Thirumoolar & his Thirumanthiram - Part 1

(Part 1 - Background behind this series) 
Thirumoolar – As We Understand 

We were attending my maternal uncle’s Sastiapthapurthi in Mayiladuthurai. Post the function, we planned a visit to Thiruvaduthurai, more so to meet the Aadhinam & seek his blessings.

While going there, my uncle said that the Thiruvaduthurai Siva Temple was home to the largest Nandi. Naturally, we were interested in seeing it. So, post meeting the Aadhinam, we went to the temple and saw the huge Nandi carved out of a single big rock. We then went into the temple. The sanctum-sanctorum was however closed because it was around 1 pm and we did our pradakshina. This was when my uncle told that this is also the home to the great Siddha – Thirumoolar.

My mother had told me and my brother a lot of stories about him – how he lived for 3000 years composing an aphorism every year. Infact one of my mother’s friend - a learned vedic scholar had once told my mother that he was about to start deciphering Thirumoolar’s aphorisms most of which have deep esoteric meanings.

So naturally an interest arose which resulted in my uncle and other elders answering a lot of questions on whether his aphorisms related only to the field of medicines. Finally, we arrived at Thirumoolar’s Mandapam. The mandapam also had some of his aphorisms written on the wall apart from his story depicted in paintings.

One of the aphorisms was the famous “Anbe Sivam”. It runs like this:

"அன்பும் சிவமும் இரண்டு என்பர் அறிவிலார்

அன்பே சிவம் ஆவது யாரும் அறிகிலார்

அன்பே சிவம் ஆவது யாரும் அறிந்தபின்

அன்பே சிவமாய் அமர்ந்து இருந்தாரே"      [பா. 270]


"Anbum Sivamum irandu enbar arivilaar

Anbe Sivam aavadu yaarum arikilaar

Anbe Sivam aavadu yaarum arindapin

Anbe Sivam aai amarndu irundaare."    [Aphorism 270]

This lead to a realization that he wrote about a lot of other aspects apart from medicines as well. On returning to Mumbai, the search about him & Thirumanthiram started.

After a lot of reading on the internet, one thing became very clear – almost all of the information only touch upon the Thirumanthiram in a very rudimentary way. What is extremely shocking to accept is how come Thirumoolar who spent one full year to “truly experience” and then give out one aphorism wrote something like the following:

“ஐந்து கரத்தனை யானை முகத்தனை

இந்தின் இளம்பிறை போலும் எயிற்றனை

நந்தி மகன்தனை ஞானக் கொழுந்தினைப்

புந்தியில் வைத்தடி போற்றுகின் றேனே.” [Aphorism 1]


“Ainthu karathanai aanai mugathanai

Inthin ilam pirai polun yeyitranai

Nandhi magan thanai gyanakolunthinai

punthiyil Vaituthadi potru gindreney” [Aphorism 1]


The loose English translation of which runs like this:

“One with five hands, elephant face

Like the crescent moon

Son of Nandi, one who knows everything

Sing of your praise“

This was a crude translation but even assuming that it is an invocation to Ganesha, there are a lot of unanswered questions - like why start with Ganesha when almost all of his aphorisms do not deal with God as we see and experience today. The only possibility is that what Thirumoolar intended to convey through these aphorisms have been grossly misinterpreted by us.

The ultimate Truth can only be experienced and not described in words. Just as Thirumoolar took his time to experience and give out each of his aphorisms, let us tread on the unusual path to understand what he actually intended to say rather than go by our views on what it could mean.

But before we start doing such an exercise, we first need to understand Thirumoolar himself. Only if we do this, we will understand his Thirumanthirams.

We will discuss about this great Siddha – Thirumoolar in our next post.