One advantage of reading books in English is that I find proper help from the authors to express my thoughts in their writings, which I cannot otherwise communicate in proper English. Though I manage a bit in writing in English, several times I feel frustrated as I am unable to convey my thoughts with the proper words. So, when I was reading the following points, I was very impressed as this is what I too try to do through my poems. Then I wrote this song [BT Song 962].
…Periyavaccan Pillai {a commentator of Tiruviruttam by Nammalvar}…tells us that as Nammalvar grieves for a pointless life on this terrestrial realm, Visnu responds that it is to sing of him as he would in Vaikuntha {the abode of Vishnu} that he lives here in the world (p.135) of play, the lila vibhuti. To prove this very point, cunning, playful Visnu takes Nammalvar over (visayikarittu) to sing and enjoy his own form (svarupa–rupa), his virtues (guna) and his vbhutis (realms). As we have already seen, such moments of intermittent takeover are not unusual in Nammalvar (or in bhakti poetry in general). Periyavaccan Pillai…. Provides us with an apt parallel from Tiruvaymoli VII.9, a decad in which Nammalvar speaks again of Visnu singing of himself through the poet. From this rich ten verses full of textured descriptions of Visnu’s uncompromising takeover, Pillai chooses to cite a sing phrase: en mun collum, he who sings in front of me, from VII.9.2. Let us see this verse in its entirety:
What can I say? Now becoming one with my sweet life,
He makes me sing sweet songs with my own words
With his own words the lord of illusion praises himself,
The one who sings before me, the first of the three forms.{Clooney, Francis X, S.J., and Archana Venkatesn. Trans. Tiruvaymoli, Penguin Classics. Forthcoming} (p.136)
….He speaks these words, but, equally, they are spoken to him. He stands embodied to listen—we are back where we started—and then, trickster that he is, embodies himself within the devotee to speak of him. (Italics original)&—pp. 135-137
& A.K. Ramanujan in Hymns for the Drowning theorizes the relationship between Visnu and Nammalvar in the Tiruvaymoli in terms of mutual cannibalism, where ‘the eater is eaten, the container is contained in a metonymy many times over’. {Ramanujan, A.K. ‘Afterword’, Hymns for the Drowning: Poems for Visnu by Nammalvar. Princeton J.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 151}….—ibid. p. 144
One advantage of reading books in English is that I find proper help from the authors to express my thoughts in their writings, which I cannot otherwise communicate in proper English. Though I manage a bit in writing in English, several times I feel frustrated as I am unable to convey my thoughts with the proper words. So, when I was reading the following points, I was very impressed as this is what I too try to do through my poems. Then I wrote this song [BT Song 962].
…Periyavaccan Pillai {a commentator of Tiruviruttam by Nammalvar}…tells us that as Nammalvar grieves for a pointless life on this terrestrial realm, Visnu responds that it is to sing of him as he would in Vaikuntha {the abode of Vishnu} that he lives here in the world (p.135) of play, the lila vibhuti. To prove this very point, cunning, playful Visnu takes Nammalvar over (visayikarittu) to sing and enjoy his own form (svarupa–rupa), his virtues (guna) and his vbhutis (realms). As we have already seen, such moments of intermittent takeover are not unusual in Nammalvar (or in bhakti poetry in general). Periyavaccan Pillai…. Provides us with an apt parallel from Tiruvaymoli VII.9, a decad in which Nammalvar speaks again of Visnu singing of himself through the poet. From this rich ten verses full of textured descriptions of Visnu’s uncompromising takeover, Pillai chooses to cite a sing phrase: en mun collum, he who sings in front of me, from VII.9.2. Let us see this verse in its entirety:
What can I say? Now becoming one with my sweet life,
He makes me sing sweet songs with my own words
With his own words the lord of illusion praises himself,
The one who sings before me, the first of the three forms.{Clooney, Francis X, S.J., and Archana Venkatesn. Trans. Tiruvaymoli, Penguin Classics. Forthcoming} (p.136)
….He speaks these words, but, equally, they are spoken to him. He stands embodied to listen—we are back where we started—and then, trickster that he is, embodies himself within the devotee to speak of him. (Italics original)&—pp. 135-137
& A.K. Ramanujan in Hymns for the Drowning theorizes the relationship between Visnu and Nammalvar in the Tiruvaymoli in terms of mutual cannibalism, where ‘the eater is eaten, the container is contained in a metonymy many times over’. {Ramanujan, A.K. ‘Afterword’, Hymns for the Drowning: Poems for Visnu by Nammalvar. Princeton J.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 151}….—ibid. p. 144
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