Kulasēkara Āzhvār

Kulasēkara Āzhvār: the king who marched to save Rāma

In the Cēra country on the western coast, a king who ruled three Tamil crowns sat every day listening to the Rāmāyaṇa. One day the reader came to the place where Rāma goes out alone to face fourteen thousand demons, and the king leapt up and ordered his army to march to Rāma's side. That was Kulasēkara Āzhvār. In the end he left his kingdom altogether for the island of Śrīraṅgam, where the Lord lies asleep on the Kāvēri, and of all the things a man might be, he asked only to be the least thing on the Lord's holy hill.

A son for a childless king

He was born at Thiruvañcikkaḷam in the Kolli country, the land between the western mountains and the sea, into the royal line of the Cēras, under the star Punarpūsam, the star under which Rāma was born. He was an embodiment of the Kaustubha, the jewel the Lord wears on his breast.

His father, King Dṛḍhavrata, had long been childless, and had worshipped and prayed until Nārāyaṇa was pleased and granted him a holy son. The boy was taught everything a prince must know, the arts of war and of government, and with them the learning of the spirit, the Vedas and the sacred sciences. When he had grown into a man, wise and strong and fit to rule, his father placed him on the throne of his ancestors and, as kings of old used to do, went away into the forest to spend his last years in contemplation.

Lord of three crowns

He was a warrior of great prowess, and he became king not only of the Cēra country but of the Chōzhas and the Pāṇḍyas too. He was called Kollikkāvalaṉ, guardian of Kolli; Kūdal Nāyakaṉ, lord of Madurai; and Kozhiyar Kōṉ, lord of Uṟaiyūr. He had all four arms of an army, and held the chieftains around him in subjection by the strength of his arm. At home he ruled with justice, and under his watchful eye the weak felt strong and the strong were careful. He was generous too, as Rāma was generous.

All this made him a complete man as far as this world goes. But like every man of the world he thought of himself as his own master, owing his being and his doings to no one. He was wise in the world's ways and blind in the spirit's.

The turning

The grace of God began to work in him, and he felt a change coming over him, until he weighed everything differently. He came to see the world for what it is, vain and vexing, something to hold lightly if not to throw away altogether. And glimpses of God's beauty and glory began to come to him. The Lord in heaven sent his chief attendant Viṣvaksēna to give Kulasēkara the five sacraments of a Vaiṣṇava and initiate him into the mysteries of the faith.

With new eyes he looked at the world and at himself. What madness grips men, he said, that greed and lust turn their heads, and they rush into wrong with such eagerness. How they are slaves to their bodies, how far from God. To live among them felt to him like hanging from a gallows; to ride an elephant, ruling men and enjoying every royal delight, felt like being wrapped in fire. The more wealth came pouring in, the more it burned. He wanted no birth that would only feed the flesh, no pleasures of the senses, not even rule over the whole earth. He wanted to leave it all, as Vibhīṣaṇa left Laṅkā and his family and wealth and fled to Rāma, and go to where Raṅganātha, the colour of the sea, lies on his serpent at Śrīraṅgam, and live among the devotees who throng that shrine and be their servant.

His love for God and his contempt for the world grew deeper every day, and going to Śrīraṅgam to live there for ever became his daily sigh and his constant cry. His very capital rang with it, so that the people of the city went about saying to one another, "We are bound for Raṅga's shrine, for ever." At other times he longed for Thiruvēṅkaḍam, the holy hill where gods and men alike come to worship the Lord, where the sacred tank lies. To be there at all, he sang, as a plant or a worm or a stone or a speck of dust, would be a high privilege. Then he would long for another shrine, and another, and in each one he wished to settle down for ever.

The garland of Mukunda

He invited scholars and sages and devotees to his capital and read with them the whole of the sacred lore, the eighteen Purāṇas and the lesser Purāṇas, the epics and the law books, and from that ocean he gathered the best of the gems and strung them into a garland of Sanskrit verses called the Mukundamālā. In one verse he warns the god of love to keep away from a heart where the feet of the Lord are enshrined: Rudra's fiery eye burned you once, he says, but remember the fire of the discus of Mura's slayer. In another he speaks to himself: this body, worn by time, will come apart at the joints and fall; why do you swallow bitter medicines, fool? Drink the true medicine, Kṛṣṇa, and be whole for ever.

"How can the hero fight alone?"

Of all the sacred books he chose the Rāmāyaṇa for his daily hearing. When the Lord who is known through the Veda became the son of Daśaratha, the saying goes, the Veda itself became the Rāmāyaṇa, spoken by Vālmīki's inspired tongue. Rāma was to him God himself come down to save souls.

One day the reading reached the place where fourteen thousand demons stand ready for battle against Rāma, who is alone. "How can the hero fight alone?" the verse asks. At that line the king's love for Rāma flared into frenzy. He rose at once and ordered his army to march with him to where Rāma was fighting alone and helpless. "My Rāma is alone on the battlefield!" he cried. "His brother Lakṣmaṇa is left behind to guard my mother Sītā. Rāma goes out by himself against fourteen thousand demons. My Rāma is in danger. Shall I, his devotee, not go and stand beside him? March, my soldiers, quickly!"

