Andal : The Lover Saint - Part 2

As mentioned in my previous post, evidence of Andal is purely literary. We do not know for sure if such as person ever existed at all. Or whether ‘Andal’ was merely the pseudonym of an accomplished poet who didn’t wish to reveal himself/herself. Rajagopalachari, it is said, believed that it was none other Periyalvar (Vishnuchittar) who wrote as Andal. On the other hand, certain studies on Andal opine that she was a devadasi who was attached to the temple at Srirangam. Whatever the theories about her life – they are just that, theories, most plausible at best!

But even going by popular beliefs, Andal’s life story and her poetry were both non-conformist, given the social environment of her times. Large parts of 8^th century Tamil lands were under the influence of the monastic religions, particularly Jainism, whose philosophy was a total antithesis to the devotion of the Alvar saints. While Jainism was atheistic, the religion of the Alvars was centred around a very personal God. Where Jainism preached detachment, both physical and mental, the Alvars’ religion was founded on an intense emotional attachment to God. With Andal, the Alvars’ bhakthi reached the pinnacle of unorthodoxy in religion, for her poetry is manifest with primal emotions of sexuality – the intense urge of a woman to unite with her lover.

In fact, some scholars like Champakalakshmi (Religion, Tradition and Ideology: Pre-colonial South India) go as far to say that the chief enemies of the Bhakthi movement were not so much the Vedic-Brahminical traditions as the ‘heretic’ faiths of Buddhism and Jainism, especially the latter, which enjoyed significant royal patronage, especially among the Pallava Kings. If it was indeed so, it further strengthens the case for Andal as a social maverick of her times.  This is because while the Buddhists and Jains believed in negation of the human body, its sexuality, and in breaking free of the desires of the flesh, Andal was singularly cognisant of her sexuality and saw it as an instrument to unite with the divine.

While it was not uncommon to find sexual undertones in the poetry of male saints (eg., Nammalvar first and Jayadev later), who used the Nayaki bhava (imagining themselves as the God’s lover) to give form to their emotional expression, Andal was the first woman saint to give words to her bodily needs and sexual desires. Her desire to wear the garland before offering to the god suggests that in her mind, she was already in a physically intimate relationship with her lord, as exists between married couples. Andal’s poetry thus expresses her constant longing and yearning to unite with her divine lover. Some of the verses in her poetry are explicitly erotic in nature.

It is possible that Andal’s erotic expressions made her immediate society uncomfortable. Even today, some explicitly amorous verses of her poetry are skipped when her poems are recited in temples.

This discomfort could explain the stories around the origins of her birth, her subsequent canonisation and eventual deification. The story that she was found as a baby in the garden (like Sita) logically culminates in her final deification as Bhudevi, daughter of Mother Earth and consort of Lord Vishnu.

Nevertheless, in Indian culture, Andal's is the first female voice that dared to express the most intimate, erotic and sensual feelings of a woman!

It is interesting that while other girls of her probably age chose to settle down with a partner in flesh and blood, she refused to offer herself to any lesser mortal, instead choosing to dedicate herself, in body and spirit, to her celestial paramour.

In a particular verse, she says that ‘her voluptuous breasts will swell for the lord alone, and scorns the idea of making love to mortal beings, comparing that with the sacrificial offering made by Brahmins being violated by jackals in the forest.’

This sentiment resonates once again, four or five centuries later, in the verses of Akka Mahadevi, a Bhakthi saint poet from Karnataka. Believed to have lived in the 12^th century AD, Mahadevi too walked out of her wedded life, seeking union with the divine. Akka Mahadevi describes her love for Lord Shiva as adulterous, viewing her husband and his parents as impediments to her union with her Lord. Terming relationship with mortal men as 'unsatisfactory', Akka Mahadevi describes them as 'thorns hiding under smooth leaves, untrustworthy.’

From their verses it appears that both Andal and Akka Mahadevi refused to be confined to the shackles of a restrictive family system and sought to break free from it. As Romila Thapar, in her History of Early India– From the origins to AD 1300, says “Women participants in the Tamil devotional movement renounced their social obligations….They created alternative possibilities within the society by their poetry, their activities and their sublimation of eroticism.”

And Andal did just that – she rejected the mortal world and its restraining social contracts to explore an ‘alternate possibility’. In this pursuit, she aspired for the unattainable divine and was even successful in realising it. Her disdain for an unremarkable mundane life, a life that every other girl of her age lived in her society, made her an undisputed outlier of her times.

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Andal – The Lover Saint - Part 1

Counted as the only female Bhakthi saint among the 12 Alvars (who were staunch devotees of Vishnu) Andal is known for her exquisite devotional poetry – poetry that bursts with longing and desire, intimately physical, often erotic, an intense expression of her desire to unite with her lover, her lord, Vishnu.

