Pasuram 1.6.1

Tamil text and transliteration:

பரிவது இல் ஈசனைப் பாடி விரிவது மேவல் உறுவீர்!
பிரிவகை இன்றி நல் நீர் தூய் புரிவதுவும் புகை பூவே.

parivatu il īcaṉaip pāṭi virivatu mēval uṟuvīr!
pirivakai iṉṟi nal nīr tūy purivatuvum pukai pūvē.

English translation of verse 1.6.1:

Ye zealous seekers of salvation, rise to your full stature,
Singing the praise of our griefless God;
Serve Him with water pure, seeking no personal good,
Burn incense before Him and flowers do offer.

Notes

(i) This song is addressed to the seekers of salvation who should naturally rise to their full stature through complete expansion, rather, realisation of their true or essential nature.

(ii) Being the repository of innumerable auspicious traits, a veritable fountain of inexhaustible bliss, the Lord is naturally free from grief of any kind, on His own. But then, He grieves over the woes of His countless subjects and this trait of commisseration with the miseries of others, with a complete sense of identity and deep compassion for them, is indeed praiseworthy. Actually, this heads the list of many good qualities noticed in Śrī Rāma by the Citizens of Ayodhyā and enumerated by them in King Daśaratha’s court. Even so, the question is asked, why the Almighty Lord who can jolly well quell all our miseries in no time, should grieve for us, as we weaklings do, merely expressing our grief over the miseries of others, being incapable of giving them any kind of relief. This erroneous impression can be set at naught if we take into account our own every day experience, the parents feeling distressed over the sufferings of the young ones, notwithstanding the active steps taken by the former promptly to administer the requisite relief to the latter. Draupati, in dire distress, was no doubt prevented from getting disrobed due to the plentiful supply of clothes arranged for by Lord Kṛṣṇa, and yet, He cried out His heart, lamenting that He remained a debtor unto Draupati, having failed to be present at the scene of the dastardly occurence and worse still, having failed to avert the incident altogether. When Gajendra, the elephant raised a piteous alarm for succour at the end of a titanic struggle with its mighty opponent, the crocodile, the Lord went post-haste to the scene of distress and retrieved the elephant. All the same, the Lord very much repented that He had not rushed to Gajendrā’s aid much earlier.

(iii) Serving the Lord who is but our Father, should by-no-means be difficult, seeing that the son need have no qualms nor be fastidious and fretsome, in regard to the food served to his own father, by virtue of the natural bonds of Kinship and mutual concern. Discoursing on this song, Śrī Parāśara Bhaṭṭar pointed out that the text of the song bears cut that no flower is taboo, and in the name of burning incense, as part of worship, even waste wooden chips from the carpenter’s chisel could be burnt and smoke raised therefrom. There is no specification, as such, regarding the flower to be offered and the incense to be burnt. When his stalwart disciple, Nañcīyar, observed that there is a śāstraic injunction against the use of the flower, known in Samskṛit as ‘Kar ḍakārika’, for the Lord’s worship, Bhaṭṭārya elucidated that the injunction in question is solely weighted in favour of the worshipper, to eliminate the risk involved in plucking this flower from its thorny plant.