Hymns of the Tamil Saivite Saints: Sundaramūrti Swāmi and his Hymns

SUNDARAMŪRTI SWAMI AND HIS HYMNS

III.

SUNDARAMŪRTI SWAMI

(Abbreviated as SUNDARAR)

The third of these hymn-writers, named in full Sundaramūrti Swāmi, was, like Sambandar, a Brahman. He was born in the South Arcot District, and is generally believed to have flourished in the first quarter of the ninth century A.D. He evidently sat loose to caste scruples, for neither of his two wives was a Brahman. One was a dancing-girl in the Śaivite temple at Tiruvārūr, the modern Tiruvalur in the Tanjore District, while the other was a Vēḷāḷa woman of Tiruvottiyūr, now a suburb of Madras. His life seems to have been no happier than life in polygamy usually is, and to add to his difficulties he sometimes found himself without food for his ladies to eat. He frankly praised God for what he could get, and on the whole his hymns are on a lower spiritual plane than those of the first two writers, though there are some which bear the marks of real spiritual experience. Of the sixty-three saints whom Śaivites hold in special honour, Sundarar seems to have been the last, for he sang the praises of the other sixty-two.

Sundarar, as our first sample of him shews, was not only later than the two authors whom we have been studying; he was the last of the sixty-three canonized saints of Śaivism. A serious weakness of the religion here shews its head. Śiva has his favourites, who can do no wrong. The stanza is given in prose, for these names cannot fit into any English metrical line. The first two will be recognised as names of the poets whose work we have been considering. Nāḷaippōvān is Nandan, the pariah saint. Silandi (= spider) is Kōchchengaṭ Chola, who figures largely in early Tamil history.

To English ears the metre of the next two verses, which are common favourites, has a curious sound. It is a close reproduction of the Tamil, so close that the tune of the Tamil hymn could be sung to the English words.

Is the Śiva manifested at one shrine so distinct from the Śiva manifested at another as to endanger the unity of God? If tradition is right, the danger is very real, for Sundarar was already worshipping at one shrine, Tiruvottiyūr, when he remembered the lord of Ārūr, and deciding to go to him like a returning prodigal, sang this stanza.

The joy in God which shines in our next hymn evidently rests on some experience of divine grace which we should have liked to hear more definitely described.

The varying mood of the saint, now joyous and triumphant, now plaintively looking for death, is reflected in the next two verses from one hymn.

God should deliver His own from death. The appeal here is to the familiar story of Markandeya (see No. 3). Yama is the god of death who gathers in the souls of men.

Sundarar is sure that Śiva will understand his perplexities in supplying the needs of his fair ladies. For does not Śiva Himself bear the burden of two ladies, Pārvati his consort, and Gangā (lady Ganges) in his hair? Sundarar, in the legend with which these verses are connected, when one of his wives was suffering hunger, miraculously received some uncooked rice from Śiva. This was not enough; to complete the miracle Śiva must remove the rice for him to Ārūr the abode of his fair one. This too was done in answer to the hymn of which the next two stanzas are a sample.

The saint advises his fellow-poets to sing the praises of Śiva rather than the praises of men because they seldom reward the poets. Śiva rewards them here and hereafter. The Pāri mentioned in 78 was a chieftain in the Tamil country in the early centuries of our era, famed for his liberality.

Life and experience have no value, no reality. God alone is real, the refuge from the unreal.