The Icon-Thinking of Punitavati - Introduction

A Short History of Punitavati.

Dear friends, before I start this series, I think it is good to get to know who Punitavati is. Below is a link where you can read up to get to know her history better so as to appreciate her icon thinking. 

https://shaivam.org/devotees/the-history-of-karaikkal-ammaiyar-peyaar

Introduction to the 'Icon Thinking' of Punitavati.

There is a form of metaphysical thinking that I have called icon-thinking which seems to have survived despite many opposition as an integral part of Hinduism or more specifically Agamic Hinduism and which also explains why to this day the itikasas and puranas also play a meaningful role in the religious life of Hindus and why Temple worship remains still as vital as ever despite virulent attacks on it by many forces within and without. 

There is a craving for MEANING that arises in existential crises and no religion, dogma or cult can survive unless it serves somehow this craving for the Meaning of Existence. No matter how much political might is used, no matter how skillfully the propaganda machinery is set out and no matter how much threat is used in sustaining and spreading a religion, it all will vaporize as nothing as long as it does NOT serve to contribute to Existential Meaning that human beings forever seek.

We see idol worship surviving and as active as ever among the Dravidian folks despite a thousand years of philosophy that dispersed the archetypal images into chaotic flux or meaningless dream-like entities, and despite several centuries of other faiths where idol worship was decried, temples destroyed and all in the name of a Formless God. This also applies to a branch within Saivism -the anusaivas -who were iconoclasts and the recent Aryan Samajists with their racialism and Aryanism and who appear to despise idol-worship as non-Aryan etc.

Such oppositions seem to emerge from those who were not interested in uplifting of mankind into higher reaches of spirituality but rather only in what Nietzsche called the 'Will to Power' and hence with the ultimate motive of subjugating to one’s own will and thereby enslave the mind of the commoners to one’s own. The motive is political and NOT spiritual. 

The activities of the Brahmanahs who promote only Brahmanahs (and Sanskrit language that comes along with it) is a good illustration of this Will to Power and remain perpetually at the top ladder of social hierarchy and by virtue of birth alone.

As opposed to this is the religious dimension that promotes Bakti, a fervent devotion to BEING and in which LOVE reigns supreme. There is NO WILL TO POWER others but only that of becoming an Adyar, a humble tool for the workings of divine grace.

Punitavati (5- 6th cent AD) who gave a definite and new shape to the ancient Bakti, as old as Sumerian times itself as the enormously beautiful Sirbiyam of En Hudu Anna would show, sang the ARputa Tiruvantati, the Tiruvantati that’s a real wonder, in which she brought back not only the individual and personal existential anguish but also the ICON-THINKING to which it is related. 

When there is existential anguish of unbearable pains, the anma seeks solace in being-with-BEING and LEARNING the deep metaphysical truths that ILLUMINATE the mind and thereby provide the medicine that would cure the soul of the existential anguish.

In this series I hope to select some important verses from this text that contains 100 verses and bring out the various kinds of icon thinking it encapsulates. In this first verse, the existential anguish gets stated very forcibly setting the tone for the whole of the text.

ULLAGANAR 

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )

Psychoanalysis of Freud and Appar - a comparision - Part 4 and final.

The Evolutionary Odyssey and its Grand Finish.

This is a patikam of amazing beauty with an inner coherence of its own and in which are disclosed so many meanings of immense existential significance. We should not fail to notice that every verse centers on a travel, a pilgrimage, that of traveling towards AiyaaRu and reaching it and only in the course of which the various observations on animal sexuality and the happiness they produce and because of which they dance and sing is observed. 

The AiyaaRu serves as the Final Destination and literally it means the Divine (Ai) River (aaRu) and which may be another name for the GaGka that flows on the tuft of Siva serving as the Tiirttam, the Pure Waters that cleanse the souls of their filth, the Malam and makes them absolutely PURE and with that FIT for being blessed with Moksa, the final redemption.