His ministers and officers were in a panic. Had their king lost his mind? How could they calm him? They hit upon a plan. They sent a party secretly ahead, with orders to turn round and meet the king's army coming the other way, as if they had just come from the battlefield. The party went, wheeled round at a distance, met the king marching furiously along, and gave him the glad news: Rāma had won the battle single-handed, killed every one of the fourteen thousand, and come back safe to Sītā, who seeing her lord victorious had held him close in joy. The king's delight was beyond words. In his state he believed them, and went home with them.

The daily reading went on. Every great event in the story was celebrated with ceremony and rejoicing: the image of Rāma that the king worshipped every day in his palace shrine was carried in procession through the streets, Vaiṣṇava sages were feasted and gifts were given away. The man who read the Rāmāyaṇa to the king knew how his hearer's heart worked, and how far his feeling could carry him. So he dwelt on the passages where Rāma was happy, and passed lightly over the passages of grief, for fear of rousing the king beyond reason.

Into the sea

One day the reader had to be away on other business, and he sent his son to read in his place. The son knew nothing of the king's fervour, and read every passage alike. He came to the carrying off of Sītā by Rāvaṇa. At once the king's imagination caught fire. "I must march at once across the sea," he cried, "burn Laṅkā to ashes, kill Rāvaṇa and all his brothers and friends and kin, rescue my weeping mother Sītā and bring her back to my father Rāma." He rose, armed himself, ordered his army to march, went down to the shore, and, looking towards Laṅkā, plunged into the sea.

His ministers stood staring. They were so stunned that they could not think how to stop him, and did not dare to move. While they stared, the king was already neck-deep in the water, set on swimming the whole ocean to Laṅkā.

Rāma of the Kakutstha line, enshrined in the king's own palace shrine and worshipped there every day, had been watching all along. Now there was no other way: he must appear himself. As the king was about to strike out into the deep, he saw before him Rāma coming towards him, with Sītā holding his mighty arm. "Listen, my faithful one," Rāma said. "We are coming home victorious from the battle. Our enemies are dead, and we have rescued our queen. Your help has been forestalled, and your wish fulfilled. Let us all go back to your city. Let me carry you to the shore, as we carry souls across the deeper sea of birth and death to the shore of heaven." He took hold of his servant and brought him safe to the shore, went with him to the city, and vanished.

The necklace and the snake

"Our king is sick with God," the ministers said among themselves. "What is the cure? It is all these Vaiṣṇavas he keeps company with. We must keep him away from them." And the king, longing more than ever to go and live at Śrīraṅgam, began in earnest to prepare to leave his kingdom. The ministers thought: once he goes there he will never come back, and the company there is worse still. So whenever he set out for Śrīraṅgam, they had a band of Vaiṣṇavas ready, said to have come from one holy shrine or another, and the king would put off his journey to receive them, because to him the Lord's devotees were God's own, to be worshipped even before God himself.

Before long the plan turned against them. The court, the palace, the king's own rooms and every public place swarmed with Vaiṣṇavas, and the king let them come and go as they pleased and honoured them all. If the ministers kept the king from Śrīraṅgam, the devotees multiplied; if they drove the devotees out, the king would leave. So they thought of a way to blacken the devotees in the king's eyes. From the casket of jewels belonging to the king's image of Rāma they secretly took a precious necklace. It would be missed, and who would be blamed but the Vaiṣṇavas who served in the worship and handled the jewels every day?

The necklace was missed, and it was reported to the king that the Vaiṣṇavas in charge of the worship were the thieves and must be tried and punished. The king heard it all, and then said in a loud voice: "Listen, ministers. Those who love God cannot steal. The very thought of wrong cannot enter their minds. I will prove it. Bring me a pot with a live cobra shut in it, and I will put my hand inside." It was brought, and before his whole court he said: "If these innocents of mine are straight in thought, word and deed, this snake cannot bite me. If they are crooked, let it bite me and kill me." He thrust his arm into the pot and drew it out unharmed.

The ministers hung their heads in shame. They saw it was useless to play tricks on such a king; they fell at his feet, confessed, and laid the necklace before him. The king forgave them, as Rāma forgave the crow that had wounded Sītā, and told them never to do such a thing again, and to be the servants of his innocents.

The road to Śrīraṅgam

"I will not live any longer among scheming ministers," the king said to himself. "The whole world wearies me. I would rather be thrown into a fire than keep company with those who turn away from God." He called his son, named Dṛḍhavrata after his grandfather, and gave him the kingdom. Then, taking his daughter with him, who was born of a portion of the goddess Nīḷā, he went to Śrīraṅgam, the shrine he had hungered for all his life. There he gave his daughter in marriage to Raṅganātha himself, and stayed a long time, serving the Lord and his devotees in every way.

From time to time he went on pilgrimage to other holy places: to Thiruvēṅkaḍam, to Ayodhyā, to Chitrakūṭa, to Thirukkaṇṇapuram, to Thirumāliruñjōlai, to Thiruviththuvakkōḍu and others. What he felt and knew of God at all these places he poured into his Tamil songs, the Perumāḷ Thirumozhi. The name Perumāḷ was given to him for his heart, which grieved when God grieved and rejoiced when God rejoiced, as if he lived each of the Lord's lives on earth alongside him.

He went to Thirunagari, to the shrine of Nammāzhvār, and from there to the holy place called Brahmadēśam, Mannārkōvil, where he stayed serving the Lord Rājagōpāla. There, in his sixty-seventh year, he left this world for the Lord's own.

It was this king, who had worn three crowns, who sang that he was truly crowned only on the day the King of kings set his own lotus feet upon his head.