Maṇakkāl Nambi

Maṇakkāl Nambi, whom the Sanskrit verses call Rāma Miśra, came to Uyyakkoṇḍār while Uyyakkoṇḍār was teaching.

Nāthamuni was gone by then. Uyyakkoṇḍār had gathered Nāthamuni's leading disciples, the mudalis, the first men of the tradition, and was expounding to them the meanings of the darśana, the whole teaching of the line, and of the sacred Tamil songs that begin with Tiruvāymozhi. Five took refuge at his feet in those days, and Maṇakkāl Nambi is the first named. The others were Tiruvallikkēṇi Pāṇperumāḷ Araiyar, Ceṭṭaippūcic Caṇḍalaṅkārar, Śrī Puṇḍarīkadāsar and Ulakuperumāḷ Naṅgai.

For twelve years Nambi served his ācārya, his own teacher, in every way there was to serve. The account sets him beside Lakṣmaṇa, the younger brother of Rāma, who said, "I will do everything." That was Nambi at Uyyakkoṇḍār's feet. Kaiṅkarya, the tradition calls such service, and the account says he did every kind of it.

Then Uyyakkoṇḍār's wife died. Her name was Āṇḍāḷ. After she was gone, the work of the whole household fell to Nambi, and he took it up as his own burden and carried it.

Uyyakkoṇḍār had two daughters. One day Nambi took them to bathe and was bringing them home. On the way there was a channel, and the channel had turned to mud. The two girls stopped at the edge of it and stood there, not knowing what to do.

Nambi lay down like a step. He had them put their feet on his back and walk across him, and so he brought them over.

Uyyakkoṇḍār heard of it.

"That he should do such a thing!" he said, and he was overjoyed. He set his lotus feet on Nambi's head and adorned him with them, a crown of golden flowers. Then he asked him, "What should we do for you?"

Nambi answered with a line of Tamil verse, and then in his own words.

உற்றேன் உகந்துபணிசெய்துஉனபாதம்,பெற்றேன்

ஈதேயின்னம் வேண்டுவது எந்தாய்

uṟṟēṉ ukantupaṇiceytuuṉapātam,peṟṟēṉ

ītēyiṉṉam vēṇṭuvatu entāy

I came to you; serving you gladly, I have won your feet; this alone is what I still want, my father.

He asked for nothing but the thing he had been doing.

Uyyakkoṇḍār was glad at that, and out of the fullness of his gladness he gave Nambi the dvaya again. The dvaya is the two-line prayer of refuge, the jewel among mantras, and Nambi had been given it once already. Uyyakkoṇḍār gave it to him a second time, the dvaya alone, the highest of meanings. The account says what that gift is worth in two old verses:

அதீதாநாகதஜ்ஞாந மாத்மதத்வப்ரகாஶகம் - ஸர்வவேதார்த்த

விஜ்ஞாநம் ஸர்வஶாஸ்த்ரார்த்ததர்ஶநம்’’,‘‘மாநஸம்வாசிகம்பாபம் காயிகஞ்ச

த்ரிதாக்ருதம்-த்வயஸ்மரணமாத்ரேண நாஶம்யாதிஸூநிஶ்சிதம்

atītānākatajñāna mātmatatvaprakāśakam - sarvavētārtta

vijñānam sarvaśāstrārttatarśanam’’,‘‘mānasamvācikampāpam kāyikañca

tritākrutam-tvayasmaraṇamātrēṇa nāśamyātisūniścitam

Knowledge of what has passed and what is to come, the light on the truth of the self, the knowing of every Veda's meaning, the sight of every śāstra's meaning.” “Sin of the mind, of speech and of the body, done in any of the three ways, goes to nothing by the mere remembering of the dvaya; that is certain.

Some days after that, Uyyakkoṇḍār was about to leave for the sacred land, the Lord's own world, which the Tamil calls tirunāḍu.

Nambi asked him, "Who will carry the darśana now?"

"Gather the mudalis here," Uyyakkoṇḍār said, "and carry it yourself."

