SrI: SrImathE SatakOpAya nama: SrImathE rAmAnujAya nama: SrImath varavaramunayE nama:
avathArikai
emperumAn asks AzhwAr “Is there anything new that I have to do for you? Haven’t you attained everything already?”. AzhwAr thinking of the benefit that he has attained, responds “the benefit that I had obtained is the affection that I have for you”.
Let us go through the pAsuram and its meanings:
paNindhEn thirumEni paingamalam kaiyAl
aNindhEn un sEvadi mEl anbAy thuNindhEn
purindhEththi unnaip pugalidam pArththu AngE
irundhEththi vAzhum idhu
Word by Word Meaning
thirumEni – (Oh thirumAl!) your divine form
paNindhEn – worshipped
un sEvadi mEl – on your reddish divine feet
paim kamalam – beautiful lotus flowers
anbu Ay – with affection
kaiyAl aNindhEn – offered with hands
unnai – you
purindhu Eththi – praising desirously
pugal idam pArththu – looking at your dwelling in paramapadham (SrIvaikuNtam)
AngE irundhu Eththi idhu thuNindhEn – I ascertained to myself that staying there and praising you is the life that I should live
vyAkyAnam
paNindhEn thirumEni – AzhwArs prefer his divine form to the divine qualities which describe his svarUpam (basic nature). Hence, AzhwAr says here that he worshipped at the divine feet of emperumAn.
paNindhEn – AzhwAr says that he, who was similar to the nature of rAvaNa when he had said as in SrI rAmAyaNam yudhdha kANdam 36-11 “dhvidhA bhajyEyamapyEvam na namEyam” (even if I am split into two, I will not fall at the feet (of SrI rAma)), after thinking about the beauty (of emperumAn’s divine form) fell at his divine feet. Being a servitor, he changed the words in mUnRAm thiruvandhAdhi 1 “ponmEni kaNdEn” (saw the divine golden form) to “paNindhEn thirumEni ” (worshipped the divine form).
paingamalam kaiyAl aNindhEn un sEvadi mEl anbAy – with affection, I offered lotus flowers at your reddish divine feet and held on to them.
kaiyAl – since I submitted the flowers like this, I fulfilled the objective of having been given hands.
aNindhEn – Is it not proper for the losers to serve the victorious!
anbAy paNindhEn – worshipping you like this is not because I obtained knowledge. It is because of my involvement with you.
purindhu Eththi – when you set out to go, I worshipped you from the front; later, after you left, I worshipped you from behind too and praised you.
pugalidam pArththu – when you went back inside, I saw the beauty of your backside.
AngE irundhu Eththi – without having the mind to leave you from there, seeing the beauty of your backside, I did not want to forget the thought of praising you at that place, and ascertained that my praising you should continue like this. I became firm in that belief. A person by name SrI paranguSa dhAsar moved closely with SrI thirumalai nambi (one of the five AchAryars of swAmy rAmAnujar). He would quote SrI thirumalai nambi as follows: “In this pAsuram, the word pugalidam refers to SrIvaikuNtam to which emperumAn returns after completing his incarnation on earth. AzhwAr says that as mentioned in thiruppaLLANdu 12 ‘sUzhndhu irundhu Eththuvar pallANdE’ , he would praise emperumAn amidst nithyamukthas (eternal dwellers of SrIvaikuNtam and those who reached SrIvikuNtam after getting liberated from samsAram) and live there”. As mentioned in paramasamhithai “chAyA vA sathvamanugachchEth” (like shadow following any sentient being) it can be construed that AzhwAr is saying that he would look at the servitorship being carried to emperumAn at SrIvaikuNtam and remain ecstatic there.
We shall move on to the 66th pAsuram.
adiyEn krishNa rAmAnuja dhAsan
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