SrI: SrImathE SatakOpAya nama: SrImathE rAmAnujAya nama: SrImath varavaramunayE nama:
avathArikai
AzhwAr reminisces about the events happening at thiruvEngadam where emperumAn, who is so simple that even animals can attain him, resides.
Let us go through the pAsuram and its meanings:
kaLiRu mugil kuththak kaiyeduththOdi
oLiRu marupposigaiyALi piLiRi
vizhak konRu ninRadhirum vEngadamE mEnAL
kuzhak kanRu koNdeRindhAn kunRu
Word by Word Meanings
kaLiRu – elephant
kai eduththu Odi – running fast, lifting its trunk
mugil – clouds (which appeared like elephants in exultation)
kuththa – to pierce them (thinking that they are inimical elephants)
yALi – seeing this, the animal yALi (a type of animal with lion face and having tusks and trunk like elephant)
oLiRu maruppu – the radiant rusks
osi – snapping
kai – having trunk
piLiri vizha konRu – killing (that elephant) so that it will fall down crying out
ninRu adhirum – standing there itself and trumpeting
vEngadamE – thiruvEngadam itself
mEl nAL – once upon a time
kuzha kanRu koNdu – using a calf (as a throwing stick)
eRindhAn – one who threw it (at a wood apple fruit)
kunRu – thirumalai (divine hill)
vyAkyanam
kaLiRu mugil kuththak kai eduththOdi – in thirumalai, an elephant, looking at the cloud and mistaking it for another elephant, is running towards it with its raised trunk in order to attack it
oLiRu marupposi kai yALi – looking at the elephant running like this, yALi (an animal having lion’s face and elephant’s trunk and tusks) also starts running towards the elephant raising its trunk in order to snap its tusks (maruppu– tusk; osi – snapping; kai – yALi with trunk). Alternatively we can rearrange the words such that they become marupposigai yALi which will mean a yALi for which breaking the tusks (of elephants) is a natural quality.
piLiRi vizhak konRu ninRu adhirum – even after killing the elephant such that the elephant falls down crying out, the yALi will stand there and roar in anger so that the smaller animals will shiver in fear. It is roaring since it has defeated the elephant.
mEnAL kuzhak kanRu koNdu eRindhAn kunRu – it (thiruvEngadam) is the hill of that supreme being who threw a calf at a wood apple fruit. It is the place where emperumAn, who is happy that he has destroyed those for whom enmity is a nature, resides. Isn’t his ignorance much similar to that of the elephant (just as the elephant mistook cloud for an elephant, emperumAn too mistook a demon for wood apple fruit)! Since it has been mentioned that yALi killed an elephant in thirumalai, would all those animals living there trouble one another? As per the tenets of the ritual agnishOmIyam, the goat which is sacrificed in that ritual attains the high place of svargam. Just as what had been done to the goat will not come under the classification of torture, due to the greatness of thirumalai hills, the elephant killed (by the yALi) would attain SrIvaikuNtam and hence this too will not be a torture.
We will take up the 72nd pAsuram next.
adiyEn krishNa rAmAnuja dhAsan
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