Then he laid on Nambi the charge that Nāthamuni had laid on him in his last days, the one he had not got to carry out. A son would be born to Īśvaramuni of the Coṭṭai family, Nāthamuni's grandson. Nambi was to have him named Yamunaitturaivar and teach him all the secret meanings of the darśana, so that he would be the one to carry it.

"You teach him the secret meanings," Uyyakkoṇḍār said, "even if you have to go and wait upon him to do it."

Then he left for the sacred land, his mind on the feet of Śrīman Nāthamuni, and his own life tells his going.

Nambi and the mudalis grieved for their ācārya, and Nambi performed the brahmamedha for him, the full rite for one who has known Brahman, and every rite after it.

After that Nambi carried the darśana, as he had been told, with the mudalis gathered round him.

Some time passed. Then, in the month of Āḍi, under the star Uttirāṭam, a son was born to Īśvaramuni.

Nambi heard of it. He was overjoyed, and he went there.

As the old verses on such a child lay down, Nambi had Īśvaramuni perform the birth rite. Then on the twelfth day, when the ten days had passed, he did as Śrīman Nāthamuni had laid down: first the sacred seal, the mark of the Lord's discus, and then the name.

"Yamunaitturaivar," he named him.

And he was glad.

The child grew. Īśvaramuni performed for him, each at its proper time, the first feeding, the tonsure, the sacred thread and the rest, and set him to study. The boy was very quick. When his fellow students recited a lesson a second time, he would tell them, "You are reciting what has already been recited," and keep away. He learned the Veda with its limbs and its subsidiary sciences, in the word-by-word and the linked recitations, and he was married. Then Īśvaramuni died, and his son performed his rites.

After that he went on with his learning, under a teacher called Mahābhāṣya Bhaṭṭar. When the king's purohita, Ākkiyāzhvāṉ, sent his teacher a demand for the levy every scholar paid him, Yamunaitturaivar tore it up. He was summoned to the king's court, and he went there in a golden palanquin the king himself had sent, and before the king and the queen he defeated Ākkiyāzhvāṉ in debate. The queen took him up in her arms. "Have you come to rule me?" she cried, āḷa vandīrō, and from then on the account calls him Āḷavandār. The king gave him half his kingdom, and Āḷavandār lived there with his wife in royal state and was happy in it.

His own life tells all that at length.

The account does not say where Nambi was in all those years, or whether he saw the boy grow. It says only that he went on carrying the darśana with the mudalis, and the charge was still his.

Word of it reached Maṇakkāl Nambi.

He took up a knobbed stick and danced.

Then, with a great longing to see Āḷavandār, he set out to go there.

He could not get in to see him. The place was a king's, with guards and a watch kept on it.

So he went into the sacred kitchen, where the Śrīvaiṣṇavas cooked Āḷavandār's food, and he asked them one thing.

"What is the green Āḷavandār likes to eat?"

"Tūtuḷai," they said.

From that day Nambi brought tūtuḷai to the kitchen. He brought it for six months.

No one asked about it. Six months of it, and not one question came. Nambi lost heart, and for four days he stayed away.

At his meal Āḷavandār asked the men who cooked for him, "Why has there been no tūtuḷai these four days?"

"An old brahmin has been bringing it every day for six months," they told him. "He stopped three or four days ago."

Āḷavandār was amazed. "The next time he comes," he said, "let us know."

The next day Nambi came back with the greens. "Let us see a little longer," he had said to himself.

The cooks told Āḷavandār. "Call him," he said, and they brought Nambi in and showed him to Āḷavandār.

Āḷavandār saw him and stood up to meet him. He saluted him, and gave him a seat.

"Why have you been bringing us this tūtuḷai all these days?" he asked. "Do you want money? Do you want land?"

"We want none of these," Nambi said. "There is a fortune your forefathers gathered, and I know the place where that treasure lies. Until you have taken it into your hands, give the order that I am not to be stopped at the gate, so that I can come to you every day and go."

Āḷavandār gave the order. The gate was not to be closed to him.

