thiruppAvai – 25 – oruththi maganAi

srI:
srImathE satakOpAya nama:
srImathE rAmAnujAya nama:
srImadh varavaramunayE nama:

Full Series

When asked, “What do you want?”, they say, “Even if there are any obstacles you please remove them yourself, and accept us so we can get rid of our sorrows (due to separation from you).

ஒருத்தி மகனாய்ப் பிறந்து ஓர் இரவில்
ஒருத்தி மகனாய் ஒளித்து வளரத்
தரிக்கிலான் ஆகித்தான் தீங்கு நினைந்த
கருத்தைப் பிழைப்பித்துக் கஞ்சன் வயிற்றில்
நெருப்பென்ன நின்ற நெடுமாலே உன்னை
அருத்தித்து வந்தோம் பறை தருதி யாகில்
திருத்தக்க செல்வமும் சேவகமும் யாம் பாடி
வருத்தமும் தீர்ந்து மகிழ்ந்தேலோர் எம்பாவாய்.

oruththi maganAip piRandhu
Or iravil oruththi maganAi oLiththu vaLarath
tharikkilAn Agith thAn thIngu ninaindha
karuththaip pizhaippiththuk kanjan vayiRRil
neruppenna ninRa nedumAlE
unnai aruththiththu vandhOm paRai tharudhiyAgil
thiruththakka selvamum sEvagamum yAm pAdi
varuththamum thIrndhu magizhndhu ElOrempAvAi

Word by Word Meaning

oruththi – for the one woman who is dhEvaki pirAtti,
piRandhu – (you were) born
magan Ai – as a son;
Or iravil – on the same unmatched night itself
magan Ai – (you) become a son
oruththi – for the one mother who is yasOdhai pirAtti
oLiththu vaLara – (and as you were) growing in hiding,
thAn – (kamsan) himself
dharikkilAn Agi – could not tolerate (even your growing in hiding)
thIngu ninaindha – (his) thoughts of bad deed (of killing)
pizhaippiththu – (you) wasted/nullified
kanjan – kamsan’s
karuththai – thoughts
neruppu enna ninRa – (and you) bothered (him) like a ‘fire’
vayiRRil – (in his) stomach;
nedumAlE – Oh you who loves his devotees
aruththiththu vandhOm – came begging
unnai – from you (for our needs);
paRai tharudhi Agil – if you would satisfy our wishes
yAm pAdi – we would be able to sing
thiruththakka selvamum – (about) your wealth (which pirAtti also would love)
sEvagamum – and about your valor
varuththamum thIrndhu – (and our) sorrows (of separation from you) would end
magizhndhu – (and we) would become joyous.

Simple Translation

oruththi

– The woman who is special than anyone, giving birth to The One who is inside everyone (as antharyAmi). She is matchless in that she controls Him who is the controller of all the worlds.

oruththi maganAi

– The one who is the father of all living beings is a son of this woman!?

chakravarthy did thapas to get 4 children; here 4 people (both the parents) did thapas to get a son?!
maganAip piRandhu

– followed his parent’s instructions as soon as he was born; chakravarthy thirumagan – only after he had grown did he follow his father’s words. When krishNan was born he showed his four shoulders, and the changu/chakrathazhvArs – his parents in the jail feared for his safety and pleaded him to hide those and to look like any other child. krishNan immediately obeyed by hiding those signs.

piRandhu –(born)  what people go through due to their karmas, he was eager to go through due to his krupai (kindness / wish). As dhEvaki wanted a child like Him, he decided by himself to be born. (rahasyam: perumAn‘s avathArams are due to his own wish unlike our births which are due to remaining karmas; perumAn‘s thirumEni is different when doing avathAram – it is not made of panchEndhriyams like ours – perumAn just goes back to srIvaikuNtam unlike our body which has to be cremated).

piRandhu – could he have not just come to this world without going through a birth, that too not just for 10 months in his mother’s womb, but 12 months??  ‘periyAzhwAr thirumozhi’ (3-2-8) had to say ‘panniru thingaL vayiRRil koNda‘. He did that due to his kindness and simplicity – for people to relate to him.

rishi thought he should use the word AvirbhAvam (manifestation / rise) to describe his birth (as sun is rising), because he thought describing it as ‘born’ would be lowly for his parathvam; the gOpikAs think that describing it ‘AvirbhAvam’ would be lowly for his sowlabhyam; so they say ‘piRandhu’ (born). Since he liked to be born, they use that word as it would make Him happy.

Our karmas would make us to be born and make him also to be born (to help us) and thus make him equivalent to us; his kindness would help us be equivalent to Him (on many qualities, while we are in paramapadham) – paramam sAmyamupaithi.

His birth for us would help us, as our birth-cycle would go through what the chains in his parents’ legs went through (that is, we won’t have to be born again).

