SrI: SrImathE SatakOpAya nama: SrImathE rAmAnujAya nama: SrImath varavaramunayE nama:
avathArikai
In this pAsuram, AzhwAr mercifully mentions the characteristic of emperumAn by which he is devoted to his followers. He says that just as one cannot see a limit to his characteristics, one cannot see the limit for his narratives too.
Let us go through the pAsuram and its meanings:
maNNuNdum pEychchi mulaiuNdum ARRAdhAy
veNNey vizhunga veguNdu Aychchi kaNNik
kayiRRinAl kattath thAn kattuNdirundhAn
vayiRRinOdARRA magan
Word by Word Meanings
vayiRRinOdARRA magan – the child (kaNNan; krishNa) who cannot keep quiet with his stomach
maN uNdu – swallowing all the worlds
pEychchi – the demon pUthanA’s
mulai – (poisoned) bosom
uNdum – drinking that
ARRAdhAy – not being satisfied
veNNey – butter
vizhunga – as he swallowed
Aychchi – yaSOdhAp pirAtti
veguNdu – getting angry
kaNNi kayiRRinAl – with a rope having many knots
katta – tying securely
thAn – he, the omnipotent supreme being
kattuNdu irundhAn – remained tied (instead of trying a way to get out of it)
vyAkyanam
maN uNdum pEychchi mulai uNdum – eating generally, the world and lives of enemies. He did not get satisfied until he ate things which were touched by his favourable ones.
maN uNdum pEychchi mulai uNdum ARRAdhAy – when deluge came to take away everything, he kept all the worlds inside his stomach to protect them. On top of that, as if he were going to drink milk from the demon pUthanA’s bosom, he drank her life too along with milk. Not being satisfied with eating these,
venney vizhunga – in order to get rid of all the faults that he had, he stole butter and ate it.
veguNdu Aychchi – Once the butter was stolen, yaSOdhAp pirAtti, looking at the fear in kaNNan’s face, concluded that only he had eaten the butter and was furious (she was furious because if he ate so much of butter it would do harm to his physical form). She had as much anger towards kaNNan as she had affection for him. yaSOdhA had as much enthusiasm in protecting kaNNan as he had in stealing butter.
veNNey vizhunga – his acts of eating the worlds etc were to remove the concern of those entities while his eating butter was to remove his concern (he could not sustain himself without eating butter). Just as emperumAn’s stomach is for the worlds, so is emperumAn’s stomach for butter.
kaNNik kayiRRinAl kattath thAn kattuNdirundhAn – while yaSOdhA had tied him with a rope which had many knots, he remained tied as if he could not liberate himself from that.
kattuNdu – one who controls everyone, one who is the reason for binding everyone to samsAram (materialistic realm), stabilising them in samsAram and releasing them, was tied by a woman and stood being unable to untie himself and leave. One who binds everyone through his sankalpa (vow / will) stood bound. Other AzhwArs too have enjoyed this narrative, as in periya thirumozhi 8-3-5 “thAyeduththa siRukOlukku uLaindhOdi”, thiruvAimozhi 5-10-3 “neyyuN vArththaiyuL annai kOl koLLa nIyun thAmaraikkaNgaL nIr malgap paiyavE nilaiyum”, perumAL thirumozhi 7-8 “muzhudhum veNNey aLaindhu thottuNNum mugizhiLam siRuththAmaraik kaiyum …”.
vayiRRinOdu ARRA magan – he could not keep quiet with his stomach. He could tolerate hunger only if he grew beyond adolescence. Since he was a little child, and could not tolerate his hunger, he stole butter and ate. piLLai uRangA villi dhAsar (one of the disciples of bhagavath SrI rAmAnujar), on hearing this pAsuram, said “could she not tear off his stomach and give it to the washerman?”. He had perhaps mercifully stated this since his stomach could not get satisfied even after eating everything just as the washerman’s vessel would not get filled up even after throwing all the clothes into it!
We will move on to the 92nd pAsuram next.
adiyEn krishNa rAmAnuja dhAsan
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