STRAIGHT T(W)ALK – Andal and Ammaiyar

 

‘The Gallery of Upside Women’ - the title taken on from the legend of Karaikkal Ammaiyar's walk towards the Kailasapathi which we who grew up near Thiruvalangadu believe ended there. Nataraja performed Urdhva Thandava at the Ratna Sabha, and told Ammaiyar to go to Thiruvalangadu if she wanted to witness the rare dance.

A modern, cosmopolitan poet, a spiritual practitioner and a researcher on lady bhakti poets was speaking about them at the book reading of the latest and the last of her trilogy. 

A couple of things, very commonly found statements either touching on feminism, marginalization, emancipation etc., came up, naturally. The title of sainthood that adorned the bhaktas doesn't seem to go well either with the academicians or the city readers. Nor does the idea of saranagati (surrender or servility is the word used in general as the translation by those who think saranagati as regressive) seem to be acceptable. 

Then came a question from my friend - “were they marginalized during their time” … well, I am not sure we have a historical record or a social commentary available on all of them. But, the image came to my mind. The image of ghoulish Ammaiyar at the feet of Nataraja, from Bantey Srei in Cambodia to the Chola temples closer home. Did Ammaiayar surrender to Nataraja? Is her portrayal as servile to Shiva was what she accepted or the male shilpakaras make her servile? Was she accepted, and how, so that she could become part of temple sculptures from 10th, 11th century, and even the famous bronze that has travelled to far lands ending up at The Met. 

Andal or Ammaiyar both seem to have become part of the temple worship by the 10th century. The Andal vigraha at Srivilliputhur and some of Ammaiyar’s bronzes have been dated by art historian Vidhya Dehejia to attest that fact. As Alvar and Nayanmars, as goddesses, as devotees they continue to reign … Did their positions as goddesses or saints take away the distinct personalities, immense beauty and freshness of their poetry, their perseverance towards their goal? Does saranagati as bhaktas make them any less? 

Why are we looking for Simone De Beauvoir in Ammaiyar or Andal? To abhor saranagati as Beauvoir's surrender. To think of “sant” as a “canonized saint” trapped in some institutional order. They found freedom in their surrender. We are looking for victims. 

We are attracted to their acts of “rebellion” … would we be kind to men who abandon their families to take on sanyasa? Do we appreciate the conformist Andal who is fine doing a Margazhi vratam to attain the man she wanted, except that it was a god and a god who made gopis and the radha wait for him, pine for him. If Andal was willing to wait for him, pine for him, and like poets who went past before her send clouds and birds as her messenger, do we appreciate that or our minds rebel against that idea? Because as the author said, as a dance audience we get bored with the recurring motif of a nayaki in waiting. 

Take it figuratively; to turn our lives upside down for a goal. How many are willing to walk upside down. The idea of such a free spirit, such a rebel is amazing, appealing. I can read Ammaiyar, can I walk upside down? 

Finally, how to reconcile the conformist Andal who dreams of a Vaidika wedding ceremony, step by step, extols the virtues of the Vedas, says the benediction for chanting ‘Varanamayiram’ is to be blessed with good progeny, with the ‘rebel’ and the sensuous talk of a girl in love? The devout do it, but that doesn't sit well with the critics applying various “isms”. 

While I am not getting deeper into Ammaiyar’s pathigangal here, I would like to highlight a few ideas of Andal that seem clear on reading them as they are from the ‘Nachiyar Tirumozhi’ and ‘Thiruppavai’. Scholars like Sushumna Kannan have earlier written about “transgressions” of Andal, and questioned if they were transgressions. I am staying on the surface, and at a very lay reader level here. 

First, Andal accepts the Vedas, as even in the Varanam Ayiram verses she talks about Vedic rituals, the priests who would perform the ceremonies as per norms. It is unconventional for a small girl to ask for the god as the husband, but the dream wedding sequence is all conventional, from the engagement ceremony, wearing the koorai (the wedding saree), the saptapadi, all conducted in grandeur, being blessed by all Devatas. It must obviously have been difficult to choose an unconventional partner and desire for a formal marriage, but there is no expression of the stress, only the ‘viraha’, separation, and yearning for the union. 

What follows next, either as the conversation Andal had with the Conch, or the cloud messenger address, the explicit nearness she seeks with her Lord, are they rebellious or conventional? Andal if one explores the verses theologically, would find her conforming to the Sri Vaishnava theology, confirming to the Puranic conception of the avataras, the Krishnavatara in particular. There is no rejection of the concept of Krishna, his lilas, or the lilas he performed in his various avataras. There is no rejection of family, customs, traditions of marriage or having children. 

Does speaking explicitly of the body alone qualify for the rebel, angry, upside women? To quote a mundane example - there is a song in the famous Tamil movie ‘Roja’ where old village ladies would sing an explicitly erotic song even as the hero and heroine get into consummate marriage. Many did consider the song indecent. Probably by the old Vividh Bharati standards it would have been banned as inappropriate for public broadcast. But the song can be just a reality of the everyday talk, the “ilai marai, kaai marai” conversations around private affairs. That should not be a surprise for the Tamils. Didn’t the Sangam’s Agam songs show that it has been part of the tradition? The concept of ‘viraha’, the explicitness of female desire are all appreciated in the Tamil Agam songs. Many scholars have written volumes trying to substantiate how the ‘viraha’ of the Alvars come from that Sangam literary tradition. If so, isn’t Andal a conformist?