Thiruvaay Mozhi - First Ten Pasurams

Even before I started jotting down this particular article on Nammazhvar’s Thiruvaay Mozhi, I did a quick search on google to see if there is an exclusive article on the same in an attempt to see if my effort would be redundant. There are many articles on this subject – however what I wanted to mention is a little different from the other existing articles. Of course, the very subject matter – God and Love of God – is so vast that irrespective of many devotees authoring the articles, there is always still something more to covered due to the anata feature of the Almighty.

I do not understand Tamizh. Though I have love for learning languages other than my mother tongue, my eagerness to understand Tamizh took a new turn when I heard about Tiruppavai. Eventually after spending quite some time with Tiruppavai, I heard about Thiruvaay Mozhi. I firmly believe that we eventually achieve what our mind consistently searches for. After doing some initial inquiries into Thiruvaay Mozhi, by the mercy of the Almighty, I saw a DVD on the same at Chinna Jeeyar Swamijee’s Ashramam at Shamshabad, Hyd.

I liked the contents so much that I literally fell in Love with God as well as the Lovers of God. As they say, without love of God, all the rituals are mere sentiments and nothing else.

NONE of this is my original composition. I am not even a fraction of so great that I could understand the whole Thiruvaay Mozhi and give my own gist or opinion on that. This is only the gist of what I understood from a DVD where Thiru Vengalamma has explained about Thiruvaay Mozhi. I humbly request the readers to kindly excuse me for any errors that would have occurred in this article. I liked it so much that I could not abstain myself from writing it up so that my friends and well wishers would be benefitted from it.

Usually, the creation of a melodious song has three backstage artists: Composer, Music director and Singer. There are a few devotees who composed, directed its music and sang the songs praising the Lord. (They are called as vagheyakarulu in Telugu). For them it comes very naturally not due to their talent, but due to their love for God. To name a few, Thyagayya, Ramadasu etc. Similarly, there are some twelve great devotees of the Lord in regions of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. They are called Azhwars. Azhwars in Tamizh means the ones who came to improve our lives. Yet another meaning for the same word in Tamizh is those who are fully soaked or dipped. If we have to enjoy the sweetness of Gulab Jamun, we need to soak it fully in the sweet liquid called sheer. Similarly, Azhwars are the ones who are fully soaked with the Love to the Lord. Azhwars have existed on this earth during the end of dwaparayuga and initial stages of kaliyuga. They were very great devotees of Lord. If they have to improve our lives, obviously they should have been first fully soaked in the Love of God. They wrote great scriptures in Tamizh in the praise of the Lord. If we do not know Tamizh, should we just give up the attempt to understand those scriptures? I don’t think so. Do we not comprehend the cricket commentary in English though it is not our mother tongue? Do we not watch and understand Hollywood movies though our mother tongue is not English? When the subject is very interesting to understand, language should no more be a barrier to understand the subject matter. Small kids understand and enjoy the cartoon films inspite of the fact that those films are not in the native languages of the kids watching them. If we have a desire to understand the subject, we will automatically start understanding the language over a period of repeated sincere attempts. So, is it the language that is a barrier, or is it a lack of the desire to understand? We may not understand the language to the extent of perfection in grammar and doing R&D in the language, but we will start understanding at least to the extent of enjoying the subject of interest. A question arises; what should that subject be on which we should have interest on? We should have an interest on something which improves our lives as well as which is also extremely pleasant, attractive and interesting. Not everything can have both the mentioned characteristics. Some things may be good but not pleasant (medicine, for example) – others may be pleasant but may not be good for health (ice creams, for example). All the literary works of Azhwars has both those characters. They have the capability to both improve our lives as well as attract us to a very large extent.

