SrI:
SrI ANDAL samEta SrI rangamannAr tiruvadigaLE SaraNam
NACCIYAR
TIRUMOZHI
kAmanai vENDudal -- Praying to the god of Love
Verse 1: tai oru tingaLum
There are a total of 14 tirumozhis contained in nAcciyAr tirumozhi. The first tirumozhi has the title 'kAmanai vENDUdal' - it means "Praying to kAman (The Lord of Love)". This tirumozhi has 10 pASurams.
A. The translation from SrImAn SaDagopan's tamizh treatise.
Throughout mArgazhi month (mid-Dec to mid-Jan), ANDAL has conducted the pAvai nOnbu through Her tiruppAvai pAsurams, to get kaNNan as Her husband. She has not yet been blessed with the anubhavam of joining Him. She becomes heart-broken. How will Her wishes come true, how can She acquire what She desires? She thinks and thinks. Then She has this idea: "Manmathan or kAman (love fairy) is said to have the power of joining lovers together by aiming his flower arrows at them; why not try praying to him? Throughout the month of tai (mid-Jan. to mid-Feb.), every day let me purify the place where I am going to worship kAmadEvan and draw beautiful kolams (drawings). Then in the first half of mAsi month (second half of Feb.), I will fill the street on which he is going to walk over to come and bless me, with smooth sand so that he will not feel any roughness on his feet. After he comes to my house and sits on the seat arranged for him, I will pray to him and to his brother, sAman, together. Both of them will be compassionate to me and bless me with the great opportunity to personally serve tiruvEnkaDamuDaiyAn, who is carrying in His hand the cakrAyudham which is emanating hot fire sparks".
In Her first pAsuram of nAcciyAr tirumozhi, Godai submits Her request to kAmadEva thus:
tai oru tingaLum tarai viLakki
tan maNDalam ittu mAsi munnAl
ayya nuN maNal koNDu teru aNindu
azhaginukku alangarittu ananga dEvA!
uyyavumAnkolO enru Solli
unnaiyum umbiyaiyum tozhudEn
veyyaDOr tazhaL umizh cakkarakkai
vEnkadavaRku ennai vidikkiRRiyE
Thus having decided to pray to kAmadevan for the privilege of being able to do antara~nga kaimkaryam to tiruvEnkatamuDaiyAn, godA proceeds to outline her plans for her vrata anushTAna-s towards this objective in the next pASuram.
B. Some additional thoughts.
There is reference to godA involving herself in cleaning the floor and decorating the place etc. SrI tirukkaNNa mangai ANDAn, the author of the first taniyan of nAcciyAr tirumozhi that we started with, was also one who did this kaimkaryam to BhagavAn. SrI periavAccAn piLLai points out this similarity.
One could legitimately ask the question - how come godA worships kAman? Is this not improper? She is only worshiping kAman with the objective of getting BhagavAn. She has no other goal in life. It is her desperation to reach Him that is causing her to do whatever it takes to get to Him. It is as if this is her sthala- Suddhi in order to perform kaimkaryam to Him ultimately.
Her praying to kAman and sAman together reminds us of the phrase "namOstu rAmAya salakshmaNAya".
The reference to manDalam is the period of 45 days for which some vrata-s performed for attaining benefit from them.
sarvam SrIman nArAyaNAyEti samarpayAmi.
adiyen,
Kalyani Krishnamachari
kkrishnamachari@lucent.com
Mani Varadarajan Last modified: Wed Sep 16 16:31:31 PDT