Aum Jagatgurave Namaha!

25

Devotees of Shiva

O mouth of mine, note that you praise the Lord,

Who, donning the hide of the rutting elephant,

Dances in the cremation ground,

Where dwell the ghouls.

O mouth of mine, note that you praise Him!

SAINT APPAR

No story of Shiva can be complete without mention of the great Shaivite devotees of Southern India, who were known as Nayanmars. References to Shiva and his worship are extant even in the earliest Tamil literature, but the theology was systematized only in the late thirteenth century by Meykanda Deva in his Shiva-jnana-bodham; this became the basic text of the Shaive Siddhanta philosophy, which considers Shiva to be the supreme deity. The golden age of Shaivism dawned at the time of the sixty-three canonical saints, called the Nayanmars, or Adiyars. They pointed out the perfect way of devotion to Shiva, the Supreme Lord. The Periya Puranam of Sekkizhaar is a literary masterpiece dealing with the lives, deeds, and sayings of these devotees of Lord Shiva. It was composed in the eleventh century AD.

In the spiritual history of the world it would be difficult to find such matchless devotion to God as evinced by these sixty-three saints. Since we cannot deal with all of them, we will touch upon the lives of some of the greatest. Of these, four are without parallel. They are popularly known as Appar, Sambandar, Sundarar, and Manikkavachagar. Three of them were really child saints, but within the short period of time allocated to them, they performed miracles of piety. Sambandar died at the age of sixteen, Sundarar when he was eighteen, and Appar when he was past eighty. But these facts mean nothing. All of them were infinities scooped out of infinity, and their names are hallowed for all eternity.

Although these four belonged to the Brahmin caste, many of the Nayanmars did not belong to the upper castes. They hailed from various castes and communities, rich and poor, high and low. One was a hunter who killed a boar and roasted the carcass and not only ate it but also offered it as a fitting food for Shiva, the Lord of his heart. Another was a fisherman. A third was an untouchable who belonged to a community whose staple diet was the flesh of dead cows. None of them had the type of life one would expect of a saint. Most of them had no learning or pedigree. All they had in common was an uncommon love of God. The lives of these saints are examples to us of how devotion to the Supreme alone can emancipate the human being from the coils of karma. By the purity of their love, the childlike innocence of their faith, and their firm will to attain the object of their devotion, they were able to bind the boundless one, like the gopis of Vrindavana did to Lord Krishna. How we understand the stories of these saints depends on the mind-set of the reader. If perused with faith and devotion, these stories will help to elevate our own lives to a high degree.

In the history of the human race we find that along with the biological evolution of mankind, a cultural and spiritual evolution simultaneously occurred. This took place mainly by devotees imbibing the ideas, codes, and conduct of the saints. India has produced many such great souls who have helped to maintain the eternal verities of the Sanatana Dharma, or the eternal religion of the Hindus. The Nayanmars belong to this category. They understood the true nature of the world and of God, and opted for God alone. Their devotion did not stem from ignorance and fear of the unknown, but from the wisdom of those with inner sight who are established unshakably in the truth. Love of God completely removes attachment to the body. It also cuts at the root of our attachment to the world. These saints were ready to sacrifice everything, including their own bodies and those of their dear ones, if they stood as an impediment to the worship of their beloved deity, Shiva. Some of the astonishing incidents described in the lives of these saints may be difficult for the modern mind to accept. However, those whose hearts have not been clogged with materialism will be able to understand that in the realm of God-love, there can be no second to the Divine and miracles become commonplace, since God alone pulls the strings of our lives. All problems melt in the burning fire of his grace. These saints of Tamil Nadu never asked God for a favor, not even for liberation. All they prayed was to be admitted into the galaxy of devotees.

One of Sundarar’s songs begins, “I am the servant of the servants of the servants of the Lord of Thillai (Shiva).” The devotee is considered as even superior to the Lord. This interesting fact is brought out in many stories, even in the Sreemad Bhagavad Mahapuranam. This is because the true devotee is one who has been able to subjugate the divine through the intense power of his devotion. It is easier for us to worship such a devotee and receive his blessing so that we may accomplish the same feat.

