{"id":429,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:58","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=429"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:58","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:58","slug":"56-nammalwar-vol-17-the-hour-of-god-volume-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/17-the-hour-of-god-volume-17\/56-nammalwar-vol-17-the-hour-of-god-volume-17","title":{"rendered":"-56_Nammalwar.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\n
\nNammalwar<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/font><\/b>
\nTHE SUPREME VAISHNAVA SAINT AND POET<\/b><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/font><\/span>M<\/font><\/span>ARAN<\/font>,<\/span><\/b> renowned as Nammalwar<\/span>
\n("Our Saint") among the Vaishnavas and the greatest of their saints
\nand poets, was born in a small town called Kuruhur<\/span>,
\nin the southernmost region of the Tamil country – Tiru-nel-veli<\/span>
\n(Tinnevelly<\/span>). His father, Kari, was a petty prince
\nwho paid . tribute to the Pandyan<\/span> King of Madura<\/span>. We have no means of ascertaining the date of the Alwar’s<\/span> birth, as the traditional account is untrustworthy
\nand full of inconsistencies. We are told that the infant was mute for several
\nyears after his birth. Nammalwar<\/span> renounced the world
\nearly in life and spent his time singing and meditating on God under the shade
\nof a tamarind tree by the side of the village temple.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>It was under this tree
\nthat he was first seen by his disciple, the Alwar<\/span> Madhura-kavi<\/span>, – for the latter also is numbered among the
\ngreat Twelve, "lost in the sea of Divine Love". Tradition says that
\nwhile Madhura-kavi<\/span> was wandering in North India as a
\npilgrim, one night a strange light appeared to him in the sky and travelled<\/span> towards the South. Doubtful at first what
\nsignificance this phenomenon might have for him, its repetition during three
\nconsecutive nights convinced him that it was a divine summons and where this
\nluminous sign led he must follow. Night after night he journeyed southwards
\ntill the guiding light came to Kuruhur<\/span> and there
\ndisappeared. Learning of Nammalwar’s<\/span> spiritual
\ngreatness he thought that it was to him that the light had been leading him.
\nBut when he came to him, he found him absorbed in deep meditation with his eyes
\nfast closed and al- though he waited for hours the Samadhi did not break until
\nhe took up a large stone and struck it against the ground violently. At the
\nnoise Nammalwar<\/span> opened his eyes, but still remained
\nsilent. Madhura-kavi<\/span> then put to him the following
\nenigmatical question, "If the little one (the soul) is born into the dead thing
\n(Matter)\u00b9<\/p>\n

   
\n\u00b9 The form of the question reminds one of Epictetus<\/span>‘
\ndefinition of man, "Thou art a<\/font><\/span> 
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage – 373<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\twhat will the little one eat and where will the little one lie?" to which Nammalwar<\/span> replied in an equally enigmatic style, "That
\nwill it eat and there will it lie."
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Subsequently Nammalwar<\/span> permitted his disciple to live with him and it
\nwas Madhura-kavi<\/span> who wrote down his songs as they
\nwere composed. Nammalwar<\/span> died in his thirty-fifth
\nyear, but he has achieved so great a reputation that the Vaishnavas account him
\nan incarnation of Vishnu himself, while others are only the mace, discus, conch
\netc. of the Deity.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>From the
\nphilosophical and spiritual point of view, his poetry ranks among the highest
\nin Tamil literature<\/span>. But in point of literary
\nexcellence, there is a great inequality; for while some songs touch the level
\nof the loftiest world-poets, others, even though rich in rhythm and expression,
\nfall much below the poet’s capacity. In his great work known as the Tiru-vaymoli<\/span> (The Sacred Utterance) which contains more
\nthan a thousand stanzas, he has touched all the phases of the life divine and
\ngiven expression to all forms of spiritual experience. The pure and passionless
\nReason, the direct perception in the high solar realm of Truth itself, the
\necstatic and sometimes poignant love that leaps into being at the vision of the
\n"Beauty of God’s face", the final Triumph where unity is achieved and
\n"I and my Father are one" all these are uttered in his simple and
\nflowing lines with a strength that is full of tenderness and. truth.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The lines which we
\ntranslate\u00b9 below are a fair specimen of the great Alwar’s<\/span>
\npoetry; but it has suffered considerably in the translation, – indeed the
\ngenius of the Tamil tongue hardly permits of an effective rendering, so utterly
\ndivergent is it from that of the English language.<\/span><\/p>\n

————
\nlittle soul carrying about a corpse." Some of our readers may be familiar
\nwith Swinburne’s<\/span> adaptation of the saying, "A
\nlittle soul for a little bears up the corpse which is man,"<\/font>
\n<\/font>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00b9 The translation, Nammalwar’s<\/span> Hymn of the Golden Age, is given in Volume No,
\nVIII, Translations: From Sanskrit and Other Languages,<\/font><\/span> 
\n\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 374<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nammalwar THE SUPREME VAISHNAVA SAINT AND POET   \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0MARAN, renowned as Nammalwar ("Our Saint") among the Vaishnavas and the greatest of their saints and poets,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-17-the-hour-of-god-volume-17","wpcat-9-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}