12

Tandavan

‘I went with the family to a dance recital last evening, Guruji,’ said the father, the next time they met. ‘The theme was Mahadev as Nataraja, that he danced the Ananda Tandav at Chidambaram. It was a dance of joy to enlighten and sustain the world, they said. They mentioned the Chidambara Rahasya or “Secret of Chidambaram”. Shiva is the Akash Lingam there; he is “formless as the sky” or is “consciousness vast as the sky”. But it’s also where we find his most famous form, the Nataraja. You keep mentioning Chidambaram. Can you tell us a story about it?’

‘Do you want something on Nataraja?’

‘We looked up Nataraja on the net, what his raised foot means and so on. It’s about Shiva jnana overcoming ignorance and taking us to salvation, isn’t it, which you explained last week?’

‘That’s right, it’s the same message expressed through the statue.’

‘I also read the history of Chidambaram on Wikipedia, that it was a royal Chola town and so on. But it doesn’t satisfy me,’ said the father.

‘Why is that so?’

‘It’s because of your stories. There are more tales about Mahadev’s devotees out south. We in the north don’t seem to have had that many personal interactions with him in a long time. Why is that? His shivalas are around us and his yatras are most important to us. We love him so much. We can’t do without him.’

‘I saw something so touching the other day,’ said the mother. ‘It was painted on the back of an autorickshaw: “Bhole Shankar bhool na jaana, Iss paapi se door na jaana—Don’t forget me, Bhole Shankar, don’t go too far away from this sinner”,’ said the grandmother softly. ‘Immortal words.’

‘That’s a good example of what I mean,’ said the father. ‘We totally love him. However, we seem to know him only at two extremes—one, at the level of the grand cosmic kathas, and two, at the level of our personal rituals, prayers and fasts.’

‘I did say when we began that it’s not possible to know everything about him,’ smiled the guru. ‘Pushpdanta said so long ago in the Shiva Mahimna Stotra.’

‘Yes, but out south, he hasn’t retreated permanently to Kailash after killing puranic demons. There seems to be a big middle ground between katha and personal ritual where he’s remained hands-on. The way you tell it, he’s been openly involved in the lives of regular people. That’s a new experience. I liked Nakkeeran. If I ever go to Madurai, it won’t feel alien because I’ll know what Mahadev was up to out there. I feel I know something special about Tripura and Manipur, too. The thing is that they made such a big deal of Chidambaram last evening that I want more than kings and cosmic theory. I want Mahadev in person.’

‘Ah, so you noticed. The Shaiva tradition is immense and deep in south India. I told you about the Tevaram, the first seven books of a gigantic “Shaiva bible” that begins in the seventh century. They have sixty-three ancient Shaiva saints in Tamil Nadu alone, plus Mani Vasakar who wrote a big book called the Tiru Vasakam in the ninth century, it’s a Shiv Puran. There’s yet another huge book of Shiv Lila, about the games he played with ordinary people, just in Tamil Nadu. It has sixty-four stories in it.’

‘If we go to Karnataka, we can spend hours with the Lingayats and Veerashaivas. Their HQ, as I may have mentioned, is in Andhra Pradesh at Srisailam temple. Then, in Kerala, the Shiva temple at Thrissur—which is actually Tiru Shiva Perur—is where Adi Shankara’s parents prayed for a child.’

‘Tiru means “Sri” across south India. So, for example, Tiruvananthapuram means “Sri Anantpur”. And Thrissur or Tiru Shiva Perur means “Sri Shiv Mahapur”. The ghee on the idol at the Thrissur shivala is over 800 years old and good for curing skin diseases. Vaids come to collect it for making medicine. Oh, the Deccan is chock-a-block with Shiva’s presence. I have researched it for years in pursuit of him. If you want more of Mahadev in person, we’ll go find him,’ said the guru as they took their places for satsang and the opening call-and-response.

‘This story is about something Mahadev did at Chidambaram,’ began the guru. ‘Back in the sixteenth century, in the year 1525 in fact, a family of musicians looked forward to the birth of a child. They were instrumental musicians who served at temples and their community was known as Isai Vellalar, literally “those who grow music”. This family lived in the town of be Sirkazhi in the Kaveri Delta. They revered Mahadev as Koothan the Cosmic Dancer at his temple in Chidambaram, which was across the river Kollidam from Sirkali.’

