147. Bharati, The Sacred Book of Four Thousand, p. 699.
148. The two major ritual traditions at the Alvar Tirunagari temple associated with Nammālvār’s poetry are the Araiyar Cēvai and the Kavi Pāṭṭu. Araiyar Cēvai takes its most elaborate form during the Annual Festival of Recitation (Adhyāyanotsavam) that occurs over the course of twenty days in the month of Mārkali (mid-December to mid-January). Today, the Cēvai is performed by Brahmin men, who are hereditary performers, at the temples of Srirangam, Srivilliputtur and Alvar Tirunagari. Nammālvār’s Tiruvāymoliconsists of sets of is recited and interpreted over the course of the second half of the festival known as Irā-Pāṭṭu at all three temples, while the Tiruviruttam is performed during the first ten days known as Pakal Pāṭṭu. The second performance tradition is known as Kavi Pāṭṭu. It too is performed by a family of Brahmin men who claim descent from Maturakavi. The Kavi Pāṭṭu repertoire is unique to Alvar Tirunagari. It consists of sets of Maṇipravāḷa śleṣa prose poems that are known as ‘Perumāḷ Kavi’, ‘Ālvār Kavi’ and ‘Tinappaṭi Kavi’. Lines from the Tiruviruttam are interwoven into these kavis, with particular emphasis placed on the line jñāna-p-pirān allāl illai (there is no one but the master of knowledge) from Tiruviruttam 99. This kavi is performed before the Nammālvār sannidhi as part of the morning nitya utsavam at the Alvar Tirunagari temple. The kavis are also referred to as viṇṇappam (petition). See Venkatesan, ‘The Poet’s Song’ (forthcoming).
149. See Appendix 2 (Index of Motifs) for a list of Tiruviruttam verses that focus on Viṣṇu’s eyes.
Glossary
Words are marked with* to indicate a cross-reference
Adhyayanotsavam: The Annual Festival of Recitation that takes place in the Tamil month of Mārkali*
Aiṅkurunūru: A classical Tamil anthology of five hundred short love poems dated to the third century
Akam: Literally, interior/inner. It refers to the category of Tamil classical poems that deal with love and domestic affairs.
Akapporuḷ: Poems which contain akam content
Alaṅkāra: Ornamentation, decoration
Aṁśa: An emanation of Viṣṇu
Antāti: a poetic form where the end syllables or words of a verse are repeated as the first syllables or words of the verse that immediately follows it
Anril: A bird that is often used in Tamil love poetry to evoke steadfastness
Anubhava: Enjoyment
Anubhava grantha: A text of enjoyment. Śrīvaiṣṇavas* use it to refer to commentary.
Anyāpadeśa: The outer or exoteric meaning of a text
Araiyar Cēvai: A hereditary ritual tradition associated with the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham*
Aran: Śiva
Aruḷ: Grace, mercy, compassion
Asura: The natural enemies of the gods (sura), often translated into English as demons
Avatāra: Descent. Refers to the ten descents/interventions of Viṣṇu
Ayan: Brahmā
Ācārya: Teacher
Ācārya Hṛdayam: Literally, the heart of the teacher. A Maṇipravāḷa synthesis of the meaning of the Tiruvāymoli*
Ālvār: Literally, the one who drowns, one who is immersed, coming from the Tamil root āl—to drown/to be immersed. The twelve poet-saints of the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition whose compositions comprise the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham*
Āmpal: A water lily
Āṇṭāḷ: The sole female ālvār* poet. She authored two poems, the Tiruppāvai* and the Nācciyār Tirumoli*
Ātman: The eternal undying self
Bāṇa: A thousand-armed asura* and devotee of Śiva who was vanquished by Kṛṣṇa
Bhāgavatas: Devotees of Viṣṇu
Bhāgavata Purāṇa: One of the most important Purāṇas extolling the virtues of Viṣṇu. It contains eighteen books. The tenth book, which is the longest, is concerned with Kṛṣṇa’s exploits.
