First Centum, in retrospect (Decad-wise Summary)

(1-1): Right in the opening line of the first song of the first decad, Saint Nammāḻvār characterises God as one with perfections, ail of the nature of inexhaustible bliss and love, the natural repository of innumerable auspicious traits of unlimited dimensions. The Āḻvār gratefully revels in the blissful knowledge of the Supreme Lord, shorn of all doubts, discrepancies and deviations, dowered on him by the Lord Himself, in the exercise of His spontaneous grace and exhorts his mind to take refuge in the Lord’s distress-dispelling, dazzling feet, being the sure and certain means of salvation. The Lord’s greatness and transcedent glory, elucidated in the opening decad have been briefly set out below. He is at once the Material Cause as well as the Operative Cause and Instrumental Cause of all life and being; He is the one and only Giver either directly or through other minor deities, whose favours their respective votaries seek; He is all-pervading like the Soul inside the body;

(1-2): Far from being selfish and self-centred, the Āḻvār wishes to share with his fellow beings, wallowing in the stye of wordly life, all that knowledge graciously dowered on him by the Lord. He, therefore, exhorts them, in the second decad, to give up the elusive and obnoxious pleasures of worldly life, disengage themselves from the erroneous notions of ‘I’ and ‘Mine’ and dedicate themselves to the appreciation of the limitless wealth and splendour of the Supreme Lord, thereby reaping the rich harvest of eternal bliss and beatitude. True renunciation is of the mind, as distinguished from mere bodily replacements, such as living a secluded life in a remote forest. In this, his first address to the fellow-beings, the Āḻvār also teaches them how and where to pray, by giving out the substance of the eight-syllabled ‘Tirumantra’—Aunt Namo (Nārāyaṇāya);

(1-3): Lest his addressees in the preceding decad be scared of the Lord’s sovereignty as the Supreme Master of the whole universe, the Āḻvār puts them at ease by depicting, in the third decad, the Lord’s disarming simplicity and His easy-accessibility (Saulabhya) and emphasising that, to those who turn their minds unto Him, He is easily accessible but difficult of attainment by others;

(1-4): In the fourth decad, the Āḻvār is seen transformed (figuratively of course) as a ‘Nāyakī’ (female lover) pining for immediate union with the Supreme Lord and sending some birds, as her emissaries, to the Lord reclining on the ‘Milk-ocean’, the seat of the Lord’s creative activity, invoking His trait of forgiveness (aparāda sahatva). (The winged birds typify the efficient preceptors, possessed of the mighty wings of knowledge (Jñāna) and conduct (anuṣṭāna), a happy blending of both. (This is the first of four such decads in the entire hymnal, the other three being VI-I, VI-8 and IX-7.)

(1-5): The Saint brings into focus, the Lord’s trait of loving condescension (Sauśīlya) or mixing freely with the lowliest, in the fifth decad; the Lord, bent upon having a rapport with the Āḻvār, shakes off the latter’s inferiority complex inducing him, quite often, to retreat from the Lord for fear of defiling One, so exalted.

(1-6): The Lord’s ‘Svārādhatva’ (easy worshippability) is emphasised in the sixth decad; the outward offerings may be trifles but, in God’s eyes, they carry much weight, when offered in humility, with loving devotion;

(1-7): Easy-worshippability apart, the Lord is highly adorable because of His extraordinary sweetness; this is highlighted by the Āḻvār, in the seventh decad;

(1-8): in the eighth decad, the Āḻvār brings to the fore, the Lord’s trait of uprightness (ārjava or rujuḥ) His transparence in word, deed and thought, free from sophistry, duplicity, mental reservation, mischievous distortion, etc.;

(1-9): The Omniscient Lord regulates the influx of His grace in such a manner that the recipient is able to stomach it all right. In the ninth decad, as well as the fifth decad of the fourth centum, according to the Āḻvār’s own admission, the Lord unfolds unto him, His glorious traits and wondrous deeds, only by stages, consistent with his capacity for in-take (Sātmia bhoga pradatva). Being the last of the staggering series of bodies donned by the Āḻvār, in which alone the Lord could reclaim him, He naturally covets his body. And yet, He would not jump straightaway into the crown of the Āḻvār’s head; He would first stand close to him, get into his hip and thence move upwards, limb by limb. Had the Lord not adopted this process of gradual occupation of the Āḻvār’s body, the latter would have just collapsed, like unto a pauper from birth, who suddenly comes by a sizeable treasure;

(1-10): In the concluding) decad of this centum, the Lord’s voluntary or Spontaneous grace (nirhetuka kṛpā) is brought out prominently and extolled by the Āḻvār who also gives vent to his boundless joy resulting from the Lord’s contact with him, limb by limb, as set out in the ninth decad.