Tāyumānavar

He is known by two names. He is the father of Advaita Śaiva Siddhānta, the teaching of three realities, the Lord, the soul and the soul's bonds, and of the soul's union with the Lord without a second. And he is Tāyumānavar, the one who became mother, because he set out the natures of those three realities so that the world might know them and be saved. To those of the Śaiva Siddhānta tradition, he is everything.

His holy songs have been heard in more than one way. Some have heard in them a man at home in every path. Others have heard in them the teaching of one self alone. The Śaiva Siddhānta tradition hears in them its own teaching, as his guru gave it to him, and this story tells his life and his songs as that tradition tells them.

At the southern edge of the Chōzha country stands Vedāraṇyam: the holy place worshipped by the Vedas, where the kingship of Śuddhādvaita Śaiva Siddhānta sits enthroned, and whose fame has spread everywhere.

There, in the time of the Nāyaka kings of Tiruchirappalli, lived a man named Kēṭiliyappa Piḷḷai. He was born in the Vēḷāḷa community, among those who have their land ploughed and live by it. He was mature in learning and in listening to the learned. He was outstanding in devotion to the guru, to the liṅgam and to the gathering of Śiva's devotees, and, true to his name, he was without fault. He had charge of the Śiva temple of that town as its superintendent.

In those days a king ruled with a just sceptre at Tiruchirappalli: Muttu Vijaya Raghunātha Chokkaliṅga Nāyakar, a bull among kings. He heard of Kēṭiliyappa Piḷḷai's good character and good deeds, and of the greatness of his learning. He sent for him and appointed him to the high office of campirati, the king's accountant. Kēṭiliyappa Piḷḷai took up the office at the king's request and carried out its duties without fault.

So the household came from Vedāraṇyam to Tiruchirappalli. One thing was missing in that house. Kēṭiliyappa Piḷḷai had had one son, his dear Civacitamparam Piḷḷai, but his own elder brother was childless, and he had already given that only son to his brother in adoption. He had no son of his own left beside him.

On the rock at Tiruchirappalli, one of the southern Kailāsas, Śiva is enthroned as Tāyumānēcurar, the Lord who became mother. So that he might have issue of his own, Kēṭiliyappa Piḷḷai went there at the three times of the day, and his wife went with him. He worshipped with single-minded and true love. He performed the daily rites and the rites of special days, he kept vows and he gave gifts.

Then a child was born, as though all the austerities of the people of the land of Bharata had gathered and taken one form, and like a sun of Siddhānta wisdom, sent by the Pure One to appear in this world and destroy the darkness of impurity that binds all beings. The father rejoiced greatly. He did all that had to be done, made offerings to Tāyumānēcurar, and had the rites of birth performed.

Those learned in the stars spoke of the child. 'Because he was born in an auspicious hour, with five planets exalted, he has been born as a portion of the divine, and he will flourish as a king of men able to rule all the worlds.' Who could tell the joy of the two parents when they heard this?

Because the child had been born by the grace of Tāyumānēcurar, they gave him that god's own name at the naming ceremony. He was Tāyumānavar, he who became mother.

In one of his own songs he calls on that same Lord of the rock, which he names Śiragiri:

When you gave me the good path of mōṉam, was it not given then, with the words, 'The body taken up, possessions and life, all three are you; not one thing is mine'? … O Embodiment of supreme compassion, who became mother at Śiragiri!

In time he learned and mastered the literature and grammar of both languages, the northern and the southern. He learned the Vedas, the Śiva Āgamas, the Upaniṣads, the Smṛtis, the Purāṇas and the Itihāsas. Besides these he studied, with competent teachers, the twelve books of the Tirumuṟai that begin with the Tēvāram, the treatises of the line of Meykaṇṭār, and the Tiruppukazh of Aruṇakirinātar, and he recited them with love.

While he was still at his studies, his father departed this life.

The king wanted the son in the father's place, and he compelled him. Unable to refuse, Tāyumānavar took up his father's office of campirati and carried it on. He was only fourteen years old when he took his seat in that office.

One day the campirati came to see the king on some business. Sand had been heaped up at the palace, and the prints of his holy feet were pressed into it and showed clearly. The king's chief minister and the king came that way. They saw the footprints, saw the lotus-line that showed in them, and were greatly amazed. They asked who had come that way, and those standing there told them it was the campirati.