Among twelve Azhwars, NamAzhwar is considered to be head of them all. Meaning of ‘NamAzhwar’ in Tamizh is ‘Our’ Azhwar. He was considered as their own Azhwar by everyone as his only idea was to improve the lives of the people. There are many other Azhwars like Kulasekhar Azhwar who said ‘Diwi va Bhuvi va, mamasthuva so, narakeva, narakanthaka”; They prayed to the Lord requesting Him that whether they were in Hell, in Heaven or on earth, they should be able to concentrate on Lord alone and serve Him all the time. But NamAzhwar was always praying that he could not bear being in this materialistic world. This materialistic world has a characteristic of making the living souls entangled into its complexities. If you place a tumbler of water in the Freezer of the Refrigerator, irrespective of whether you want it or not, that water would eventually freeze into Ice. That is freezer’s characteristic. Similarly, this materialistic world will only give us folly and make us entangled irrespective of our likes and dislikes. Hence NamAzhwar used to pray to God to take him away from this materialistic world and that is how he finally reached Vaikunta to serve the Lord. Usually, we celebrate the birthdays like Sree Rama Navami, Krsna Ashtami, etc. Similarly, the appearance day celebrations of Azhwars called Thirunakshatra is celebrated in a grand way; but for NamAzhwar, his disappearance day (paramapadotsava) is celebrated in a grander way than his appearance day or Thirunakshatram. It is because he had a strong desire to leave this world and reach the Lord. Inspite of NamAzhwar desiring strongly for paramapada, the Lord left him for some time to live in this materialistic world for our sake – for the sake of all the fallen and struggling souls so that NamAzhwar would write Thiruvaay Mozhi which the Lord thought would be very helpful for us in getting out of this materialistic entanglements. NamAzhwar struggled by living in this world just for you and me. NamAzhwar used to experience the Lord and with that happiness, he used to instruct us as to how to live and how not to.

He mainly wrote four literary works on the Love of the Lord but we will be discussing only on first ten pasurams of Thiruvaay Mozhi in this blog. Thiruvaay Mozhi means good word. Every other word and discussion other than that of Lord’s is not considered as good words irrespective of their importance in this materialistic world. Only words related to the Lord are considered good. We may think there are so many scriptures like Ramayana etc. But there are always some stories of those other than the Lord in such scriptures. Thiruvaay Mozhi is not a story at all. In all the thousand Pasurams, NamAzhwar only longed to see the Lord; When Lord gave his darshan, NamAzhwar felt the ecstasy; some time he felt that Lord’s appearance to Him is not true and felt very sad. Apart from that, here and there NamAzhwar advices us how we should live and how we should not spoil our lives. All the thousand pasurams are filled with only these kinds of bhaavas. When the Lord has shown the paramapada to NamAzhwar, NamAzhwar was very happy and he told to the Lord that he immediately wanted to tell this to us, he comes back and tells us the same in Thiruvaay Mozhi. He completes the scripture with how beautiful the lokas in between on the way to reach lord – the ecstasy he felt at each and every loka and the treatment they give us etc. Right from the beginning when he felt the presence of the Lord till the end of the scripture where he is going away to Vaikunta Loka, to paramapada, he explains everything in his scripture.

One scientist wanted to taste and let the world know the taste of particular chemical called cyanide. He knew that he would die but he had a strong desire to let the world know its taste. So he decided to taste the chemical and he could only write the letter ‘S’ and he died. Till date, the world does not know if that ‘S’ stands for ‘Salt’ or ‘Sweet’. There was none other after that who dared to find its taste. We should not be bothered about such things which are of materialistic characteristics. But the subject matter of NamAzhwar in his scripture is not of this sort. His subject matter is all time nectarean and gives happiness all the time. Pepper kashaya is very troublesome to have but once we have, it cures our diseases like pneumonia. Ice cream is so very enticing to eat but if we eat we might catch cold. So there are things that are either good for us but not pleasant and some are enticing but are not good to our health. But our NamAzhwar’s subject matter is extremely interesting and pleasant and understandable to one and all. Once we start comprehending and contemplating his scripture, there is no end for the happiness. It gives us divine happiness. Such is the characteristic of NamAzhwar’s Thirvaay Mozhi. This is an attempt only to understand the first ten pasurams of Thiruvaay Mozhi.

