Union & discipline

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.

Thiruchanda Virutham

Thirumazhisai Āzhvār had searched through many philosophies before he came to rest in the Lord. That hard-won certainty rings through the Thiruchanda Virutham, set to a striding, rhythmic metre. He sings of the God who is both the cause of all the worlds and intimately near, asking again and again how the mind can grasp one who is at once everywhere and beyond all grasping.

Thiruppaḷḷiyezhuchi

Ten short verses to wake the Lord at dawn. As the eastern sky pales and the birds stir, the Āzhvār calls gently on the sleeping God of Srirangam to open his eyes — a tender reversal of the worshipper waking before his deity. The Thiruppaḷḷiyezhuchi is still sung at the first light of morning to rouse the Lord from his rest.

Irandām Thiruvandhādhi

The second of the three. Where Poigai lit a lamp of the elements, Bhūtham Āzhvār lights a lamp of love itself: “Love is the vessel, longing the ghee, the melting mind the wick — I lit this bright lamp for the Lord.” His hundred linked verses sing of a God who can only be reached through the heart's own warmth.