Poonthanam

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Poonthanam Nambudiri

Poonthanam (Malayalam: പൂന്താനം) (1547–1640AD) was a famous poet and a devotee of Guruvayurappan, who lived in Keezhattoor in (Malappuram district), Kerala, India. He is remembered for his masterpiece, Jnanappana which means 'the song of divine wisdom' in Malayalam. His other chief poems in Malayalam are Bhasha Karnamritam and Kumaraharanam or Santanagopalam Pana. His other works include Raghaviyam, Vishnuvilasam and Sitaraghavam in Sanskrit and Vishnugeeta and Panchatantram in modern Malayalam.

Malayalam language spoken in Kerala and Lakshadweep of India

Malayalam is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé) by the Malayali people, and it is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam has official language status in the state of Kerala and in the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé) and is spoken by 38 million people worldwide. Malayalam is also spoken by linguistic minorities in the neighbouring states; with significant number of speakers in the Nilgiris, Kanyakumari, and Coimbatore districts of Tamil Nadu, and Kodagu and Dakshina Kannada districts of Karnataka. Due to Malayali expatriates in the Persian Gulf, the language is also widely spoken in Gulf countries.

Guruvayurappan form of the Hindu god Vishnu, worshipped mainly in Kerala

Guruvayurappan also often written Guruvayoorappan, is a form of Vishnu worshipped mainly in Kerala. He is the presiding deity of Guruvayur temple, who is being worshiped as Shri Krishna in His child form, also known as Guruvayur Unnikkannan. Even though the deity is that of chaturbahu Vishnu, the concept (Sankalpam) of the people is that the deity is the infant form of Lord Krishna. The deity represents the purna rupa revealed by baby Krishna to his parents Vasudeva and Devaki immediately after His advent in Kamsa's jail. So this is the reason why baby Krishna is worshipped on a Vishnu deity. The temple is located in the town of Guruvayur, Thrissur district, Kerala, India, which is named after the deity itself.

Malappuram City in Kerala, India

Malappuram is a city in the Indian state of Kerala, spread over an area of 33.61 km2 (12.98 sq mi). The first municipality in the district formed in 1969, Malappuram serves as the administrative headquarters of Malappuram district. Divided into 40 electoral wards, the city has a population density of 2,083 per square kilometre. As per the 2011 census Malappuram Urban Agglomeration is the fourth largest urban agglomeration in Kerala state with a total population of 1,698,645. Malappuram is situated 54 km southeast of Calicut and 90 km northwest of Palghat.

Contents

Poonthanam was the family name, his personal name is not known. [1] A large number of hymns and prayer songs which are still popular in Kerala have been attributed to Poonthanam.

Early life

Poonthanam was born in 1547 in the month of masi on the day of Aswini, at Keezhattoor, near Perinthalamanna in Malapuram district,into a Namboodiri Brahmin family. He married at 20, but for a long time, they had no children. He began to propitiate the Lord of Guruvayur by reciting the ‘[Santhana Gopalam]’ and a son was born. He called for a celebration and everybody known was invited, but the child died an hour before the Annaprasanam ceremony. [2] Grief-stricken, Poonthanam sought refuge at Guruvayur and started praying with the puranic story of Kumaraharanam. The heartbroken Poonthanam, it is said, was consoled by Guruvayurappan himself, who lay down on his lap, for a moment, as a child. He considered Lord Krishna as his son and achieved enlightenement. In the Jnanappana he writes: "While little Krishna is dancing in our hearts, do we need little ones of our own?". Poonthanam spent the rest of his life reading the Bhagavatham and singing the Lord's glories in simple Malayalam. His magnum opus, the Jnanappana, was composed during this period. [1] His house, the Poonthanam Illam is now under the Guruvayur Devaswom. [3]

The Tamil calendar is a sidereal Hindu calendar used by the Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It is also used in Puducherry, and by the Tamil population in Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius and Sri Lanka. Tamil Nadu farmers greatly refer to this. It is used today for cultural, religious and agricultural events, with the Gregorian calendar largely used for official purposes both within and outside India. The Tamil calendar is based on the classical Hindu solar calendar also used in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Manipur, Nepal, Odisha, Rajasthan and Punjab.