The king and the minister doubted it. To test the truth they sent for him, then sent him away again, and compared the footprints. Their doubt was cleared, and they rejoiced.

Then the chief minister turned to the king and spoke. 'Bull among kings! Seeing the campirati's beauty, even men would desire him! They say that the measure of shining beauty is the measure of virtue. As proof of it, I have now seen him himself, plainly, and I have studied his form closely. As the Caṅkappāṭṭiyal says…' And he recited its verse that counts the thirty-two parts of the body, from the soles and the toenails up to the brows and the forehead. 'All his thirty-two parts excel in a divine quality together with manliness, and they are full of the auspicious marks of the body. Within a short time he will surely become a great overlord, of great sovereignty and great generosity, whose commands the whole world obeys, and he will establish his fame. O King! Never to this day have I seen or heard of anyone with a lotus-line like the one that shines in his footprint. Have you not seen too that his long arms hang down below the shank?'

From that day the king held him in great affection, and in awe.

He had now reached the time of the balancing of the two kinds of deeds, the good and the evil, the ripening that in the teaching of Śaiva Siddhānta goes before grace. So it seemed to him that to search out the truth was the great duty before him.

Learned men came to the king's court to receive honours. They bore titles of every kind: Kavi, Kavirāyar, Kavicakkiravartti, Paṇṭitar, Pārati, Pāvalar, Nāvalar, Vittuvāṉ, Mahāvittuvāṉ, Vittuvaciromaṇi, Āciriyar, Pulavar. With each of them he would argue about the real truth. When they could not answer him fittingly, he sent them away with the words, 'Find the truth!'

The king saw how young he was, how rare his learning was, and how his conduct matched his learning, and he was greatly amazed and grew very fond of him.

He himself waited in longing, like a man who sees that his head is on fire and seeks nothing but water. 'Where is the teacher of wisdom who can remove my doubts and show me the truth? On what day will he come before me?'

In those days the guru came.

He came for two reasons. One was the great merit of austerity that Tāyumānavar had gathered through many births. The other was the guru's own purpose: to teach beings, then and in time to come, the means of knowing the truth of the three realities, of rising to the state of Siddhānta, of becoming established in the knowledge of Śiva, and of reaching liberation without duality.

He was known by the name of his silence: the Mauṉa guru, the Mauṉa Tēcikar, the teacher of mauṉam. He was a true guru, born in the line of Tirumūlar, that embodiment of the great wealth of grace and wisdom, and he had received the teaching of wisdom from a teacher in the line of Meykaṇṭār, who stands in the succession of the holy Kailāsa lineage. He had come to Tiruchirappalli to worship the Lord of the rock.

Tāyumānavar's own songs remember his guru by that same line. In a set of ten songs to his teacher, every song closes with the same call:

மந்த்ரகுருவேயோக தந்த்ரகுருவேமூலன்

மரபில்வருமௌனகுருவே.

O guru of mantra! O guru of the tantra of yōkam! O mauṉakuru, who come in the line of Mūlaṉ!

The moment Tāyumānavar, father of the Śaiva Siddhānta fold, saw him, he was overcome, like a chaste wife who forgets herself on seeing her husband, and his mind was drawn to the guru like a needle that has seen a magnet. He fell at the guru's feet and asked, 'My Lord! What is the book in your holy hand?'

The guru said nothing and went on his way.

Tāyumānavar asked again, and again, and followed him like a shadow. The guru wandered through all the places round about. Late in the night, at about the fifteenth kaṭikai, when the town had gone quiet, he went to the shrine of Tāyumānēcurar and sat down in the lotus posture. Then, seeing the young man's ripeness, the silent teacher spoke one word, the name of the book: 'Civañāṉacitti.'

Tāyumānavar's heart opened wide, and he praised his teacher. 'Is it the Supreme Lord, who in those days ruled Māṇikkavācakar, the lord of Vātavūr, through the teaching of wisdom and gave him his feet, who has now risen to rule even me, the lowly, giving me silent devotion through the Ñāṉacitti?'

Now came the teaching itself, all that passed between the disciple and the guru.

Tāyumānavar first asked three questions. 'O ocean of grace! What is Śivam? What is knowledge? What is attainment?'

