep(Some consider this to be a reference to nammalvar who was a renowned author. It suggests that even the most wise devotees can slip if they do not enlighten others).
- 15th: Last, she calls to a girl who debates with her and teases her to go on (metaphor for a seeker who gets diverted by smart debates and logical sleighs-of-hand).
In the third part, Andal describes the various approaches and preparations for the vow and imagines how krishna responds to it.
- 16th: she says she is beating the drum given by the Lord previously and asks the door keepers to open the doors(in srivaishnavism philosophy, the door keepers of vaikunta Jaya & Vijaya are very important. Legend says that when Vishnu wanted to give an example to people on earth how to live a virtuous life, they came to earth and took the lives of bad people so that Vishnu would take avatars, incarnations, and defeated these bad people. Thus they gained a lot of merit by helping spread the message of dharma.Jaya and Vijaya first came as Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu and were defeated by the Varaha and Narasimha avatars. Then they incarnated as Ravana and Kumbhakarna and were defeated by Rama. Then they came as sishupala and dantavakra and were defeated by Krishna. They are therefore proprieted first. the "drum given by the lord previously" is a reference to the dharmic messages from these avatars).
- 17th: andal wakes Krishna's father Nanda who she praises as generous and charitable and his mother Yasoda who she says is the light of the clan and chief of all women and his brother Balarama the pure.(metaphor: Krishna as a metaphor for moksha is described through anthropomorphic qualities of a family: a generous father, a wise mother and a pure brother)
- 18th: Andal calls the daughter-in-law, Napinnai, of Nanda(described as he with the strong shoulders fearless against maddened elephants) to open the door with her feminine hands so Andal can worship Krishna, who holds a ball(once you surrender yourself to god, you are protected against the temptations of life, often compared to maddened elephants by the strong shoulders of a father figure)
- 19th: Andal rebukes Napinnai who is asleep on a majestic bed of not waking Krishna but keeping his company to herself.(metaphor: the world makes many demands that distract from the union of the soul and the paramatma)
- 20th: Andal describes Krishna as creating a balance in the universe and asks him and Sri to wake up and accept her prayers
- 21st: Andal says Krishna has many cows which give limitless milk, she says she has come like the enemies of Krishna who, surrendered abjectly(andal describes a conflict in surrendering and encourages herself saying Krishna would have limitless milk--often compared to immortality, grace, light and wisdom)
- 22nd: andal compares her supplication to kings like vishwamitra and possibly kulasekara alvar who gave up the world to surrender to god and asks that Krishna open his eyes and give her grace(andal is strengthening her resolve and overcoming her earlier conflict by reminding herself of people who gave up whole kingdoms)
- 23rd: she compares Krishna's coming out of the sanctum sanctorum of the temple to listen to their supplication to a lion coming out of a cave after the rains and roaring(reference to narasimha
- 24th: she continues to refer to avatars of vishnu and says she is submitted to the feet that did all of that
- 25th: she says krishna was born as the son of one woman (devaki) and grew as the son of another (yasoda) and tormented Kamsa. she asks that He satisfy her thirst to sing His praises and thus get salvation(God is eternal and not of this world yet he takes on the role of a human so that people can approach and love him more easily. this is shown by drawing a parallel to his leaving the palace of Devaki and living in the huts of the cowherds)
- 26th: the girls ask for accesories for prayer: a conch, drums, lamps, flags etc.(earlier, andal affirms that she would only get moksha if she helps every one of her fellow devotees achieve it. here, she asks for tools to spread the word to the whole world: conches are used in Hindu temples to make the primordial sound om, lamps symbolize dispelling the darkness of ignorance etc)
- 27th: the girls suggest that Krishna give them many things in return for singing his praises: flowers for their hair, bracelets, ear-rings, anklets, clothes and rich food.(metaphor for: the various stages attained by a yogi)
- 28th: they describe their naivity and simple life as cowherds and say that their only happiness is in being related to God
- 29th: being assured of God's grace, they ask that they will have a chance to praise and worship Him forever and receive his grace forever
- 30th: the phala stuti (reward couplet) usual at the end of most Sanskrit stotras, this tells the reward for saying this stotra. just like the gopis, people who say this Tamil garland composed by andal will get salvation