Believed to have been active in the years spanning 7^th-8^th century AD, Andal was the predecessor of Meerabai, who followed nearly 7 centuries later. As with Meerabai's, evidence of her existence is only literary. An accomplished poetess, she is credited with two compilations – Thiruppavai and Naachiyaar Thirumozhi – parts of which are  still recited by devotees in temples even today.

Experts point out that Andal’s poetry borrowed both in form and spirit from the legacy of ancient Sangam love poetry called ‘Agam’ poetry.  (The entire corpus of Sangam literature is dated between 500 BCE to 400 CE.)  But the scope of these poems was limited to expressions of mortal love affairs. In contrast, Andal’s poetry was replete with her desire for divine love, a seeking for physical intimacy with a supreme being.

The story of Andal

The story goes that Andal was found as a baby lying in a garden by Vishnuchittar also known as Periyalvaar, who is also counted among the 12 Alvars. It happened that one day, Vishnuchittar, who was in the habit of gathering flowers from the garden at the temple of Lord Vatapathrashayi (Vishnu) at Srivillipuththoor (a village in South TamilNadu), found a beautiful baby under a Tulasi plant in the temple garden.

Naming the child Kodai, Vishnuchittar brought her up as his own. Breaking away from tradition, he imparted to her the education that is typically imparted to a boy. And soon enough, as she grew up, like her father, Kodai too blossomed into an accomplished poet.

Even in her childhood, Kodai was deeply impressed by Vishnuchittar’s devotion to Lord Vishnu. She helped him gather flowers and make beautiful garlands out of them. One day, when Vishnuchittar had left the garlands that he had made in a basket to take to the temple, Kodai found them and was at once tempted to try them out on herself, first. She felt that when she wore them, the flowers (in the garland) would take on her (bodily) fragrance and the garlands would smell sweeter when they were offered to her lord. Indeed, when the idol was adorned with these garlands, it shone like never before! The temple goers were awestruck by the sudden aura emanating from the temple idol and attributed it to the pure devotion that Vishnuchittar wove into the garlands he offered.

                                      Image Source: htttp://guruparamparai.wordpress.com

This routine continued for a while. Every day, thereafter, Kodai would try the garlands on herself before they were taken to the temple. For a while, Vishnuchittar was unaware of this till one day, he happened to see her with the garland on. He was aghast!! He chastised Kodai for her act of blasphemy. He was shocked to know that all these days, he had been unknowingly offering his lord, a garland already worn by a mere mortal! This was sacrilege!!

Admonished severely by her father for her presumptuous act, Kodai had to stop trying out the garlands on herself first. But it turned out that the garlands adorning the deity, unworn by her, were never the same! They had become bereft of fragrance and splendour. However, Vishnuchittar, who was filled with guilt and remorse over his daughter’s misdemeanour, continued to beg for forgiveness from his lord.

On a following night, Lord Vishnu appeared in his dream and asked His devotee not to fret over Kodai’s deed. Instead, He commanded His devotee to bring to Him only those garlands that Kodai had worn, saying that only her garlands pleased His mind and senses. 

Vishnuchittar was both amazed and pleased by the lord’s reaction! From that day on, Vishnuchittar allowed Kodai to wear the garlands before he took them to the temple to adorn the Lord. Following the incident, Kodai came to be known as Andal, its Tamil meaning being, someone who ruled (the heart of her beloved).

The story goes that, as she grew up, Andal grew very thin and lacklustre, pining away for her Lord. (There is a particular verse in her poetry where she confides to her friend about a dream that she had had in which she married her beloved Narayanan in a grand festive setting. The verse is often quoted for its lyrical beauty and for being among the finest expressions of divine love in Bhakthi literature.)

Refusing to marry any mortal, Andal expressed to her father her desire to have none other than Lord Ranganathan of Srirangam (a temple town in South Tamil Nadu where Lord Vishnu is seen reclining on the coils of Adisheshan in yoga nidra) for her husband. Predictably, this got Vishnuchittar very worried, and he prayed to his lord for a solution.

Soon enough, one day, Lord Vishnu appeared in Vishnuchittar’s dreams and asked him to bring Andal, decked as a bride, to His temple at Srirangam where He would accept her as His wife. Overjoyed, Vidhnuchittar arranged for his daughter to be dressed in bridal finery and had her brought from Srivilliputhoor to Srirangam in a palanquin. The story goes that on reaching the temple, the father-daughter duo entered the inner sanctum where Andal climbed on to the altar near the feet of the reclining Lord and simply disappeared! Vishnuchittar understood that his foster daughter had united with her divine consort.

And thus was Andal’s love consummated – through her union with her Beloved, both in body and spirit.