Bhū: The goddess earth. She is considered Viṣṇu’s secondary consort.
Caṅkam: Literally, academy. It refers to the corpus of Tamil literary works composed between the first and third centuries CE.
Cilappatikāram: A Jain Tamil epic composed by Ilaṅkō Aṭikaḷ dated to between the fifth and sixth centuries CE
Cirrinpam: Worldly pleasures
Cūrṇikai: Sutra, short aphoristic statement. Refers to the individual verses from the Ācārya Hṛdayam*
Devagānam: Divine music. Refers to Srirama Bharati’s reimagined Araiyar Cēvai
Divyasūricaritam: A fifteenth-century Sanskrit hagiography of the Śrīvaiṣṇava ālvār* and ācārya*
Gopī: Cowherd maidens
Guruparamparaprabhāvam: Maṇipravāḷa* hagiographies of the Śrīvaiṣṇava ālvār* and ācārya.* There are two major versions of the text known as the 6000 and 3000.
Kṛṣṇa: The ninth avatāra* of Viṣṇu
Iyarpā: A section of the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham* that contains many of the experimental works
Jñāna/Jñānam: Knowledge/wisdom
Kayal: A freshwater fish native to Tamil country
Kālamayakkam: Literally, the bewilderment of the seasons. It generally refers to a deliberate misapprehension of the signs of the approaching rainy season.
Kāma: The god of love
Keṇṭai: A freshwater fish native to Tamil country
Kiḷavi-t-talaivan: The hero of the poem/the moment(s)
Konrai: Indian laburnum
Kōvai: A genre of Tamil poetry. It usually contains four hundred verses, and is concerned with depicting all the stages of love, beginning with the first meeting and concluding with life after marriage
Kurukūr: The town identified with present-day Alvar Tirunagari in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu
Kurai: Lack
Kuvaḷai: Blue water lily
Kūrattālvān: Rāmānuja’s* scribe and disciple
Lakṣmī: Viṣṇu’s primary consort. She is the goddess of wealth, fortune and auspiciousness.
Līlā vibhūti: The realm of play. It refers to the terrestrial world.
Mahābali: The demon king vanquished by Viṣṇu in his Vāmana-Trivikrama form
Maṇipravāḷa: Literally, gems and corals. It refers to a commentarial language used by the Śrīvaiṣṇavas.* It uses specialized Sanskrit vocabulary with Tamil grammar.
Maturakavi: The disciple of Nammālvār*
Māṇikkavācakar: A ninth-century Śaiva poet
Mārkali: The Tamil month that falls between mid-December and mid-January
Māran: A name or epithet of Nammālvār*
Māruta: A type of cool breeze
Meru: The mountain that is the cosmic axis mundi
Mokṣa: Release from the endless cycle of birth and death
Murukan: The Tamil god of love and war. He is the son of Śiva.
Naraka: An asura* who kidnapped several women and was eventually killed by Kṛṣṇa
Nācciyār Tirumoli: A poem of 143 verses composed by Āṇṭāḷ*
Nālāyira Divya Prabandham (also, Divya Prabandham): A collection of four thousand verses composed by the twelve ālvār* poets
Nammālvār: The most important of the ālvār* poets
Nāthamuni: The first teacher of the Śrīvaiṣṇava* community. He is believed to have collected and compiled the Divya Prabandham.*
Nāyaka(n): (Sanskrit) Hero
Nāyikā: (Sanskrit) Heroine
Neytal: Indian water lily
Nityasūri: Eternal being
Nitya vibhūti: Eternal realm. Refers to Vaikuṇṭha*
Oppu: Comparison
Paṇ: An ancient Tamil musical mode
Parāṅkuśa Nāyikā: Nammālvār’s* female persona
Pāṭṭuṭai-t-talaivan: The hero of the composition/patron
Periyālvār: An important ālvār,* who is related to Āṇṭāḷ*
Periyavāccān Piḷḷai: A twel
fth-century commentator on the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham*
Pērinpam: The higher pleasure, that is, divine bliss
Pēy: One of the first three ālvār*
Phala śruti: The concluding verse of a poem detailing the merits to be accrued from learning, memorizing or reciting it
Poykai: One of the first three ālvār*
Puram: Literally, exterior/outer. It refers to the category of Tamil classical poems that deals with kings, war and ethics.