The Lord has only good characteristics. The Lord’s characteristics are called ‘Kalyaana Gunas’. We have something called nirupaka dharma. Example, there might be some one who has a mole on right cheek. If we do not know that person’s name, we can refer to him as the person with a mole on right cheek. Or, to give you another example, what is it that burns? It has to be fire. Nirupa Dharma means the characteristic unique to something. God also has a Nirupa Dharma. Lord has all the good characteristics and that too all the time. That is the reason why he is known as ‘Kalyaana Guna Ekatanudu’. This is the Nirupa Dharma of Lord. Many of us have some good characters – but we cannot have all of our characteristics as good. Also, we cannot have all the good characters. When I am being solicited on a stage, obviously I will show only my good characteristics to every one – characters like humility etc but I will not show my anger on stage. But we cannot have only good characters nor can we have those good characters all the time. God has ONLY good characters ALL the time. If there is something that has got ALL good characters at one place and at all time, that is God. Lord gave darshan to NamAzhawar. When some one asked NamAzhawar as to why would the Lord have given him darshan and what one should do to see the Lord; NamAzhawar said that even he could not understand the reason. He said he was only going though the vicious cycle of birth and death in this samsaara and suddenly due to Lord’s causeless mercy, he was able to reach the lotus feet of the Lord. He says that he could suddenly feel the ecstasy of the love of the Lord. He said he does not have enough good qualities to see the Lord but still he was very lucky to see the Lord. Then others asked him that if he had no good qualities, then even others should be able to see the Lord but they were unable to. NamAzhawar had many good qualities, he used to follow the karmacharana and has the knowledge of the Lord. He was completely surrendered to the Lord and he had lot of Bhakti and Love for the Lord - but all these seem to be not enough reasons and good qualities to see the Lord. A very innocent man went to a king and offered a lemon out of ignorance. Out of compassion, king gave that innocent man half the kingdom. It is foolish for the innocent man to say that he bought half the kingdom for a lemon and the worth of the kingdom is just a lemon. It looks equally foolish for NamAzhawar to say that Lord would have given him the darshan due to his limited good qualities. Realizing the Lord cannot happen with our materialistic eyes; it is possible only to have aatmasaakshatkara. Even to Arjuna, it was possible to see the real form of the Lord after Lord granted him the spiritual eyes. Devaki devi could not see the form of the Lord with four hands and had to pray lord to appear as a small kid. This is very obvious. Even to reach moon, we cannot go as it is, we need to make so many arrangements with special kind of attire/oxygen etc to reach moon. If such should be the arrangements to reach moon, imagine what all we need arrange to reach the Lord who is beyond millions of Galaxies. The limited strength and our material eyes are not enough to see such a powerful lord. So when we say that we could see the lord, it is only Atmasaakshatkaram. But Atmasaakshataram is equal to pratyaksha samanakaram. We can embrace Lord, we can touch Lord as if he is materially next to us. We can see Lord during atmasakshatkaram as candid as we can see the lord with our eyes if He were next to us. Such would be the happiness, enthusiasm and joy if we get Atmasakshatkaram of the Lord. NamAzhawar had such a realization of Lord. Lord showed him his divine good qualities. Lord’s qualities are not called as gunas but they are called Kalyana-gunas. We also have some good qualities at times – but you cannot compare these with the qualities of Lord. Hence, the qualities of Lord are called Kalyana-gunas. Once Lord gave darshan to NamAzhawar, NamAzhawar was very restless and eager to tell all of us about the Lord. He was so overwhelmed to tell us the qualities of the Lord. The state of NamAzhawar was like a small kid who is taken into a shop of many dolls and is told that it is his father’s shop and that all those dolls were his own dolls. The kid would obviously be overwhelmed to see that all types of dolls are his own. He starts his Thiruvaay Mozhi with the description of good qualities of lord with following pasuram:

uyarvaRa uyarnNalam udaiyavan evan? avan
mayarvaRa madhinNalam aruLinan evan? avan
ayarvaRum amarargaL athipathi evan? avan
thuyaraRu sudaradi thozhuthezhen manamE!


