Musings on Ganesh Chaturthi

Another Ganesh Chaturthi. I look at the beautiful array of Ganeshas we have decorated and worshipped with flowers, fruits, mantras and a delicious spread of naivedyam, including his favourite kozhukattai (modak). As everyone settle down in the living room to snack on the naivedyam, I stay back in the puja room and chant the Vinayagar Agaval. 

The Vinayagar Agaval is a heart-rending cry to Ganesha, by the poet-saint Avvaiyar, to release her from the bondage of cyclical births and deaths and give her moksha or liberation. She sings of Ganesha as the master and the master key who can unlock the secrets of the energy ascension in the body and help the seeker "see" the Universe by opening her Consciousness. It is such an amalgam of bhakti, yoga and jnana, dipped in the sweetness of her devotion, fired in her intense austerity and experienced as the bliss of the ultimate realization. It is also pure Saiva Siddhanta philosophy in action. 

My father, who was never one for elaborate worship, loved the agaval and always chanted it.  And I have always been drawn to the agaval, especially because it was sung by a woman who refused to be constrained by what did not work for her and created her own destiny.

Painting at the Tirukkovilur Temple

This chaturthi, I think of her story and the part that Ganesha played in it. Avvai was an adopted child. She was found abandoned in the woods by a wealthy childless couple, who gave the baby a loving home and education. When the time arrived - pretty soon - for marriage, Avvai refused point blank. There was so much to learn and discover and explore. She wanted to wander the world and sing paeans to her Lord. She wanted to go seek what her heart was searching for. But her father would have none of it. “You are young and beautiful and vulnerable!,” he said to her (I presume), “so wandering the world alone? Forget it!” And I bet he also added, in a conciliatory tone, “Now now my child, don't fret so! Once you get married, you could go on pilgrimages together - if your husband is amenable of course!”

Avvai ran to her favourite deity and confidante, her Ganesha. “If this body, this youth is my shackle, then break it. I don't want my youth and my beauty!”

Smt. KB Sundarambal, who played Avvai
many times for Tamil Cinema and is even now,
the image of Avvai for many of us!

Instantly, he blessed her with a physical transformation - Avvai was now an old woman, wrinkled and stooping. The word, Avvai, means grandmother, or an old lady. The ‘yar’ appended to the name is an honorific, so the popular name for this saint is Avvaiyar. Yes, we don't know the name she was given by her parents, but I guess just as saints claim the whole world as their home, all names are equal for them. I think of the brilliant souls who composed such treasures in Tamil and Sanskrit and didn't leave their names behind. 

Anyways, it was now too late for her parents to do anything, so they gave her their blessing and Avvai went out into the world. And how she conquered it! Kings, poets, common people and children - they all loved her. And the gods even more so. She made an indelible mark that has lasted to this day and when it was finally time for her to leave, Ganesha again played an important role.

Avvai was friends with the saint Sundarar and the king Cheran. The trio had a pact that they would head to Kailasa together when it was time.

Sri Periyanai Ganapati, Tirukkovilur

When the day came however, Avvai was in the middle of her puja. A divine white elephant arrived to take Sundarar to Kailasa. Cheran whispered the holy Panchakshara mantra in his horse’s ears and was off behind the elephant. Avvai, realizing this, rushed through her puja. At which, her Ganesha stopped her and asked her why she was rushing through. When he learned that Avvai wanted to follow Sundarar and the Cheran on the long and difficult journey to Kailasa, he laughed and said, “I promise, you will reach Mount Kailasa before they do! Now, continue as before.” Stunned by this grace, Avvai finished her puja and sang her magnum opus, the Vinayagar Agaval. That mystic composition that is at once a lyrical call for salvation and soulful poetry, much like the Tiruvasagam. At the end of her plea, Ganesha appears and gives her the rare Viswaroopa darshanam - just like Krishna gives Karna and Arjuna, Muruga gives Surapadman and Ambal gives Mahishasura. This Vishwaroopa of Ganesha spans the Earth and sky, who then lifts up Avvai with the long trunk and places her gently atop Mount Kailasa. 

Sundarar and Cheran, trailing Avvai!

This deity is called the “Periyanai Ganapati” or the Big Elephant Ganapati and is in Tirukkovilur, Tamil Nadu.As Avvai is overwhelmed by this grace, Sundarar and Cheran arrive right behind her, flummoxed by her arriving before them, telling her how miraculous it was. To which Avvai quips in her literary style, “My Ganesha bringing me here is no more miraculous than the Cheran whispering the Panchakshara into his horse’s ear and following the elephant to Kailasa in one nazhigai!” A nazhigai is 24 minutes. 

As I read through the lines of the agaval, I saw Ganesha in a new light. He was the original feminist! He empowered a woman and helped her craft her own path. He rewarded her even at the end, with realization and moksha, with a sweet twist of helping her win against her friends.  And I remembered the other story of Ganesha helping another woman. The river Kaveri. 

In one version of this tale, the name Kaveri is a modern version of Kaviri, which is a compound of ‘Ka” (crow) and “viri” (open) - meaning, the river that was opened/ widened/ liberated by a crow. 

In this tale, the mighty river Ponni is bottled up in kamandala of the mighty sage Agastya, who is famous for drinking up the ocean in three sips. The lands suffer, people cry for help and Ganesha arrives to help. He senses an opportune moment when the sage leaves the kamandala unattended and taking the form of a crow, tips it over, freeing the shackled Ponni, who is thenceforward called Kaviri. 

Quite the liberator of women, I muse on. And I remember how he defends the right of his mom to her privacy. As a boy, he fights his own dad to  keep his word to his mom and not let anyone in without her permission. Which thought led me to how he was created by his mom in the first place. Ganesha was made by a woman without the help of a man. Imagine that! A woman creating as an independent agent. (Of course, Siva creates Kumara from his yogic fire - so it is a beautiful demonstration of equality. They share a body as Ardharishwara, and are indivisible just like Kalidasa's incomparable metaphor of word and meaning).  

And then I dwell on the philosophical and yogic symbolism of this - Mother as the Kundalini with Ganesha as the gatekeeper at the Muladhara. We need to pray to Ganesha to unlock the path - as Avvaiyar sang, he is the master key. 

மூலாதாரத்து மூண்டெழு கனலை காலால் எழுப்பும் கருத்தறிவித்து...சத்தத்தினுள்ளே சதாசிவம் கட்டி சித்தத்தினுள்ளே சிவலிங்கம் காட்டி…

As I wind up the agaval, I meditate on Avvai and her Lord, and pray that he might hear my prayers though her words. 

Image Sources: Internet