Puranānuru: A Tamil literary anthology of four hundred verses from the classical period that concerns war and ethics
Pūtam: One of the first three ālvār*
Rāga: A melodic mode
Rāmānuja: The most important of the teachers of the Śrivaiṣṇava* community. The traditional dates are 1017–1137 CE.
Rāmānuja Nūrrantāti: A text in praise of Rāmānuja
Ṛg Veda: The oldest of the four Vedas. Considered to be revealed or śruti (heard)
Saṁpradāya: Tradition, lineage
Saṁsāra: The endless cycle of birth and death
Saṁśleṣa: Union
Śaṭhakōpan: One of Nammālvār’s* names
Śleṣa: A literary device that allows you to say many things at once. Yigal Bronner refers to it as ‘simultaneous narration’.
Śrī: Another name for Lakṣmī, the primary consort of Viṣṇu
Śrīvaiṣṇava: A sect that reveres the ālvārs* and cleaves to the philosophy laid out by Rāmānuja*
Svāpadeśa: The inner/esoteric meaning
Talaivan: (Tamil) Hero
Talaivi: (Tamil) Heroine
Tāla: Rhythm
Tēvāram: The Śaiva collection of poems attributed to the three saints Appar, Campantar and Cuntarar
Tillai: The sacred site of Chidambaram and home to Śiva as Naṭarāja, the king of dance
Tiṇai: Landscapes. It refers to a Tamil poetic system. There are five tiṇais, each of which is associated with a specific moment in the development of love. These are kuriñci, neytal, pālai, mullai and marutam.
Tirukkōvaiyār: The four-hundred-verse poem in the kōvai* genre composed by Māṇikkavācakar*
Tirumaṅkai: One of the most important ālvār* poets with an impressive contribution of poems to the Divya Prabandham*
Tirumoli: A type of song favoured by the ālvār* poets
Tiruppāvai: The Sacred Vow. Āṇṭāḷ’s* composition of thirty verses in praise of Kṛṣṇa
Tiruvācakam: Literally, sacred speech. Māṇikkavācakar’s* monumental work in praise of Śiva
Tiruvāymoli: Literally, sacred truth. Nammālvār’s* 1102-verse composition. The Śrīvaiṣṇavas regarded it as revealed.
Tolkāppiyam: A Tamil grammar which has several layers. The earliest strata of the text is generally dated to the pre-Christian era (c. 150 BCE) with the upper limit for the text’s composition placed at 500 CE.
Tōli: (Tamil) The female friend
Tulāy/Tulasī: Sacred basil
Vaikuṇṭha: Viṣṇu’s heaven
Vedānta Deśika: One of the most important teachers, poets and philosophers of the Śrīvaiṣṇava* community. He composed in Sanskrit, Tamil and Prakrit. He lived between 1269 and 1370 CE. His work and philosophical orientation comes to be associated with the northern or Vaṭakalai branch of the Śrīvaiṣṇavas.
Vēlan: The priest of Murukan.* In Caṅkam poems he is often painted as an ineffectual figure who misdiagnoses the heroine’s lovesickness as possession by Murukan.
Vēḷḷāḷa: An agricultural caste group
Viṇṇappam: Petition, plea or request
Vinai: Deeds or actions
Viruttam: A specific metrical form
Viśleṣa: Separation
Viśvaksena: Viṣṇu’s commander-in-chief/guard
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