The guru answered. 'O loving one! Śivam is the Lord. Knowledge is the knowing that knows that Lord as he is. Attainment is what brings that knowing about.'

Then Tāyumānavar laid out his doubts, twelve of them, calling the guru king of ascetics. The Vedas say the Lord has no place, no quality, no mark, no act and no name, and lies beyond every means of knowing; how then can he be called Śivam, the auspicious? If he is the auspicious, then the inauspicious, and what is mixed of both, must follow; what are those? Are they different from Śiva, not different, or both? Is he the one who pervades, the thing pervaded, or the pervading itself; is he of one kind, of another kind, or differentiated within? If the Lord is both being and non-being, is "auspicious" a fitting name for him?

He went on. The Vedas say there is no second thing besides Brahman; yet if the knowledge of Śiva means the knowing of Śiva, then Śiva becomes an object; what then are the knower and the knowing? Does the knower know Śiva as separate from himself, as one with himself, or as both? If Śiva is known, will he not become gross, perishable and divided, like every object that is known? Is he known with the instruments of knowing, or without them? By which of all the kinds of perception and inference is he known?

And last: is knowledge natural to the knower, or is it acquired? If it is natural, it need not be attained; if it is acquired, it can never be attained. Is not ignorance the same? And is such reflection itself samudāya-vāda, ārambha-vāda, vivarta-vāda, pariṇāma-vāda or vṛtti-vāda?

When he had laid out all these doubts, the guru smiled. He considered the order of teaching by which grace is given to souls of every kind. Tāyumānavar was not yet fit for the initiation that is given with the offering of fire. So the guru gave him the six initiations that are its parts: by sight, by touch, by word, by mind, by scripture and by yōkam.

Then the guru said, 'Son! It is this very book that cuts away all the doubts you have asked, destroys wrong knowledge, and gives the knowledge of non-duality, the path of the knowledge of Śiva. It was given by Aruṇanti Civācāriyar, who is called the master of all the Āgamas, and who flourished in our line of gurus. We worship it and we recite it. It follows the Civañāṉapōtam, and it has two parts. One, the Cupakkam, sets out and establishes Siddhānta, the essence of the Vedas and the Āgamas. The other, the Parapakkam, sets out and refutes the doctrines of the creeds that stand far outside the Vedas and the Āgamas, outside them, half within them, and within them. Disciple! To know all the books in the world, half a verse of the Citti is enough.'

Tāyumānavar himself takes up this saying in his homage to his line of gurus. His own couplet says: 'When will be the day I reach the golden feet of him who, by half a verse, proved the truth, so that this world became a verse?'

So saying, the guru gave fitting answers to all his questions, and in due order he taught him all fourteen treatises of Siddhānta. As he taught the natures of the Lord, the soul and the bonds, of knowledge and of ignorance, and of non-duality, he quoted verses and showed the truth through them: verses of the Tēvāram, among them the one that begins "He became the wide earth, became fire, became water"; verses of the Tiruvācakam, among them the one that praises the great light that has neither beginning nor end; a stanza of the Irupāvirupaḥtu; a full stanza of the Tiruppukazh that begins "Kumara, Kurupara"; and others besides.

Is it not for this very reason that Tāyumānavar sings, in one of his own couplets, 'When will be the day I see and understand and speak of the great state of the holy verse that says, "He became the wide earth, became fire"?' Beginning with that couplet, he took up all these verses, and with them he won over those who held other views.

By this teaching Tāyumānavar came to hold three things: that the Vaidika Śaiva Śuddhādvaita Śaiva Siddhānta is the true state, that Śiva is the supreme Lord, and that to be united with him without duality is liberation. He gave up the desire for the world and became a seeker of liberation.

Then the Mauṉa Tēcikar gave his command. 'Stay a little while yet. Live the household life and beget a son. Afterwards we shall come and give you the means of attaining niṣṭai.'

Tāyumānavar grieved. He could not bear to be parted from his teacher.

The guru said, 'Be still.' And he went away.

His own songs bear witness to all of this. In one, Tāyumānavar speaks to his guru of that very command:

சிந்தையறநில்லென்று சும்மாவிருத்திமேற்

சின்மயானந்தவெள்ளந்

தேக்கித்திளைத்துநா னதுவாயிருக்கநீ

செய்சித்ரமிகநன்றுகா

you said, 'Stand with thought gone!' and made me be still; then, so that I might be That … you worked a wonder, and it is very good, see!

