Thirumular: One Verse a Year for Three Thousand Years

The Thirumandiram's most quoted verse is two words long in its core, and it is among the most quoted lines in Tamil.

Anbum Sivamum irandu enbar - they say love and Shiva are two.

The verse continues, in substance: they do not know that love is Shiva. When they know that love is Shiva, they will rest in love as Shiva.

Anbe Sivam. Love is Shiva.

What that is doing. It is an identification, not a comparison.

The verse explicitly rejects the idea that love is a means to Shiva, or a quality of Shiva, or the appropriate attitude toward Shiva. It says they are the same thing.

Why the line travelled. It is quoted:

• In Tamil devotional contexts constantly
• As a general ethical statement, by people with no Shaiva commitment
• In Tamil political and social discourse
• As the title of a well known Tamil film

It functions in Tamil roughly as a proverb, and most people who use it could not name the source.

The other famous verses. The Thirumandiram has several lines with the same status.

Onre kulam oruvane devan - one is the community, one is the god.

That is a statement of the unity of humanity and of the divine, and it has been used extensively in Tamil social reform contexts. It is quoted alongside Kaniyan Poongundranar's Sangam line, yaadhum oore yaavarum kelir, every town is my town and everyone is my kin.

Ullam perum koyil - the body is the great temple.

The verse continues that the jiva is the deity within it, that the mouth is the tower gate, and that for the discerning the body is the temple of the Lord.

Udambai valarthen uyir valarthene - I nurtured the body, and by that I nurtured the life within.

This is the verse most cited in the Tamil siddha and yoga traditions. It says explicitly that the poet had once regarded the body as an obstacle, then realised that the divine was within it, and therefore began to look after it.

That is a substantial statement in a religious literature that frequently treats the body as the problem.

Yaam petra inbam peruga ivvaiyagam - may this world obtain the joy that I obtained.

A universal wish, and it is a standard closing line at Tamil Shaiva events.

Why these lines matter beyond the tradition. Because they are quotable, ethical and non sectarian in form.

Anbe Sivam requires no theology to use. Onre kulam oruvane devan is a statement about human unity. Ullam perum koyil locates the sacred in the body rather than in an institution.

All three have been used by people arguing for social reform in Tamil Nadu, and all three are from a tenth century yoga treatise in a Shaiva canon.

A note on how they are used. Worth being honest.

Quoting Anbe Sivam is easy and universally acceptable. The Thirumandiram is a technical yoga text with three thousand verses covering ritual, ethics, tantra, yogic physiology and philosophy, and the four or five quotable lines are not the whole of it.

That is not a criticism of the quoting. It is worth knowing that the text is larger and more difficult than its famous lines suggest.

What it is: around 3000 verses, arranged in nine tantras, and book ten of the Tirumurai.

Its position. It is the only work in the Tirumurai that is a systematic treatise rather than a devotional hymn collection.

The Tevaram and the Thiruvasagam are poetry addressed to Shiva. The Thirumandiram is a manual.

What the nine tantras cover, broadly:

• Tantra one: the transience of the body, wealth, youth and life; ethics; the duties of a householder; charity; the fruits of conduct
• Tantra two: the acts of Shiva, the creation, the great myths, and the ethics arising from them
• Tantra three: ashtanga yoga, the eight limbs, in detail
• Tantra four: mantra and yantra, the chakras, the Sri Chakra, and tantric practice
• Tantra five: the four paths, charya, kriya, yoga and jnana
• Tantra six: the guru, the true and false devotee, renunciation
• Tantra seven: the six adharas, the states, the guru's grace, and the nature of the soul
• Tantra eight: the states of consciousness, the eleven states, and the analysis of the self
• Tantra nine: the dance, the light, the samadhi states, and liberation

The four paths. This is the Thirumandiram's most influential structural contribution and it became the framework of Shaiva Siddhanta.

• Charya: external service. Cleaning the temple, gathering flowers, lighting lamps, doing the physical work. The relation is servant to master, and the fruit is salokya, being in the same world
• Kriya: ritual worship. Performing the puja properly. The relation is son to father, and the fruit is samipya, nearness
• Yoga: internal discipline, the eight limbs. The relation is friend to friend, and the fruit is sarupya, likeness of form
• Jnana: knowledge. The relation is soul to Shiva, and the fruit is sayujya, union

Why that scheme matters. Because it makes charya, the physical work, a legitimate and complete path rather than a preliminary.

The person sweeping the temple is on the ladder. They are not being told to progress to something better; they are doing one of the four things and it has its own fruit.

That is the doctrinal basis for Appar's hoe, described earlier in this batch, and for the whole Tamil Shaiva emphasis on temple service.

The yoga material. Substantial and technical.

• The eight limbs treated in detail
• The chakras and the kundalini
• The nadis
• Breath practices
• Kayakalpa, the practices for extending the life of the body
• The siddhis and warnings about them

On the body. This is what distinguishes the Thirumandiram from most devotional literature.