Usually, we feel like sharing something with the other people who are on same platform. If we watched a good movie, we would like to share it with some one who has a similar taste in cinema. If a poet is feeling good about his work, he would like to share it with another poet. Similarly, NamAzhwar wanted to share this with some one who is on same platform of ecstasy to start with. He found that many of the people were busy with their own materialistic worldly activities. So he is talking to his own self (en maname). He said to his own soul and told it that he was very very lucky. ‘evan? Avan’ means ‘who ever has this characteristic, it is Him’. All the time NamAzhwar is referring to the Lord with his different characteristics. NamAzhwar says the one with these characters gave him the darshan. God has many good characters but the one that we are most concerned is with His quality of having infinite happiness. What ever we do – either materialistic act or spiritual – our aim is to get some happiness from it. Lord is Anandamaya. In the first line (uyarvaRa uyarnNalam udaiyavan evan? Avan) , NamAzhwar is explaining that the Lord has infinite happiness. He explains the character of happiness of Lord. ‘uyar’ means greatness. Happiness of Lord is very great. There are two meanings for ‘Uyarvu’ in Tamizh. First – hardwork ; second – greatness; In his first line, the first uyarvu means hard work and the second uyarvu means greatness. It means, the Lord’s greatness is not earned with Hardwork. Lord did not do any hardwork to earn that greatness. We cannot compare it with us in this materialistic world where we have to struggle very hard to earn a little happiness which is again temporary. We work very hard all the month and get salary on the 1st of the month – happiness – but temporary. Once the salary is over on 3rd of the month, we are back to normal  (Did I catch you smiling?). Lord is someone who can do any great deed very easily. So His happiness is not something that is hard earned for him. He is always happy and always enjoying. There might be so many pleasures in this material world – but once we start enjoying with the Lord, all these material pleasures will appear to be extremely miniscule. When you are standing on the top of mount Everest, there might be some cake piece at the foot of the mountain. The fact is that it might be in reality there – but the happiness of eating that cake is miniscule when you compare it with the happiness of conquering the mount Everest. Once we start enjoying the higher tastes, we will start ignoring the lesser enjoyable ones. A small kid will be very happy when we give him a chocolate. But we cannot make is equally happy with the same chocolate when he grows old as he would have seen many other enjoyable eatables. Similarly, if we start enjoying the happiness that we get out of our devotional service to the Lord, we will not have the longing for other worldly happiness which would look very miniscule in comparison. If , say, the happiness that we get out of worldly things is like the one we get in eating the cake, then the happiness that we get out devotional service to the Lord is like conquering the Mount Everest!
If we want to praise some one, we will first tell a couple of his good characters and then say that he helped me a lot and is a good person. But Azhwar could not abstain himself till he finished mentioning all the characters of the Lord and suddenly stops to say that the Lord has done a very great favor to him. Suddenly changing the topic, NamAzhwar says ‘mayarvaRa madhinNalam aruLinan evan? avan’ – says that Lord has granted the true knowledge in such a way that his folly is suddenly disappeared. Leaving the fact that Lord is great aside, NamAzhwar is now eager to let us know what the favor that Lord has done unto him is. Folly (Agyana) is of three types:
One – No knowledge at all. I am body. This kind of Agyana is not very dangerous. The day the person knows that there is something inside body, he will start pondering on the spiritual facts.
TWO – (Anyathagyaana) – We might have an illusion of something. Example, a person with jaundice will see the a white colored conch shell as a yellow one. In this stage, we might consider our self to be the servant of some boss, or some one rich. My boss is my protector. He is giving me the food etc. We will consider some mortal beings to be having proprietorship on our lives. In this stage, at least we understand that we are subordinate to some one else. This is also not very dangerous as the day we know that there is some one who is more powerful than the boss, we might start worshipping the higher authority for what the higher authority has done unto us.
Three – (Vipareethagyana) – In this stage, we will see the same conch shell as butter. It’s white so we thinks it is butter. Fully illusioned. In this stage, we might consider that we are not subordinate to any one and we do not belong to any one. I am independent and I can live my own life. This is a dangerous stage and it is difficult to save people in this stage.

