?ND?L

?ND?L The bhakti (devotional) movement began when itinerant Tamil saints composed hymns to Vishnu, Siva, and D?v? the Goddess in the sixth century a.d. The twelve Vaishnava mystics (?zhv?rs) and sixty-three Saiva mystics (n?yan?rs) were of many castes, from the Brahman to the untouchable. Two women "saints," the n?yan?r yogi Karaikk?l Ammaiy?r (sixth century) and ?zhv?r ?nd?l (ninth century), left scriptural legacies in Tamil.

?nd?l was the only woman ?zhv?r and is unique in that she is venerated as an incarnation of goddess Lakshm?. ?nd?l-Lakshm?'s tenth-century bronze icon is housed in a shrine within Sr?villiputt?r temple. ?nd?l's adoptive father Vishnu Chitta, a weaver of garlands and an ?zhv?r, visited the court of Srimara Srivallabhavadeva Pandya (815–863 a.d.).

?nd?l wrote Tirupp?vai and N?cchiy?r Tirumozhi, two elegant, sensuous, erotic compositions to her divine lover Vishnu-Tirum?l. ?nd?l's work reflects the influence of both Tamil and Sanskrit literature. Together with Peri?zhv?r's cradle poems devoted to the "infant" Krishna, ?nd?l's hymns constitute a sizable portion of the Vaishnava scriptures, the N?l?yira Divya Prabandham (Four thousand sacred verses).

Life and Legend

?nd?l's life is shrouded in a myth similar to that of S?t? in the R?m?ya?a. Lakshm? was supposedly born as ?nd?l as she wished to be Vishnu's greatest devotee on Earth. Peri?zhv?r discovered the infant beside a tulasi (basil) bush, and he called her K?dai for her magnificent hair. As a child, K?dai-?nd?l seems to have been enchanted with his garlands for Tirum?l, wearing them in his absence and peering at her reflection in a well near the shrine. Although the flowers were strangely fragrant, her father chided her as he could not offer desecrated flowers for the deity. That night, Tirum?l visited Peri?zhv?r in a dream and told him that he wished to wear only ?nd?l's used garlands; the saint realized that his daughter was Lakshm? herself. ?nd?l's love for Tirum?l grew, and she urged her father to recite the names of his sacred shrines, and she refused to marry anyone else. This absorption in a divine lover, her ecstasy, and final disappearance into the icon presage myths about the women bhakti saints, Akkamah?d?vi (twelfth century), and M?rabai (sixteenth century). Legend states that Tirum?l visited ?nd?l in a dream when she was fourteen, inviting her to Sr?rangam temple, where he is worshiped as Lord Rangan?th?. She A is believed to have worn her bridal finery and to have merged beatifically into the icon. A twelfth-century inscription states that a garden was created in Sr?rangam in her name.

Tirupp?vai and N?chiy?r Tirumozhi

In Tirupp?vai, ?nd?l assumes the role of a gopi, or milkmaid, in love with Krishna. Its thirty stanzas realistically depict human emotions and village customs. They are popularly sung by women in the month of M?rghazhi (December) prior to the Tai (January) festival of Pongal. Tirupp?vai is in the genre of a p?vai p?tal, and it describes women bathing in the river, anointing themselves with turmeric, and fashioning clay images of Lakshm?, to whom they prayed for a fruitful life. These female folk rites are described in the sixth-century Tamil Paripatal, and in the tenth-century Sanskrit Bhagavata Pur??a. Tirupp?vai has been translated into Telegu and Kannada. ?nd?l is also the chief character in the sixteenth-century play Amukta Malyada, by Krishna D?va R?ya of Vijayanagar. Her more mature work, N?cchiy?r Tirumozhi, consists of fourteen hymns in 143 stanzas, pulsating with the mystic's emotions of hope, yearning, separation, and final joy at salvation. One canto, "V?ranam ?yiram," describing her dream of being wedded to Tirum?l, is sung at weddings even today.

V?RANAM ?YIRAM

The velvety red

of the ladybirds

whose flutter fills the air

in the dark grove of Malirunc?lai

brings to mind

the glowing red

of the kumkum powder

on my dark lord's forehead.

Once he churned the ocean

for the nectar of the gods

using Mandara mountain

as a churning rod.

I flounder in the net

of that lord

of the handsome shoulders.

Can I escape

alive?

(N?cchiy?r Tirumozhi [9,1],
Vidya Dehejia, trans., 107)

Sita Anantha Raman

See alsoBhakti

BIBLIOGRAPHY

?nd?l. Tirupp?vai. Mylapore: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1996.

Bhaskaran Bhattar, G.Vijaya, Sr? ?nd?l: Varal?ru matrum, Tirupp?vai, N?cchiy?r Tirumozhi, G?da Stuti, G?da Ashtakam, G?da Asht?tiram Sdanamavalli. Srvilliput?r: Sri Andal Kovil Sri Nidhi Publications, 1996.

Dehejia, Vidya, trans. ?nt?l and Her Path of Love: Poems of a Woman Saint from South India. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.

Sundaram, P. S., trans. The Poems of ?nd?l: Tirupp?vai and N?cchiy?r Tirumozhi. Mumbai: Ananthacharya Indological Research Institute, 1997.

SECONDARY SOURCES

Cutler, Norman. Songs of Experience: The Poetics of TamilDevotion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Hardy, Friedhelm. Vir?ha Bhakti. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Nandakumar, Prema. G?da's Garland of Devotion. Madras: Samata Books, 1989.

Ramanujan, A. K. Hymns for the Drowning: Poems for Vishnu by Namm?lvar. New York: Penguin, 1981.

Sastri, K. A. Nilkanta. A History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1975.

Shulman, David Dean. Tamil Temple Myths: Sacrifice andDivine Marriage in the South Indian Saiva Tradition. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980.

Varadarajan, M. A History of Tamil Literature. Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1988.