Re: Thirumanthiram With Meaning In Tamil
Ronald
Our Hindu scriptures come from such great men, men who haveattained to the deepest realizations through their sadhana and theirdevotion. When their awareness dwells in the superconscious statesresident in all men but penetrated intentionally by only a few, andwhen they speak out from that state, we consider that it is not manhimself who has thus spoken but the Divine through man. SaintTirumular was such a siddhar, and his words are valued as a divinemessage for mankind.
Those of you who have been on San Marga here on Kauai have seen thebeautiful life-size granite statue of Saint Tirumular that arrivedhere along with the statue of Saint Tiruvalluvar, the author of theTirukural. In India during Tiruvalluvar's time there was neitherpaper nor pens, so writing was accomplished with a stylus, thecharacters being scraped or scratched into a specially preparedleaf, called an Ola leaf.
Many ancient scriptures and literature were produced in thismanner, and it is amazing that some of the original writings so madestill exist today. Certainly no modern day paper would havewithstood the centuries so well! The statue of Saint Tirumular showshim sitting in the lotus posture, deep in meditation, while SaintTiruvalluvar is seated with a small writing table on his lapcomposing his sacred verses with stylus in hand. His Tirukuralspeaks on virtuous living.
It gives us the keys to happy and harmonious life in the world,but it doesn't give any insights into the nature of God, whereas,the Tirumantiram delves into the nature of God, man and the universein its depths. Taken together, they speak to all Hindus and offerguidance for every aspect of religious life, the first addressingitself to the achievement of virtue, wealth and love, while thesecond concerns itself with attainment of moksha or liberation.
The Tirumantiram is a mystical book and a difficult book. Theoriginal text is written in metered verse, composed in the ancientTamil language. Saint Tirumular is the first one to codify SaivaSiddhanta, the final conclusions, and the first one to use the term"Saiva Siddhanta." It is a document upon which the entire religioncould stand, if it had to. It is one of the oldest scriptures knownto man.
I was very happy to find that all my own postulations, gatheredfrom realization, are confirmed in this great work. That is why thisbook is so meaningful to me-as a verification of personal experienceand a full statement of the philosophical fortress erected andprotected by our Guru Paramparai.
It takes a bit of meditation to understand the Tirumantiram becauseyou have to know occultism and scripture to catch the meaning. It iscomposed in rhyme and cloaked in code-when the Five become Six andthe Seven become Twelve and so on, all talking about the petals ofthe chakras and the esoteric bodies of man or the material worldcomponents known as tattvas.
For these tantras Brahmin priests and shastris from various partsof South India had to be hired to help in deciphering the deeper,more abstruse verses about the kundalini and other mysticalsubjects. Like all mystical writings one can only understand thisscripture by close study with a teacher. Why is that? Becausemystics are cautious, protective of their special knowledge that itdoes not get into the wrong hands. They therefore present their workminus a few important keys that the preceptor or Sat Guru has tofill in for the disciple who has proven himself worthy.
It is something like a great chef who might write down all hisfinest recipes but leave out one or two crucial ingredients topreserve his reputation. Thus, many of the mantras or yantras spokenof in this or other texts are correct as far as they go, but usuallyleave out a necessary key which makes them work. That does not meanthey are useless. It does mean, however, that the fullest use cannotbe realized by merely reading or studying from the books.
There is a timeless quality about Saivism-which preceded Hinduism aswe know it today-that sets it apart from the modern faiths on theplanet such as Christianity and Islam. Of course, we know that thefounders of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism were all good Hindus.Saivism is so very ancient that it appears among the firstcivilizations unearthed by archeologists.
It is our belief that Saivism is as old as man himself, theoriginal or seed religion from which all others have sprung forth;and since they are the offspring of Saivism we look upon them asparents look upon their children, with a deep love and a hope thatthey will do well and a look askance when they don't.
There never was a time when Saivism, the Sanatana Dharma, did notexist on the planet. Other religions trace their lineage to a man,to a founder, to a messiah or a theologian. Saivism does not. It hasno founder because it was not founded by man. It is coexistent withman. That makes Saivism unique, different from all the religions andsects that followed it. Look into history and you will see it is theonly religion without a beginning, without a founder and a date itwas founded.
Now one of the oldest of the preserved theologies of Saivismavailable to us today is that of Saint Tirumular. Of course, his wasnot the first theology, just one of the oldest to be preserved. Hedid not start anything new. His work is only a few hundred yearsolder than the New Testament.