‘If they had a boy, the family planned to name him after Lord Shiva as “Tandavan”, the “One who Dances the Tandav”. The Tandav, as you know, is a philosophical concept expressed through bronze statues of Mahadev dancing.’

‘But the child, when he arrived, was a terrible disappointment to his family. He was weak, sickly and unappealing. He was unable to eat properly, and did not grow strong. It was a handsome family, proud of its musical talent and its honourable place at the temple and in society. They were ashamed and angry that their son, their heir, he who should have made everyone envy them, was a liability, not an asset. He was clearly unfit to become a temple musician and a person of note. So Tandavan’s position in his family, which should have been sky-high because he was the son, fell to the bottom because he was sickly.’

‘All this open disapproval took its toll on the boy’s nerves. He developed a severe skin infection all over his body. Pustules oozed from him and not even powders from the brilliant local Siddha healer or baths in medicinal water boiled with neem leaves could rid him of the hideous rashes. His family began to absolutely loathe him and the little boy grew even more sickly and silent.’

‘His only friend was a musical neighbour, the lady of the house next door. Her name was Shivabhagyam, which means “Good Fortune”. She always had a kind word for Tandavan. She invited him home to watch when she did her daily puja to Shiva and sang him many songs about Mahadev. Nobody liked her doing so but the lady insisted that it was both her right and her duty, and they lacked the nerve to oppose her.’

‘Shivabhagyam’s family was even better off than Tandavan’s and Tandavan’s family hated that she was good to him. They took it as a personal affront. How could they stop it? They came up with the diabolical idea of throwing him out of the house. If he no longer lived with them, he could not visit next door. Nor would the kaaval or police let anyone loiter on a residential street.’

‘Driven out of home with abuses and curses by his own parents, the boy’s precarious world wholly tumbled down around his ears. He gathered such shreds of dignity as were left to him and silently made his way to the big Shiva temple at Sirkali. Where do we go but to God’s gates in such a situation?’

‘Think of Surdas, born in 1478, forty-seven years before Tandavan. Sur was so cruelly ill-treated by his own family for being born blind that he left home in the wake of a band of wandering singers when he was just six or so. They fed the child at the village where they stopped for the night but didn’t want to be burdened with him. They slipped away while he slept. Can you imagine the child’s terror when he woke up alone? His few brief hours of being accepted were over. Luckily he had a good singing voice which won him local sympathy. A kind lady in that village looked after him for some time. Sur found his final refuge in everybody’s darling, Krishna, at Vrindavan. Swami Vallabhacharya provided for Sur, who died in 1573. If we look at Sur’s verse, it’s heart-breaking how he keeps calling Krishna “Nand ke dulhare” for he himself was nobody’s child, like Tandavan.’

‘Tandavan sat down at the very end of the ranks of beggars outside Shiva’s temple. Unwilling to hold his hand out to anyone, he subsisted on such scraps of prasad as fell to him or the bananas or pieces of coconut and jaggery dropped before him by some passing pilgrim. He grew sicker by the day.’

‘One hot afternoon, he crawled for shade into the temple’s storeroom where the palanquins were kept. They were used to take images of Shiva and Parvati around in procession on big festival days. The thick stone walls of the temple storeroom made a cool cave. Weak with hunger, the boy fell asleep in a corner. After the evening worship was over, the priests put out the oil lamps and torches and locked up for the night, not knowing about the unconscious refugee in the storeroom. Waking up in the dark after an hour or so, Tandavan called out in a faint voice and lay back exhausted.’

‘By and by a little girl appeared, carrying a tray which bore an oil lamp, a bowl of rice and vegetables and a small waterpot. She called out in a bright, affectionate way to Tandavan. Peering timidly out from behind a palanquin, he saw that it was the priest’s little daughter. She fed and comforted the boy and as she turned to leave, advised him to go every day to Chidambaram. She told him to compose a new song to Shiva with the first words he heard spoken in the temple each day. Greatly cheered, Tandavan went to sleep.’

‘Next morning when the storeroom was unlocked, Taandavan stepped out apologizing humbly to the priests for having fallen asleep in there. But the priests looked at him open-mouthed in awe. Gone were the wounds, gone was his loathsome skin and his sickly appearance. Not only was he healed but his skin now glowed with such lustre that they named him “Mutthu Tandavar”. “Mutthu” means “pearl” from the Sanskrit word “mukta” and they gave him the respectful “r” at the end of his name.’

