Loving devotion

Thiruppallāṇḍu & Periyāzhvār Thirumozhi

Periyāzhvār was a humble gardener of Srivilliputhur who wove garlands for the Lord each day. When he was honoured before a king, his first instinct was not pride but fear — fear that the world's evil eye might fall on his beloved God. So he sang the Thiruppallāṇḍu, a blessing upon the Lord himself: “Many, many years to you!” It is the rare hymn where the devotee, like a doting parent, worries for the safety of the Divine. The Periya Thirumozhi that follows watches Krishna grow up through a mother's eyes — his cradle, his mischief, his first steps.

Thiruppāvai

Āṇḍāḷ, the only woman among the Alvars, was found as a baby in a garden of tulasi and raised by Periyāzhvār. She refused every earthly suitor, declaring she would marry none but the Lord himself. In the Thiruppāvai she imagines herself and her friends as cowherd girls of Gokula, rising before dawn in the cold month of Mārgazhi to bathe in the river and wake the sleeping Lord with song. Thirty verses, sung to this day at dawn through that whole month, turn a simple village vow into one of the most beloved poems of devotion.

Nāchiyār Thirumozhi

If the Thiruppāvai is a vow taken together with friends, the Nāchiyār Thirumozhi is Āṇḍāḷ alone with her longing. She prays to Kāmadeva, sends a cloud as her messenger, reads omens, even offers the Lord a hundred vessels of sweet rice if only he will come. The verses are tender and unguarded — a heart that will accept no substitute for the Divine. Tradition holds that her longing was answered: she was united with the Lord at Srirangam, and is worshipped beside him still.

Perumāḷ Thirumozhi

Kulasēkhara was a king of the Chera land who found his throne far less precious than the courtyard of the temple. He sang that he would gladly be a step at the Lord's gate, a fish in the temple tank, or a flower in his garden, rather than a ruler of men. The Perumāḷ Thirumozhi moves between a king's renunciation and a mother's love — including the famous verses in which he sings as Dasharatha grieving for Rāma, and as Devakī aching for the son she could not raise.