Did Andal Don First?

Ýí¢ì£÷¢ Å®è¢ ªè£´î¢î£÷£?

(Introduction to the critical essay)

 

In Berhampur, Orissa, way back in 1930, on a road lined with picturesque bungalows I was cycling, dressed in my teacher's robes, toward my college, when I saw a bush in bloom, I thought:

"I wish to pluck a few of those flowers and take them home for worship." It couldn't be, for I was hastening on my way to my college. I said a little aloud, "Oh, Lord, imagine I offer all these flowers as worship at your feet."

Next moment, I held back. If some devotee comes anon, plucks the flowers and uses them for worship - he could not know that they have been already so used and are now NIRMALAYAM (ï¤ó¢ñ£ôòñ¢) unfit for puja again. So I decided that I had better not indulge in such imaginary performances. But -

The flowers in the BUSH seemed as though she was wearing them as adornment to the dark blue leafy tresses. Yes, the tree nymph has tied them up for her personal decking. So the fond devotee would still be doing an improper act if he took them home for worship.

Not happy in such thoughts, I cycled on - not failing to notice that every house in the pathway had trees decked in fair array. Yet, the Road was wearing a colorful Garland of Flowers to enhance HER beauty. A little more thinking led me to tell my wife on return home at noon:

"I have found out why Andal (Ýí¢ì£÷¢) is called Choodi Koduthal (Ů袪裴î¢î£÷¢.) If Vaishnavites consider her as Bhoodevi Amsam (Ì«îõ¤ Üñ¢êñ¢) was it not rational to think that in flesh form the girl Kothai («è£¬î) living in her father's home decked herself with the flowers which she found very handy in the house, before their being taken by her father to the temple? Just as the Earth's blooms reach the hands of the temple priest after use by the trees for their own decoration first?"

But a miracle is to follow. The father comes to know what his impudent daughter has done as a prank. He is very sad. The Lord appears before in a dream to say He relishes the loving gesture of Kothai. "Let her continue to do this daily hereafter." What does this mean to us? It is a call to all to choose for worship earth's choicest flowers - fresh, fragrant and fair!

My wife was stunned by my interpretation. She warned me Vaishnavites would not accept my poetic way of de-miraculizing a fond legend they all cherish for thousand years past!

My reply was logical. "Nowhere in the 4000 stanzas in Divya Prabhandam (î¤õ¢ò ð¤óðï¢îñ¢) it is mentioned that Kothai was involved in such a miracle. Only in the Thaniyan (îù¤òù¢) - an invocation inserted outside that body of hymns she is called by the name Choodi Koduthal (Ů袪裴î¢î£÷¢). Even the name Andal appears only in that Thaniyan. Thus the internal evidence completely supports my contention. But what of that? The miracle is a beautiful story, which we should lovingly admire - just as any poems, though fiction in verse, I expect to be read with eagerness and joy by countless readers!

Though I blasted that old story in this way, due to a strange vision on that road on that day - all the fifty years since, I have been a devoted student of Kothai's verses - considering them as great haunting poetry, essentially and fundamentally, though mystic meanings are offered in all their learnedness by hair-splitting philosophers. Deep love of God permeating all her outpourings has made Vaishnavites hold Kothai as one of their Greater Saints - but her poems are perennial foundations of delight to all lovers of Krishna. Miracles need not be depended upon to enhance her status - already high in the world of letters.

In the poems now included under the name Nachchiar Tirumozhi (ï£ê¢ê¤ò£ó¢ ªñ£ö¤), because Kothai's narration is in the first person language - using words like me, mine, I and my - we should not conclude that they are autobiographical in full. As is usual with every fiction writer, personal experiences may be the inspiration and partial content of the writing, but they need not be wholly a report of an incident in the life of the author.

Thus, it is not Kothai, but some other love-sick lass that prays to the god Kaman (è£ñù¢) that he vouchsafe soon to her, her lover - but Kothai, with abundant sympathy for such a damsel portrays feelingly the woes and hopes of the maiden.

Again - in the dream poem - it is not Kothai that saw in a dream the march of Kaman in the midst of thousand elephants (õ£óíñ¢ Ýò¤óñ¢) as a happy bridegroom intent to marry Kothai - but it a cowherd girl who relates to her friend such a dream, and Kothai, the poet, with great mastery over the meticulous details of wedding in progress, gives us a vivid pictue of that grand occasion. So with her other poems.

The eight hundred lyrics in Aham Nanooru (Üèñ¢ ï£ÛÁ) and Nattrinai (ïø¢ø¤¬í) were written by several authors - each poem a monologue put in the mouth of a hero, heroine or a friend. Are we to think that they are the personal experiences of a poet concerned? They sing about the nameless persons the poets imagined.

Much harm has been done in projecting the view that all the poems of Kothai give glimpses into the life of Kothai herself at some time or other. The truth is that she entered into the skin of others easily and poured forth their minds in haunting and moving cadence of poetry.

That this is truth is evident in each poem's last stanza wherein Kothai hints, in THIRD PERSON language, the benefits derivable from a loving study of that poem. This easily establishes that Kothai, the final speaker of the last stanza, is different from the narrator of the earlier lines.

In the long poem Thiruppavai (ð¢ð£¬õ) of thirty stanzas, the final stanza is unique internal evidence that long long ago, when Kannan (èí¢íù¢) lived in Gokulam («è£°ôñ¢) with cowherd princess Nappinai (ïð¢ð¤¬ù) at his father's palace, the Gopi girls, who adored him, observed a one-day feast to make Krishna consent to go with them to a nearby forest in a stately procession with Sangu (ê颰) and Parai (ð¬ø), there - later in the day - to feast and play with them - reaping a boundless bliss unforgettable in the rest of their humble lives.

What with great humility and modesty I have urged above I wish to press with utmost force - for as a poet myself, who has written hundereds of stories in verse, I claim to know the workings of a poet's mind and art. In the wise discriminating words of Robert Wilson Neal - The best story writer is one:

1. who observes most
2. who understands best
3. who sympathizes deepest
4. who masterfully creates new

(a) persons and
(b) situations out of what he knows