திருக்கண்ட அனுபவம்: பேயாழ்வாரின் மூன்றாம் திருவந்தாதியில் திருமகள்–திருமால் இணைநிலையும் தரிசன அழகியலும்: The Experience of Beholding Tiru: The Union of Tirumakal and Tirumal and the Aesthetics of Darshan in Peyalvar's Munram Tiruvantati

Abstract

Peyalvar's Munram Tiruvantati, the work of the third of the three Mudalalvars, is an antati of a hundred venpas that opens with the visionary declaration 'tirukkanden' ('I have seen Tiru'). Vaishnava tradition holds that Peyalvar 'saw' the Lord in the light of the lamp of wisdom kindled by the first two Alvars. A distinctive feature of the work is that the first object of that vision is not Tirumal but Tirumakal (Sri), called 'Tiru'. This article examines three aspects of the Munram Tiruvantati against the background of Vaishnava theology: (a) the place of Tirumakal and the union of Tirumakal and Tirumal; (b) the description of Tirumal's divine form; and (c) the visionary experience. Close textual reading, interpretation grounded in the vyakhyana tradition and the comparative theoretical framework of darshan aesthetics serve as the methods. The central hypothesis is that the sequence of the first pasuram, in which the 'golden form', 'the beautiful hue of the sun', 'the golden discus' and 'the spiral conch' are seen only after 'Tiru' has been seen, is a poetic precursor of the purushakara (mediating grace) doctrine elaborated by later acharyas. The article also argues that the description of the divine form is not mere ornament; it is a theological language that, through light, colour, weapons, chest and eyes, shows together the Lord's accessibility (saulabhya) and supremacy (paratva). Finally, it establishes that the recurrence of the verb 'kanden' ('I saw'), the cycle of the antati linkage and the stated fruit that moves from vision to release from rebirth together create a distinctive 'aesthetics of darshan'.

Keywords

• Peyalvar
• Munram Tiruvantati
• Tirumakal
• purushakara
• divine form (tirumeni)
• darshan
• Vaishnava aesthetics
• Mudalalvars