Hymns of the Tamil Saivite Saints: Apparswami and his Hymns

APPARSWAMI AND HIS HYMNS

II.

TIRUNĀVUKKARASU SWĀMI

(More commonly referred to as APPARSWĀMI)

Sambandar, whose works we have been studying, had a friend older than himself, named Appar, or Tirunāvukkarasu, belonging to that Veḷḷāla caste which to this day makes a very solid element in the population of the Tamil country. Left an orphan at an early age, Appar was brought up by a loving elder sister as a pious devotee of Śiva. Great was the sister's grief when Appar forsook the faith of his fathers and became a religious teacher among the Janis. But her earnest prayers at last prevailed, and Appar not only came back to Śaivism himself, but was the means of reconverting to Śaivism the king of his country. His full name was Tirunāvukkarasu, or 'King of the Tongue', but his young friend Sambandar called him Appār, or Father, and the name stuck to him. He too wandered throughout the Tamil country, sometimes alone, sometimes in company with Sambandar, singing his way from shrine to shrine. Pictures show him holding in his hand a little tool for scraping grass, with which he used to scrape the stones of the temple courts. The Jains persecuted him, and many stories tell of his miraculous escapes from their hands.

His hymns show a truly religious nature, with a deep-rooted sense of sin and need, and an exalted joy in God. There is real critical acumen in the old epigram which represents Śiva as appraising the three great writers of the Dēvāram, or Śaivite hymn-book: "Sambandar praised himself; Sundarar praised Me for pelf; My Appar praised Me Myself."

God, the essentially unsearchable, in His grace will reveal Himself to men. (See the first of the legends told in the Introduction.) Athihai Viraṭṭānam, in the South Arcot District, is the shrine here commemorated.

The notable thing about our next verse is not so much the legend of the crushing of Rāvaṇa, who tried to storm the mountain Kailāsa, where Śiva had His heaven, but rather the thought of the devotee being stamped as the property of his god, a thought which recurs in other hymns. According to tradition Apparswami did receive the Hindu equivalent of St. Francis’ stigmata, the mark of Śiva's bull as if branded on his body. We cannot help recalling St. Paul's expression in Galatians vi. 17.

Here is the divine vision as the enraptured Śaivite sees it.

The singer, standing at the shrine of Tiruvalur (Ārūr) in the Tanjore district, muses over the ancient connection of his lord with the holy place, suggesting that it began before the creation, before Śiva wrought his greatest marvels, perhaps even before the one Supreme, Īśvara, expanded into the triad Brahmā, Vishṇu and Rudra.

It is often said, not without truth, that Hinduism fails to create a strong sense of sin. But there are great exceptions: witness the following verses, samples of many, taken from a hymn which trembles with feeling. The author is sunk in sin. Or he has been like a swing, flying first toward evil and then towards God; but now, joy! the cord has snapped, and he lies fixed at his Lord's feet. Yet the old mood returns; his soul is bound and drugged with sleep, and life has no joys to offer unless God will save.

The Soul's Bitter Cry

Fresh pictures in another hymn set forth his sad condition. God's vessels are full of the sweetness of grace, but his spoon has no handle. He feels himself in the deadly grasp of fate, like the frog in the cruel mouth of the snake which is slowly swallowing it down. Or he is on a raft on the sea of life, wrecked on the rock of lust.

It would be hard to find a more comprehensive confession of sin than our next stanza from another hymn.

We give next a series of stanzas in various metres from different hymns, in which the saint utters in song some of the joy which his religion has brought him. God has revealed mysteries to him which tongue cannot tell, and dwells in his life's innermost places. God is to him the fabled katpaha tree, supplying his every need. God is his all in all, and His presence is sweeter than melody or evening moonlight.

Often the Hindu devotee asks and re-asks the fundamental question 'Who am I?', coming to the saddest of conclusions, but setting against the background of his delusive life of self the great reality of God, to worship whom is to find release from the prison-house of personality.

Our next hymn with the short-lined verses (nos. 43 to 48) is a kind of Śaivite consecration hymn, mentioning successively various parts of the body—head, eyes, cars—to be given to the worship of Śiva. Verse 46 must sound sadly to a Śaivite, for it is frequently sung in the ears of the dying, as a plaintive appeal to think of God. Verse 47 rises far above the usual ideas of future absorption to the thought of a blissful state of communion with and praise of God.

The mystic can never be a satisfied ceremonialist. These Śaivite devotees commonly praise the god of a particular shrine in language which might suggest that Śiva is only to be found there. And everyone who knows India remembers the ceaseless streams of pilgrims journeying to the Ganges or the Cauvery (Tamil Kāviri), to Rāmēśwaram or Cape Comorin or a hundred other holy places. But with a fine inconsistency these ancient singers sometimes point men away from externalities to a worship inward and spiritual; witness the following hymn. As to the terms used, in v. 50, Vedas are the religious works of the highest authority, Śāstras are philosophical and practical works based on them, while Vēdāngas are sciences subordinate to the Vedas, and there are six of them.

It looks like a sudden drop when the same writer in our next hymn seems to say that everything depends upon the pronunciation of the five sacred syllables which can be translated 'Hail, Śiva!' In the later development of Śaivism the pronunciation of these syllables was exalted into a primary religious duty. But in the creative period in which these hymns were written the name probably stood for the person, so that we have here a religious 'calling upon the name of

the Lord' in the devotion of worship. In the first stanza there is a remarkable use of the term 'Word.' Modern Śaivites identify this 'Word' with Umā, Śiva's consort. We can compare the Sanskrit Vāk (Word) in the Ṛig Vēda.

The last lines of verse 53 are connected in the minds of Śaivites with a story that Apparswāmi was actually sunk in the sea by Jain persecutors, with two great stones tied to him, but on crying 'Hail, Śiva! he floated to the surface.

The five products of the cow referred to in verse 54 are all used together in ceremonial purification—milk, curds, ghee, urine, and dung.

Tradition connects our next stanza with a story of Apparswāmi being smitten with an inward disease when he forsook Śaivism and became a Jain. Thè pain proved, says the legend, a convincing argument which reconverted him, whereupon he was promptly cured. But internal evidence proves this hymn to have been composed long after his return to Śaivism. Nandi is the name of Śiva's bull.

Nature sometimes spoke to our author of God. The union of sexes even in animals one day spoke to him as a revelation of divine things.

God is the great yogi, the wielder of mystic powers.

One whole hymn, from which our next verse is taken, is a prayer for the opening of a door. Tradition has it that the great locked temple door at Vedāranyam swung open in answer to this song.

Here is a very popular stanza. There used to be a beggar in Madras who recited it, and it alone, all day long.

Whatever karma may teach of the inevitable consequence of evil, devotees hold that they may count on receiving divine forgiveness, for which the gracious nature of God is a sufficient pledge and guarantee.

The dreadful fate in store for irreligious men that is of being slowly killed by sore sickness, then being born again to a joyless life that circles round once more to death in unending cycles of dreariness.

The 'letters five' in no. 63 refer to the five-syllabled phrase na-mah-Śi-vā-ya, whose praise is chanted in vv. 53-55.

Our last fragment from Apparswāmi is in the minor key, in which so many of his refrains are pitched. It seems to prove, contrary to tradition, that Appar was once a married man.