In another song of the same set he praises the guru of ñāṉam who came in grace so that the whole expanse of the worlds might know the establishing of the six creeds and the state of ordering the camaracam of Vedānta and Siddhānta.

In a third, in the confessing voice of a devotional song, he remembers what he once called true, and the single word that stopped him:

I called true the pleasure alone of women bright as lightning … I called the upper storey of the towering mansion heaven … with a single word you stopped me, ruled me and made me live in love, O guru of ñāṉam!

And in a fourth, the supreme guru's teaching is remembered as 'our tradition':

… Examining perception, inference and the many other kinds; considering the four means as well …

After this the guru went on pilgrimage. He took the holy sight of Sētu, bathed at Kumari, and went to the Potiyil hill, where he came to the Lord Agastya, received his grace, and sat there in niṣṭai.

Here, meanwhile, Tāyumānavar reflected on all his teacher's words and lived by them. Detachment arose in him, and he came to forget his worldly work.

The king, Chokkanāyakar, came to know all his qualities by report. He also saw with his own eyes many deeds of a wondrous kind come about through him.

Fear, wonder and love rose together in the king. He sent for Tāyumānavar, seated him on a high seat, and begged him. 'Svāmi! Not knowing your greatness, I put you to work in my service. From now on, command me to serve you.' And from then on the king conducted himself so as never to hinder the saint's state.

These were the years in which he climbed the steps of the Siddhānta path. He practised the four degrees of cariyai. Cariyai within cariyai is the humble service of the temple: sweeping it, smearing its floors, planting its flower gardens, and going on pilgrimage to holy places and holy waters. Kiriyai within cariyai is the worship of one of the twenty-five forms of the Lord, such as the Rider of the Bull, the Lord of the wedding, the holy Beggar and the Lord with Umā, or of one of the gods who attend him, such as Vināyakar and Kantar. Yōkam within cariyai is to contemplate Śrīkaṇṭha Rudra in the heart. Ñāṉam within cariyai is the true experience that arises from the depth of that contemplation. When he had practised all four, he reached the step of kiriyai.

At that time the king left this world.

His wife had seen Tāyumānavar's beauty many times, and she was overcome by desire. She went to him and begged him. 'I will make your Reverence head of my government. My body, my wealth and my life, all three, are yours. Consent to my request, and fulfil this lowly woman's great need.'

He told her all the moral teachings she needed to master her mind, and he brought her to understanding. He turned her to the way of austerity that befits a widow. Then, knowing it was not good for him to remain there, he went away to Ramanathapuram.

His elder brother, Civacitamparam Piḷḷai, the son who had been given in adoption, heard of this. So did Aruḷaiya Piḷḷai, the son of his younger mother. They went to him at Ramanathapuram and begged him to marry, so that the family line might continue.

He had no liking for it. But his guru's command had been the same: live the household life and beget a son. With his guru's command and his brother's request both before him, he thought it a sin to refuse, and he consented.

He married a woman of distinction, born in his own community, and he lived the household life with his wife like water on a lotus leaf. The verses of his disciple Aruḷaiyar remember a saying of his, given as his teaching:

he who, even while living in the household, has subdued his heart, is the great yogi

At that time his wife, whose name was Maṅkaiyarkkaraci, bore a son, and she attained the abode of Śiva. The child was named Kaṉakacapāpati Piḷḷai.

That son became an example of the old saying of the Tirukkuṟaḷ: what a son gives his father is to make people ask, what penance did his father do to have him?

Tāyumānavar went on to complete the four degrees of kiriyai. Preparing all that is needed for the worship of Śiva is cariyai within kiriyai. Worship of Śiva in the form of the liṅgam, after the five purifications, is kiriyai within kiriyai. The inner worship, in which three places are set apart within for worship, for the offering into fire and for contemplation, is yōkam within kiriyai. And the experience that arises from the depth of that inner worship is ñāṉam within kiriyai. Then he reached the step of yōkam.

The guru had said that he would come again, and he kept his word. The Mauṉa Tēcikar came to him. He gave him the initiation called jñānavatī. He taught him the natures of the niṣṭai of yōkam. He commanded him to renounce. And he departed.