It treats the body as the instrument and the temple rather than as an obstacle, states that the poet learned to look after it once he understood what was in it, and devotes substantial material to keeping it well.

That is the Tamil siddha position and it runs through the whole siddha medical and yogic tradition.

A caution on the yoga and kayakalpa material. It should be said clearly.

The Thirumandiram contains detailed instructions for breath practices and physical disciplines that were transmitted from teacher to student and are not intended to be attempted from a book.

• Intensive pranayama can cause harm and is contraindicated for several conditions
• Kayakalpa and siddha preparations sometimes involve substances including metals and minerals, and unregulated preparations have caused heavy metal poisoning, which is documented
• If you use siddha or ayurvedic medicine, use a qualified registered practitioner and licensed preparations, and tell your doctor what you are taking
• Do not take anything containing mercury, lead or arsenic on the basis of a text or an unverified seller

The verses are worth reading. The practices need a teacher, and the preparations need a regulator.

The Thirumandiram is the foundational Tamil text of Shaiva Siddhanta, and the school deserves an account since it is one of the major Indian philosophical traditions and is comparatively little known outside the south.

What it is:

• The principal philosophical school of Tamil Shaivism
• Systematised between roughly the twelfth and fourteenth centuries
• Grounded in the Agamas, the Tirumurai and the Meykanda Shastras
• Still living, with mathas, teachers and an institutional presence

The three realities. The pati, pashu and pasha scheme:

• Pati, the lord, Shiva, who is eternal, one, and the efficient cause
• Pashu, the soul, plural, eternal, and bound
• Pasha, the bonds, threefold: anava the innate limitation, karma, and maya

The position. Neither identity nor complete difference.

The soul is not Shiva and does not become Shiva. Nor is it separate. In liberation the soul retains its individuality and exists in union with Shiva, knowing through his knowledge, which the school describes with the image of iron in fire: the iron takes on the fire's qualities and remains iron.

Compared to the others:

• Advaita: the soul is Brahman and the distinction is unreal
• Vishishtadvaita: the soul is a real mode of Brahman's body, distinct and inseparable
• Dvaita: the soul is eternally distinct and dependent
• Shaiva Siddhanta: the soul is eternally distinct, becomes like Shiva in liberation, and does not become Shiva

The Meykanda Shastras. Fourteen works, the school's philosophical corpus.

• Sivagnana Bodham of Meykandar, twelve sutras, the foundational text
• Sivagnana Siddhiyar of Arunandi Sivachariyar
• Sivaprakasam and others of Umapati Sivacharya
• Thirteenth to fourteenth century

Anava. The concept worth taking away.

Anava mala is the innate limitation of the soul: the sense of being a separate, limited, self important thing. It is not caused by anything and is not the result of any action. It is the soul's own condition, obscuring its knowledge like verdigris on copper.

And it is removed only by grace, not by effort.

Why that is a strong position. Because it means the fundamental problem is not what you have done but what you are, and that no amount of practice removes it.

Which makes grace the mechanism, as in Sri Vaishnavism, arrived at by a different route.

The four paths again. Shaiva Siddhanta preserves the Thirumandiram's charya, kriya, yoga, jnana scheme, which means the temple, the ritual, the yoga and the philosophy are all part of one structure rather than competing.

That is why Tamil Shaivism has a functioning temple culture, a philosophical school, a yogic tradition and a hymn corpus all in the same tradition, and does not treat any of them as inferior.

Where it is now:

• The Dharmapuram, Thiruvavaduthurai, Thiruppanandal and Suriyanar Koil adheenams, mathas which administer temples and maintain the tradition
• The Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam is at Thirumular's own site
• Tamil Shaiva scholarship, publishing and Tevaram singing
• A presence in Sri Lanka, where Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta is substantial, associated with Arumuga Navalar and the Jaffna tradition

Arumuga Navalar. Worth naming.

Nineteenth century Jaffna scholar who edited and published Tamil Shaiva texts, established schools, and did for Tamil Shaivism what the manuscript recovery movements did elsewhere. Much of what is in print exists because of him.

Thirumular is counted as the first of the eighteen siddhas of the Tamil tradition, and the group is worth knowing about.

Who the siddhas were:

• A tradition of yogis, alchemists, physicians and poets
• Associated with kayakalpa, the extension of the body's life, and with siddha medicine
• Composers of verses that are frequently abrupt, sceptical and hostile to institutional religion
• Traditionally eighteen, though the lists vary

Some of the names:

• Thirumular, generally first
• Agastyar, the great figure of the southern tradition
• Bhogar, associated with Palani
• Konganar, Karuvurar, Idaikkadar, Machamuni, Korakkar, Sattaimuni, Sundaranandar, Ramadevar, Kudambai, Pambatti, Azhukani, Kamalamuni, Patanjali, Nandeeswarar

Bhogar and Palani. Worth a note.

The Palani Murugan image is said by tradition to have been made by Bhogar from navapashanam, nine poisonous substances combined into a stable compound, and the abhisheka water from it is distributed as a medicinal prasadam.

That is a genuinely unusual claim about a temple image and it is taken seriously in the tradition. What the image is actually made of has been the subject of some investigation and remains disputed.

On the navapashanam prasadam: whatever the composition, it is distributed in very small quantities as prasadam, and there is no reason to consume large amounts of anything from any temple on the assumption that more is better.

What the siddha verses are like. Very different from the Tevaram.

• Short, abrupt, often deliberately obscure
• Frequently hostile to temple worship, image worship, brahmanas, caste, ritual and scriptural authority
• Emphasising direct experience and the body
• Using twilight language, deliberately coded so that the meaning is available only to somebody trained

Sivavakkiyar. The most quoted for this reason.

His verses attack image worship directly, ask what the point of a stone is, question caste and question the value of ritual bathing. He is quoted extensively by Tamil rationalists and reformers.

And he is in the Shaiva tradition. That is the striking thing: the tradition preserved verses attacking its own institutions.

The siddha medical tradition:

• Siddha is one of India's recognised traditional medical systems, alongside Ayurveda, Unani, Yoga, Naturopathy and Homeopathy, under the Ministry of AYUSH
• It is practised principally in Tamil Nadu
• It has its own pharmacopoeia, diagnostic methods including nadi examination, and formulations
• Practitioners are registered and there are government colleges

Using it responsibly:

• Consult a registered siddha practitioner, not an unqualified seller
• Use licensed preparations from established manufacturers
• Tell your allopathic doctor what you are taking, because interactions are real
• Do not stop prescribed medication for a serious condition in favour of anything
• Be particularly careful about preparations containing metals. Some traditional formulations legitimately contain processed metals; unregulated products have caused documented heavy metal poisoning, and the difference is not visible to a buyer
• Do not buy traditional medicine from unverified online sellers

Where the siddhas are honoured:

• Palani for Bhogar, whose samadhi is in the temple
• Thiruvavaduthurai for Thirumular
• Sathuragiri hills near Madurai, associated with siddhas, with a trek and periodic access
• Marudhamalai, Kutralam and various hills of Tamil Nadu
• Various samadhi sites, some in temples, some remote

On siddha claims generally. A guide should be straightforward.

The siddhas are associated with claims of extreme longevity, physical immortality, transmutation of metals and the eight siddhis.

Those are traditional claims. They are not verifiable, the tradition itself is frequently sceptical about siddhis and warns against pursuing them, and anybody selling you access to any of it is selling something.

What is verifiable is the verses, the medical tradition, and the Thirumandiram, which is a substantial book.

Places

Thiruvavaduthurai:

• In Mayiladuthurai district, Tamil Nadu, on the Kaveri
• The Gomuktheeswarar temple
• The arasu tree under which Thirumular sat
• The Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam, one of the principal Shaiva mathas, which administers temples and maintains the tradition
• A Paadal Petra Sthalam

Sathanur:

• Nearby, where the cows and the cowherd's body are placed

Chidambaram:

• Where the Tirumurai including the Thirumandiram was recovered
• The Nayanar shrines

Mylapore, Chennai:

• The Arupathimoovar in Panguni

Reading the Thirumandiram

• Available in Tamil with commentary, in print and online
• English translations exist, including a widely used one in several volumes
• It is a long text and is not read straight through
• The usual approach is by tantra, or by theme

Where to begin:

• The famous verses: Anbe Sivam, Onre kulam oruvane devan, Ullam perum koyil, Udambai valarthen uyir valarthene
• Tantra one, on ethics and the householder, which is the most accessible
• Tantra five, on the four paths, for the framework
• The yoga material in tantra three is best read alongside a teacher

A daily practice from him:

• Namah Shivaya, the five syllables
• Look after the body, which is his specific instruction and is unusual in this literature: sleep, food, movement, and treating the physical as the temple rather than the obstacle
• Charya, the first path: physical service at a temple or anywhere. Cleaning, carrying, cooking, growing. It has its own fruit and is not a lower stage
• And the closing wish, which is the standard Tamil Shaiva ending: may this world obtain the joy that I obtained

On the body verse specifically. It is worth taking seriously.

He writes that he had regarded the body as a thing to be discarded, then understood that the divine was in it, and so began to maintain it.

That is a permission a great deal of devotional literature does not give. Looking after your health is not a distraction from practice; in this text it is the practice, because the temple has to stand.

A closing thought. A yogi walking south saw a herd of cows crying around a dead man, and could not walk past.

He put down his own body, got into the dead man's, and took the cows home so they would settle. When he came back for his own body it was gone, and he was stuck.

He went and sat under a tree by the river and stayed there, coming out once a year to write a line, and what he wrote includes the sentence that love is Shiva, that all people are one community, and that the body he had borrowed from a cowherd was a temple with somebody inside it.

He is known by that cowherd's name.