Wise men are born among us in order to show the way forward in finding the true meaning of life. Often, such guiding lights arrive without much fanfare and the parents have very little or no idea at all of the child’s true nature and destiny. One such was Nammazhwar, the doyen among the Vaishnavite azhwars, said Thirukkudanthai Dr. Venkatesh. Born to Karimaran and Udaya Nambi, in the Tamil month of Vaigasi, under the Visakam star, the child neither cried, nor drank milk after birth. For ten days, his parents watched in dismay as the child showed no signs of behaving like a new born. When the baby showed no signs of wanting anything, the distraught parents placed him at the feet of the presiding deity, Adhinadha Perumal, at Azhwartirunagari and left.
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Due to Divine grace, the child crawled to the shade of a tamarind tree near the temple and went into deep meditation and remained so for 16 years, during which time it experienced oneness with Lord and gained great wisdom and insight. At 16, the child who had grown into a scholarly, erudite youth, was discovered by Madhurakavi Azhwar, who later became his sishya. For the next 19 years of his life, Maran, who came to be known as Nammazhwar, dedicated himself to the task of distilling Vaishnavism in a manner accessible to all, in Tamil. He rendered the four Vedas as prabhandams. Thiruviruttam on the lines of The Rig Veda, Thiruvasiriyam along the Yajur Veda, Periathiruvanthadi in tune with Atharvana Veda and Tiruvaimozhi to resonate with Sama Veda.
Thiruvaimozhi, aslo known as Dravida Veda Saagaram, delineates the nature of the Paramatma, the nature of Jeevatma, the route for jeevatma to attain Paramatma, the obstacles the jeevatma will face while trying to reach Paramatma and the benefits of jeevatma attaining Paramatma.
Ramanuja’s Sree Bhashyam is another tribute to Thiruvaimozhi and shows his bhakti towards Nammazhwar. Exemplifying saranagati (total surrender), Nammazhwar lived as a personification of Krishna Bhakti — Krishna is everything to me (enakku vasudevan dhan ellam).