VISHNU’S MANIFESTATIONS IN THE TAMIL COUNTRY

Leslie C. Orr

That part of South India known today as Tamil Nadu is often regarded as a stronghold of the god Shiva, yet the worship of Vishnu is deeply rooted there. For over fi fteen hundred years, devotees have gathered at sites sacred to Vishnu spread across the Tamil country to honor this god in his various forms, in manifestations that have a special connection to the Tamil landscape. The image of Vishnu reclining on the serpent in the milk ocean has been for centuries close to the hearts of Tamil Vaishnavas, who regard this form of the god as being especially attached to Srirangam. Krishna is also completely at home in the Tamil country, and it seems, in fact, that many elements of the mythology of Krishna as cowherd— child and lover—fi rst appeared in Tamil literature and iconography. Other aspects and avatars, and consorts, of Vishnu also found their place in (or emerged from) the Tamil landscape. As Vaishnava theology and temple worship developed, especially from the twelfth century onward, the teachers of the emerging tradition known as Shrivaishnavism paid particular attention to the signifi cance and character of the image of the deity and its importance in making god present to his worshippers. In the course of time, certain sites gained prominence and great temple complexes were built up there, teachers and saints were enshrined, and festivals were established. To this day, these centers of architectural splendor continue to draw worshippers and to testify to the skill of craftsmen and the devotion of patrons who contributed to their beauty and to the elaboration of their ritual and imagery. But we should begin with an earlier and simpler time.

Vishnu’s Early History—Literary Portraits The fi rst brief references to Vishnu in Tamil literature—in the classical “Sangam” poetry of the fi rst to seventh centuries—are not at all concerned with temples constructed for him, but there are several specifi c places that are said to be his abodes, places that in later times are sites where major temples are built. The Sangam poems, and especially those composed later in the period (e.g., Silappadikaram, of perhaps the sixth century), also give us an idea of the Vaishnava myths that were then current in the Tamil country and suggest that Vishnu received worship in image form, although the earliest sculptures that have been preserved date only from the seventh century. The most explicit references to Vishnu’s physical presence describe him as reclining on the coils of the serpent—that is, in the form of Anantashayana—at Kanchipuram, Srirangam, and Thiruvananthapuram. It is signifi cant that these three sites are strung across the

whole of the Tamil country, from the north to the farthest south. This cosmic form of Vishnu-Narayana seems to have been known and honored throughout the region very early on, although in the course of time this image was increasingly identifi ed as that of Ranganatha, the Lord of Srirangam, an island in the Kaveri River (fi g. 1).

Early Tamil literature is often referred to as secular since it is primarily concerned either with the various phases of love or with the praise of a chief or king and the realm that he rules. So the mention of gods and the places where they dwell, or their worship, is quite rare. Nonetheless, we fi nd a few references to Vishnu, called Mal or Tirumal in early Tamil sources, or to the deeds of his incarnations—Varaha, Narasimha, Vamana, Rama, and Balarama, and, somewhat more frequently, Krishna. In the late Sangam literature Krishna appears among the cowherds; as a child he steals butter and as a young man he enchants by playing the fl ute and dancing with the girls of the village—whose clothes he steals while they bathe. This image and these myths

Figure 1 | Ranganatha in the form appearing in the inner sanctum, painting on enclosure wall, Ranganathaswamy Temple, Srirangam, Tamil Nadu, 19th century. © Frédéric Soltan/Sygma/Corbis

Figure 2 | The poet-saint Andal in a contemporary painting on metal in the Andal Temple, Srivilliputtur, Tamil Nadu. Photograph by and courtesy of Archana Venkatesan of Krishna became well known through their later telling in the Bhagavata Purana, but seem to appear here for the fi rst time. Some other features of Krishna depicted in the Tamil literature do not seem to spread outside the South—notably Krishna’s dance with pots, and his association with Nappinnai, a cowherd girl whose affections he gains by engaging in a bullfi ght. 1

Following the late Sangam period, and to some degree overlapping with it, we have Tamil poetry that is explicitly religious, including the extensive corpus of the poems of the alvars, composed probably in the sixth to ninth centuries and dedicated to Vishnu. These authors of devotional poetry are twelve in number, and are regarded as saints by the Vaishnavas of South India. Among the poets are Nammalvar, whose poems are said to constitute a “Tamil Veda”; Tirumangai Alvar, who wrote in praise of scores of sites throughout the Tamil landscape where Vishnu was said to dwell; and Andal, the only female poet-saint of the group, who in later times came to be worshipped in temples as the consort of Vishnu (fi g. 2).

The poems of the alvars describe the devotee’s experience of the quest for and encounter with Lord Vishnu—often coming into his presence at one of the places sacred to him in the Tamil country, amid fertile fi elds, on forested hillsides, or in prosperous towns. Those sites mentioned in the alvars’ poems came to be known in the later tradition as the 108 divine places, or divyadeshas. The places most often mentioned in the alvars’ poems as the abodes of Vishnu are Srirangam; Tirupati, where the god Venkatesvara dwells; and Kanchipuram, which is fi lled with numerous sites sacred to Vishnu. 2 The poems celebrate the god’s power and his unfathomable nature, his dark-hued beauty, and his attachment to the goddess Lakshmi. We also see a rich mixture of images of Vishnu, drawn from both pan-Indian and local Tamil traditions; there is the frequent mention of Vishnu’s incarnations as Vamana, Narasimha, and Rama—but the mythology of Krishna as the cowherd is particularly prominent, and especially Krishna the lover.

When Govinda plays the fl ute, his left chin resting on his left shoulder and his hands folding around it, his eyebrows arching and turning upwards and his belly puffed up like a pot [from a deep breath] —the girls stand there with eyes darting, their braided hair, adorned with fl owers, loosens, and while holding their slipping garments with one hand, they become languid. —Tiruvaymoli 3.6.2, by Nammalvar 3