Appar: The Monk Who Came Back Because of a Stomach Pain

Who he was:

• Born Marulneekkiyar at Thiruvamur, near Tiruvennainallur in Villupuram district
• Of a Vellala cultivating family
• His parents died when he was young
• His elder sister Thilagavathiyar raised him

Thilagavathiyar's own story. It should be told, because it is the setting.

• She was betrothed to a military commander
• He was killed on campaign before the marriage
• She intended to end her life
• Her brother, then a boy, begged her not to leave him alone
• So she stayed, did not marry, and raised him, and took up a life of service at the Shiva temple at Tiruvennainallur

His conversion to Jainism:

• As a young man he became interested in Jainism, which was strong in the Tamil country in that period
• He went to Pataliputra, which is Tiruppadirippuliyur near Cuddalore, not the northern city
• He joined the Jain monastic community, studied, and became eminent
• He took the name Dharmasena

Thilagavathiyar's response. She did not argue with him.

She went to the temple and prayed, daily, for a long time, that he be brought back.

The illness:

• He developed sulai noi, described as a severe and unremitting colic, an intense abdominal pain
• The Jain community's physicians could not relieve it
• Nothing worked
• He remembered his sister and sent for her, or went to her
• She took him to the temple at Tiruvennainallur
• There he composed the hymn beginning Kootrayinavaru, and the pain went

On this part of the story. A guide should be careful with it, and the caution matters.

What the tradition says: that an illness brought a man back to a practice and that the practice relieved it.

What that should not be taken to mean:

• That illness is punishment, or a sign that somebody has done wrong
• That religious practice is an alternative to treatment
• That somebody who prays and does not recover has failed

Severe abdominal pain has causes, and a person with it needs a doctor. The tradition's own texts are medical where they are medical; Ayurveda exists and the Siddha tradition of the Tamil country exists, and neither substitutes for the other.

What is worth keeping from the story is the sister. She did not debate him, did not shame him, and did not stop being available.

The name. After his return he was called Thirunavukkarasar, the king of the tongue, or of speech, from the quality of his hymns.

He is called Appar, father, because Sambandar, the child saint, addressed him that way when they met, and the name stayed.

The Jain community he had left did not accept his departure quietly, and the Pallava king of the period was a Jain.

The king. Mahendravarman I, the Pallava ruler at Kanchipuram, early seventh century, who was at that time a Jain.

What the Periya Puranam records:

• The Jain community complained to the king that a prominent monk had left and was preaching against them
• The king had Appar brought
• He was put in a lime kiln and it was sealed and fired, for seven days
• He was found alive and unharmed, singing
• He was given poison in milk
• It did not affect him
• A rutting elephant was set on him
• The elephant circled him and went away, and by some accounts turned on the handlers
• He was tied to a stone and thrown into the sea
• The stone floated, and he came ashore at Thiruppadirippuliyur singing the hymn beginning Sotrunai vediyan

And then:

• Mahendravarman came out to him
• He converted to Shaivism
• He is recorded as having then built Shaiva temples, and the rock cut temples of his reign, including at Tiruchirappalli and elsewhere, are attributed to the period after

How to read this honestly. The account requires care and a guide should give it.

What is historically established:

• Mahendravarman I was a Pallava king of the early seventh century
• He was a Jain and became a Shaiva, and this is attested
• The period saw active and sometimes violent competition between Jain, Buddhist and Shaiva communities in the Tamil country
• Jainism declined substantially in the Tamil country over this period
• Appar and Sambandar were central figures in the Shaiva resurgence

What is hagiography: the kiln, the poison, the elephant and the floating stone are miracle accounts in a twelfth century text about seventh century events.

And what should be said about the other side. This is the uncomfortable part.

The same period includes the account of Sambandar at Madurai, in which a debate with the Jains ends with eight thousand Jain monks being impaled.

That episode is depicted in temple sculpture and painting, and it is observed in some places.

How to handle that:

• The historicity of the impalement account is contested, and many scholars regard it as a later elaboration
• Whether or not it happened, it is in the tradition's own text and is depicted
• Jain communities in Tamil Nadu regard it as a record of persecution of their community and this is a reasonable reading
• Depicting or celebrating mass killing is not devotion, whatever the century

What a devotee should do with it. Know it, and do not repeat the celebration.

