The Tirukkuruntantakam () is a
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nati ...
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
work of literature penned by
Tirumangai Alvar
Thirumangai Alvar (IAST: ), also referred to as Thirumangai Mannan is the last of the 12 Alvar saints of south India, who are known for their affiliation to the Vaishnava tradition of Hinduism. He is considered one of the most learned Alvars ...
, one of the twelve
poet-saints of
Sri Vaishnavism
Sri Vaishnavism, or the Sri Vaishnava Sampradaya, is a denomination within the Vaishnavism tradition of Hinduism. The name refers to goddess Lakshmi (also known as Sri), as well as a prefix that means "sacred, revered", and the god Vishnu, who ...
. The work is a part of a compendium of hymns called the
Naalayira Divya Prabandham
The Naalayira Divya Prabandham ( ta, நாலாயிரத் திவ்வியப் பிரபந்தம், lit=Four Thousand Divine Hymns, translit=Nālāyira Divya Prabandham) is a collection of 4,000 Tamil verses composed by ...
. The Tirukkuruntantakam consists of 20 hymns and is dedicated to the deity
Vishnu
Vishnu ( ; , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism.
Vishnu is known as "The Preserver" within t ...
. It is written in a
Tamil poetic meter known as the tāṇṭakam, in which each line of a stanza consists of more than 26 syllables, comprising quatrains of equal length.
Hymns
In the Tirukkuruntantakam, the poet-saint includes his
mangalasasanam
Mangalasasanam () refers to a Vaishnava concept in Hinduism, where a devotee offers their salutations and felicitations upon God due to a profound sense of concern for the latter, and also as an exercise of forgetting their sense of self.
Hymns
...
(auspicious felicitations) to Vishnu at a number of
Divya Desams
A Divya Desam or Vaishnava Divya Desam is one of the 108 Vishnu and Lakshmi temples that is mentioned in the Nalayira Divya Prabandham, works of the Alvars, the poet-saints of the Sri Vaishnavism, Sri Vaishnava tradition.
Of the 108 temples, 10 ...
, the sacred temples of the deity. In a number of hymns, he laments the time that he had spent in the pursuit of transient pleasures rather than in religious devotion. He also regards dwelling on Vishnu and his ''kalyana gunas'' (auspicious attributes) to be his food and drink.
Tirumangai Alvar discusses the dependency of own's soul on God to achieve moksha, which he regards ends earthly suffering.
The fifth hymn of this work compares the sweetness of the author's deity to the consumption of sugarcane juice:
A hymn compares the deeds of
Hanuman
Hanuman (; sa, हनुमान, ), also called Anjaneya (), is a Hindu god and a divine '' vanara'' companion of the god Rama. Hanuman is one of the central characters of the Hindu epic ''Ramayana''. He is an ardent devotee of Rama and on ...
in the
Ramayana
The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...
for
Rama
Rama (; ), Ram, Raman or Ramar, also known as Ramachandra (; , ), is a major deity in Hinduism. He is the seventh and one of the most popular '' avatars'' of Vishnu. In Rama-centric traditions of Hinduism, he is considered the Supreme Bein ...
with his own dedication to his deity:
See also
{{Tamil literature
*
Tirunetuntantakam
*
Tiruvelukkutrirukkai
*
Periya Tirumoli
The Periya Tirumoli () is a Tamil work of Vaishnava literature, consisting of 1,084 hymns. It was written by one of the poet-saints offered the designation of Alvar, Tirumangai. It is a piece of literature that is a part of the compilation of the ...
References
Naalayira Divya Prabandham
External links
Tirukkuruntantakam (Tamil) Vaishnava texts
Sri Vaishnavism
Tamil Hindu literature