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KANNAPIRAAN PERRA VENNAIK KALVI-2

From the Bhakti List Archives

L&T-ECCG-Buildings & Factories • December 22, 1999 


Dear Sri Vaishnava Perunthagaiyeer,

In the first post we saw Krishna educating himself from non- conventional
means-learning from 'veNNai vizhungi verunkalaththai verpidaiyittu" - kaRRa
kalvi. In this part we will see kannapiraan ammam uNdu karra kalvi.

You may wonder how ammam uNNuthal 'drinking mother's breast milk' is
education. It is normal that any mother will feed the child with her breast
milk. The child also enjoys this and grows. This is a natural phenomenon.
Even a just born calf of the cow stands and reaches the mother's nipples and
the cow also secretes milk just then. But periyaazhvaar describes this with
an exclamation- 'kalvi thaanE'. It is education and it is with a big
feeling- [is it surprise or wonder?] in the "thaanE". Please feel the
surprise by slipping into the mood of the mother after reading the exact
lines of him.

"kondal vaNNaa ingE pOtharaayE, koil piLLaai ingE pOtharaayE
theNdirai soozh thiruppErkkidantha thiru naaraNaa ingE pOtharaayE
UnduvantEn ammam enru solli Odi agam puga aaichchi thaanum 
kandu ethirE senru eduththuk koLLa kaNNapiraan kaRRa kalvi thanE" 2-9-4

Mother yasOdhaa calls "oh koNdal vaNNaa pOtharaayE- oh cloud coloured son,
please come here. Koil piLLaai - oh lord of Srirangam please come here.
[koil in srivaishnava pari bhaashai is srirangam and hence this meaning
given]. koil in tamil also mean raja gruham- ko-rajan the king and il is
house or gruham or palace of the king. So 'koil pillaai' when addressed is
"oh son of the king please come here". It is also a practice for the lady
and others in the house-hold of the king not to address the king or prince
by name and that too in front of others, but call by other names and one
such is this koil pillaai.

TheNdirai - then thirai - theLLiya alaigaL 
soozh - soozhntha 
thiruppErkkidantha thiru naaraNaa ingE pOtharaayE- thiruppErai divyadesa
perumaan aagiya naarayaNanE - please come here. 

Actually this thiruppErai divya desam is in Trichy district and cauvery is
the near water course and not any sea. If cauvery water is considered as
theLLiya alaigaL soozhntha then it is Ok. Otherwise the word can be
considered as "thiruppaarkidantha" instead of thiruppErkkidantha- theiLLiya
alaigal soozhntha thirupaaRkadalil paLLi konda naaraayaNaa please come here.
Because mother yasOdhaa knows her son is not an ordinary mortal son like us,
but saakshaath naarayanan the parama purushan. Hence addressing Sri krishnaa
like this, very well suit this slight modification and it adds taste.
[Bhagavathaas can comment on this].

"Please come here" means the son has gone somewhere. He has gone out of
mother's sight or house for some time and she is worried. "Oh my child is
not seen. Where has he gone? Already there was the danger that somebody came
in my roopam (mother yasOdha) and gave a dose of poisonous breast milk"
[finally that duplicate mother lost her life (attained mOksha) at the hands
of the child is another matter but as the mother she is afraid]. So mother
is worried and calls the son. 

The young krishna says "oh mother I am here- ammam uNdu vanthEn - I had
mother's milk".   Mother is in front and calls "oh come here". But son says
"I just had mother's milk". What - is it mother's milk? 

Mother calls the son- son says I had mother's milk- this means mother either
has forgotten that just then she fed the child. Or the child has been fed by
some other mother like the earlier instance. A doubt arises. This doubt also
grows in next words- enRu solli Odi agam puga- that means he is not in the
house -gone elsewhere - hence now only enters-  also this leads to conclude
that the child is not fed by yasOdhaa but some body else- aaichchi- some
other aaichchi fed the child- because he is pet to one and all every mother
in aaippaadi wants to feed the child- without showing a difference between
her own son and krishnaa- perhaps loving more than her own son - wants to
feed krishna.

mother yasodhaa- kaNdu thaanum ethirE senRu- saw the krishna coming - went
towards the son and took the child into her lap- appaa - a lot of
satisfaction- there is no danger to my son- he is safe- the very presence of
krishnaa in front will give satisfaction- she lifts him and feels him with
the warmth exclusive of the mother.

She also did not get the doubt that I have not fed him now but who it could
be that the son say I just had been fed. This is lesson he
learnt-kannapiraan kaRRa kalvi thaanE. 

The education- of telling the truth- or telling a lie. He says I had ammam-
that is truth- mother yasodhaa did not give- that is also a truth. Mother
has not given means he is telling a lie. Some other lady has given- that is
the truth- but mother does not suspect whether this fellow is lying- that is
also a truth- so every where truth only but the scene is that it is a
mixture of lies and truth. Is this the kalvi kannapiraan peRRathu- of
sathyam vadha- dharmam chara- or giving us. Please analyse.

Dasan M.G.Vasudevan