Nañjīyar

Nañjīyar, who had been Vedānti, the scholar of the western country, lived on at Kōyil after Bhaṭṭar.

With Bhaṭṭar's grace upon him he finished his commentary on the Tiruvāymozhi, the Nine Thousand, and he wrote it by the method of the Śrī Bhāṣya. He held the whole draft in his hands, on its palm leaves, and asked his disciples, "Is there anyone who can copy this out well into a fair book?"

"There is a man from the southern bank, Nampūr Varadarājar," they told him. "He comes here often, and he writes well."

The jīyar sent for him. "Write out a passage and show me," he said.

Varadarājar wrote, and showed it. The jīyar looked at it. "The hand is good," he said, "like pearls. But this is a commentary on the Tiruvāymozhi, and it should be written by someone of a special kind. How can it be written by one who has only the holy seal and the upright mark? Should it not be written by one who knows the special meanings?" And he was in doubt.

Varadarājar read his mind. "Could you not correct me too, so that I come to be as you would like, and take me into your service?"

The jīyar was very pleased. He took Varadarājar for his own at once, and turned on him the look of special grace, so that everything a verse of the tradition asks of one who has surrendered was complete in him:

பஞ்சா

ஸ்த்ராங்காஃபஞ்சஸம்ஸ்காரயுக்தாஃபஞ்சார்த்தஜ்ஞாஃபஞ்சமோபாயநிஷ்டாஃ-

தேவர்ணாநாம்பஞ்சமாஶ்சாஶ்ரமாணாம் விஷ்ணோர்பக்தாஃ பஞ்சகாலப்ரபந்

நாஃ

pañcā

strāṅkāḵpañcasamskārayuktāḵpañcārttajñāḵpañcamōpāyaniṣṭāḵ-

tēvarṇānāmpañcamāścāśramāṇām viṣṇōrpaktāḵ pañcakālaprapan

nāḵ

They bear the marks of the five weapons, they have the five sacraments, they know the five meanings, they stand on the fifth means; they are a fifth among the castes and the orders of life; devoted to Viṣṇu, they keep the five times and have surrendered.

Then he went through the whole Nine Thousand with him once, from the draft, and gave him the draft. "Copy it just like this," he said, "without a mistake."

"I will go to my village and write it there, and bring it," said Varadarājar.

"Do so," said the jīyar.

On the way Varadarājar came to the Kāvēri, and there was a stretch he had to swim. He tied the draft on his head. While he was swimming something struck him, a wave, he said afterwards, and the book fell into the river and was lost.

He climbed out on the far bank. The draft is gone, he thought. What are we to do now?

Then he wrote out the whole Nine Thousand from what Nañjīyar had taught him that once, and did not miss a single meaning. And because he was a master of Tamil, at the fitting places, as the verses called for it, he wrote further meanings too, in deep words. He brought the book and put it into the jīyar's hand.

The jīyar untied it and looked. It was in the order he had given, but in many places there were many special meanings, very well fitted to the words. He was greatly pleased. "This is very good," he said. "What is this?"

Varadarājar was afraid, and said nothing.

"You need not be afraid. Tell the truth."

"Cīyā," said Varadarājar. "I had to swim the Kāvēri, and I tied the draft on my head, and when I began to swim a wave struck me, and it fell into the river and sank. This I wrote in the order Your Honour gave me that once, in full."

"How remarkable his mind is!" said Nañjīyar. "He is very able. He has written it well!" He swept Varadarājar up and embraced him. "He is our son," he said, nam piḷḷai; and he gave him a name of his own, Tirukkalikaṉṟidāsar. From then on he kept him at his side, never parted from him even for half a moment, and taught him all the meanings until they were as plain as a fruit held in the palm. And Varadarājar said that he knew no god but the jīyar.

From the day the jīyar called him "our son", Varadarājar had the name Nampiḷḷai.

Nañjīyar gave him the same word Bhaṭṭar had given Nañjīyar, and Embār had given Bhaṭṭar. "Do not grow proud," he said, "thinking, we bear the name Lokācārya, we can expound the meaning of the Tiruvāymozhi. Hold Emperumāṉār's feet alone as your refuge."

The account keeps the questions the young man put to him, and his answers.

"For the other means there are many scriptures and many who practise them," Nampiḷḷai asked him once. "Why are there so few for this one, for prapatti? And why is there no sage, no metre, no deity to meditate on for it?"

"When two men go down into a river together," said Nañjīyar, "and one is sinking, does the one who is not sinking need a scripture to take his hand and bring him up on the bank? Still, if you want scripture, there is plenty." And he gave him many sayings of the Veda on surrender. He said too, though some copies leave it out, that for himself none was needed: when a tall man takes the hand of a short man sinking in the river, nobody on the bank has to tell him to. As for how few practise it, he said, all the world is house after house of worldly men, and if a handful among them become ascetics, that makes the world no higher and the ascetics no lower. When the scripture says that one who wants heaven should offer a certain sacrifice, does it ask whether only one man in the village offered it? And since it says that the sage and the rest are to be left out, they are not needed.

Nampiḷḷai was satisfied.

"By what state can one know that one is a Śrīvaiṣṇava?" he asked.

"When one knows that the Lord in His image in the temple is supreme," said Nañjīyar. "When one has for a Śrīvaiṣṇava at least as much love as one has for son and wife. And when a Śrīvaiṣṇava speaks harshly, and it does not sting in one's heart but is a delight. Then one can know one is a Śrīvaiṣṇava."

Once Nampiḷḷai was reading the Śrī Bhāṣya at the jīyar's feet, and word came that the Lord's food was ready. "Do the worship of Cokkattēvar," Nañjīyar told him.

"Do I know the order of worship?" said Nampiḷḷai.

"Do I know it so well myself?" said the jīyar. "Will you not meditate on the second line of the dvaya, and wash His feet, and offer Him the food?"

"But He dwells in so many places He loves, and the food is offered in one. How is one to feed Him?"

"Say the words 'to Him whose form is all-blessed' between the two lines of the dvaya," said Nañjīyar, "and offer it so." The account says that the elders would wash the Lord's feet with no mantra but the dvaya.

"What are the avatāras for?" Nampiḷḷai asked.

"All the mighty deeds done in the avatāras," said Nañjīyar, "are to make the one who has wronged a bhāgavata taste the fruit of it."

"Then what is the wrong done to a bhāgavata?"

"It is the meanness of seeing Śrīvaiṣṇavas and thinking they are only creatures of flesh like oneself. The Āzhvārs, the lords of our family, loved the Śrīvaiṣṇavas in so many ways and gave them so many names: kings who have Śrī, rich great gems, gods on earth, the clear-minded, the pure ones of the Veda, the small-great men, the emblems of my Lord. To think them only bodies like oneself is the very wrong itself."

And he taught him that one who enjoys the Lord has no share in the enjoyment of the senses; the Āzhvārs said it is either the one or the other, caught in the Lord's net or caught in a woman's eyes, the Lord of Araṅgam for companion or women for companion. Tirumaṅgai Āzhvār laid it down, he said, that one must first spit out the taste for the things of the senses, with every trace of it, and only then take refuge in the Lord.

Nampiḷḷai was fulfilled. He served Nañjīyar without leaving him for half a moment. Nañjīyar expounded the meaning of the Tiruvāymozhi a hundred times over, and it is well known, the account says, that Nampiḷḷai kept a festival for the jīyar on that account, as for one who has lived to a great age.

All the meanings that were with Nañjīyar came and dwelt with Nampiḷḷai too. Nampiḷḷai carried on the darśana like a lamp lit from a lamp. The jīyar saw it, and was content, as one whose work is done.