Thiruvasakam-Divine Tamil Literature of South India
THIRUVASAKAN IN TAMIL BY MANIKAVASAKAR
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ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY REV.G.U.POPE

WHAT IS INDIAN SYMPHONY AND WHY IS THIRUVASAKAM IN SYMPHONY IMPORTANT FOR INDIA?-MODERN MUSIC THOUGHTS IN MAESTRO
"Thiruvasakathukku mayangathar oru vasakathukkum mayangar"-Those who dont feel the emotive verses of Thiruvasakam will never loose themselves to any verses in the world. In other words those should be just stones without emotive feelings.  Thiruvasakam is a religious literary classic of rare beauty and depth. For poetic expression of the joy of God-experience, the anguish of being separated from God, this work of Manivasakar is incomparable. The Thiruvempavai ritual worship had its origin in and is based on the Poem in Thiruvasakam entitled Thiruvempavai, which itself is based on the Pavai-nonpu of the so-called Sangam age, wherein unmarried girls perhaps wishing for happy marriage do penance, with a pavai (a doll?) as an object of veneration.

The poem is in dramatic form, wherein the village maidens go from house to house awakening their friends to God and His glories, proceed in numbers to the village lotus pond, frolic in its waters and then in the presence of God express their deepest aspirations and praise Him.

For ten days people of Jaffna, young and old, boys and girls men and women, long before dawn, almost at midnight, on hearing the regal sound of the conches and the mellow sounds of the gongs wake up and in the icy cold that bites into your bones bathe in the equally icy cold water of their well. Fresh and pure they then go to the temple where after the usual pujas, the poem from Thiruvasakam-all the twenty songs are sung in ragas suitable for the time of the day.-I translate the last two verses.'

In our anxiety to renew an ancient adage, O our Lord we shall this day declare here and now:

Let not our beautiful breasts belong to anybody but your true devotees;
Let not our hands act except in your service;
Let our eyes not see anything that is not thee. If only these our wishes are fulfilled, what do we care if the sun rises in the east or the west.(19)
Hail, thy sacred flower fresh feet, the origin of all that is.
Hail, thy sacred feet the end of all that is,
Hail, thy sacred golden feet, the source of beings
Hail, thy sacred beautiful feet, all experience to all;
Hail, thy sacred feet end and refuge for all beings.
Hail, thy lotus feet, unknowable even by Vishnu and Brahma.
Hail, thy sacred beautiful feet, saving us all with infinite love.
Hail, this Markali festival of watery sports. (20)

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