This he is trying to reach and in fact reaches the AiyaaRu and enjoys with that the final Baptism of Waters, a theme that runs across as a common ritual  also in all the Semitic religions perhaps as an input from Sumerian times. This pervades the popular religious thinking of the Hindus as having dips in GaGka and Kaveri, which also exists in other religions in different forms. 

But what kind of pilgrimage is the GENUINE pilgrimage and  which is only hinted at by these rituals or symbolic behavior?

We get a clue to this in the immensely meaningful verse below that comes towards the end (and naturally of course!) of the Patikam.

11.

vaLarmatik kaNNiyinaai vaarkuza laaLodum paadik

kaLavu padaatator kaalaG kaaNpaan kadaikaN niRkinReen

alavu padaatator anbodu AiyaaRu adaikinra pootu

iLamaNa naagu tazuvi eeRu varuvana kaNdeen

       kaNdeen avar tiruppaatam kaNdaRiyaatana kaNdeen

Meaning:

There is Siva appearing as Candrasekaran wearing the growing Crescent Moon on His head as an ornament and Uma with Him as the One who blesses women with long flowing hair that stimulates sexual feelings. Singing both of them I stood with the final resolve to see them not together in union but separately standing alone, I came to AiyaaRu with boundless LOVE for them. And there on the way I saw, destroying all my hopes the virile bulls coming embracing with love the young and beautiful cows.  At that point I saw with my mental eyes, the Divine Feet of Siva, (where he creates the males and females of all species with agitating the Naatam and Bindu). Thus I saw what are impossible to witness with the fleshy eyes alone.

He claims that he stands at the final stages of a journey, of his metaphysical odyssey, KadaikaN NiRkinReen. He has come to the END of the pilgrimage, the Yaattirai.  But what kind of Yaattirai and what kind of Final Stage? 

It cannot simply be the travels around various kinds of temples, shrines, sacred rivers and hills for they are there always and one can always revisit them and continue the journey endlessly.  So the Yaattirai that opens his eyes towards the Dance of Siva and Sakti at the DEPTHS of the normal and everyday sexual behavior of animals, can only be a subjective pilgrimage, of self-evolution, of evolution of the subjectivity where it reaches higher and higher pakkuvam, a kind of subjective MATURITY that allows the seeing of the Divinity behind animal sexuality that the prudish and the Vedanties will either look at with disdain or invent metaphysical systems where it is very conveniently forgotten.

There is another way of looking at this Yaattirai and which may account for he describes that at this point of his subjective evolution there is ‘aLavu padaata anbu”, Boundless LOVE,  a subjective condition of Wholly of Love and like BEING Wholly-For-Others and hence Egoless.  

The Yaattirai is in fact the  Whole of Evolutionary Pilgrimage in which he has taken the shapes of various animal and animal-like human beings and now FREE of all of  them by having evolved ABOVE them. For it is interesting that in the verse, he describes only animal sexuality but not at all animal-like human sexuality and when he talks about human beings he talks of those great ones who have freed themselves of this sexuality: ARRu aruL peRRu NinRaar. 

Thus the observations on animal sexuality have double meanings. One is the naturalistic description of the animal sexual behavior given objectively like a naturalist. But other is the METAPHORICAL - these elephants, bulls, pigs, birds and so forth are human beings who are animalistic in various ways. Some people behave as if elephants, as if pigs, as if bulls and so forth. These animal essences are there in the human beings as the karmic deposits of their earlier life forms and which are lodged in their unconscious mind, making them behave like such animals and so forth. Thus the Yaattirai Appar describes is the Evolutionary Odyssey where after enjoying various animal births and has come to human forms retaining the phylogenetic memories of earlier life forms as part of the Prabta Karma and now has evolved to a condition of being truly human, the PURE Human and which is FREE of any trace of animal sexuality. This view is reinforced for it is only this animalism-free human essence  which can be one with aLavu Padaata Anbu, boundless LOVE for all including certainly even animals and plants.

