Piḷḷai Uṟaṅgāvilli Dāsar and Poṉṉācciyār

Piḷḷai Uṟaṅgāvilli Dāsar, whom the Sanskrit tradition calls Dhanurdāsa, comes into the account already at Uḍaiyavar's side.

The account does not say where he was born, or what he was before, or how he first came to Uḍaiyavar's feet. It does not tell how he took refuge, or who gave him his name. When it first speaks of him he is simply there, among the companions, close enough to give Uḍaiyavar his hand.

It was the great festival. Perumāḷ had seen his festival through, and he was going down to the holy Kāvēri to give the tīrtha, the sacred bath, there. Emperumāṉār went down to the river too. He went holding the hand of Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ.

He bathed. Then he came back up from the water, and the hand he was holding now was the hand of Piḷḷai Uṟaṅgāvilli Dāsar.

The mudaligaḷ, the leading disciples who stood in attendance on him, saw it, and they asked him, "What is the reason for this?"

Uḍaiyavar answered them.

"The others have a pride of their own," he said. "They say to themselves, 'Our birth is high, and still we stand low.' This man does not have even that flaw."

That was all he said, and the account says no more about it. It does not tell what the mudaligaḷ answered, or whether anyone spoke again. Uḍaiyavar went down to the water holding one disciple's hand and came up holding another's, and when he was asked why, he named the one fault he could not find in Dāsar.

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There was a day when Uḍaiyavar was speaking to the assembly on the abhaya-pradāna, the gift of fearlessness.

In the middle of it, Piḷḷai Uṟaṅgāvilli Dāsar got up from among them and stood.

"What is this, child?" Uḍaiyavar asked him.

Dāsar answered with the story of Vibhīṣaṇa, whom he called Śrī Vibhīṣaṇa Āzhvāṉ. He gave the Sanskrit words Vibhīṣaṇa had spoken when he came to Rāma, and the other line said of him:

‘‘பரித்யக்தாமயாலங்கா மித்ராணிச தநாநிச -

பவத்கதம்மோராஜ்யஞ்ச ஜீவிதஞ்சஸுகாநிச’’

‘‘parityaktāmayālaṅkā mitrāṇica tanānica -

pavatkatammōrājyañca jīvitañcasukānica’’

“I have given up Laṅkā, and my friends, and my riches; my kingdom, my life and my joys are all in you now.”

"He let go of every single thing that stood between him and taking refuge with the Lord," Dāsar said. "He came saying, 'Perumāḷ's feet alone are my refuge.' He stood in the sky, it says. He did not even set his foot on the ground. He stood in the air with nothing to hold him up. And even for him, Rāma's company took up stones and sticks and said, 'Let him be killed.' Into that company of Rāma, am I to go in as a servant, I who am bound up with many wives and all the rest?"

Uḍaiyavar said, "Listen, child. Do not be afraid."

Then he gave him a chain to hold, link by link.

"If I attain, you attain. If Periya Nambi attains, I attain. If Āḷavandār attains, Periya Nambi attains. And if those above them have attained, these attain too."

Then he went to the head of the chain. "Nam Caṭakōpar has said it with his own mouth: 'Desire gone, he gained release.' So his attainment is settled. Then hold it as settled for us as well."

Then he spoke of the Lady. "When Nācciyār stands between all of us and the Lord and speaks for us, there is nothing to fear. That is why she is never parted from him. So the souls who have always been bound in this world and Emperumāṉ himself are held, you see, in the links of one chain. Hold it as certain that our company will not let us go."

Then he gave him a saying. "Hold to this: when the areca palm drinks, the plantain beside it drinks too."

And last he went back to Dāsar's own story. "When Vibhīṣaṇa came, four came with him. When they were summoned, they were not summoned one by one. When the word was 'Halt', it was not said to them one by one either. So, if I attain, you attain. Be at ease, and do not be afraid."

The account sets a verse after his answer:

‘‘எத்தியிருப்பாரை வெல்லுமே மற்றவரைச், சார்த்தியிருப்பார்தவம்’’

‘‘ettiyiruppārai vellumē maṟṟavaraic, cārttiyiruppārtavam’’

“The penance of those who lean on them wins out even over those who hold fast.”

