Nava Mani Mala
Having heard the narration of events concerning the acceptance of Diksha yesterday one youth this morning at 8 O’clock sat near Bhagavan and while talking about matters in general said, “It seems some time ago that a person from Chidambaram urged Bhagavan to go over there for a d…
Having heard the narration of events concerning the acceptance of Diksha yesterday one youth this morning at 8 O’clock sat near Bhagavan and while talking about matters in general said, “It seems some time ago that a person from Chidambaram urged Bhagavan to go over there for a darshan of Nataraja. Is it so?”
Bhagavan replied as follows:- “Yes, yes. That was in 1914 or 1915. A Dikshitar (priest) residing in Chidambaram having heard about me came here. He stayed in the town and was coming to the Virupaksha Cave every day. Whenever he came, he used to talk about several things and always ended up with an exhortation that as the Ether (Akasa) linga, Chidambaram, is one of the hallowed pancha lingas* in the south and I should go over there and have a darshan of Lord Nataraja. It was only in that connection I wrote the padyam ‘Achalane yayinum achavaithannil’. (This was written after 1923 when Bhagavan came down to the present Ashram.)
“The meaning of it is: ‘Father (Siva) though immoveable danced in that Sabha (Chidambaram) before Amba (Mother). That is the dance of Siva. After that Sakti subsided, please note it became the flame at Arunachala.’ That means the brilliant but immoveable Arunachala is better than the moveable Ambara lingam. After seeing that padyam, he stopped bothering me about visiting Chidambaram.” That padyam was afterwards made the first verse of “Nava Mani Mala”.
* One of the five famous Lingas in South India: Prithvilingam - Tiruvarur; Appu lingam - Jambukeswaram; Tejo lingam - Arunachalam; Vayu lingam - Sri Kalahasthi; Akasa lingam - Chidambaram.
Venkataratnam remarked that perhaps the remaining eight padyams in “Nava Mani Mala” were written occasionally like that. Bhagavan smilingly said, “Yes, Yes. That was so. Iswaraswami one day read out one of the padyams of the Mahakavi Ottakuthur of Tamil Nadu and insisted on Bhagavan writing one padyam in the same metre and with the same idea. Ottakuthur wrote that padyam as a challenge to the people, praising his own scholarship and he received a reward from the king for writing it. Iswaraswami wanted me to write similarly and so I did. The other eight verses were written on various occasions and then arranged as it now stands:
‘Bhuvikkutpongidum bhuvicchor pungavan...’
“The meaning of it is: ‘A famous place and the place of Bhuminatheswara Tiruchuli, born to the holy person by name Sundaramayyar and his Alagamma, I was taken in by Lord Arunachaleswar. With a heart full of mercy and with the mind glowing and overflowing with compassion, He kept me out of the world’s troubles’.
“The remaining seven padyams were written for some reason or other like this.”
“Can you tell us those reasons also?” I said. “I see. Perhaps you have no other work,” said Bhagavan and diverted the conversation to some other topic. I kept quiet feeling that that was all I deserved to get for the time being.