From that day Nambi came, and he taught him the Gītā, all eighteen chapters of it, until the true sense of the Gītā lay clear. Āḷavandār heard the inner meaning of the Gītā, the heart of the Veda, and day by day a longing grew in him.

At last he asked Nambi, "Is there no means by which that Being can be seen face to face?"

"There is a means," Nambi said, "by which He can be seen face to face."

He sat with him alone, and he gave him the meaning of the carama-śloka, the last word. The Tamil of the account calls it the great word of truth.

Āḷavandār heard it.

As the milk forms in the grain and the paddy bows its head lower and lower, so śaraṇāgati, the giving of oneself into the Lord's keeping, sank deeper and deeper into his heart, and he leaned more and more toward the Lord. So great was his love for the One who is the Refuge that a distaste for this whole round of birth and death arose in him.

Nambi saw it, and he took Āḷavandār with him and went to Tiruvaraṅgam.

He had told him the truth at the first meeting. There was a treasure his forefathers had laid by, and he knew where it lay.

There is an old verse about Śrīraṅgam:

நசஜ்ஞாநஸ்யஸங்கோச: நசைவயமகோசர: - தஸ்மாத்ரங்

கம்மஹாபுண்யம் கோநஸேவேதபுத்திமாந்

nacajñānasyasaṅkōcaḥ nacaivayamakōcaraḥ - tasmātraṅ

kammahāpuṇyam kōnasēvētaputtimān

There knowledge does not shrink, nor does one come within the reach of Yama; so to Raṅga, the most holy, what wise man would not go?

The account says the town is like that. It makes knowledge grow, and it makes merit grow.

Nambi brought Āḷavandār there and had him worship at the feet of Periya Perumāḷ, the Great Lord who lies in the temple on his serpent.

"'The treasure that does not perish,'" Nambi said to him. "See. This is the great treasure your forefathers sought out and laid by."

Āḷavandār looked at Periya Perumāḷ, at that beautiful dark-blue form that has no end.

There is a Tamil verse that says:

பழுதே பலபகலும் போயினவென் றஞ்சி,யழுதே னரவணைமேற் கண்டு

-தொழுதேன்

pazhutē palapakalum pōyiṉaveṉ ṟañci,yazhutē ṉaravaṇaimēṟ kaṇṭu

-tozhutēṉ

Afraid that so many days had gone by for nothing, I wept; on the serpent couch I saw Him; I worshipped.

Āḷavandār did that. He cried out for all the days he had lost before. With eyes full of tears he took in the Lord of Araṅgam.

Then he let everything go. The Sanskrit verse the account gives says that to one whose mind leans toward the Lord's lotus feet, fields and friends and wealth, sons and wives and cattle and houses, all of it, turn into things that stand against him. Āḷavandār gave all of it up. He left every attachment behind and took up the āśrama of one who has given up everything. As another Tamil verse says, "The eyes that have seen the Lord of the gods, the beautiful one of Araṅgam, my nectar, will not look at anything else": he knew no other object. Turned away from everything that was not the Lord, his mind fixed on the Lord alone, he stayed at Śrīraṅgam serving Periya Perumāḷ.

Disciples came to him there, twenty of them, who took refuge at his feet. Mahāpūrṇa was one, and Goṣṭhīpūrṇa, and Śrīśailapūrṇa, and Kāñcīpūrṇa, and Māṟaṉēri Nambi, and Mālādhara, and fourteen more. All of them were learned men, and all of them carried the darśana.

Another account, kept at Śrīraṅgam about the temple there, tells the same turning in a few lines, and tells what kind of time it came in. Uyyakkoṇḍār and Maṇakkāl Nambi, it says, had been carrying on the darśana and the running of the temple through a bad time. The lord of the Oṭṭiya country had come over the borders, and Azhagiya Maṇavāḷap Perumāḷ, the Lord of Śrīraṅgam, had gone away and stayed a year at Tirumāliruñcōlai. When he came back, some of the temple's own people had turned against him and the priests had joined them, and Nambimār learned in the Vaikhānasa rule carried on the worship; men of six other faiths had built houses in Tiruvaraṅgam. In such a time, that account says, Maṇakkāl Nambi set Āḷavandār right and brought him to worship Periya Perumāḷ. What Āḷavandār did with the temple after that belongs to his own life.