Bharata had one who leaned on him, Śatrughna. Nammāzhvār had one who leaned on him, Madhurakavi. Periyāzhvār had one who leaned on him, Nācciyār.

The account does not say what Dāsar did when Uḍaiyavar had finished, whether he sat down again, or what he said.

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When the account comes to name all those who took refuge at Uḍaiyavar's feet, Dāsar is not among the seventy-four ācāryas who held seats. He is named among the sāttāda mudaligaḷ, as the roll calls them, the companions who do not wear it. After Śrī Kulaśēkharapperumāḷ comes a row of Dāsars: Bhaṭṭarpirāṉ Dāsar, Pakaivilli Dāsar, Śrīvilliputtūr Dāsar, Śrī Nārāyaṇa Dāsar, Śrī Gōvardhana Dāsar, Tiruvazhudivaḷanāḍu Dāsar, Śrī Rāmānuja Dāsar, and then Piḷḷai Uṟaṅgāvilli Dāsar. Straight after his name come two more, Vaṇḍar and Cuṇḍar. The account does not say what those two were to him.

Another account, which tells of Uḍaiyavar's company at Śrīraṅgam more briefly, names whole bodies of his people each by its first member. There the sāttāda Vaiṣṇavas are "those beginning with Piḷḷai Uṟaṅgāvalidāsar." He is the one the whole company of them is named by. With the sīyars, the ekāntins, those given to service, the watch officers, the mudalis of Nattam and the ammaimār, all of them, that account says, were given over to Uḍaiyavar's feet, each intent on his own service.

Dāsar's own service is named too. When the account sets down the daily kaiṅkarya, the work each disciple did for Uḍaiyavar every day, it gives the study of the Śrī Bhāṣya to Kūreśa, Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ, Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ and the Bhaṭṭars, the worship to Aruḷāḷa Perumāḷ Emperumāṉār, the kitchen to Kiḍāmbi Perumāḷ and Kiḍāmbi Āccāṉ, the oil to Vaḍuga Nambi, the water-pot and the sandals to Kōmaḍattu Ciṟiyāzhvāṉ.

And Piḷḷai Uṟaṅgāvilli Dāsar kept the treasury.

A little further down the same list, Vaṇḍar and Cuṇḍar, the two who stand after him on the roll, have their work as well. They did royal service for a thousand gold pieces each and made it over to Uḍaiyavar's maṭha as a standing grant. Here too the account does not say what they were to Dāsar.

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This life carries the name of Poṉṉācciyār beside his. The accounts themselves never call her his wife. They never name his wife at all; the only wives they give him are the ones he spoke of himself, standing up in the assembly.

They do name a Poṉṉācciyār twice.

Once she is on the roll of the women who took refuge at Uḍaiyavar's feet, the ammaimār, between Paṅkayaccelviyār and Iṉṉiḷavañciyār.

And once she is at the gate of Kūreśa's house, on the day his small son Bhaṭṭar came home in a stranger's palanquin. The child had been playing in the dust of the holy street when a scholar went by with a horn blown before him, crying that the all-knowing Bhaṭṭaṉ had come. Bhaṭṭar held up a fistful of dust and asked him how much it was, and the man could not say. When he heard whose son this was, he marvelled, set the child in his own palanquin and brought him to Kūreśa's gate.

Poṉṉācciyār saw him there and heard what the little one had done. She swept him up into her arms. She said the dvaya over him, the two-line prayer of refuge, as a guard.

"Should he stand out there alone and do deeds of valour beyond his strength?" she said. "My lord! I, whose womb bore you, what shall I do now?"

She covered him with the end of her garment and carried him inside. "Do they let him go out into the holy street," she said, angry, "so the evil eye can fall on him?" She gave him into the hands of Āṇḍāḷ. She sprinkled him with Śrīpāda-tīrtha, water from the holy feet. Then she held her stomach in dread and said, "Will he stay long in this world?"

The account does not say whose household she belonged to, or whether this Poṉṉācciyār and the one on the roll of women are the same. It does not say that either of them was Dāsar's wife. It tells nothing more of her.

Of Dāsar it tells nothing more either. It does not tell how his life ended, or where.