Hi for somebody who started late in poetry arunagiri is a phenomenal success. other saint poets like sambanthar started pretty early. i assume arunagiri must have started in his late teens.experts may be able to tell more. in either quantity and quality to beat him is very tough. his songs in mylapore especially one on escaping from the cluttches of the prettiness of woman hood iswonderful and from his song we learn the mylapore temple was on the edge of the sea ( and not in its present location)
but then i heard one song starting aarum aarum anjum anjum.......
finishing with thevar yaavarum vanthiranji thevanur vilanga vantha perumaanE..
i almost immidietly set on a journey to see the devanur so well described by arunagiri. a small hamlet near senji. a couple of kilometres beyond melmalaiyanur the temple unfortunately is abandoned and there is no idol inside. i was told its undr the control of asi as it has some historical importance in the senji wars.
Arunagiri did not write the verses, it is very evident from his own works, i can write some beautiful verses of his works to validate my point, Arunagiri was dead the moment he jumped off the temple, who was the Guru Arunagiri is the other question.
Also: I have been searching for the Devanur temple... if you can tell where it is , i will be very thankful.
the song you have mentioned is:
Tarakasuran sarinthu vizha verudan parinthu ...
This is a special song as Guru Arunagiri, according to one translation, treats him as his friend, the type of Arjuna, he says 'aasai kooru nanba endru maa mayur kantha endu aaval theea ndru nindru pugazhveno '.
> Also: I have been searching for the Devanur temple... if you can tell > where it is , i will be very thankful. > >
Hi you should go upto senji and take a left. there is one famous amman temple called melmalaiyanur. its 2- 3 km from that.
on the right of the road in the village devnur one can see a huge brick wall compound. the basic stone structure of the main temple remains. but no idols inside. records say there were 2 murugas inside, one in aandi kolam i was a member of a very interested group which wanted to renovate the temple. the group was headed by a member of the manali family ( which used to run mangadu and other major temples in tamilnadu)but once asi put its leg down the group drifted apart. members of the group even had done research on how the idol looked. the temple was partly destroyed by a cannon assault the locals said.
2 km from the temple on a small rock is a aandi form of muruga. some locals said this temple in the middle of the fields was the original idol. but couldnt confirm. venketesh
Thirupugazh is translated by many, Indians and westerners also. Each one gets his own interpretation. Pure literature wise, it is rich but the translation alone makes not much sense.
However, if you read it with various views in place, it is possibly the best known poem collection of over 1300 songs in tamil (16000 in actual only 1322 have been recovered). If we translate Guru Arunagiri's works as just simple tamil translation, it will be likely to land up as erotic literature in most cases.
Thiru Muruga Vaariyar had translated a lot of these songs, I am gifted to be blessed with some of those books. I can try and post a few of that along with other translations. I will thank the Lord for using me.
Thirupugazh is also a form of The Githa in tamil, if I may say. The prime difference being thirupugazh talks of all paths to God and does not conclude on who is the One. Guru Arunagiri, lets us take these songs and move us to invoke our own creativity and travel inside.
For ex, his first thirupugazh song: Muthai tharu pathith thirunagai athikkirai satthi saravana muthikkoru vithukkurupara....
English literal translation: You are the Consort of Devayaanai* with a beautiful smile and lovely teeth looking like pearls! You are SaravaNabhava holding the powerful spear called SakthivEl! You are the foremost seed for the Heaven"
He starts of saying 'Oh Consort of Devayani, who has smile as clear as a string of pearls' Invoking Devayani - the power of creativity, kriya shakti. He calls her to help the 'sol' or 'vaaku' or 'pulamai' hence addresses the smile of the lord as string of pearls, now if you read deeper and repuzzle his words, you can see that he wants Mother Devayani to guide the Lord to talk through him. Perumal kitte varam ketta kidaikathu, thayar siru kan jadai kidaithal mukthiye kidaikum nu soluvanga, same story here. Now the next two lines, Sathi saravana - the shakti vel (use of the term shaktivel - potent energy) that raises from the kundalini sows the seed that leads one to mukthi by the words of the upadesam of the Almighty Guru himself. The words are so carefully pinned into each other that they can be easily dismissed without any notice when we read them as literature.
in 4 lines, Guru Arunagiri has so much meaning, it is a whole library to decode his works.
Kaumaram is a great site to download all songs,Sri Gopala sundaram has done some extensive translations. Mostly literal and in word to word translations. Thiru Vaariyar has some wonderful translations, for the literacy wants - and soul.
Guruji AS Ragavan has done a great work by composing tunes for many songs. That has lit up the lives of many.