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2. KaNNappa nAyanAr
 If
there is one person among the 63 nAyanmArs who can be called a
“diamond in the rough” it is KaNNappa nAyanAr. He is one of those
who never learnt or heard any holy scripture but then he has been
extolled (more than any other nAyanmAr) by the thEvAram trinity,
MANickavAcagar, Adhi Sankarar, nakkIrar and others. His unremitting
love for the Lord is unique in that it was “love at first sight” for
him. He was just a hunter trained in archery and perhaps nothing
else. As such his obsession was to hunt all kinds of animals and use
the kill for food and the hide for clothing. It is amazing as to how
he acquired the love for the Lord. It may not even be called
devotion. It was just a “compassionate consideration” for the Lord
who stayed “alone in the middle of the forest without any
protection”. Such being the case, he was tested by the Lord in an
excruciating manner and KaNNappar came out with flying colours. Let
us examine his background here that led to his inclusion among the
saints. Apparently, he ranks the first among all the nAyanmArs in
terms of antiquity.
 SEkkizhAr
wrote 186 stanzas to describe the episode, kaNNappa nAyanAr purANam.
He was born as ThiNNan to the hunter-king nAgan and his wife
thaththai in the village uduppUr in what is currently known as the
kALahasthi region in Andhra Pradesh. When he came of age his father
crowned him king and instructed his deputies to teach him the
hunting techniques. In due course ThiNNan became a master of
hunting. Once ThiNNan and his associates, nANan and kADan, went
chasing after a wild boar, killed it and wanted to cook it. While
kADan went to fetch water from the river, ThiNNan and nANan went up
the kALahasthi hill to see "kuDumith thEvar” (Lord with a tuft).
When ThiNNan saw the Lord there, he was overcome with surging love
in his heart. Let SEkkizhAr explain:
(ThiNNan saw the Lord, who
had his abode as an outgrowth of the tall kALahasthi mountain. With
abundant rapture and love goading him he ran forward enamoured of
the Lord. He embraced the Lord and kissed the crown of the Lingam).
This was love at first sight. He saw some leaves and flowers on the
Lingam and cleaned up all the “mess” while nANan told him that a
priest used to visit and decorate the Lingam. ThiNNan, thinking that
the Lord must be “hungry”, decided to feed the Lord and rushed down
the hill. kADan in the mean time prepared a fire to roast the boar.
ThiNNan roasted the boar, took out a portion, tasted it and finding
it the best, collected some, gathered some water in his mouth, and
some fragrant flowers. Let us see how SEkkizhAr describes it:
(He did not notice the
departure of other hunters but quickly collected some best meat in a
leaf-bowl (kallai) and then in order to bathe (manjanam ATTa) the
Lord collected some water from the river in his mouth, plucked some
fragrant flowers and stuck them on his bundled hair (kunji)).
He then rushed alone to the top of the mountain, cleared all the
debris around the Lord, spat the water on the lingam to perform an
ablution and placed the flowers he brought on the Lingam. He then
placed the pork before the Lord. To a person who has witnessed the
traditional offering to the Lord in temples, this act of ThiNNan
appears very crude. Not so for ThiNNan. He was happy doing so.
Thinking that some wild animals might hurt Him he stood guard for
the whole night. In the morning he left for hunting again, and in
the evening he would do the same routine again. This went on for
five days. The priest (sivakOsariyAr) who came later in the daytime
abhorred the very sight of the meat before the Lord. He would clean
the site and do his own decoration and leave. Losing patience at
this repetitive desecration of the Lord’s sanctum, the priest prayed
to the Lord to put an end to such “misdeeds”. The Lord told him in
his dream to come the next evening and watch the scene from a
distance.
When ThiNNan came the next evening, he sensed
something wrong from a distance. When he approached the Lord he saw
the right eye of the Lord was bleeding. ThiNNan was worried and
rushed to gather some herbs to apply on the eye of the Lord. Seeing
no effect, he remembered the saying “flesh for flesh” (in Thamizh,
“uRRa nOy thIrppadhu Unukku Un”—in order to
cure an illness of the body apply flesh for flesh).
Let us read what nambiyANDAr nambi says about
what ThiNNan did.
(Upon seeing the blood
oozing out of the eye of the Lord of the beautiful land KALahasthi,
with the deadly arrow he took out his flower-like right eye and
applied it on the Lord’s bleeding eye. That was our KaNNappan whose
ancestors were hunters)
He took his arrow, plucked one of his eyes
without hesitation and placed it on the bleeding eye. The bleeding
stopped and he was happy. But soon after, the left eye started
bleeding. Not knowing what to do, he decided to take his other eye
out. Knowing he would be totally blind when he did that, he put his
foot near the left eye of the Lord and raised the arrow to remove
the other eye. At that time, as SEkkizhAr writes,
(The red-eyed Lord of the
KALahasthi mountain, who rides the bull and assumed lordship over
ThiNNan, stopped him from gouging out the other eye. The gracious
voice of the Lord (who wears the three-layer snakes for armlets)
came out saying, “Stop, KaNNappa!”). ThiNNan became KaNNappan
at that moment of conferment of the Lord’s grace. It is rare in the
recorded religious history of the world to find such an incident,
viz., a devotee being called upon to make such a gruesome
self-sacrifice. In the Old Testament we read that Abraham was asked
to sacrifice his son Isaac by the Lord (as a test of his faith)
which Abraham was ready to do but finally was prevented from doing
so by the Lord. Likewise, SiruththoNDa nAyanAr was asked to cut his
child, cook and feed the meat to the Lord who visited him in the
guise of a sage. All such incidents were instigated by the Lord to
test the devotees’ devotion. The status quo was restored in each
case.
It is extraordinary that a hunter would stoop to
sacrifice not only one but both eyes without hesitation to think
about the consequences. He would not have been able to live another
day in the wild terrain (among wild animals) without his eyesight.
Yet he offered his eyes to the Lord. He was motivated by extreme
love for the Lord. Therein lies his greatness. Such an act has no
parallel. SEkkizhAr concludes thus:
(Is there another loftier
merit than this? The Lord held the hand of his devotee which rose to
take out his second eye to place it on the Lord’s bleeding eye and
offered him a spot at His right forever). Sundarar, in his
ThiruththoNDaththogai, pays his obeisance to KaNNappar by
singing”kalaimalindha sIrnambi kaNNappark kaDiyEn”
(I am a servitor to the great devotee
KaNNappar, who is versatile in the arts).
KaNNappar gave a new meaning to the latter-day
phrase, “an eye for an eye”.
For additional reading:
1.
http://www.shaivam.org/siddhanta/thiru12u_03.htm
2.
http://www.shaivam.org/nakannap.html
3.
http://www.shaivam.org/nathokai.html
Sethuraman Subramanian
subramaniansethu@hotmail.com
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