There was one thing more Nambi had to tell him.

With all those learned men about Āḷavandār now, Nambi looked at him and said, "There is one more special secret. It is with Kurukai Kāvalappaṉ. Go there and hear it."

"What is that?" Āḷavandār asked. "And why was Your Honour left without that secret?"

"Your great-grandfather Nāthamuni wanted to teach that special secret to our ācārya Uyyakkoṇḍār," Nambi said. "He answered, 'Can a man sit down to a wedding while a corpse lies in the house? It will be enough to learn it when the body comes to its end.' So that secret did not come to us."

"Then we shall hear it there," said Āḷavandār.

He stayed at Kōyil, as the Tamil calls Śrīraṅgam, and carried the darśana.

Nambi saw it. What he had set out to do had come to fruit. He was blessed, and he lived on in great joy.

His own disciples in those days were these: Āḷavandār, Teyvattukkaracu Nambi, Gōmaḍattu Tiruviṇṇagarappaṉ, Ciṟuppuḷḷūruḍaiya Piḷḷai and Vaṅgippurattācci. He taught them the deep purport of the darśana, and he stayed on among them for some time.

When his last days came, he looked at Āḷavandār and told him three things.

"You are bound to Nāthamuni in both ways. Hold it as certain that his feet alone are, for you, both the goal and the way to it. Raise up someone like yourself to carry the darśana. And do not leave Kōyil."

Having said that, with his mind on the feet of Uyyakkoṇḍār, he left for the sacred land.

The account says of him that he was the only one. He kept the command of his ācārya and of his ācārya's ācārya, saw the word of both of them come true, and was glad.

When they saw he was gone, Āḷavandār and all the mudalis sank down and grieved. Then they held one another up. Āḷavandār performed the brahmamedha for him, laid him to rest, and did every rite that had to be done.

Maṇakkāl Nambi's birth-star was Makam, in the month of Māsi.

His taṉiyaṉ, the verse by which the tradition salutes him, calls him by his Sanskrit name:

அயத்நதோயாமுநமாத்மதாஸ மளர்க்கபத்ரார்ப்

பணநிஷ்க்ரயேண - ய:க்ரீதவாநாஸ்திதயெளவராஜ்யம் நமாமிதம்ராமமமேய

ஸத்வம்

ayatnatōyāmunamātmatāsa maḷarkkapatrārp

paṇaniṣkrayēṇa - yaḥkrītavānāstitayeḷavarājyam namāmitamrāmamamēya

satvam

Without any effort he bought Yāmuna to be his own servant, paying with an offering of alarka leaves, though Yāmuna sat already as heir to a throne. I bow to that Rāma, whose goodness has no measure.

And Āḷavandār's own taṉiyaṉ begins with him:

ஸ்ரீராமமிஶ்ரஸச்சிஷ்யம் வந்தேதத்வார்த்தகோவி

தம் - வாதாதவாப்த†ராஜ்யாத்யோ விரக்தோயாமுநோஉபவத்

srīrāmamiśrasacciṣyam vantētatvārttakōvi

tam - vātātavāpta†rājyātyō viraktōyāmunōupavat

I bow to the true disciple of Śrī Rāma Miśra, who knew the meaning of what is real; Yāmuna, who won a kingdom and all with it by debate, became free of desire.

Āḷavandār did not forget him. Long after, when Āḷavandār lay ill at Śrīraṅgam and two of his disciples meant to give up their lives at his going, he forbade it: if they did such a thing, he told them, they would be setting aside the will of the mudalis whom Periya Perumāḷ loved, Uyyakkoṇḍār and Maṇakkāl Nambi first among them. And when his own hour came, Āḷavandār sat in the lotus posture, in yoga, with his mind on Maṇakkāl Nambi. He pressed his teacher's feet to his heart, to his eyes and to his head, set them before him, and went to the sacred land.