Our birth would be the reason (due to prakruthi) for separation from Him (emperumAn); his birth would help us both to unite with each other.

Thinking about all of these they say ‘piRandhu’.

rAmAnujar => His ‘birth’ is when he first got upadhEsam from his first teacher that is yAdhavaprakAsar.

Or iravil

On that night itself krishNan wanted to be a son of yasOdhai, and he went into thiru AyppAdi.

Like how a dog cannot digest wonderful ghee, kamsan and his asuras were not fortunate enough to have krishNan in their place even for a night. krishNan could not stay in his birth place even for a night.

Or iravu – That was some night! – There was no such night before, no such night after; the birth of krishNan, and what he went through.

The night that was so wonderful because of His birth; the night that was so cruel that a new baby had to be taken out of the house of birth without anybody’s knowledge.

Or iravil – from the place where there is no use of time, what a wonder that he has come born here in this ‘night’ (implies this world being controlled by time).

Or iravil – We samsAris would keep a new child safely inside the house for at least 10 days and not take anywhere. krishNan did not get that safety…

oruththi maganAi

One woman wanted Him to be born as her son, and He gave her his avathAram, and to this other woman he is giving the enjoyment of his leelai.

maganAi – like how there is nothing wrong in his being born as that woman’s son, there is nothing wrong in his growing up as this woman’s son, since the latter also thought of him as her son; and he could not get his milk there and got it from this woman only. aithIhyam: Someone asked bhattar whether yasOdhA would have produced milk since she is not his actual mother; bhattar replied, “as soon as she saw kaNNan she might have produced milk and he might have drunk it, why do you have to research this / how does it affect you?”)

Since we surrendered to you, you made it unnecessary for us to have mother’s milk (since we would get mOksham).

[ AchAryas/sishyas : They are born when they learn thirumanthram, they grow reciting dhvayam all the time.

rAmAnujar => his next ‘birth / mother’ was when he underwent samAsrayaNam from periya nambi.

]

oLiththu vaLara

Growing without being sighted by kamsan’s poisonous eyes.

krishNan was not able to do everything that the people of this world could; he was going through what thieves would go through (hiding). Even when he was here as an avathAram, he was being like antharyAmi!

When he is inside itself as antharyAmi, people do not agree about his presence/control, would they agree if they are able to see him? Reason for his being as antharyAmi – if a mentally unstable son would hit her mother if he sees him, she would hide herself but be somewhere around keeping him in her sight, because otherwise if he is alone he might kill himself; she would be around (but out of sight) so that if at any time he consents her and calls ‘ammE!’ (O mother!), then she would be there to ask ‘What?’. Likewise, when we don’t consent that we are His, He hides himself within our AthmA/heart but does not go away since we would be nothing if He is not there within everything; and whenever we consent (இசைவு) to receive his grace, he is there waiting and ready to protect us.

oruththi – instead of saying the name of the mother, ANdAL is saying ‘oruththi (one woman)’;  after all, ANdAL is the daughter of the one who sang ‘aththaththin paththA nAL‘ (baby that was born 10 days near hastha nakshathram (star) – this was to create confusion whether it was plus 10 days or minus 10 days, so that kamsan or others would not be sure of the exact day if they try to cast some evil spell (sUniyam) on krishNan; and they would be not sure whether the song is about krishNan. AzhwAr was born very long after krishNan’s avathAram. Here they don’t say the name so that kamsan won’t be able to cast some spell on the name { not very long ago, people won’t say their names or dear ones’ names easily, in fear of things such as this }.

[AchAryan/sishyas: They teach/learn rahasyams (oLiththu) and grow (vaLara) in their gyAnam]

rAmAnujar => yAdhavaprakAsar who was an adhvaithi was not happy with rAmAnujar‘s objections which were raised when he was teaching rAmAnujar – yAdhava prakAsar planned to kill rAmAnujar by pushing him in to the ganges by taking him on a yAthra to north. rAmAnujar came to know this and he had to hide himself (oLiththu) from yAdhava prakAsar to travel back (pEraruLALan and perundhEvi thAyAr came as a hunter couple and helped rAmAnujar reach kAnchi (oruththi maganAi oLiththu vaLara)) .

dharikkilAn Agi

(kamsan) who could not tolerate the news that krishNan is growing in some place when nAradhA informed him. If someone tells him that perumAn is inside him as antharyAmi, then he would not accept that.