The Shaiva tradition's own greatest content is in the hymns, which are about the Lord and about the poet's condition, and which contain nothing of this. The polemic against Jains and Buddhists in the Tevaram exists and is a small and dated part of it.

Jainism in Tamil Nadu now. Worth knowing.

There is a continuing Tamil Jain community, the Samanar, small in number, with ancient sites including the caves at Sittanavasal, Kazhugumalai and the Samanar hills near Madurai with their rock beds and inscriptions.

Those sites are among the oldest inhabited religious sites in the Tamil country and they are worth visiting. Some of the earliest Tamil inscriptions anywhere are Jain.

That is part of the same landscape the Nayanars sang in, and it was there first.

What Appar actually did with the rest of his life is the part worth taking away.

Uzhavarappani. The service of the plough, or of the hoe.

He carried an uzhavaram, a small hoe or weeding implement, and used it to:

• Clear the paths leading to Shiva temples
• Remove weeds and grass from temple grounds
• Clear the approaches so that devotees could walk

He did this at temple after temple, walking from one to the next across the Tamil country, for decades.

Why that is the significant fact. Because of what he had been and what he refused.

He had been an eminent Jain monk. He had faced down a king. He was the greatest poet of the Tamil Shaiva tradition by volume. Kings and communities honoured him.

And his self chosen occupation was weeding.

His images show him with the hoe. It is his identifying attribute, the way Thirumangai Alvar has the spear and Sambandar has the cup of milk.

Uzhavarappani today. It continues.

Shaiva groups and temple volunteers organise uzhavarappani as a service activity: clearing temple grounds, cleaning tanks, maintaining paths, removing encroaching vegetation from ancient sites.

It is a real and useful form of service and it is open to anybody. Many neglected Tamil temples are maintained substantially by volunteers doing this.

What he refused. This is worth stating.

• He did not take temple office
• He did not accept royal patronage after the conversion
• He did not settle at a single temple as its authority
• He kept moving and kept clearing paths

The famous verse. His most quoted lines, and among the most quoted in Tamil.

Naam aarkkum kudi allom - we are subject to nobody. We fear no death. We do not suffer in hell. We know no illness. We do not bow. We are happy at all times, we know no sorrow. We have become the servants of the Lord who wears the white conch earring.

What that verse is. A declaration of independence.

It is the statement of a man who had been in a lime kiln at a king's order, and it says that the only subjection he acknowledges makes every other subjection void.

How it has been used. Widely, and outside religion.

The line is quoted in Tamil political and literary contexts as a statement of dignity and refusal, by people with no particular Shaiva commitment. It has that force in the language.

The two together. This is the shape of his life.

He said he was subject to nobody, and then spent forty years pulling weeds out of temple paths.

The tradition does not treat those as in tension. The independence is what made the service voluntary, and the service is what the independence was for.

What he wrote. Books four, five and six of the Tirumurai.

• Over 3000 verses survive, in 312 pathigams, decads
• Tradition holds he composed far more and that much is lost
• In the Tevaram collection with Sambandar and Sundarar

The form. The pathigam, a decad of ten or eleven verses on a single temple or theme, is the Tevaram unit, as the decad is in the Thiruvaymozhi.

Each pathigam is set in a pann, one of the old Tamil melodic modes, and was composed to be sung.

What the hymns are about:

• The temples, named and described, one pathigam per temple
• Shiva's forms and stories: the burning of the three cities, the drinking of the poison, the dance, the swallowing of Kama, Nataraja, the linga of fire
• The poet's own condition: his illness, his failings, his gratitude, his fear
• The five syllables, Namah Shivaya
• Bhasma, the sacred ash
• Direct address, complaint and argument with the Lord

His register. Appar is the most personal of the three Tevaram poets.

Sambandar is confident, learned and formally brilliant. Sundarar is familiar and quarrelsome. Appar is the one who dwells on his own unworthiness, his body, his illness and his gratitude at having been retrieved.

That makes his hymns the ones people turn to in difficulty, and it is why so many are recited at times of illness and trouble.

The Namachivaya pathigam. One of his best known.

