Appar biography sample

This translation was made in 1986 when I was working at night as Sinn a security guard in my home town, Congleton, England. Using felt tipped pens, I copied out the Tamil text of each verse, writing the translation underneath. After a while I began to decorate the verse numbers with doodles, which became more and more elaborate as time went on, developing finally into images inspired by the text itself. An example of these can be seen in black and white on page vii of the Introduction. The rules for creating these doodles were as follows: each doodle had to consist of a single line; the line could not cross its own path, and the doodle had to end at of the Dawning its starting point, forming a single loop. This seemed to me be an apt metaphor for the Self, as conceived in Advaita. I was reminded of a number of statements from recorded conversations with Nisargadatta Maharaj in the book I Am That, as for instance the following ones from Talks 87 and 77:

You are so small that nothing can pin you down. It is your mind that gets caught, not you. Know yourself as you are - a mere point in consciousness, dimensionless and timeless. You are like the point of the pencil - by mere contact with you the mind draws its picture of the world. You are single and simple - the picture is complex and extensive. Don't be misled by the picture - remain aware of the tiny point which is everywhere in the picture.

As the tiny point of a pencil can draw innumerable pictures, so does the dimensionless point of awareness draw the contents of the vast universe. Find that point and be free.

I imagined this line of consciousness, made up of its infinite points, resolving back into pure being upon the completion of its circuit, dissolving like the footprints of birds in the sky. It is into a world such as this that the poet-sage Manikkavacakar invites us with his hymns, where the world, afte

LIVES OF THE POETS OF INDIA
Short Biographies of the Poets of India
from 3500 B.C. to the 20th century
Paul Smith
Here are the lives of 102 Indian poets from 3,000 B.C. to the present. All the famous ones are included with more space, but there are many who will be a discovery for some. Directions to where to find translations of the poetry & other books on each poet is given. Large Format Paperback 7” x 10” 204 pages.

COMMENTS ON PAUL SMITH’S TRANSLATION OF HAFIZ’S ‘DIVAN’.

“It is not a joke... the English version of ALL the ghazals of Hafiz is a great feat and of paramount importance.” Dr. Mir Mohammad Taghavi (Dr. of Literature) Tehran.
“Superb translations. 99% Hafiz 1% Paul Smith.” Ali Akbar Shapurzman, translator into Persian and knower of Hafiz’s Divan off by heart.

Paul Smith is a poet, author and translator of many books of Sufi poets of Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, Pashtu and other languages, including Hafiz, Sadi, Nizami, Rumi, ‘Attar, Sana’i, Jahan, Obeyd Zakani, Nesimi, Kabir, Anvari, Ansari, Jami, Khayyam, Rudaki, Yunus Emre, Lalla Ded, Iqbal, Ghalib, Sarmad, Amir Khusrau, Shah Latif, Inayat Khan, Iqbal, Dara Shikoh, Mu’in. Nazir, Mas’ud Sa’d, Bulleh Shah and others and his own poetry, fiction, plays, biographies, children’s books, screenplays. www.newhumanitybooks.com

Historic period of Tamil literature

The Sangam literature (Tamil: சங்க இலக்கியம், caṅka ilakkiyam), historically known as 'the poetry of the noble ones' (Tamil: சான்றோர் செய்யுள், Cāṉṟōr ceyyuḷ), connotes the early classical Tamil literature and is the earliest known literature of South India. It is generally accepted by most scholars that the historical Sangam literature era, also known as the Sangam period, spanned from 300 BCE to 300 CE. K.A. Nilakanta Shastri suggests that this body of literature reflects events over a span of four or five generations, amounting to about 120 to 150 years, thus placing the Sangam age roughly between 100 CE and 250 CE.Swamikannu Pillai dated Paripatal, one of the Sangam era text, to the 7th century CE. Kamil Zvelebil, on the other hand, proposed that the most plausible date for the bulk of early Tamil literature is the 2nd century CE, with the exceptions of works like Paripatal, Kalittokai, and Tirumurukaraarruppatai, which belong to a later period. When he took into consideration the cumulative evidence of the linguistic, epigraphic, archaeological, numismatic and historical data, both internal and external, he concluded that the ancient Tamil literature may be dated between 100 BCE and 250 CE.

The Eighteen Greater Texts (Patiṉeṇmēlkaṇakku), along with the Tamil grammar work Tolkappiyam, are collectively considered as Sangam literature. These texts are classified into the Ettuttokai (Eight Anthologies) and Pattupattu (Ten Idylls). They encompass both Akam (interior) themes, focusing on personal emotions and love, and Puram (exterior) themes, emphasizing heroism, ethics, and societal values. Notable works include Akananuru (400 love poems), Purananuru (400 heroic poems), Kurunthogai (short love poems), and Natrinai (poems set in five landscapes). The Pattuppāṭṭu highlights specific regions and rulers, with works like Malaipadukadam and Perumpanarrupadai serv

p. 34

Apparswāmī

p. 35

APPARSWAMI AND HIS HYMNS

p. 36

II.

TIRUNĀVUKKARASU SWĀMI

(More commonly referred to as APPARSWĀMI)

Sambandar, whose works we have been studying, had a friend older than himself, named Appar, or Tirunāvukkarasu, belonging to that Veḷḷāla caste which to this day makes a very solid element in the population of the Tamil country. Left an orphan at an early age, Appar was brought up by a loving elder sister as a pious devotee of Śiva. Great was the sister's grief when Appar forsook the faith of his fathers and became a religious teacher among the Janis. But her earnest prayers at last prevailed, and Appar not only came back to Śaivism himself, but was the means of reconverting to Śaivism the king of his country. His full name was Tirunāvukkarasu, or 'King of the Tongue', but his young friend Sambandar called him Appār, or Father, and the name stuck to him. He too wandered throughout the Tamil country, sometimes alone, sometimes in company with Sambandar, singing his way from shrine to shrine. Pictures show him holding in his hand a little tool for scraping grass, with which he used to scrape the stones of the temple courts. The Jains persecuted him, and many stories tell of his miraculous escapes from their hands.

p. 37

His hymns show a truly religious nature, with a deep-rooted sense of sin and need, and an exalted joy in God. There is real critical acumen in the old epigram which represents Śiva as appraising the three great writers of the Dēvāram, or Śaivite hymn-book: "Sambandar praised himself; Sundarar praised Me for pelf; My Appar praised Me Myself."

p. 38p. 39

God, the essentially unsearchable, in His grace will reveal Himself to men. (See the first of the legends told in the Introduction.) Athihai Viraṭṭānam, in the South Arcot District, is the shrine here commemorated.

25. Vishṇu, spouse of Lakshmi,