All sixty-three saints of the Periya Puranam were ascetics, but not of the usual order. What these saints renounced was not their kith and kin, or their villages and houses, or their occupations. What they gave up was anger, theft, violence, pride, hurting others, attachment, and desire. What they donned was not the external clothing of the ochre robe but the internal habits of nonviolence, endurance, truth, and austerity. Externally they seemed to be no different from their neighbors, but in their hearts they were ascetics. According to the popular notion of how saints should behave, none of them appear to have done anything spectacular that would have qualified them to gain mukti, or liberation, but the fact is that all of them did gain it. The trap that every one of these saints laid for God was the trap of love. Maybe this type of love is not developed in a day or even in a lifetime. It may need lifetimes before one can develop the type of love that makes a prisoner of God in one’s heart.

Manikkavachagar sang, “Behold God who falls into the net called love.”

Though this type of love, or bhakti as it is called, might be difficult to achieve, it is the one thing all human beings can acquire, without exception of sex, caste, creed, language, nationality, profession, poverty, or wealth. No externalities can stand in the way of a human being acquiring this one qualification, by which one can imprison the Divinity in one’s own heart. It is a love without reservations—a total love, a love that does not try to possess or be possessed. It is a love that alone is worthy of merging in the very source of love, which is God. The separate entity known as the individual disappears, and what is left is God and God alone—Shivoham, Shivoham. The devotee melts into the arms of the Divine Beloved and nothing is left of the separate ego. The message of all these saints was simple: “Give up all attachments and love God alone, serve him in all humanity, and liberation is yours.”

Shiva himself is supposed to have said of his devotees, “Shortcomings, they have none!”

Let us find out how this bhakti was evinced by the different saints. Did they follow the same standard or was there any variation in their devotion? Seven of them followed the accepted mode of conduct and sang their way to liberation. Nine persisted in their worship despite the difficulties of old age and poverty. Seventeen performed righteous acts of violence; they gave up their lives rather than their worship. One gouged out his own eye and placed it on the profusely bleeding eye of an idol of Shiva. Another was prepared to sacrifice his only son to Shiva, who came in the guise of a devotee. One rubbed his elbow on a stone in place of a piece of sandalwood and used it in the worship of the Lord. Another flung a stone instead of a flower at a linga of Shiva every day, on his way to take his food. One rewarded a thief for stealing rice from the public granary in order to feed the devotees of the Lord. One regularly prostrated at the feet of a washerman whose body was covered with earth, who reminded him of the body of Lord Shiva, covered with ashes. Some chanted the Rudri—the garland of hymns to Shiva. Some chanted the five-syllabled mantra of Shiva constantly. Some took the vow of feeding the devotees of Lord Shiva through days of plenty and poverty before partaking of any food themselves. Thus we see that the criteria for mukti ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, and from the heroic to the mundane. The truth that emerges from this is that the Lord does not look into the act, but the love behind the act. Lord Krishna accepted the sweat-soaked bundle of rice flakes from his poverty-stricken friend Kuchela and showered him with all the riches of Dwaraka. So also Lord Shiva did not notice how ridiculous some of the acts of his devotees were, but looked into their hearts overflowing with love.

Prostrations to the one who is present in death and liberation. Prostrations to the one who is present in the green fields and the barnyards. Prostrations to the one who is present in the Vedic mantras and the Upanishads. Prostrations to the one present in trees and creepers. Prostrations to the one who is both sound and echo!

“SRI RUDRUM,” YAJUR VEDA

Prostrations to the one present in marshes and ponds.

Prostrations to the one present in rivers and lakes.

Prostrations to the one present in wells and pits.

Prostrations to the one present in rains and drought.

Prostrations to the one present in thunder and lightning.

“SRI RUDRUM,” YAJUR VEDA

Aum Namashivaya!