Now the question arises: has Appar reached the Grand Finish or not?

He visualizes this as Siva and Sakti ‘KaLavu padaatavoor Kaalam’ , a moment when they are NOT in union. This is his THINKING as to the ideal possibility but in which he is disappointed for with this mental expectations,  he sees the bulls and cows coming together with sexual desires animating their behavior. His expectation is foiled; there is NO MOMENT where Siva and Sakti remain dissociated, union severed and live as separate entities. Men can THINK of such possibilities, isolate Sakti, as Amman and become the Saktas, isolate Siva as Brahman or Sunyata and remain idealists of a kind practicing a monastic way of live. Appar fails in such expectations and learns the TRUTH that both are always together, that BEING is a Siva-Sakti complex, an Androgynous reality always and who dances the Dance of Bliss TOGETHER.

This vision of the Dance of Bliss of Siva-Sakti is the TERMINAL vision and that which constitutes the enjoyment of Moksa itself and which is simultaneously a destruction of ALL false views such as that of the Saktas,  Vedanties and such other idealists.

ULLAGANAR

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )

Sumerotamil scholar reads Sumerian text

In this video, Ullaganar reads a few lines from 'Exaltations of Innana' , a Sumerian text, to show how the pronunciation will be when it is read by a Tamil scholar, with proficiency in both old Tamil. Ullaganar also gives meaning to the words as in old Tamil.

Psychoanalysis of Freud and Appar - a comparision - Part 3

Temple and Existential Psychiatry

Before we pass over, we have also to draw out the implications of the Psychoanalysis of Appar for psychiatry where we take psychiatry as the APPLICATION of psychoanalytic UNDERSTANDING of the mind for solving mental diseases, restoring normality among the abnormal and so forth.  

Here we have to note a difference in focus between the Psychiatry of Appar and that of Freud. Appar is also concerned with the so-called normal people with all the social and communication skills intact, like himself for example, besides the abnormal. But metaphysically viewed even such so-called normal people are diseased for they too suffer what is called piRavip piNi, the disease of being born again and again into the world and hence continuously failing in Moksa. 

The average individual, even when normal by the average social norms, is DISEASED when looked at metaphysically and against the True Meaning of Existence i.e. attaining Moksa and escaping from the cycle of births and deaths. When the Pharaohs built enormous pyramids to preserve their body, there is this disease for instead of forgetting the bodily existence,  it is cherished as eternal. Desiring endless progeny to perpetuate self and with that enjoy a kind of immortality is also part of this disease. When a vain man sets himself up as the Jagadacariya or whatever name you call it, for redeeming the whole of mankind, making people forget God, there is also this disease. In lesser cases whenever a person sets himself up as one who should be worshipped, extolled, submitted to without being questioned and so forth, we have this disease afflicting the soul and hence something very widespread indeed. Each one of us nurture as part of our aims this rising up above the average and become a god-like figure, loved, admired and submitted to by all.

Let us call the psychiatry that cures this disease- the PiRavip PiNi- Existential Psychiatry, notion of psychiatry more inclusive than that of restoring a person to normality. Existential Psychiatry includes this (as dealt by the Tamil Siddhas) as well as the so-called normal people but who are BLIND to their great possibilities for GROWTH as a person and who can raise himself to a condition of being blessed with Moksa. Let us note immediately that not only this notion of “existence itself is a disease” is NOT available either in Freud or Jung, it is also NOT available at all as a fabric of Western Thinking as a whole (as far as I can see). Thus Existential Psychiatry as such is a discipline that is absent not only in the whole of Western Psychiatry but also the whole of Western culture. They are still IGNORANT of the notion of PiRavip PiNi, that this worldly existence they cherish so much and where growth is measured in terms of annual average monetary income of an individual and where  social and political success is also measured in terms of the financial reserves hoarded up in the treasury, this disease is active even though as the unconscious. 

