Best Spiritual Website
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There is an amusing illustration drawn by a native artist, of this game as played in South India. Its name literally means ‘aiming at the shoulder,’ for it ends up with placing the hands of each opposing pair on the shoulders of the other. In some lines this is used as a symbol of the […]
CIVAN’S TRIUMPHS Tamil scholars give different interpretations of the word Unthiyar. It seems to mean ‘the players at a game resembling battledore and shuttlecock.’ The word Unthi is, I imagine, used for the shuttlecock or ball which the players cause to ‘fly aloft.’ In this lyric FIVE GREAT TRIUMPHS OF CIVAN are celebrated. 1) The […]
1) Renunciation of other help. His sacred Feet,- the twain,-soon as upon my head He placed, Help of encircling friends,- the whole,- I utterly renounced; In Tillai’s court begirt with guarded streams, in mystic dance He moves. That Raftsman’s glory SING, AND PLUCK THE LILY-FLOWERS! || 4 || 2) Further experiences in Madyarjunam. From father, […]
1) Objections to ‘ashes,’ the snake, and the mystery of His teaching. Obj. What He smears is ‘white ash’; what He wears is an angry snake; What He speaks with His lips divine is the mystic word, it seems; MY DEAR! Ans. What He smears, what He says, what He wears are the means by […]
Arunachalam:- The name of Rudra is scarcely ever applied to Civan in the south, yet it would seem as if the idea of Civan had been mainly developed from the Vedic Rudra, the god of Storms, the father of the Maruts, of whom so many stories are told which now are the accepted legends of […]
Our poet-sage, like S. Anthony of Padua, and some other medieval saints, had a great sympathy with the irrational creation. This poem is addressed to the humming bee, or winged beetles, which abound in all the topes and glads of South India, and are especially numerous in the shady groves that surround the temples;; having […]
In the Vathavurar Puranam V, 63, we are told that the Sage when in Tillai saw women pounding the gold dust which, mixed with perfumes, is strewn on the heads of distinguished visitors to the shrine, and on great occasions is lavishly thrown over all things and persons connected with the worship. As they pounded, […]
The remarks made in the introduction to VII will apply in Some degree to this poem also, which is traditionally said to have been composed at the same place and time by the bard, who seeing women in great numbers enjoying their favorite game of Ammanai and accompanying it a simple song, listened to their […]
The mystic ‘Song of the Maidens’ forms a pendant to the ‘Morning Hymn’ (XX). It has always been attributed to Manikka-vacagar without any hesitation, though in many respects it is certainly unlike most of his other lyrics. It is said to have been composed for the use of the women at Arunacalam, among whom it […]
This title, which forms the burthen of the poem, is given to one of the Sage’s most interesting compositions. It consists of fifty quatrains, constructed in a beautiful metre (see my Second Grammar 192) which is in fact epichoriambic (as is explained in the notes to the Tamil text). It is called Anthathi poem. This […]