Brahmin is a varna (class) in Hinduism specialising as priests, teachers (acharya) and protectors of sacred learning across generations.

Poonthanam and Melpathur

He was a contemporary of Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri, another famous poet associated with Guruvayur. Melpathur, the author of the Sanskrit work Narayaneeyam , was a famed scholar who out of pride refused Poonthanam's request to read his Jnanappana, a work in Malayalam. [4] Legend has it that Guruvayurappan, impressed by Poonthanam's humility and devotion preferred his works to those of Bhattathiri's and once even rebuked Bhattathiri for ignoring Poonthanam's Santhanagopala Paana saying he preferred Poonthanam’s genuine bhakti to Bhattathiri’s vibhakti. [5]

Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri, third student of Achyuta Pisharati, was a member of Madhava of Sangamagrama's Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics. He was a mathematical linguist (vyakarana). His most important scholarly work, Prkriya-sarvawom, sets forth an axiomatic system elaborating on the classical system of Panini. However, he is most famous for his masterpiece, Narayaneeyam, a devotional composition in praise of Guruvayoorappan (Krishna) that is still sung at Guruvayoor Temple.

Bhakti literally means "attachment, participation, fondness for, homage, faith, love, devotion, worship, purity". In Hinduism, it refers to devotion to, and love for, a personal god or a representational god by a devotee. In ancient texts such as the Shvetashvatara Upanishad, the term simply means participation, devotion and love for any endeavor, while in the Bhagavad Gita, it connotes one of the possible paths of spirituality and towards moksha, as in bhakti marga.

Works

The chief poems of Poonthanam are Jnanappana, Bhasha Karnamritam and Kumaraharanam or Santanagopalam Pana. Jnanappana (transliteration: The Song of Divine Wisdom) is a veritable storehouse of transcendental knowledge which is firmly rooted in the experiences of this world. In a language, absolutely free from regionalism and dialectal influences, unadorned with excessive rhetorical features, through a series of concrete pictures taken from contemporary life, the poet is able to drive home his perception of the short lived nature of the ephemeral aspects of life. His religious meditations flow uncluttered and unencumbered with irrelevant matter. Jnanappana has been transcreated into English by poet cum writer Dr Gopi Kottoor, the book "Poonthanam's Hymns - The Fountain Of God" is published by Writer's Workshop, Calcutta. [6]

Gopi Kottoor Indian writer

Gopikrishnan Kottoor is the pen name of Raghav G. Nair, an award-winning Indian English poet. He is best known for his internationally acclaimed poem "Father, Wake Us In Passing". He is also the founder editor of the quarterly poetry journal Poetry Chain. Kottoor presently lives in Trivandrum, Kerala India, where he works as a senior banker with Reserve Bank of India.

Writers Workshop is a Kolkata-based literary publisher founded by the Indian poet and scholar Purushottama Lal in 1958. Over the next few decades it published many new authors of post-independence urban literature. Many of these authors later became widely known.

Bhasha Karnamritam is a devotional work intended to create devotion to Lord Krishna in the readers. Santanagopalam Pana tells the story of a Brahmin father who lost all his children and sought the help of the Pandava prince Arjuna. Arjuna proudly offered to help him preserve his next child alive, but he was unable to keep his word. The Brahmin abuses Arjuna to his great anguish and in his wounded pride he decides to commit suicide by leaping into flames. Krishna out of love for Arjuna, intervenes at the last moment and takes him to Vaikuntha from where they recover all the lost children of the Brahmin. Krishna's infinite love for his devotees is thus the central theme, but the poem also makes its appeal because of its down-to-earth realism and unmistakable touch of authenticity.

Arjuna Character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Arjuna is a central character of the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata. Arjuna was the son of Pandu in the Kuru Kingdom. In a previous birth he was a saint named Nara who was the lifelong companion of another saint, Narayana, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu who took rebirth as Lord Krishna. He was the third of the Pandava brothers and was married to Draupadi, Ulupi, Chitrāngadā and Subhadra at different times. His children included Srutakarma, Iravan, Babruvahana, and Abhimanyu. Arjuna was equal to 12 maharatha class warriors.

