Glimpse of the Wisdom of Avvaiyar

 

1. The anger of the little-minded divides like a crack

in stone

There are others who when angered are like gold

That divides but easily welds again

But the anger of noble souls that walk in the

righteous path

Is like the arrow’s wound in water

Which splashes momentarily but itself unites

again.

2. These girls with arms all full of

bangles,

They served me their feast, warm and

fragrant

And asked me to eat as much as I

liked,

Pouring the ghee on it,

It was green, and they said it was

only vegetables cooked,

But really they served me Amrit!

3. Poor Barri the shepherd held me by

my cloth

And would not let me go at all from

his house.

And simple Kaari of Paliyanur

Gave me his pick-axe, saying, dig

with me.

Seraman said, come let us go to

Kailas.

These three love-offerings rank high

And rank with the little blue sari

That the girls so lovingly gave for me

to wear.

4. (on a woman married to an unworthy

man)

If I could get at the Brahma (the creator)

that yoked

This deer to this dry log of a man

I would wring his four necks and fling

his four heeds

To go the same way that the fifth

went before.

5. A virtuous wife worthy of her lord

Makes life happy under my conditions.

But when there is incompatibility

Don’t tell anyone, but take sanyaas.

6. Take it not always that relatives

Are those whom blood unites.

Disease that is born with you,

Does it not kill?

The herb that grows in the distant

jungle,

Does it not save you?

Will you hear me how I feasted at the

great Wedding

Of the Pandyan King, the royal

scholar?

I was pressed and was pushed and my

hunger sore oppressed me,

My belly shrank, but of rice I had

nothing.

7. When a woman, at her husband’s bidding,

very unwillingly served food to Avvai:

Alas! my eyes blink to see,

My hands shake with shame,

And my good mouth refuses to open

And all my bones burn so with pain

At the sight of food so unwillingly served!

8. The divine poets Kural, the sum of

the sacred Vedas,

The Thevaram of the Three (Shaivite

saints)

The Tiruvaimczhi of the (Vaithnav)

sage,

the Tirukkovai, the Tiruvachakam,

the Tirumantram of Tirumular,

All are but one and the same

teaching.

We bow to the undeserving we

wander, and we beg,

We cross the wide ocean, we pretend,

we enslave and rule,

We sing eulogies, and we lead our

souls to the Pit:

All for a measure of rice for this

tyrant Belly.

9. Look at the swallow’s ties’, or the

beautiful lac,

The white ant’s wonderful structure;

Look at the honey and the hive of the

bee;

Or the little spider’s delicate web:

No mortal man can imitate these.

Let no one therefore vaunt his skill

Because he can do this or that.

There is none but in something

excels.

10. Harshness cannot succeed against

gentleness,

The arrow speeds its way through the

wild elephant

But it cannot pierce through yielding

cotton.

The rock that breaks not for

the blows of the long crowbar

Splits under the gentle stress of the green tree root.

Compare the king and the man of

learning;

The scholar’s dominion is greater

than the king’s.

The king’s glory is limited to his

domains;

But the scholar is esteemed wherever

he may go.

11. Consider it well, this body is but a

worthless home

For poisonous worms and diseases

numberless.

The wise know this and so like the

water on the lotus

Without attachment pass their lives

in silence.

12. Men may do deadly evil unto them;

The wise will yet exert to save these

men.

Have you seen men aim deadly blows

With axes at the stately tree?

Until the end when the noble tree

falls down

It throws its hospitable shade

On the axe-men, and protects them

from the sun.

Of afflictions hard to bear,

Hard, very hard to bear is poverty;

Harder still is poverty in youth.

Greater affliction than that

Is disease incurable.

But harder is his lot

Who is yoked to a wife

Who loves him not.

And his affliction greatest,

Who has to look to such a one

For his daily food.

Verses by Avvaiyar, translated by C.Rajagopalachari in his monograph Avvaiar, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1971, which had earlier appeared in Gandhi’s Young India. Commentary compiled from this monograph, and from material sent in by Akhila Shivdas and Shri Ramachandran.