NamAzhwar says that Lord has done a very great favor by removing all the above kind of agyanas or illusory follies. Mayarvu means agyaana. Aara means in a way as to drive away. Madhi means gyaana or knowledge. Nalam means bhakti or the bhakti that gives divine happiness. Lord gives the knowledge which makes us have a lot of bhakti to the Lord. Such is the power of knowledge – once we get that knowledge we automatically tend to love the Lord which is not different from Bhakti. It is impossible to have even a little knowledge of Lord and not have Bhakti. Knowing the Lord makes us love Him.
Some times, there might be very good satsangs or Pravachans but there may not be people to listen to them. Usually, in this materialistic world and that too in this kaliyuga, if we invite some one for a movie, they will be happy to come along but if you invite them to satsangs, they will hesitate to come. So, some good souls would request other people to come and attend the satsangs since they know that it is the only good thing that a human being can do. Similarly, it seems like Lord chose Azhwar as if there were no other soul as a companion to the Lord. That’s not true. That’s what is meant in third line ‘ayarvaRum amarargaL athipathi evan? Avan’. We are under illusion. We are as great as all the souls who are serving the Lord in Sri Vaikunta. We have the similar relationship with God as them. The difficulty that we are facing is that we forgot that fact and we are here in this illusory world. This very fact is a very big illusion. AmarargaL means the one with no death. Death here means the separation from the Lord. Such is the immortality of the souls serving the Lord. And Lord is the master of all such souls who have no death at all. So the Lord is not alone, Lord has so many servants serving Him. NamAzhwar says inspite of this, Lord chose him to help him get to the lotus feet of Lord. ‘thuyaraRu sudaradi thozhuthezhen manamE!’; NamAzhwar says – serve the Lord and live life and enjoy!! Elevate yourself. Cross over the material ocean. The Lord’s lotus feet help us in overcoming the sorrow of this materialistic world. NamAzhwar instructs his own soul to serve the Lotus feet of Lord and Enjoy. Thuyararu means the one which drives away the sorrow. But NamAzhwar does not mention whose sorrows the Lord’s feet would drive away. Our sorrows are any way driven by the Lotus feet of Lord. It seems, they even drive away Lord’s sorrow!! Lord also has a sorrow. In Ramayana, it is said that ‘thrusham bhavati dukhitah’ which means that Lord Rama is worried more about people than the people are worried about themselves. When Vibheeshana surrendered unto Lord, Lord has done an initial round of virtual patthabhisheka. After that, it is said that Lord Rama was happier than Vibheeshana himself. This is because Lord Rama becomes happy when others are happy and is worried when others are worried. Lord has only one rule. He will save only the surrendered souls. If we surrender unto the lotus feet of the Lord, both our sorrows as well as the Lord’s sorrows are removed. The Lord’s only wish is to save us. He would save only the surrendered souls. If we want to live our troubled lives by not surrendering unto Lord, we are anyways worried. The Lord would also be worried for us. When Azhwar says en ManamE, it might look like he is having ego and false ownership of his soul. How can one say “my dear soul”. That is not the case. For example – there are two persons who were good friends from childhood. After they grew up, if one person becomes a great person, the other would tell every one that he knows this great person from childhood. He may not do the same thing if the other person has become a thief. Similarly, Azhwar is very happy that his soul has had darshan of Lord. He is very excited that his soul could see the most merciful Lord. So he is happy to associate himself with his soul. That is the reason why he said “my dear soul”. In the second line, there is no such feeling as ‘my dear soul’, this feeling came only in the fourth line of the pasuram.