A decad on the five syllables, Na Ma Shi Va Ya, which is the central Shaiva mantra, stating what the syllables do and why they are sufficient.

On the panchakshara. Since it is central:

• Namah Shivaya, the five syllables, is the principal Shaiva mantra
• It appears in the Yajur Veda, in the Shri Rudram, which places it in the oldest layer of the tradition
• It is recited by anybody, requires no initiation in its basic form, and is the standard Shaiva practice
• Om Namah Shivaya with the pranava is the six syllable form
• It is counted on a rudraksha mala

The Tevaram's recovery. There is a story here that parallels Nathamuni's exactly.

• The Tevaram hymns were scattered and largely lost
• Rajaraja Chola I, in the tenth to eleventh century, heard some verses and sought the rest
• Guided by Nambiyandar Nambi, a sealed chamber at Chidambaram was located
• It was said to contain the palm leaf manuscripts
• They were found damaged, with much eaten by insects
• What survived was compiled
• Nambiyandar Nambi arranged the Tirumurai into its books

So both Tamil canons, Shaiva and Vaishnava, were recovered in roughly the same period by a similar process, and both are incomplete.

What we have of Appar is a fraction of what he composed.

The Oduvar tradition. Who sings it now.

• The Oduvar are the hereditary singers of the Tevaram in Shiva temples
• They sing the hymns in the panns before the deity
• The tradition is small and, like the Araiyar Sevai, is under pressure
• Government and temple support exists in Tamil Nadu but the number of practitioners is limited

If you visit a major Tamil Shiva temple and hear singing before the deity that is not a recording, that is likely an Oduvar, and it is a thousand year old transmission.

Places

Tiruvennainallur:

• In Villupuram district, where he returned and composed the first hymn
• The Kirubapureeswarar temple
• Where his sister Thilagavathiyar served

Thiruvamur:

• His birthplace, nearby

Thiruppadirippuliyur:

• Near Cuddalore, where the persecution took place and where he came ashore
• The Padaleeswarar temple

Thirupugalur:

• In Nagapattinam district, where he attained his end
• The Agneeswarar temple
• The Vardhamaneeswarar temple there is associated with him

Chidambaram:

• The Nataraja temple, where the Tevaram manuscripts were recovered
• The Deva Sabha and the sealed chamber tradition
• Appar's shrine, and the shrines of the four samayacharyas

The Paadal Petra Sthalams. The 275 temples that received Tevaram hymns.

• Most in Tamil Nadu, a few elsewhere including Kailash, Kedarnath, Gokarna and temples in Kerala, Andhra and Karnataka
• The list is the Shaiva equivalent of the Divya Desams
• Appar sang a very large number of them

Practice

Namah Shivaya:

• The five syllables, which is Appar's own constant subject
• No initiation required in the basic form
• Counted on a rudraksha mala if you use one
• Any time, any place

Bhasma:

• The sacred ash, applied in three horizontal lines on the forehead
• Traditionally from burnt cow dung prepared for the purpose
• Appar's hymns return to it constantly

Monday, Pradosham and Shivaratri:

• Somvar, Monday, is Shiva's day
• Pradosham, the thirteenth tithi, at twilight, is the principal fortnightly observance, when Nandi is worshipped and the abhisheka is performed
• Maha Shivaratri, in Phalguna, is the great night

Uzhavarappani. His own practice, and the one this entry most recommends.

• Clear something. A temple path, a tank, a neglected shrine
• Many Tamil Nadu temple groups organise this and welcome volunteers
• It requires nothing but showing up with a tool
• It is what the greatest poet of the tradition chose to do with his time

Reading the Tevaram:

• Available in Tamil with translation, in print and online
• The Namachivaya pathigam and the Naam aarkkum kudi allom verse are the standard entry points
• Recordings by Oduvars are available and are the way to hear the panns
• The Periya Puranam of Sekkizhar, book twelve, gives the lives of all sixty three and is available in translation

A closing thought. He was an eminent monk in one tradition, left it, was tortured by a king for leaving, survived it, converted the king, and became the most prolific poet his tradition produced.

And then he picked up a hoe and spent the rest of his life clearing weeds off the paths outside temples so that other people could walk to them more easily.

His statues hold the hoe. Not a book, not a rosary, not a staff of office.

A weeding tool.