GODHEAD: PEN PORTRAIT-III

kaNDa inbam tunbam kalakka~gKaLum tORRamumAy

taNDamum taNmaiyum tazhalum nizhalumAy

kaNDu kODaRkariya perumAn

   (6-3-2)   

puNNiyam pAvam puNarchchi pirivenRivaiyAy

eNNamAy maRappAy uNmaiyAy inmaiyAy allanAy

           (6-3-4)    

nizhal veyyil siRumai peRumai kuRumai neDumaiyumAy

suzhalvana niRpana maRRumAy avai allanumAy

            (6-3-10)

 


He is the joy and sorrow that we feel,
Confusion and clarity,
Punishment and compassion,
Heat and shade.
He is inscrutable.
(6-3-2)


He is virtue, He is sin,
He is meeting, He is parting,
Remembrance and forgetfulness,
That which is, that which is not,
Not this, nor that, 
Nor anything else.
(6-3-4)


He is the hot sun, and the cool shade,
He is littleness, He is greatness,

Narrowness, spaciousness........
He is those that move and those that stand still,
He is all, and not of all.
(6-3-10) Translation: A. Srinivasa Raghavan





God is 'within' and 'without', within all cosmos, the unseen eternal witness having His seat in every animate and inanimate things and so within man too: and yet He is without, transcending all and untouched by any. He is the Real beyond time, space and flux of things and so, beyond the limited intellect of man and his still more limited speech. The Alvar tries in places to express the all-inclusive inexpressible nature of Reality through paradox. And yet, the Alvar believes in a personal God. It is not as though he is not aware of the truth that God-head is indefinable. But when he thought of God and yearned for Him, it was to a personal God, Sriman Narayana that he turned, Narayana of whom the Taittriya Upanishad speaks, He with His discus and His conch, His fragrant tulasi garland and the golden robe and crown, dark-hued, lotus eyed, an apotheosis of beauty.The Alvar held Narayana as the Absolute and speaks of Him often, understandingly enough, in a mixture of the abstract and the concrete, of the impersonal and personal.

mAcUNAc cuDaruDambAy malarAdu kuviyAdu

mAcUNA ~jAnamAy muzhudumAy muzhudiyanRAy

   (3-1-8)

Thou art a glory eternal,
Neither blossoming nor drooping,
Thou art wisdom pure and endless.
Thou art all, fullness, fulfilment.
(3-1-8) Translation: A. Srinivasa Raghavan

(Godhead:Pen Portrait, II & III all have to be read together)