There are major wars being fought, terrorism of all kinds where huge arsenal and weapons of advanced technologies are made useless, escapism in terms of drug addictions and so forth,  pointing out the reality of this disease. The cure to all these is available in noting the possibility that all of us can become what Appar calls ‘aRRu aruL peRRu NinRaar”, or what is the same and as said in KuRaL, “PaRRuka paRRu aRRaan paRRu”, an ideal that would establish us in existential sanity whereby we will not be  seeking to become the Pharaoh, Jagadguru and so forth but rather a humble adiyar who would worship BEING and seek His Grace and nothing else. In Existential Psychiatry of Appar what we have is the transmutation of sexual desires, the primordial paRRu or bondage into Universal Love that sees no difference at all among all creatures, the attuviti anbu of Meykandar through destroying alienation (anniyam) from whatever.

Now since the average doctor or professor of Western Psychiatry is IGNORANT of his own diseased nature in this sense , it becomes clear that he is unfit to become the Existential Psychiatrist. The one supremely ignorant of his own condition and blind to the ideal possibility inherent to all and which is as above where sexuality is transmuted into Universal and non-alienating Love, cannot become one who can cure the PiRavip PiNi as such.

This raises the question as to who can in fact be the Existential Psychiatrist. Some would immediately jump to the conclusion that their great Gurus are the only people who can be the authentic Existential Psychiatrists. But noting that there can be corruptions even in this institution where most of the gurus are in fact subtly tyrannical where they want to rule the multitudes as if a Spiritual King, the God on Earth and in Flesh, they cannot in fact be ones who can cure the PiRavip PiNi as they themselves are NOT free of it. 

Thus we are to the notion that it is only a TEMPLE and the gods themselves who can be the existential psychiatrists and NOT  any mortal man. The temples are the locality where the gods in the depths are somehow visibly present and hence the  invisible are made somewhat VISIBLE in the temple though the various representation of icons and where the RITUALS are such that such beings in the depths are made to surface to the  fore and be ACTIVELY PRESENT in the foreground of consciousness and hence serving as the eyes of the person. When the SEEING becomes ordained by the deities, it becomes possible to see or at least intuit one’s own IDEAL possibility and hence live an authentic life, a life in the direction of becoming that ideal psycho-dynamics in the direction of Moksa.

This is the substance of the following verse of Appar.

2.

pooz iLaG kaNNiyinaanaip puuntukiLoodum paadi

vaaziyam pooRriyenRu eeththi vadaamiddu aadaa varuveen

aazi valavan ninRu eettum AiyaaRu vawthakinRa pootu

koozi pedaiyoduG kuudik kuLirntu varavana kaNdeen

       kaNdeen avar titupaatam kaNdaRiyaatana kandeen

Meaning:

I was coming singing the praise of Civa who as Candrasekaran wears the divided Moon with Uma of flower-silk attire, saying long Live! Praise be to you! and so forth and dancing away moving in circles. Then as I neared the AiyaaRu where stands Vishnu with the Disc on His right hand and praising Siva, I saw on the way, the cockerels coming with the hen having cooled themselves in sexual union. At that point I saw with my mental eyes, the Divine Feet of Siva (where he creates the male and females of all species with agitating the Natam and Bindu). Thus I saw what are impossible to witness with the fleshy eyes alone.

