Udaya

Divya Prabandham

நாலாயிர திவ்ய பிரபந்தம்

Also Nalayira Divya Prabandham, The Tamil Veda, Dravida Veda.

Devotional canon Tamil Sixth to ninth century, compiled about the tenth

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What it is#

The Divya Prabandham is the four thousand verses of the twelve Alvars, the Tamil Vaishnava poet saints, and it is recited in Srivaishnava temples as scripture beside the Sanskrit Veda, which is a status no other vernacular canon in India has. The poems are addressed to Vishnu at named places: the hundred and eight Divya Desams are the temples the Alvars sang, and a temple’s standing in the tradition depends on whether it is in the poems. The Alvars include a woman, Andal, and a man of a community outside caste, Thiruppan Alvar.

Its shape#

Four thousand verses in four thousands, the nalayiram, compiled by Nathamuni. Nammalvar’s Thiruvaymozhi, a thousand and two verses, is the heart of it and is called the Sama Veda of the Tamil Veda. Andal’s Thiruppavai is thirty verses and Periyalvar’s Thirupallandu twelve. The hundred and eight Divya Desams are the places sung, of which a hundred and five are in India, one is in Nepal and two are held to be beyond the world.

What it argues about#

These are not settled texts

The standing of the collection is itself the argument. Srivaishnavism holds that a Tamil poem by a man of no caste is Veda in the full sense, equal in authority to Sanskrit sruti, and recites both in the temple. That position had to be defended and the defence produced the ubhaya vedanta, the dual Vedanta, which takes Sanskrit and Tamil as two authorities. The Tenkalai and Vadakalai subsects later split partly over how far to carry it, with Tenkalai giving the Tamil more weight and Vadakalai keeping the Sanskrit primary, and the split has been litigated in actual courts over temple rights into the twentieth century.

Episodes worth knowing#

Andal’s garland

Andal, the only woman among the Alvars, was raised by Periyalvar at Srivilliputhur, where he made garlands daily for the deity. She wore each garland herself first, looking in a well to see how it sat, and then let it go to the temple. When her father found out he was horrified and made a fresh one, and the deity refused it and asked for hers. She wrote the Thiruppavai and the Nachiyar Thirumozhi, declared she would marry no mortal, and is said to have merged into the image at Srirangam. Her garland is still sent from Srivilliputhur to Srirangam and Tirumala.

Carried on the shoulders

Thiruppan Alvar was a musician of a community that could not enter the Srirangam temple, and he sang from the far bank of the Kaveri. A temple priest, finding him in the path one morning, threw a stone at him to move him, and the deity in the sanctum was found bleeding at the same spot. The priest was told to carry the singer in on his shoulders, and did, through the main gate, and the Alvar sang ten verses and disappeared into the deity. The episode is recited in the temple that enforced the exclusion, which is the kind of thing the tradition does rather than resolve.

Whose telling#

There is no single text

Nathamuni, tenth century
Recovered and compiled the four thousand verses, which tradition says he obtained by meditating on Nammalvar at Alwarthirunagari after hearing a fragment sung.
Ramanuja, eleventh century
Gave the collection its theological standing and placed its recitation in the temple ritual, where it remains.
Tenkalai and Vadakalai
The two subsects differ on the weight of Tamil against Sanskrit, on prapatti, and on marks and liturgy; the division has been argued in courts over temple rights.
Araiyar sevai
A performance tradition in which hereditary Araiyars sing the verses with gesture before the deity, surviving now at only a few temples.

Where the regions differ#

  • Tamil
  • Kerala
  • Telugu
  • Kannada
  • North
  • Maharashtra
  • Bengal
  • Punjab
  • Assam
  • Sri Lanka
  • Nepal
  • Gujarat
  • Odisha
  • Mithila
  • Kashmir
  • Tulu Nadu
  • manipur
  • rajasthan
  • konkani
  • sindhi
  • jharkhand
  • himalayan
  • kodava
Where it is kept: 4 of the 23 traditions this app follows. The filled one is where it is from.
Tamil Nadu
Recited daily in the Srivaishnava temples beside the Sanskrit, with the Thiruppavai sung through the whole of Margazhi in houses and on the street.
Andhra and Telangana
Tirumala is a Divya Desam and the Prabandham is recited there; the Andhra Srivaishnava tradition carries the same canon.
Karnataka
The Melkote tradition established by Ramanuja during his exile keeps the recitation and the festival calendar.
Kerala
Thirteen Divya Desams are in Kerala, including Thiruvananthapuram, and the Malayalam speaking Srivaishnava families keep the canon.

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