How do we get this realization of the Lord? How can we understand the Lord? If we try to understand the Lord just like we understand the material nature or the jeevathmas, it is not possible. We live in illusion. Similar to dirt associated with body, our soul also is covered by impurities. This is the main reasons for illusion. This is the main cause for loving few things and hating some people in this world. This dirt of the material life should go away in order to understand the Lord.

Maline mocanam pumsaam
Jala snaanam dine dine
Sakrd gitramrta-snaanam
Samsaara mala nasanam

Avidya, Asmata, raagam, dvesha etc are the dirts of material life. These are the causes for the illusion that we are the body. It is possible to get rid of the dirt by reading Bhagawad-Gita even once.

Infact, these dirts can be removed by yogabhyasa and ashthanga yoga (Yama, Niyama, pranayaama, prathyahara, dharana, aasana, dhyaana, Samadhi). If we practice all these, all the dirts associated are removed and we become pure enough to see the Lord. But this is not possible in these times of our restless minds. Upanishads say ‘nethi, nethi’. Na ithi means not just that. Upanishaths gives lot of characters of the Lord but again those are all incomplete. We cannot understand the Lord completely by understanding upanishads. Even if we understand the Lord to a very very small extent, our lives would be all meaningful and happy. It is not possible to understand the Lord just based on knowledge. Lord is not some one who can be understood with our material senses. Material senses are enough to understand other things but not God. If we cannot understand Lord by senses then how is it possible? To give another perspective of it, we may not understand the Lord by our will but what if Lord Himself want us to understand him. A blind person may not have the capability to mount on to elephant. But if the same elephant lifts the blind person and makes him sit on its back, what would be the difficultly of the blind person. Similarly, it may be very very complex and difficult to understand God. Even reading all the upanishads may not be able to completely describe the Lord. But what if God himself want us to understand him? It becomes very simple in that case. In this similar manner, all the complex statements and teachings of Upanishads etc are simplified into simple statements by NamAzhwar in Thiruvaay Mozhi. We have both soul and Supersoul in us. Soul has the dirt related to material life whereas nothing of that sort affect the Lord in us. They are compared to two birds – one always eats the leaves of the tree and is worried all the time; the other one is only shining and does not eat. These are the complex teachings for upanishads to explain us that though the Lord is within us, he does not get affected by the material dirt unlike us. To explain this in simple terms, NamAzhwar says ‘kulanodu kulanalan’ that Lord is there in the material things that we feel with our material senses and at the same time He is NOT there in them. Meaning, He is there in all those material things but he does not get affected by the dirt. We can explain the flower to have characteristics like fragrant and colorful. These two are characteristics of a flower. But each of them individually need not hint at the reference to flower. Similarly, the entire material world or all the jeevas describe that they are proprietary of the Lord.

At the end of every ten Pasurams, NamAzhwar tells the palashruthi which describes the benefits by reading those pasurams. Usually for any scripture, they will tell palashruthi at the end of the scripture. But here, our Azhwar is in the mood of a worried mother who would give a chocolate to her child in an attempt to encourage the kid to go to school every day fearing that the child may not go to school otherwise. Azhwar is worried that if he does not tell us the benefits, we might go away from devotional service to the Lord. He says that if we read these Pasurams, we need not worry about going to the Vaikunta and he will take care of us and make sure we will go to Vaikunta to serve the Lord. He says he will take all the trouble and all we need to do is read these ten pasurams. All these ten Pasurams are very important for Moksha. Thousand Pasurams all together are called Thiruvaay Mozhi. Even every eleven pasurams are also termed as Thiruvaay Mozhi in the Dravidian culture.

Such is the beauty of Thiruvaay Mozhi. There is a lot more to write but I will stop here on the first ten Pasurams. If Lord gives me an opportunity, will surely write a similar article on Next Ten Pasurams in a couple of months. Hare Krsna 