[ AchAryan cannot withstand it when a sishyan is not getting gyAnam/samAsrayaNam; emperumAnar could not tolerate when one of his sishyas stopped coming to  his kAlakshEpam; emperumAnAr went to the place where he was gambling in bad company, and told him “Even if you leave me, I would not leave you. Come and join us”.]

thAn thIngu ninaindha

These gOpikAs fear for the safety of his beauty and well-being and sing mangaLAsAsanam to Him, but kamsan being the kind described above is creating danger to Him, due to his bad prakruthi.

thAn – kamsan, who is asthiran (mortal), like any being, that is, he doesn’t know any trouble that he might go through the next minute. (such a person is trying to create trouble for Him).

thIngu ninaindha – ANdAL is just saying ‘thIngu (danger)’ since it is unbearable to talk about the exact danger of asuras like pUthanai who came to Him, and about the danger of kamsan inviting him to his palace for the bow festival (வில் வழவு).

rAmAnujar => yAdhava prakAsar could not withstand the greatness of rAmAnujar, and like the ‘thIngu’ that kamsan wanted to do to krishNan, he wanted to do to rAmAnujar.

karuththaip pizhaippiththu

pUthanai and others’ troubles were averted by krishNan, and he gave himself to us; what kamsan thought of doing to krishNan, kamsan himself went through that danger – got killed. Kamsan was planning to play the role of uncle and pretend cry when he would hear his plan about krishNan would succeed; but krishNan played the role of nephew.

kanjan vayiRRil neruppenna ninRa

(krishNA! you stood in front of kamsan and scared him to death)

All the pApams that kamsan had accumulated in all the births – he went through the effects of those pApams just by the sight of you in front of him.

neruppu – fire – fear – The fiery fear created by kamsan in krishNan’s devotees and his parents (vasudhEvar, dhEvaki) was transferred to kamsan by krishNan when kamsan saw krishNan.

nedu mAlE (mAl – love)

You went through all that because of your love towards all your adiyArs; also because of your love for vasudhEvar and dhEvaki.

rAmAnujar => As rAmAnujar‘s greatness grew in all directions, yAdhava prakAsar’s mother advised him to go surrender to rAmAnujar and join him as a sishyan. yAdhava prakAsar felt bad for his mistakes and told his mother that he too would like to do that, but his pApams might make him ineligible – his mother advised that if he fell on rAmAnujar‘s feet and went around rAmAnuar to do pradhakshinam, then all his pApams would go away – he did that and rAmAnujar was very glad to take him as his sishyan.

unnai

You, who do not have any needs from anyone, came down to this place from srIvaikuNtam and begged (for land, for butter..). Upon whose needs did you do all these? You came by yourself to help us. So you (who came by your own will) would help us.

nedu mAlE unnai aruththiththu vandhOm

aruthi – pray/plead. We have come here to pray to you; actually we have come here to pray and get you – we are greedy: we want you; and we pray you for that! But we know that our praying/pleading is not the means for getting you – only your kindness and love for us will get you for us.

unnai – You are already love sick upon us, and by coming and asking you, we are creating more love sickness on your love sickness (பிச்சின் மேல் பிச்சேற்ற வந்தோம்).

When you see us you would understand the level of our pleading.

paRai tharudhiyAgil

IF you would benefit us by giving paRai : kainkaryam, krishNan, mOksham;

Agil – IF you did – our begging or pleading is from our side but it is your blessing and your independent wish which would make it happen; please do not make your beauty an obstacle and distract us, please help us to reach you.

[ rAmAnuja!, we surrender to you and you recommend us to perumAn to give us mOksham (paRai).]

thiruththakka selvamum

(we will sing) about your wealth because of being the lord of thAyar (thiru);

About the wealth (which is yourself) that pirAtti herself loves!

sEvagamum

about your power to protect and enjoy such wealth.

yAm pAdi

we, who did not mention, not qualified enough to mention, your name and about your wealth, are here today to sing about them

varuththamum thIrndhu

Our suffering due to separation shall go away because of singing about you;

You don’t know how much that suffering would be because you have never been separated from yourself.

Not only removal of suffering, but also:

magizhndhu 

– We will sing your names and become happy (too);

Unlike kaivalyam (enjoying only the jIvAthama and not paramAthmA) which just removes the suffering of this samsAram, we will not only remove our suffering of this samsAram (varuththamum thIrndhu), but will also have the way to enjoy with you (mOksham); not just removal of suffering but also enjoy.

rAmAnujar => We wish to be associated to rAmAnujar; he accepts us when we do our saraNAgathi through our AchAryan; and the count-down starts – for our leaving this samsAram at the end of this life, and reaching srIvaikuNtam and do uninterrupted kainkaryam to perumAn and become happy to see him happy.

ElOrempAvAi – think through and follow our path.

In this pAsuram, after getting kaNNan to wake up and be seated in his throne, gOpikAs pray to him to give them opportunity to do kainkaryam to Him;
to Him who was born in this world out of his own wish and love and performed so many wonders;
to Him who was born for one, and grew up under another, by transferring himself the same night he was born;
to Him who can bless us out of his own wish and love, so that our sorrows (samsAram) would end and we would be happy too (in mOksham).

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English translation raghurAm srInivAsa dhAsan

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