Sesha vahanam — tiruppuLLambhUtankuDi

A. SRIMAD TIRUKKUDANDAI ANDAVAN:

emperumAn comfortably spoiled the attempt of indra to rain stones by holding the stony mountain and sheltered the cows. Sivan had promised to support bhANAsuran and protected him. KaNNan initiated a fight with bhANAsuran when the latter imprisoned kaNNan's grand-son aniruddhan. Sivan, who came to support bhANAsuran was defeated and he ran away from the battlefield. Since bhANAsuran had lost a supporter, kaNNan had a compassion for him (similar to the sympathy shown to widows) and instead of killing him, he just severed his shoulders.

AzhvAr talks about the natural abundance of the place. Along with the families consisting of sons, grand-sons, wives etc, the bees are drinking the honey in the black water lily flowers that are producing a copious supply of nectar. The fields on the sides look very lovely.

 

B. SRI PVP:

vilangal kuDaiyA kONDu Endi –

Holding govardhana mountain as an umbrella; the 'Endi' denotes that since He was doing it for others, He was holding it effortlessly, like a flower bouquet

mAri pazhudA nirai kAttu –

He protected the cows, making the rains null and void

caDaiyAn ODa, aDal vANan taDam tOL tuNitta –

He cut off the shoulders of bhANAsuran, as Sivan with his matted locks ran away from the battlefield. The very reason that Sivan ran away made kaNNan decide to just punish him and not kill him.

tiruccandaviruttam – 71 sings about this -

vaNDulAvu kOdai mAdar kAraNattinAl veguNDu
iNDa vANan Iraij~nUru tOLgaLait tuNitta nAL
muNDanIRan makkaL veppu mODi angu ODiDak
kaNDu nANi vANanukku iranginAn em mayanE.

(When Sivan, his army, jvaradevata, agni etc ran away from the battlefield, kaNNan felt a little shy thinking, “Should I be killing a person whose associates who are supposed to help him run away like this?” and compassionately let bhANan live, by just cutting off his shoulders).

talaivan iDam –

this is the place where that kaNNan, everybody's svAmi, lives.

kuDiyA vaNDu kaL uNNa –

families of bees drink the nectar (the families being the children, grand- children, wives etc of the bees)

kOla nIlam maTTu ugukkum –

oozing from the karu neydal flowers; the nectar from the black water lilies are flooding the place. “If a mosquito gets into the ocean and drinks the water, the ocean does not become dry”. Like that, the bee families are drinking nectar from the flood formed by the honey profusely produced by the flowers.

puDaiyAr kazhani ezhilArum –

all this is happening in the beautiful, vast lands

puLLambhUta'nkuDitAnE -

in the divya dESam called tiruppuLLambhUta'nkuDi.

 

C. SRI UV:

kuDiyA vaNDu -

pATha bedham here – it is read as 'kuDaiyA' by some. That lends to the edugai – tamizh grammar characteristic here – 'kuDaiyA', 'caDaiyA', 'kuDaiyA' and 'puDaiyAr'. The phrase would mean that bees are all hovering over the flowers forming an umbrella. “tvat bhukta mAlya.. barhAtapatra rucimAcarayanti bhRngAH” [ — godA stuti, Slokam 14 - emperumAn is wearing vaijayanti garland on His chest and He is adorning His tirumuDi with the garland that You, godA, provided; the bees that are hovering over the vaijayanti garland find that His tirumuDi has more fragrance (because of Your association) and hence move away from the vaijayanti garland and gather around His tirumuDi; they are all competing with each other in a crowd and that looks like an umbrella formed by peacock feathers].

 

ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM SRI V.SADAGOPAN

kaliyan continues with SrI kRshNAnubhavam and recalls the war of bANAsuran assisted by his patron, Lord Sivan (saDayan) with Lord kRshNan. In that fierce war, Lord kRshNan drove away saDayan from the battle field and cut asunder all but four of the 1000 hands of bANan: "SaDayan ODa aDal vANan tOLL tuNitta talaivan iDam ".

 

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