Anyone who studies the metaphysical significance of Indian mythologies and Ithikasas in an objective manner will be immensely perturbed by the irrationalities that hold sway there.
Ramayana is seen as a struggles between the Dravidians and Aryans and NOT as a Depth psychological studies of the battle of man against his own ugly side. This theme is now seen to have been prevalent as Lahamism in Sumerian times itself as a part of temple praxis concerned with the exorcist practices, a primitive kind of psychotherapy that is even currently prevalent. Ravana was not a Dravidian and Rama was not a Aryan in the racial sense but rather personifications of the brave and good and the evil in every person.
This distortion applies also to another myth, as it does to many others - that concerned with Takkan whose hatred for Civa is seen as the Aryan or Vedic hatred for Dravidian Saivism etc. and which is again well besides the point and thoroughly irrational.
The mythologies, though may be related to the historical but they are the Deep Structures of historical events and as such touch upon the transhistorical, the noumenal but through the phenomenal and the universal. The real mythologies that are spontaneous eruptions from the depths are in fact a language of the gods and as such contain within themselves deep truths that once we grasp will serve us to UNDERSTAND the historical just as dreams properly interpreted and understood allow a better grasp of what is happening to oneself.
In the hymns of Appar we have an articulation of these mythologies in their true significance and the following about the veeLvi of Takkan is an interesting one, related as it is to Fascism and disastrous consequences it has for world history. For Appar Takkan is a Fascist and whose fascism seems to be rooted in the discharge of the sexual libido in the wrong directions, into the hatred of the LOVE for humanity . For he gets immensely annoyed with his daughter Tadsaayani's LOVE for CIVA and thus shows himself as one AGAINST sexual love and hence also Bakthi which is the transmutation of sexual libido into the Divine.
This verse also contains an interesting meaning of veeLvi, the Tamil term for Yanjna (also SumeroTamil, ejen: fire festival)
However the most important point Appar seems to make here is that Fascism, which is another form of human irrationality that has taken grotesque forms and hence has become devilish, can only be combated with counter terror, the striking of FEAR into the heart of such tyrannical individuals. FEAR that ensues because of counter terrorism infinitely more FRIGHTENING than what they inflict seems to be the only counter measure that would make such Fascist individuals withdraw from the irrational outburst and become subdued.
Appar 140
uyar tavamikka Takkan uyar veeLvi tannil
aviyuNNa vanta imaiyoor
payamuRum eccan angki mathiyoonum uRRa
padikaNdu ninRu payamaay
ayanodu maalum engkaL aRiyaamaiyaati
kamiyenru iRainjci akalac
cayamuRu tanmaik kanda tazalvaNNan entai
kazalkandu koLkai kadanee
When his daughter Tatsaayani loved Civa deeply, out of intense anger Takkan, who did not approve of it , organized a massive VeLvi for insulting Civa. But Civa burst out as immense FIRE within that pit of fire and on seeing which, even the celestial beings like Indra, Soma and Agni who came to enjoy the sacrificial offerings, FEAR stricken, withdrew and went away. On seeing this FEAR of even the celestial beings, Brahma and Thirumaal, who were in support of that activity, realized their ignorance and submitting themselves to Civa, begged His calmness and mercy. This BEING who can vanquish even the mighty Devas and who always emerges victorious, the BEING of the Dance of Victory is the ONE that we all ought to UNDERSTAND
Commentary:
This is again another famous myth that the Nayanmars, in the thick of the social struggles to bring back Bakthi have sung in many places. They must have seen a MEANING in it that enabled them to understand the HISTORICAL happenings around and in which they were caught. A revolution was on the way and there was turbulence all around. The social decadence was being fought and though largely philosophical but the biographical sketches of Nayanmars indicate that there were bloody clashes and perhaps arson and terrorism. There must have been individuals tyrannical and out of immense arrogance suppressed by violence the burst of bakthi, a loving devotion to BEING.
Takkan hates LOVE unto Civa and hence is understood here as one who would NOT foster LOVE among the people and hence bakthi as such. For after all it is in the transmutation of human love into Divine that bakthi is rooted in. Takkan stands as one who would arrest the normal expression and development of the immensely powerful sexual libido represented here by the adamancy of Tatcayani.
The meaning of this myth as seen as Appar, who was one of the chief architect of this Bakthi revolution and also who has sang eloquently about the human love especially that of a woman towards a man , is what we should be after.
There are TWO important elements in this myth that we should note very carefully. One is the LOVE of Tatsaayani, his own daughter to CIVA and something he DISLIKED very much and which he opposed vehemently. The second is the INTENSE ANGER that the obstinacy of the LOVE for Civa that Tatsaayani expresses.
A normal father who UNDERSTANDS the psychodynamics of a female and who is not EGO intoxicated would consent to the marriage and hence will NOT do anything that would be an insult to the person she loves. However this is NOT the case with Takkan -- he simply cannot allow in the life a person under his control something BEYOND his own WILL. He becomes TYRANNICAL because of this unbending and unyielding EGO -- he wants everything within his reach also to function within his WILL at the resistance and opposition to which he becomes intensely angry
The massive VeLvi he organizes symbolically may mean the various wars and battles and other atrocities that he commits by way of subduing his daughter and making her forget Civa and thus emerge victorious in the expression of his own WILL. Perhaps he was ready to make the nation a pit of FIRE with arsons and terrorism everywhere just to pacify his own unbending and unyielding EGO.
The ordinary elemental forces in nature as well the Indra, Soma, Agni and so forth stand together with him in the sense that they become the WEAPONS that Takkan uses in his arsons, VeLvi. Indra stands here for grandiose ambitions, as the one who nurtures the DESIRE to become the KING not just of the world but also the celestial, the metaphysical realms. But as the VeLvi proceeds there emerges CIVA within that FIRE pit itself as the immense FLAME that strikes TERROR in the heart of Takkan as well as the celestial beings. They become FEAR stricken and thus subdued and humiliated at long last. FOR the FORM of FIRE that BEING assumes is not the ordinary elemental fire, it is FIRE within FIRE, that primordial fire, the uuzit tii, that would consume all including the elemental fire , the Agni along with all the others including the whole of the cosmos. Thus it is Uzit tii that can turn the whole of the COSMOS into a NOTHING, into that rimordial darkness again.
This Primordiality of the Destructiveness , the Mahaa Cangkaaram is that which is beyond the reach of Brahma, the archetype of scriptures and Vishnu, the Lord of Manifest World. The mind trapped within the scriptural disclosures and psychological including the depth psychological, the ARituyiL of Thirumal CANNOT grasp that the world of the COSMOS holds the possibility of being annihilated and resolved back into the primordial darkness. BEING stands always BEYOND the scriptural and the metaphysical, HE stands always as the SURPLUS, as something that cannot be understood within any way of life and hence even all the religions.
This myth also discloses a Fundamental TRUTH -- that the Whole World in which our existence is written is after all a GIFT, a blessing, an aruL , and hence something that we should NOT abuse out of unreasonable arrogance.
This myth also shows that FEAR and TREMBLING that such cosmic destruction BEING is capable of effecting is also a strategy, a Tantiram in the repertoire of BEING to subdue the excessively arrogant individuals.
( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )