Post No. 13,559
Date uploaded in London – 18 August 2024
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tamilandvedas.com, swamiindology.blogspot.com
https://www.pustaka.co.in/home/author/london-swaminathan
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Apputi (appoothi or apputhi) asked his wife to cook rice with vegetables in six different flavours. It is a Tamil tradition to give ‘Aru Suvai Undi’/ six flavoured dishes. Then he summoned his eldest son, whose name also is Tiru Navukkrasar, and sent him into the garden to cut a suitable plantain (banana) tree leaf. The boy hurried into the garden with great enthusiasm and cut one leaf. A snake bit him on the hand, causing him to faint away with the pain. He was determined to deliver the leaf to his parents before the snake poison spread to other parts of the body. After delivering the leaf, he fell and died. But the family did not want to cancel the lunch and hid the matter completely. They wrapped the body of the boy in a mat.
Appar was ready to sit on the floor and eat. But he wanted to give the Vibhuti Prasad- holy ash from Siva temple first and so he said:
Please point out to me your eldest son, so that I can give him the ash first.
Apputi never spoke an untruth, and he said,
He will not be of any use to us here just now.
Appar felt something had gone wrong and wanted to know what happened. He bowed before his guest and with grieving heart explained what happened to his son.
Appar got up and went into the courtyard, where the body was lying. Then he sang a hymn- a decad with ten stanzas—beseeching the lord to act in his grace. The hymn had numbers one to ten in words. When he counted number ten the boy came alive as though he had woken up from sleep. We see such things in wrestling or boxing match. The victim has to get up before the referee finish ten. But this hymn has more than numbers, magical words in praise of Lord Siva.
All were happy. Appar wanted to change the gloomy atmosphere and so he sat with them and ate the dinner. He stayed in the brahmin’s house for many days. When he returned to Tiruppalanam and composed a hymn in honour of Apputi. No one else had such a long praise from the saint’s mouth. It is a rare piece among thousands of hymns in praise of the Lord.
Earlier poet Sekkizaar said Apputi washed the feet of Appar, a Vaisya by caste man, and drank it, sprinkled it on his head and family members. This happened 1400 years ago in Tamil Nadu. Apputi’s wife, his sons all acted in unison. She was a great woman who saw eye to eye with her husband.
G Vanmikanathan, who translated Periapuranam (Year 1985) says about Apputi’s wife:
What a woman! What a wife! What a mother! What a devotee! Any other woman in her place would have raised such a hue and cry that the guest would have rushed out of the house in dismay. Many a woman would not have been above cursing the devotee as being the cause of her son’s death. But here is a loving mother who sees her eldest son fall at her feet and mindful of the over-riding duty as a house wife towards a guest , particularly a renowned guest whose spirit ruled the household even before they had set eyes on him, she calmly rolls up the still warm body of her first born and cheerfully goes along with her husband to announce that the meal is ready.
J N Nallaswami Pillai, who translated Periyapuranam in 1955 says,
“Though Appudhi Adigal had not seen Saint Appar, yet from what he had heard of his great love to God and God’s grace manifested towards him, he had become his great devotee and named all his charities, the Mutts where he fed the poor and the Water pandals etc., after him, in utter contrast to modern day philanthropists, who would blazon forth their own names with suitable inscriptions, even to water troughs and whose subscriptions to the charities could be measured by the amount of public notice it would get and in newspapers, and by the amount of appreciation in high quarters.
Nallaswami gives us a correct picture of modern day “philanthropists”. I have seen fluorescent lamps in temples with big and bold name on them which blotted out the light!
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Used book: The History of The Holy Servants of the Lord Siva, Alastair McGlashan, 2006. ( I was one of the speakers in the Book Launch event in London). It is a very good book with verbatim translation of Periya Puranam.
–Subham—
Tags- Apputhi, Apputi Adikal, Periya Puranam, Appar, Brahmins, shatter, caste barriers, part- 2
Tamil and Vedas 