In noting this we also understand why right from at least the Sumerian times the TEMPLE has played such a central role in Agamism or Tantrism.  Tantrism is a culture of Existential Psychiatry and hence a scientifically constituted culture where there is recognition that all individuals are capable of Moksa and that it is BEING who can confer this and NO other. We can see that scriptures and gurus are only intermediaries but not absolutely authoritative for none of them can offer Moksa. The temple can in a way do this for in its architecture the idea of deepening and widening the VISIONS of the individuals is incorporated and by the time a person reaches the Sanctum Sanctorum (and always past the Pali Peedam, the sacrificial post), he is led to witness that which is not normally seen, so that he would sing  like Appar here “ KaNdariyaatana KaNdeeN’: O I can see now what are normally not possible. Now we can understand why Appar declares:

 6: 95-5.

tirukooyil illaata tirvil vuurum

       tiruveNNiiRu aNiyaata tirvil vuurum

parkkoodu pattimaiyaaR paadaa vuurum

       paaGkinoodu palataLikaL illaa vuurum

viruppoodu veNcaGkam uutaa vuurum

       vitaanamum veNkodiyum illaa vuurum

aruppoodu malarpaRittiddu uNNaa uurum

       avaiyelaam uurallaa adavi kaadee

Meaning:

The cities that do not have temples with well consecrated icons and hence without the divine Grace; cities that  do not have people wearing the Sacred Ash indicating the desire to be Pure in heart and soul; the cities where there are people who are not humble and with genuine Love for BEING do not sing the hymns that melt the heart; the cities where in every street corner there are no simple shrines for people to worship the deities readily; the cities where there are no spiritual individuals who would counsel and with that relieve the confusions of people around; the cities where there are no festivals celebrated with banners and flags raised to create an atmosphere of mirth and joy; the cities where there are people who do not worship the icons with fresh flowers before they eat anything at all - all these cities  are NOT genuine cities but simply woods with thick wild growths

The temple, the abode of the Gods in the Sanctum Sanctorum of which resides a deep structure of BEING is in fact an institution of Existential Psychiatry and I believe that when the Western Psychiatry grows and develops it will also become Existential Psychiatry of Appar and so forth and hence the whole of Western culture will become a Temple Culture i.e. Tantric in essence.

ULLAGANAR

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )

The Tamil Hermeneutics and Metaphysics - Part 21

The Genealogy of Religious Fanaticism

In order to solve problems related to terrorism in the name of religion, wars where only people are killed and properties damaged may NOT bring the desired results though it is necessary as a temporary measure. The FEAR and the immense sufferings that such wars bring about may serve to make many people THINK more deeply about such fanatical outbursts in the name of religion. However a long term solution seems to lie elsewhere - in changing the very fabric of the metaphysical understanding such religions presuppose.

The bakti literature abound with many useful insights on the GENEALOGY of such religious madness and the following verse of Appar is one of them. Very interestingly he sees that as long as religions remain tied to the historical, such religious frenzies and fanatical zeal where millions are killed in the name of religion is inevitable. Such religions keep the mind locked up within the historical, keep the mind fixated to the historical, thus transfix the notion of Mukti into immortality.

Thus it would appear from the point of view of Appar that unless the mind is made aware of the metaphysical understanding where the historical is transcended, fanaticism is unavoidable. The Bakti revolt was against such historical religions. It may be possible that the current world situation where religious terrorism holds sway something similar may happen and that the MEANING of the present crisis is precisely that.

Below I provide the relevant verse of Appar along with my elucidatory commentary. It should also be noted that the explanation provided is quite different from that possible within the framework of the metaphysics implicit in Bagavath Gita.

Appar 138

nilai valiyinRi engkum nilanodu viNNum

nitanaj ceytu oodu puram muunRu

alai nali anjci oodi ariyodu teevar

araNam pukat tan aruLaal

kolai nali vaaLi muuLa aravang kai naaNum

anal paaya niiRu puramaa

malaicilai kaiyil olka vaLaivitta vaLLal

avanaam namaoor caraNee

The false metaphysical castles, the Muppuram, are those which are generated because of the inherent constraints of the atomizing aaNavam, historicalising kanmam and the falsifying maayai. Because caught in these citadels, nothing is seen as permanent, all are seen transitory, impermanent and hence throwing the souls into uncertainties, metaphysical instabilities. Afraid of such a way of Life, Vishnu along with all the Devas ran away and took recluse in the Meru Mountain, the abode of immortality. But even here they were assailed by VaaLi, the Evil Power that enjoys killing and destruction. Taking pity on the plights of these Devas, BEING, the Absolute, singed to ashes the False metaphysical castles, making the Vasuki, the KundaliNi snake beyond their reach and the Meru Mountain itself unbearably hot so that it could NOT be used. Such a BEING , the Supremely Generous, is our recluse!

