Abstract

There is a significant difference between visiting a sacred site to worship the Lord and wishing to become a living being or a feature of the landscape of that site. The fourth tirumozhi of Kulasekara Alvar's Perumal Tirumozhi makes this difference the centre of its devotional language. This article examines the pasurams that long to dwell in Tiruvenkatam as a heron, a fish, a shenbagam tree, a tampakam tree, a mountain peak, a forest stream, a path and a step, using close textual reading, thematic classification and comparative ecological interpretation. The eleven pasurams of the fourth tirumozhi serve as primary data, and fifteen research articles published between 2023 and 2026 serve as secondary sources. In the pasurams, renouncing human eminence, remaining fixed in one place and becoming an aid to the worship of others appear as interrelated desires. Yet these cannot be directly identified with a modern doctrine of species equality or an implemented programme of environmental protection. Nearness to God, attachment to the sacred site and kainkaryam (service) are the explicit aims of the songs. In particular, the pasuram that wishes to be a human servant holding a golden vessel shows that the human form is not entirely rejected. This desire, which extends from living beings to inanimate features of place, diminishes individual pride and shapes selfhood through relationship. On this basis, the article defines the sacred ecology of the decad as 'participation in place oriented towards nearness to God'. This reading preserves the distinctiveness of Vaishnava bhakti while bringing out the literary relationship among non-human beings, water, mountain and the movement of worship. The text holds potential for contemporary environmental education; whether that potential leads to practical conservation must be tested through separate fieldwork.

Keywords

References

15 references
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How to Cite

D., G., P., M., & V. C., S. (2026). திருவேங்கடத்தில் ஓர் உயிராக: குலசேகர ஆழ்வாரின் பெருமாள் திருமொழியில் புனிதச் சூழலியலும் கைங்கரிய விருப்பமும்: To Be a Living Being in Tiruvenkatam: Sacred Ecology and the Desire for Service in Kulasekara Alvar’s Perumal Tirumozhi. KALANJIYAM - International Journal of Tamil Studies, 10(06), 15-29. https://doi.org/10.63300/KIJTS10n06m112026.02
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