Literary masterpiece of Saivite saint

CHENNAI, FEB. 13. A deep and analytical study of our valuable religious literature will reveal that apart from giving guidelines for improving one's character for adopting moral values and resorting to the path of eternity, they contain scientific theories concerning evolution of man, the growth of an embryo, the formation of the universe and other topics about which modern wisdom describes in later day research. They are interspersed in the prayers while adoring God. One such immortal work, for instance, clearly spells out how a tiny, insignificant creation, has developed over several years into a human form endowed with several faculties.

``As grass, shrub, worm, tree, as full many a kind of beast, bird and snake, as stone, man, goblin, demon, as mighty giant, ascetic, in the prevalent world of mobiles and immobiles, I have been eager to appear in every kind of birth and now I am wearied. But, from the time I had seen Your Golden Feet, I had gained deliverance from re-births,'' was the inspiring message of Saint Manickavachagar in his prayers, appearing in his work, Thiruvachagam, written centuries ago. He is one of the few who have left such thought-provoking accounts. People are blessed indeed to have this literary masterpiece in Tamil.

In his supplication to Lord Siva to rid him of this cycle of births and deaths and induct him into the fold of devotees, Manickavachagar refers to the globular concourses of this section of the universe with their immeasurableness and lush appearance and the way they excel each other in beauty, and adds that if one were to speak of these, they will sprawl a hundred crores and more, making them all look small before God like crowded specks in a ray of sunlight streaming into a house. He says that when a cataclysm occurs ending one aeon, the whole universe is withdrawn into God. In another decad, the saint mentions in detail, the birth of a soul as a human being, the dangers it has to escape while even in the mother's womb, the sorrows it has to face in the world, the innumerable obstacles which the world places in its path, the dawn of the thought of existence of God in its mind and the manner in which it can surmount the hazards. Explaining how the saint has given an exhaustive account of the development of soul step by step every month from the amorphous state, till delivery after full growth, Sri K. P. Arivanandam, in a lecture, said Thiruvachagam points out that even during the days of the saint, there were atheists and sectarian disputants. However believers in God were firm in their faith, like nail driven into the trunk of a green tree.

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