From then on Tāyumānavar appeared wearing only a loincloth. He practised the path of yōkam in its four degrees: restraint, observance, posture and the control of breath are its cariyai; the withdrawal of the senses and the holding of the mind are its kiriyai; contemplation is its yōkam; and camāti is its ñāṉam. He grew rich in the knowledge of Śiva and entered into niṣṭai. Just as the astrologers and the chief minister had said, he became a king, though a king of ascetics in the yōkam of Śiva, praised by all people, by the kings of the earth and by the kings of poets alike.

Kings have the ten insignia: mountain, river, country, town, garland, horse, elephant, flag, drum and command; and besides these they have the white parasol of victory, the crown of nine gems and the throne. Tāyumānavar had them all.

His mountain was virtue: freedom from desire, true knowledge, renunciation and the rest. His river was eternal bliss. His country was the seat of the power of consciousness, hard to know even through the Vedas and the other arts. His town was experience, rich in pure abundance. His garland was grace, which halts the going after objects of sense and brings all under its sway. His horse was his presence everywhere, which runs swiftly to every thing and stands as that very thing.

His elephant was the knowledge of Śiva. It cuts the bonds of deeds and hurls back the enemy that is the soul's bonds. Love is its fury. It flows with three streams of must, the three powers named Āraṇi, Ceṉṉi and Urōtayittiri, and it breaks in among the ranks of the principles and gives the honey of bliss.

His flag of victory was Vaidika Śaiva Siddhānta, which stands above every station of the creeds, makes clear the great fruit of non-duality, and lifts away the burden of sorrow. His drum was the inner sound, for the ten channels of the body sound as the ten inner sounds. His command was the making known, sent out to souls throughout the world. His crown was great knowledge, one great shining crown that knows all things at once and alike. His white parasol was gracious kindness, which takes away the clinging traces of birth that come from the enemy, the three impurities, keeps souls beneath his feet, and spreads over them the shade of great bliss. His throne was camāti. Mind, intellect, cittam and the sense of self, his fourfold army, stood waiting on his word, and his command ran through the three worlds.

So he shone as a king of austerity, and his austerity was this: abiding in the knowledge of Śiva.

Wishing all beings on earth to understand and be saved, he gathered the whole essence of his experience and poured it out in most wonderful holy songs. They were all written down by the disciples who went about with him, and first among them Aruḷaiyar.

In one song he remembers the day of the single word, and says that the full bliss has not yet come:

From the day you, as the mauṉi, gave me a single word so that I might grow clear, apart from a little stream of bliss …

Aruḷaiyar's own long poem of praise to his guru, the Aruḷvākkiya akaval, remembers how Tāyumānavar spoke of himself. He said, lovingly, that he had come to know true wisdom by drawing near the King who dwells beneath the banyan; that he had grown in the state in which the mauṉi had firmly set his mind; and that he was the child of the mauṉi who sprang from the line of Mūlaṉ.

At the last, Tāyumānavar gave Aruḷaiyar the teaching of the tattuvam. Then he went to Ramanathapuram, and there he entered camāti, attaining liberation without duality, union with Śiva without a second.

A verse that Aruḷaiyar sang gives the place more closely. It remembers that at Ramanathapuram, ornament of the world, in the flower-filled grove to the east of the lofty pool, he entered the niṣṭai that reaches Śiva.

A verse of praise remembers him this way: he weighed all the meaning of Siddhānta, the true and ancient Civañāṉapōtam, as on the point of a balance; he sang Tamil in unwavering experience; he became wholly the Supreme; and mounting the horse of the path of solitude, he went to the country that is free of sickness. Let us think of Tāyumānavar, the verse ends, who is full, and so prevail.

After Tāyumānavar had gone, Aruḷaiyar praised his guru in a long poem in akaval verse, and became one who practised the yōkam of Śiva. He gave true knowledge to Kaṉakacapāpati Piḷḷai, and then he too took renunciation.

So the line went on. In this line of gurus there was one Aruṇācala Piḷḷai, at the Ātīṉam of Ampalavāṇa Cuvāmikaḷ at Aṉṉappaṉpēṭṭai, east of the great city of Thanjavur.