{"id":458,"date":"2013-07-13T01:28:08","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=458"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:28:08","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:08","slug":"55-andal-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\/55-andal-vol-17-the-hour-of-god-volume-17","title":{"rendered":"-55_Andal.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


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


\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>THE\u00a0 <\/span>VAISHNAVA\u00a0 <\/span>POETESS<\/span><\/font><\/b><\/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\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span>P<\/font><\/span>REOCCUPIED<\/font><\/span><\/b> from the earliest times with divine
\nknowledge and religious aspiration the Indian mind has turned all forms of
\nhuman life and emotion and all the phenomena<\/span> of the universe into symbols and means by which the em<\/span>bodied soul may strive after and grasp the Supreme.
\nIndian devotion has especially seized upon the most intimate human relations
\nand made them stepping-stones to the supra-human. God the Guru, God the Master,
\nGod the Friend, God the Mother, God the Child, God the Self, each of these
\nexperiences – for to us these are more than merely ideas, – it has carried to
\nits extreme possibilities. But none of them has it pursued, embraced, sung with
\na more exultant passion of intimate realisation than the yearning for God the
\nLover, God the Beloved. It would seem as if this passionate human symbol were
\nthe natural culminating- point for the mounting flame of the soul’s devotion:
\nfor it is found wherever that devotion has entered into the most secret shrine
\nof the inner temple. We meet it in Islamic poetry; certain experiences of the
\nChristian mystics repeat the forms and images with which we are familiar in the
\nEast, but usually with a certain timorousness foreign to the Eastern
\ntemperament. For the devotee who has once had this intense experience it is
\nthat which admits to the most profound and hidden mystery of the universe; for
\nhim the heart has the key of the last secret.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The work of a great
\nBengali poet has recently reintroduced this idea to the European mind, which
\nhas so much lost the memory of its old religious traditions as to welcome and
\nwonder at it as a novel form of mystic self-expression. On the contrary it is
\nancient enough, like all things natural and eternal in the human soul. In
\nBengal a whole period of national poetry has been dominated by this single
\nstrain and it has inspired a religion and a philosophy. And in the Vaishnavism<\/span> of the far South, in the songs of the Tamil Alwars<\/span> we find it again in another form,<\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage – 371<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ngiving
\na powerful and original turn to the images of our old classic poetry; for there
\nit has been sung out by the rapt heart of a woman to the Heart of the Universe.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The Tamil word, Alwar<\/span>, means one who has drowned, lost himself in the sea
\nof the divine being. Among these canonised<\/span> saints of
\nSouthern Vaishnavism<\/span> ranks Vishnuchitta<\/span>,
\nYogin and poet, of Villipattan<\/span> in the land of the Pandyas<\/span>. He is termed Perialwar<\/span>,
\nThe Great Alwar<\/span>. A tradition, which we need not
\nbelieve, places him in the ninety-eighth year of the Kaliyuga<\/span>.
\nBut these divine singers are ancient enough, since they precede the great saint
\nand philosopher Ramanuja<\/span> whose personality and
\nteaching were the last flower of the long-growing Vaishnava<\/span>
\ntradition. Since his time Southern Vaishnavism<\/span> has
\nbeen a fixed creed and a system rather than a creator of new spiritual
\ngreatnesses.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The poetess Andal<\/span> was the foster-daughter of Vishnuchitta<\/span>,
\nfound by him, it is said, a new-born child under the sacred Tulsi<\/span>-plant.
\nWe know little of Andal<\/span> except what we can gather
\nfrom a few legends, some of them richly beautiful and symbolic. Most of Vishnuchitta’s<\/span> poems have the infancy and boyhood of
\nKrishna for their subject. Andal<\/span>, brought up in that
\natmosphere, cast into the mould of her life what her foster-father had sung in
\ninspired hymns. Her own poetry – we may suppose that she passed early into the
\nLight towards which she yearned, for it is small in bulk, – is entirely
\noccupied with her passion for the divine Being. It is said that she went
\nthrough a symbolic marriage with Sri Ranganatha<\/span>,
\nVishnu in his temple at Srirangam<\/span>, and disappeared
\ninto the image of her Lord. This tradition probably conceals some actual fact,
\nfor Andal’s<\/span> marriage with the Lord is still
\ncelebrated annually with considerable pomp and ceremony.<\/span> \n<\/p>\n

\nPage – 372<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andal THE\u00a0 VAISHNAVA\u00a0 POETESS   \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 PREOCCUPIED from the earliest times with divine knowledge and religious aspiration the Indian mind has turned all forms of…<\/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-458","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\/458","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=458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}