Auvaiyar (Auvaiyár)
Long before the modern world came to recognize the moral and mental worth of
women, some ancient cultures gave the highest respect for womanhood by personifying
wisdom and knowledge as a she. Thus, Sarasvati is the goddesses of Wisdom in the
Hindu world, as Athena and Minerva were in Greece and Rome, and Isis was in ancient
Egypt. There were also women mathematicians, thinkers and women in the ancient
world. Hypatia in Alexandria was a mathematician, Lopamudra contributed to the Rig
Veda, and Auvaiyar was a poetess in the Tamil world.
The Tamil people recall with respect and affection this woman of extraordinary
genius and keen intelligence who had the gift for encapsulating wit and wisdom in
pithy sayings, verbal vitamins as it were that jolt us to awareness and direct us to
enlightened values. Nowhere is the Shakespearean phrase "brevity is the soul of wit
(wisdom)" more tellingly exemplified than in Auvai. Her alphabetically arranged
maxims are both descriptive and prescriptive, and often within grasp of even young
minds.
Over the centuries millions of children in the Tamil world
have read, learnt, and
recited her immortal Átti Cúdi (aatti-chooDi), an alphabetically arranged series of
simple didactic aphorisms: First the vowels, then the consonants of Tamil. Átti is the
name of a flower, favored by Lord Genesha. ChooDi means one who wears. Thus the
work is dedicated to Lord Ganesha. But the contents go beyond race and religion, creed
and culture. A companion work she wrote is another mound of maxims. It is called
Konrai Véndan: each maxim here is a string of four terse words. Konrai is the name of
another flower associated with Lord Shiva. Véndan means king. This work is thus
dedicated to Lord Shiva. It begins with: annaiyum pitávum munnaRi deivam: Mother and
father are the first Gods to be reckoned. The genius of the Tamil language sparkles in
these precious nuggets in rhythmic meters.
These two works of Auvaiyar have acquired extraordinary prestige in Tamil culture.
During many centuries when writing on palm leaves was in vogue, children began
their education by reciting and writing the maxims of Auvaiyar, even as passages from
scriptures are learned by rote in some other cultures. Auvai's precepts are nondenominational, though there is the customary invocation to the Almighty at the
beginning. In the Auvai-inspired tradition, the letters of the alphabet introduce the
young to values and wisdom, rather than to apples, boys, cats, and dogs.
Auvai doesn't speak of átman, karma, devas, or mantra. Nor does she tell us how to
achieve moksha. She is a down-to-earth mother of maxims, a teacher who utters
wisdom as common sense and in simple language. She shows the path for balanced and
meaningful living without the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo that is characteristic of
more highly venerated Hindu writings. She was humble too. "What is learned has the
measure of a fistful of sand, " she reflected, "what is not learned is vast as the world."
This blessed lady was a child prodigy who talked poetically at the age of four. She
grew up to be a lovely young woman, but when her father began to seek a beau to
marry her off, she is said to have prayed to the Almighty to transform her into a
wrinkled old grandma, white hair, curved spine and all, for wedded wifehood wasn't
her goal in life. The boon was granted, so says the legend, and the dainty damsel was
metamorphosed into an aged lady right away, and she became the doyenne of Tamil
poetry. What a contrast from the normal obsession of many of the fairer sex to look
younger than what the calendar reveals.
So no one knows how Auvai looked as a
damsel, for artists have always sketched her as a grandmotherly matron: indeed, that is
what the name Auvai actually signifies. This is how she is sculpted on a pedestal in
Chennai’s Marina beach, standing tall with a staff in one hand and a sheaf of writings
on the other.
Auvai was not a saint in the religious sense of the world, but she has been regarded
as such in the Tamil world. She is perhaps the only secular poetess who has been
enshrined in temples. She richly deserves to be venerated in temples, not only for
having enriched her language with verbal gems, but also because those who enlighten
the world through wisdom are truly divine.
There is also more confusion than clarity regarding the name of Auvaiyar. Books on
Tamil literature tell us that there were at least two Auvaiyars, perhaps three. The one
we are talking about
here is reported to have been the poet Tiruvalluvar's sister.
Nobody knows for sure when she lived: between the first and the second century of the
Common Era is what some scholars say. She had many royal patrons. She traveled
places. As is not unusual when it comes to ancient history, many legends are associated
with the name of this great personage, one of which is the Murugan once came to play
with her. Or again, once she was told by a priest not to sit in a temple with her
legs pointing in the direction of the icon of the deity, a not uncommon matronly posture
in the Tamil world. Auvaiyar promptly asked the man to please show her a direction
which pointed to a place where the Almighty wasn't present. The man realized he was
confusing the icon for the Divine.
Auvaiyar stands tall among the women-poetesses of the world, though she is hardly
known beyond the Tamil-speaking people, even within India. As with all great writers,
only those who have read her works can know her real greatness. She was the closest to
Sarasvati in flesh and blood.
Áttichúdi, simple as it is in enunciation, is in archaic Tamil. Not as undecipherable
as Chaucer to modern English speakers, yet not readily understandable to many
modern Tamil. So I am presenting this work to the reader with word by word meanings
of the terse lines. It is my hope this will add to the interest in this masterpiece of world
literature.
Acharya Vidyasagar V. V. Raman
Ames, IA
March 10, 2013