Vaikuntha Heaven abode of God (Vishnu lakshmi)

Vaikuntha, Vaikunthaloka, Vishnuloka, Paramam padam, Nitya Vibhuti or Vaikuntha Sagar is the celestial abode of Vishnu who is the principal deity of the Universes and known to be Godhead, as revered by all of pre-Battle Of Kuruksetra, and the supreme being in Vedic, Hinduism, and its Vaishnavism traditions. Vaikuntha is an abode presided over on high exclusively by him, accompanied always by his feminine partner, consort and goddess Lakshmi, his other expansions as well, represented by Balarama or brother, as well as a plurality of multitudinous offspring via those relationships to him but same as him: mother, father, sister, lover, consort, wife, attractor, sage, scribe, 10,008 palaces in which he resides simultaneously expanded into them all separately all doing different activities as himself separate but the same simultaneously, in one dancing with devotees picking fruit from a wish fulfilling tree, in another dancing with all the gopies who love him beyond our definition of love, in another playing a sitar with devotees who played their last eight lives as elevated humans as sitar players, becoming maestros then leaving material universe to play at Krisna's side, and so on in every palace and expansions with all the other liberated souls that have gained moksha. Blessed with pure bliss, happiness, no longer finite but infinitely expanded in the company of the supreme being for all eternity. According to Ramanuja, Parama padam or Nitya Vibhuti is an eternal heavenly realm and is the divine imperishable world that is the God's abode. It is the highest state beyond all worlds and nothing else beyond it. It is guarded by the twin deities, Jaya and Vijaya.

Bhakti

Poonthanam preached Namasmaranam, or the constant remembrance of the Lord's name, as the only way to reach Him. He emphasised the futility of material existence and advocated instead service to the Lord through the Nama japa, or recitation of the names of the Lord, as the path to moksha. At the end of each verse of the Jnanappana, the nama japa of ‘Krishna Krishna Mukunda Janardhana,’ stresses Poonthanam's emphasis on nama sankeerthanam. [7] Jnanappana has been transcreated into English by poet cum writer Dr Gopi Kottoor, the book "Poonthanam's Hymns - The Fountain Of God" is published by Writer's Workshop, Calcutta. [8]

Over a period of time , Poonthaanam has acquired the status of most sought after commentator of the scriptures in Guruvaayoor Temple. He was also like a VIP in any of the Forums. In the regular feast held in the temple, Poonthaanam was accorded the most prominent seat meant for the VIP. One day certain other important dignitary had arrived in the temple. The authorities concerned asked Poonthaanam to vacate the main seat for accommodating the guest. Hesitatingly, Poonthaanam made way. However, thereupon happened one more incorporeal proclamation from the sanctum sanctorum:” Poonthaanam need not stay in the temple any more with unfriendly people as I have decided to come to your house. I will visit your house (on such and such date) and stay there for ever”

Poonthaanam obeyed the divine command and proceeded to his house. On the destined day he was seen extending hospitality to the invisible guest at his house- apparently the visit by God. He constructed a temple to install the lord on the “left” side of the house and it had come to be known as the left side temple during his times.

Death

According to legend, Poonthanam left this world in his body in 1640. When he announced his departure for heaven, he invited anyone who wanted to join him, which all the villagers declined. Ultimately, only a maid who had been nursing his ailing wife joined him on his heavenly journey. [2] [5]

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 http://www.guruvayurdevaswom.org/spoonthanam.shtml
  2. 1 2 "Devotee the Lord loved". The Hindu. July 20, 2012.
  3. ↑ "Steps to develop Poonthanam Illam". The Hindu. Jul 14, 2006.
  4. ↑ "Stage for Bhakti". The Hindu. September 17, 2010.
  5. 1 2 "To lovers of Krishna, in Tamil". The Hindu. July 19, 2012.
  6. ↑ "Transcreating Poonthanam". The Hindu, August 2002. Retrieved 2007-08-25.
  7. ↑ "Rendered with devotion". March 13, 2009.
  8. ↑ "Transcreating Poonthanam". The Hindu, August 2002. Retrieved 2007-08-25.

Further reading

Poonthanam's Hymns - The Fountain Of God.

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