He codified Saivism as he knew it. He recorded its tenets inconcise and precise verse form, drawing upon his own realizations ofthe truths it contained. His work is not an intellectualconstruction, and it is not strictly a devotional canon either. Itis based in yoga. It exalts and explains yoga as the kingly scienceleading man to knowledge of himself. Yet it contains theologicaldoctrine and devotional hymns. It is the full expression of man'ssearch, encompassing the soul, the intellect and the emotions.
Saint Tirumular's story begins more than two thousand years ago inthe Himalayas where the great rishis had gathered in conclave apartfrom the rest of the world holding fast to the Sanatana Dharma asthey pursued their own meditations to ever deeper strata.
From time to time these ashram communities would send out membersin response to the needs of the world, pilgrims who would travel byfoot, taking the Eternal Truths to be taught and reestablished whereperhaps superstition or alien religions had gained a foothold. Theserishis traveled throughout the known world in those early days,spreading the Sanatana Dharma, Saivism, far and wide.
It was a one teaching, but people adapted it to their ownunderstanding and culture and local conditions, and thus the variousreligions of the world arose. Saint Tirumular was such a Himalayanrishi, a siddhar sent on mission to South India to spread the purestteachings of Saivism to the people there.
Hinduism is a missionary religion. Everyone within it, myselfincluded, is on a mission or is purifying himself through sadhanaenough so that he can be given a mission for the religion from somegreat soul or a God perhaps. This is the pattern within Saivism, andSaint Tirumular's mission was to summarize and thereby renew andreaffirm at one point in time the final conclusions of the SanatanaDharma, the purest Saiva path, Saiva Siddhanta.
Rishi Sundaranatha, which was his name before he was sent to theSouth, had to walk all the way. Along the way he halted near thevillage of Tiruvavaduthurai where he found the body of a cowherd whohad died in the fields. The milk cows were wandering aroundaimlessly, lamenting the death of their master whom they clearlyloved. The sight moved Rishi Sundaranatha deeply, inspiring him torelieve the anguish of the cows.
An extraordinary miracle occurred, a boon from Lord Siva to helpthe cows and also to assist the sage in his task. Leaving hisphysical body hidden in a hollow log, Rishi Sundaranatha used hissiddhis or yogic powers to enter and revive the lifeless body ofMulan-that was the cowherd's name.
He comforted and cared for the cattle and led them back to thevillage. Returning to the fields he was unable to find his originalphysical body! He searched and searched, but it was not to be found.It had simply vanished! The Rishi was deeply perplexed, and he satin meditation to come to some understanding of these strangehappenings.
Through his spiritual insight he discerned that it was Lord SivaHimself who had taken his body, leaving him to live thereafter inthe body of the Tamil cowherd. He took this to be Siva's messagethat he should keep the South Indian body and serve in that way. Heaccepted it all as Siva's will and was thereafter known asTirumular, or the holy Mular, for everyone realized that someextraordinary change had taken place in their village cowherd.
Of course, there were certain advantages. For one thing, he couldnow fluently speak the language and knew the customs of the South.He stayed there and recorded the wisdom of the Upanishads and SaivaAgamas in the local language, Tamil.
Saint Tirumular began his mission of establishing the purity of theSaivite path soon thereafter when he settled down near Chidambaram,an ancient temple of Lord Siva as Nataraja, the King of Dancers.There he worshipped near a Banyan tree where there was a SwayambhuLingam. That Lingam is revered by Saivites even today in a smallshrine within the Chidambaram walls, and you can worship there onpilgrimage just as he did so long ago. It was there that he begancomposing the Tirumantiram.
Legend has it that the sage retired to a cave where he would sitin samadhi for a full year without moving. At the end of each yearhe would break his meditation long enough to speak out a singleTamil verse giving the substance of that year's meditations. Eachverse composed in this manner was just four lines long, but thewisdom each contained was boundless.
He wrote over 3,000 verses in all. This may not be accurate bythe calendar, but it is true to the spirit and quality of theTirumantiram, which has within it the wisdom of three thousand yearsof meditation. It is without a doubt the most complete andauthoritative scripture ever written. There are few before or sincehis time qualified to understand all the Tirumantiram says, muchless to improve upon it. It is that perfect and that complete.
Today we hear the term "Siddhanta" and various meanings of the wordmay come to mind. For some perhaps their immediate thought would beMeykanda Devar and his interpretation of Saiva Siddhanta. For otherssome concept of a philosophy halfway between Advaita-Vedanta andDvaita, a vague area of unclarity, and for others various literaltranslations of the word such as "true end," "final end" or "trueconclusion."