  

Commentary:

Appar brings in here another famous Saiva mythological theme to explicate another dimension of the historical and through that the need to ascend the historical and rest in the absoluteness of the 'ahistorical' ground, the BEING itself. The phenomenal religions are historical and in being so, are NOT absolute and hence they are essentially False Metaphysics or more specifically what is called acattu as opposed to cattu, the absolute. Our historical existence, as long as we do not try to transcend and rise above it and reach permanence of the Absolute Ground, is bound to be supremely unstable and hence deeply unsatisfying, breeding a kind of restlessness within, making us always search for this and that. Unsatiated, we grope in the dark feeling miserable and seeking a way out of it and in that even unleashing terrorism and wars.

The Metaphysics of Saiva Siddhanta , as an UNDERSTANDING that has reached the Fundamental Ontology provides an EXPLANATION of such human condition in terms of the concept of Mummalam, the aaNavam Kanmam and Maayai. The aaNavam is that which atomizes the mind by making the soul metaphysically BLIND and hence that which breeds DARKNESS in understanding that we articulate as IGNORANCE. This ignorance is NOT Avidya of Vedanta as the metaphysics of Vedanta does not acknowledge the Mummalam, satisfying itself with using more the ancient notions of mukkuNam, the Satviikam, Rajasam and Tamasam, concepts which are NOT metaphysically fundamental. The Guna concept does not serve to explain the presence of Metaphysical Darkness which is quite different from what issues forth because of Tamasam Guna.

The atomization of the mind caused by the infection of aaNavam is that which makes the soul historical and hence infected with karma, the need to ACT and through actions LEARN and through that illuminate oneself and through that REDUCE the inherent atomicity, the human finititude. However the need for PRAXIS as a factor of existence makes it DESIRE the physical and hence become infected with maayai. These are Mummalam in the sense that they are the factors underlying the generation of false metaphysics and hence false religions.

Such false metaphysics or false religions fixate the mind to historical and hence seen as the products of Vishnu and the devas, the Vishnu being Lord of the manifest world, the Purusha, BEING-as-the -Manifest -World. As long as the mind gets trapped by these false metaphysics, it can take only the impermanent as permanent, the non absolute as absolute , the false as true, i.e. live in the world of Acattu, described here metaphorically as the Three Castles, the Muppuram.

The mind caught in the uncertainties CREATES , through its efforts the Meru Mountain, the Universe deemed IMMORTAL, deathless . But this is NOT the absolute, the Cattu for in this Mountain crops up the devastating religious madness, fanaticism articulated here as the workings of vaaLi, another Asura but now that which enjoys killing mercilessly, the kolai nali vaaLi. The deep metaphysical uncertainty that false religions create generate also the notion of immortality which is STILL within the historical understanding and hence dangerous in a way. For to establish that one is RIGHT, one false religion has to vanquish another and hence virtually KILL OFF those who differ. The immortality of one's false religion can only be established by KILLING off anything that challenges it.

So life continues to be oppressive and miserable and it is only at this point that BEING, the Absolute comes to the rescue of these people. Through creating and promoting wars in which the FIRE burns intensively, HE destroys all the False Metaphysics and hence all the false religions. In the heat of the battle and the consequent RETHINKING of a fundamental kind, the historical is made to evaporate, turn to ashes and become NOTHING allowing thereby the ABSOLUTE to emerge and hold the ground.

The mind that rests in the Absolute, in the Cattu, attains the real Santhi that is the root desire of all and also makes the soul full of LOVE for all.

ULLAGANAR

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )