Vaḍuga Nambi

Vaḍuga Nambi, whom the Sanskrit names Āndhrapūrṇa, was taken in by Uḍaiyavar in the western country.

Those were the years when the Cōzha, who hated Viṣṇu and those who belong to Viṣṇu, had driven Uḍaiyavar out of Kōyil, as the Tamil calls Śrīraṅgam. He had gone away in a white cloth with his mudalis, his disciples, and hunters had brought him into the western country. There he took up the triple staff and the ochre robe again. He set them first before Pēraruḷāḷar, the Lord he worshipped, and then put them on as before.

From a village called Vahnipuṣkariṇi he went on to Sāḷagrāmam. The town was against him and paid him no attention, until Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ, at Uḍaiyavar's word, set his foot in the water where the townspeople drew theirs, and the next day they came with their pride gone and took refuge at Uḍaiyavar's feet. Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ's life tells it. For the power of that water Uḍaiyavar named the town Śrī Sāḷagrāmam.

There he turned a special glance on Vaḍuga Nambi, so that Vaḍuga Nambi came into the shade of his feet, and he gave him the meaning of the darśana, the whole teaching of the line.

Another account tells Sāḷagrāmam without Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ's foot. In that account some people of the place came and took refuge, and Uḍaiyavar gave them the pañcasaṃskāra, the five rites that make a man a Śrīvaiṣṇava, and said, "From this day this village shall be called Sāḷagrāma." And there, that account says too, he gave Vaḍuga Nambi the meanings of the darśana.

Neither account says who Vaḍuga Nambi had been before that day, or where he was born, or what family he came of. They do not say whether he went on with Uḍaiyavar from there. The next time the account names him, Uḍaiyavar is home at Kōyil and Vaḍuga Nambi is at his side.

When Uḍaiyavar was living at Kōyil again, the account names the disciples who did him daily service and gives each his work. Kūrattāzhvāṉ, Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ, Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ and the Bhaṭṭars kept him company in the study of the Śrī Bhāṣya. Aruḷāḷa Perumāḷ Emperumāṉār performed the worship. Kiḍāmbi Perumāḷ and Kiḍāmbi Āccāṉ had charge of the kitchen. Kōmaḍattu Ciṟiyāzhvāṉ carried the water-pot and the sandals. Piḷḷai Uṟaṅgāvilli Dāsar kept the treasury.

Vaḍuga Nambi anointed him with oil.

His name stands among the Nambis in the roll of those who took refuge at the feet of Śrī Bhāṣyakārar while he lived at Kōyil. It stands again among the seventy-four ācāryas, the teachers who served Uḍaiyavar seated on their lion-thrones.

Then the account gives a passage to Vaḍuga Nambi's own glory, and it begins with what he held.

He trusted, wholly, that Emperumāṉār's feet alone were both the means and the goal: the way to be walked and the place it comes to. So the one thing he worshipped in his daily worship, the tiruvārādhanam, was Emperumāṉār's sandals. He worshipped nothing else.

Once, on a journey, he was carrying two objects of worship together: Uḍaiyavar's, and his own.

Uḍaiyavar saw it.

"Vaḍugā! What is this you have done?"

Vaḍuga Nambi answered him.

"What does our god lack, beside your god?"

When he went with Uḍaiyavar to worship Perumāḷ in the temple, he would go on worshipping Uḍaiyavar's form, and only that.

One day Emperumāṉār saw it.

"Look at the beauty of Periya Perumāḷ's eyes," he said.

Vaḍuga Nambi looked. He looked at the beauty of Perumāḷ's eyes, and he looked at the beauty of Uḍaiyavar's eyes. Then he answered with a line of Tamil verse.

என்னமுதினைக் கண்டகண்கள் மற்றொன்றினைக்

காணாவே

eṉṉamutiṉaik kaṇṭakaṇkaḷ maṟṟoṉṟiṉaik

kāṇāvē

The eyes that have seen my nectar, anything else they will not see.

"What a thing this is!" said Uḍaiyavar, and he was glad. He turned on Vaḍuga Nambi the full glance of his grace.

When Emperumāṉār had eaten and gave him what was left on the plate, Vaḍuga Nambi took it in both hands and ate it, and then he would wipe his hands on his own head.

One day Uḍaiyavar saw this, and he was very angry.

"Vaḍugā! Wash your hands."

Vaḍuga Nambi washed them.

The next day he went with Uḍaiyavar at the hour when Namperumāḷ, the Lord of Śrīraṅgam, takes his meal. Uḍaiyavar was given the Lord's prasāda, the food the Lord has accepted. He ate of it himself, and then he gave some to Vaḍuga Nambi.

"Vaḍugā! Here."

Vaḍuga Nambi took it in both hands and ate. A Śrīvaiṣṇava brought water for washing the hands, and Vaḍuga Nambi washed his hands.

Uḍaiyavar saw it. "What is this you have done, Vaḍugā?"

"I did what you told me yesterday."

Uḍaiyavar heard that.

"You have beaten us," he said.

One day Vaḍuga Nambi was boiling milk for Uḍaiyavar, as suited Uḍaiyavar. It was the great festival, and Perumāḷ came out in procession, dressed and crowned and adorned. Uḍaiyavar too set out to worship him.

"Vaḍugā! Come and worship Perumāḷ."

Nambi answered him.

"If I come to worship your Perumāḷ, the milk I am boiling for my Perumāḷ will boil over. I cannot come."

Some people who had been his relations in his former life came to his house, stayed there, and went away again. When they had gone, Vaḍuga Nambi went over the whole house. Every vessel they had touched he broke and threw out. He smeared the floors clean.

"What is the expiation for this?" he asked.

Then he went to Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ's backyard, took the pots that lay there thrown away, and used them in his house.

Whatever came within the bounds of those who belonged to the ācārya, his teacher, the account says, he could not think impure. He thought it holy, wholly.

He would take the tīrtha, the water that has washed holy feet, from no one's feet but Uḍaiyavar's. The account says this rule was found in him alone.

He used to say:

"There is a station of its own, the station of the ācārya. It belongs to Emperumāṉār alone. So for all of us there is no means and no goal but Emperumāṉār's feet. Hold his feet alone as your refuge."

He had a name for Kūrattāzhvāṉ and Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ. They would meditate on two refuges together, saying, "Emperumāṉār's feet are the refuge," and, "Namperumāḷ's feet are the refuge." Vaḍuga Nambi called them "the people of two banks."

When the account comes to those who held to one pair of feet and no other, it puts him first. Vaḍuga Nambi said that Emperumāṉār's feet were the refuge. Bhaṭṭar said it of the feet of Azhagiya Maṇavāḷapperumāḷ, the Lord of Śrīraṅgam. Anantāzhvāṉ said it of Tiruvēṅkaṭamuḍaiyāṉ's feet, Tirukkacci Nambi of Pēraruḷāḷar's, and Emperumāṉār himself of the feet of Selvappiḷḷai. Such a resolve, the account says, does not come to just anyone.

He also wrote of Uḍaiyavar. Another account quotes three verses from his Yatirāja-vibhava, the glory of the king of ascetics. They gather up how Uḍaiyavar did the three things Āḷavandār had longed for.

அபாதிதார்த்தை ரநபாயவாசாம்

தத்வ்யாஸஸூத்ரஸ்ய யதார்த்தபாஷ்யம் |

க்ருத்வா யதீந்த்ரோ துரி யாமுநார்ய-

மநோரதம் பூரிதவாந் ஸ ஆத்யம் ||

apātitārttai ranapāyavācām

tatvyāsasūtrasya yatārttapāṣyam |

krutvā yatīntrō turi yāmunārya-

manōratam pūritavān sa ātyam ||

With words that do not fail, whose meanings nothing overturns, the true commentary on the sūtras of Vyāsa Yatīndra made, and so, before all else, of Yāmunārya he fulfilled the first wish.

பட்டாரகந் தஞ்ச பராஶராக்யங்

க்ருத்வா க்ருதந் தேந ஸஹஸ்ரநாம்நாம் |

பாஷ்யம் ப்ரதிஷ்டாப்ய ச யாமுநார்ய-

மநோரதம் பூரிதவாந் த்விதீயம் ||

paṭṭārakan tañca parāśarākyaṅ

krutvā krutan tēna sahasranāmnām |

pāṣyam pratiṣṭāpya ca yāmunārya-

manōratam pūritavān tvitīyam ||

The Bhaṭṭar named Parāśara he made, and what Bhaṭṭar made on the Thousand Names, that commentary, he set up, and so of Yāmunārya he fulfilled the second wish.

பிள்ளாநபிக்யம் குருகேஶ்வராக்யங்

க்ருத்வா க்ருதந் தேந ச ஷட்ஸஹஸ்ரம் |

பாஷ்யம் ப்ரதிஷ்டாப்ய ஸ யாமுநார்ய-

மநோரதம் பூரிதவாந் த்ருதீயம் ||

piḷḷānapikyam kurukēśvarākyaṅ

krutvā krutan tēna ca ṣaṭsahasram |

pāṣyam pratiṣṭāpya sa yāmunārya-

manōratam pūritavān trutīyam ||

To Piḷḷāṉ he gave the name Kurukeśvara, and the Six Thousand that was made by him, that commentary, he set up, and so of Yāmunārya he fulfilled the third wish.

