thiruvAimozhi – 8.4 – vArkadA

Previously – for AzhwAr who feared thinking “sarvESvaran will descend into samsAram holding on to the requests of samsAris and will roam around alone; samsAris too will approach him to have their desires fulfilled but none will know about his greatness and care for him; what is going to happen to him?” emperumAn said “I have devotees who care for me; and moreover, I have the prowess which ensures that I don’t need anyone to care for me” to eliminate AzhwAr’s fear and pacified him by manifesting his forms, and AzhwAr became pacified; in this decad – emperumAn thinks “AzhwAr is filled with love for me, and being bewildered by that love, he will think ‘mukthAthmAs and nithyasUris are not present here, and sages such as sanaka et al will be focussed on noble penance and meditation in their mind; even after taking birth in celestial species, he ended up churning the ocean’ and become fearful. He may again get the same fear” and hence manifested his qualities such as valour, bravery etc and his amazing activities such as creation etc, and his power to uproot any enemy fully, and further showed that there are three thousand brAhmaNas who care for him; AzhwAr observed that and became satisfied, and became pleased as his heart became attached to emperumAn’s beauty.

SrI vibhIshaNAzhwAn came and surrendered to SrI rAma saying as in SrI rAmAyaNam yudhdha kANdam 17.14 “rAghavam SaraNamgatha:” (I am surrendered to SrI rAma); at that time, sugrIva mahArAjar became bewildered due to his love towards perumAL (SrI rAma) and thought “if perumAL hears these words, that may lead to undesirable situation” and said to SrI rAma “My lord! vibhIshaNa is the brother of rAvaNa, and is of the demoniac species; he cannot come here”; SrI rAma thinks “he is saying this out of love towards me and if I manifest my prowess he will acquire clarity” and manifested his prowess saying as in SrI rAmAyaNam yudhdha kANdam 18.23 “piSAchAn dhAnavAn” (whether they are ghosts or demons, I can kill them at will, with my finger tips); having his fear eliminated, sugrIva mahArAjar said as in SrI rAmAyaNam yudhdha kANdam 18.36 “kim athra chithram” (what is great about this? [Isn’t this natural for you?]) and became joyful; during the wrestling match between krishNa, balarAma and mushtika, chANUra etc, those who were present there became fearful thinking as in SrI rAmAyaNam yudhdha kANdam 103.5 “na samam yudhdham ithyAhu:” (this is not an even battle), krishNa killed the wrestlers in their presence and mercifully eliminated their fear; similarly, emperumAn eliminated AzhwAr’s fear too and thus he became satisfied and joyful thinking “now there is none other than emperumAn who is my dhAraka (sustenance), pOshaka (nutrition) and bhOgya (enjoyment)”; AzhwAr who became fearful previously seeing his beauty, is now feeling satisfied having his heart enjoy that beauty and completes the decad.

Each pAsuram is discussed subsequently.