 Arunagirinathar
Eating plentiful fruits, sweet dumplings ……
| Composition: |
kaittala niRaikani appamoDaval pori |
| Composer: |
aruNagirinAtar |
| mudrA: |
|
| (signature): |
perumALE |
| rAgam: |
nATTai (janyam of calanATTai, 36th mELam) |
|
tALam:
|
Adi |
| ArOhaNam: |
SR3G3M1PD3N3S |
| AvarOhaNam: |
SN3PM1R3S |
kaittala niRaikani appamodu avalpori
kappiya karimugan aDi pENik
kaRRidum adiyavar buddhiyil uRaibava
kaRpagam enavinai kaDidhEgum
mattamum madhiyamum vaittidum aranmagan
maRporu thiraL buya madhayAnai
mattaLa vayiRanai uttami pudhalvanai
maTTavizh malar koNdu paNivEnE
muttamizh aDaivinai muRpadu giritanil
muRpaDa ezhudhiya mudalvOnE
muppuram eriseyda accivan uRairatam
accadu poDiseyda atidhIrA
attuyar adukodu subbiramaNi paDum
appunam adaniDai ibamAgi
akkuRa magaLuDan acciRu muruganai
akkaNam maNamaruL perumALE |
 Lyrics:
The verses are so complex in construction it is difficult to give a wholesome meaning couplet by couplet. Let us try what we can do best.
Lord Ganesa is one who is fond of eating quite a handful of fruits, sweet rice dumplings
(appam), pounded roasted (or parboiled?) rice (aval), and puffed rice (pori). He is the elephant-faced one. Those who worship his feet are the ones in whose minds the Lord dwells. He grants the wishes of such devotees like the celestial tree (karpaga maram) which is supposed to grant any wish. The sins of such devotees disappear when they worship
Lord
Ganesa.
He is the son of Lord Siva who wears the flowers of the datura plant (Umaththam poo) and the crescent moon. He has strong shoulders and the strength of an elephant. He also sports an abdomen which is shaped like a drum. He is also the son of Uma Devi. I shall worship him with the just- blossomed flowers which emanate a brilliant fragrance.
He is the one who gave life to the three branches of Thamizh
(iyal, isai, nATakam) for the first time sitting on the mountain mEru. He is also the one who made the axle of the chariot of
Lord Siva break when embarking on his adventure to incinerate the three cities inhabited by the demons, when Siva started out without invoking his
(Ganesa’s) blessings.
He is the one who could not bear the torment of his brother (Murugan) whose love towards vaLLi was proving difficult to come to fruition. In order to help his brother he took the form of an elephant and roamed the millet field owned by vaLLi’s father to scare vaLLI and thereby enabled his brother to court and wed vaLLi.
General comments:
 The song that we are featuring here is part of tiruppughazh, the famous poetic, devotional songs composed by Arunagirinaathar (AGN). These songs do not have the formal division into pallavi, Anupallavi, and caraNam characteristic of Carnatic music classification. The verses of tiurppughazh follow a blank verse format.
This particular song sings the praise of
Lord Ganesa by pointing out the grace that one would obtain by worshipping him. The verses also include references to mythology regarding how
Siva’s chariot’s axle broke (when he was out on the venture to fight the three demons and destroy their cities) because Siva did not invoke the blessings of
Ganesa (talk about internecine warfare and hegemony amongst the celestials!!). It also refers to how Ganesa helped
Lord Murugan in winning vaLLi’s hand by scaring off vaLLi in the form of an elephant whereupon she ended in the arms of
Lord
Murugan.
When we began the series of Thamizh songs we started with Koteeswara Iyer’s kriti “vAraNa mukhavA...” in the ragam hamsadwani. That song was an invocatory song seeking the blessings of Vinayaka while the composer was writing one song in each of the 72 meLakarttA ragams, each song forming part of the KandagAnAmudam that Koteeswara Iyer was writing in praise of
Lord
Murugan.
Here too, we are witnessing AGN starting with seeking the blessings of Vinayaka in the first verse before embarking on writing songs in praise of
Lord
Murugan. The parallelism between the two works is striking.
The Tiruppughazh songs were intended to be musical more in galloping rhythmic content to begin with but caught the attention and imagination of several musicians of yesteryear who tuned the songs to different ragams. The lyrics flow like a river rapids with teeming rhymes and lilting rhythms.
Composer’s bio:
 AGN (ca.15th century CE??), it appears, authored more than 16,000 songs under the banner “Tiruppughazh”, singing the praise of
Lord
Murugan. Only 2,000 songs are available now.
AGN, it is said, was suffering from an incurable disease and intended to commit suicide at Tiruvannamalai when
Lord Murugan blessed him with a healthy life. There are lots of legends floating around about his ability to perform miracles by transmigrating into other life forms.
AGN composed mainly on Lord Subramanya (alias Murugan). In addition to Tiruppughazh, AGN also wrote kandar anubhUdi, kandar andAdi and kandar
alankAram.
Readers who are interested in knowing more about AGN and Tiruppughaz songs are encouraged to log on to references 4-6 given below.
Some of his songs that are popular and sung at the end of Carnatic music concerts, as what are known as “tukkaDAs”, include:
ErumayilERi, and tuLLumada vETkai (both in hamsAnandi), agaramumAgi (harikAmbhoji),
apakAra nindai (cakravAgam), sivanAr manam kuLira (sindu bhairavi),
nAda vindu kalAdi (senjcuruTTi),
References:
1. http://www.kaumaram.com/thiru/ntpm_0001.html
2. http://www.geocities.com/promiserani2/co1001.html
3. http://carnatica.net/composer/arunagirinathar.htm
4. http://www.geocities.com/balu.iyer/arunagirinathar.html
5. http://murugan.org/bhaktas/arunagirinatha.htm
6. http://www.kaumaram.com/thiru/
Sethuraman
Subramanian
subramaniansethu@hotmail.com | 