So Vaḍuga Nambi said, in the Yatirāja-vibhava.

When Uḍaiyavar's last day came, Vaḍuga Nambi was with him.

Uḍaiyavar had the festive bath while every auspicious instrument sounded and the recitation of the Tamil hymns filled every place. Then he did his daily observances. He was weak, but he took no account of it, and he offered even the arghya, the water poured out in worship, standing. He put on the twelve marks of the Lord's names, and the beads, and the garland and the cloth that came to him as the Lord's prasāda. He took the tīrthas. He recited the three mysteries with their meaning, the line of teachers said first. He prostrated toward the feet of Periya Perumāḷ. He honoured the mudalis and took their leave of them.

Then, with his mind on the form of Āḷavandār, he sat in the lotus posture. He closed his eyes. And he lay down, with his head in Embār's lap and his feet in Vaḍuga Nambi's lap.

On the tenth day of the bright half of Māgha, at midday, on a Saturday, Emperumāṉār joined his own former form, the serpent couch with a thousand shining mouths. He let go of his body as easily as a snake leaves its skin.

Some copies tell that hour in other words. Facing the temple, they say, he lay with his head in Embār's lap and his feet in Vaḍuga Nambi's lap, while the disciples of his feet recited the Brahmavalli and the Bhṛguvalli and "Cūzhvicumpaṇimukil"; and his skull opened at the crown, and by that gate Uḍaiyavar went to the sacred land, which the Tamil calls Tirunāḍu.

Another account remembers that hour differently. In it Uḍaiyavar, facing Kōyil, lay with his head in Piḷḷāṉ's lap and his feet in Kiḍāmbi Āccāṉ's lap. The mudalis and the ascetics, Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ, Embār and Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ among them, recited the Upaniṣads from the Brahmavalli and the Tiruvāymozhi from "Cūzhvicumpaṇimukil", and the conch sounded with every instrument; and while he meditated on the feet of Periya Nambi, the crown of his head opened and he went to the sacred land. That account does not name Vaḍuga Nambi in that hour.

When he was gone, Kandāḍai Āṇḍāṉ, Aruḷāḷa Perumāḷ Emperumāṉār, Embār, Vaḍuga Nambi and all the other mudalis cried out. They fell like trees cut at the root and lay there writhing. Their throats choked. They lay helpless, their legs and hands where they had fallen. They brooded, and did not know where they were. Their eyes brimmed, and the tears fell in streams like pearls, and they lamented him.

Then they bore him through the streets of Kōyil. Tiruvaraṅgattu Amudaṉār and others recited the Nūṟṟantādi, the hundred verses on Uḍaiyavar. Embār and Piḷḷāṉ and others recited the hymns and the prose prayers. Vaḍuga Nambi came along with Kōmaḍattu Ciṟiyāzhvāṉ, who was called Rāmānujadāsar, and the two of them recited the Uḍaiyavar-prapatti, the prayer of refuge at Uḍaiyavar's feet.

The holy streets were dressed. Puffed rice and flowers were scattered, a cloth was spread on the road, sugarcane and pots were carried, and the married women of the town went in front with lamps. The single horn cried out, "In this darśana, Emperumāṉār has gone to the sacred land." They took him round every holy street. They did every rite laid down for an ascetic, and they laid him to rest.

How long Vaḍuga Nambi lived after that, the account does not say.

It tells, without saying when, that he kept Uḍaiyavar's foot-water stored up at Śrī Sāḷagrāmam, the town where Uḍaiyavar had turned his glance on him, as wealth that he himself had gathered, and that he cherished it there. Uḍaiyavar's sandals were all he had to worship, and he had them installed there and looked after them.

When his own last hour came, he showed them to the disciples who were close to him, as their refuge. He gave the sandals into their keeping.

"This is wealth of great worth," he told them. "Keep cherishing it, even when it is hard."

The account does not say where he died, or give the day.

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

ராமாநுஜார்யசரண ப்ரவணம்பரதேவவத் -

வடுபூர்ணமஹம்வந்தே பரஜ்ஞாநபயோநிதிம்.

rāmānujāryacaraṇa pravaṇamparatēvavat -

vaṭupūrṇamahamvantē parajñānapayōnitim.

Who turned to the feet of Rāmānujārya as to the supreme God: Vaṭupūrṇa I bow to, an ocean of the highest knowledge.