‘But when Tandavan told them the night’s incidents, nobody knew who the little girl with the tray was. The priest’s daughter had stayed snug at home the previous evening. The boy looked in wonder at his soft, clear skin and felt sure it must have been Parvati, worshipped in Sirkali as Lokanayaki, the Heroine of the World, who had come in disguise to revive and console him.’

‘The priests invited him to make his home in the temple’s rest house. Tandavan gladly accepted. He said he would come back every day but had taken a vow to go to Chidambaram early each morning. He did not share the reason just then, afraid that he was incapable of composing even one song.’

‘With a heartfelt salute to the gods at Sirkali, Tandavan crossed the river Kollidam to the Kanaka Sabha or Golden Hall, which was a part of the Shiva temple at Chidambaram.’

‘“Bhuloka Kailayagiri Chidambaram!” That was the first thing he heard at the temple. It was an exclamation by an ecstatic devotee as he walked in, meaning “Chidambaram is Mount Kailash on earth!”’

‘Tandavan closed his eyes and prayed hard to Shiva for inspiration. Suddenly, a great light filled his head. His mouth opened by itself and a beautiful song poured out of him, starting with the first words he had heard in the temple. Everyone around him stopped to listen. Even the priests came out of the sanctum to hear him.’

‘When the song ended, Tandavan flung himself down on the temple floor in reverence to Shiva. The people around him complimented him on the song. The priests gave him vibhuti and stepped back into the sanctum.’

‘But the moment they stepped in, they called out in great surprise.’

‘Five gold coins of great antiquity had mysteriously appeared at Shiva’s feet.’

‘The priests asked everybody which one of them had made the offering. But nobody could tell. Had a rich merchant made the offering, unnoticed? But why had he chosen to stay silent when the questioning began? Was it perhaps from a devout thief who had quietly given the Dancer a portion of his loot as penance? But nobody was seen going in, so who had placed those gold pieces in the sanctum?’

‘The priests and everyone else present concluded that it was Shiva himself who had invisibly placed the gold coins at his own feet in appreciation of Tandavan’s song. It was just like Shiva to do something so quirky and generous. The priests offered the gold coins to Tandavan but strangely, he refused to take them and went off to do pradakshina, smiling as if at a very dear and delightful thought.’

‘What the puzzled priests and the public did not know was that Shiva had worked more than a miracle for Tandavan. He had mended Tandavan’s broken heart.’

‘Parvati had healed Tandavan’s body and Koothan Shiva had let everyone know by his lila that Tandavan was as good as anyone. Shiva had shown the same generosity to this lonely beggar boy that he had shown the snakes when they came weeping to him, that he had shown the entire world by drinking the Kalakuta poison. Tandavan had no need to feel like an orphan now. The mother and father of the universe were with him.’

‘Many songs followed after that and Tandavan sincerely kept his daily tryst with the Dancer. Once, when the Kollidam was in furious spate and he was unable to cross, he sang in despair, “The day has been wasted that I can’t see you”. The story goes that the floodwaters receded and let him cross.’

‘One morning, to his great confusion, not a word was spoken in the temple. All Tandavan could hear was his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. He cried aloud, “Peysaadey nenjamey!” meaning, “Don’t speak, my heart!” And so he composed the day’s song with his own words.’

‘His creative dependence on others was over.’

‘Serene in his own strength now, Tandavan left his traumatic childhood behind.’

‘He often wondered, though, about the transformative night in the Sirkali temple storeroom. He had almost died that night, at the very end of his tether. He had given up wholly on earthly ties and cast himself upon fate. Shiva and Parvati had taken pity on him.’

‘Free in his mind now, happy in his music and poetry, grateful for his food and shelter and deeply pleased that his songs were appreciated, Tandavan found that he had no anger or grief left about those who had been so unkind to him. They became as unreal to him as if they were people met by another person in another life, though he did not hold back from meeting his friend Shivabhagyam.’

‘But the townsfolk were greatly drawn to him, sure of a kind word. Knowing that he had suffered himself, they were not afraid to let down their guard and let him see their vulnerability.’

‘At least sixty of Tandavan’s songs are known to have survived and some of them are very famous. They are sung and danced to, even today.’

‘The legend further says that one day, in the year 1600, a great light shone in Shiva’s sanctum at Chidambaram. Mutthu Tandavar, an old man by then, walked right into that light and disappeared into it.’

‘Aptly, it was the anniversary of the day that Shiva first danced the Ananda Tandav at Chidambaram.’