TAYUMANAVAR.

A SUPPLICATION.

    O Perfect fullness that in shape of Teacher, beauteous

        with holy grace and knowledge, showerest grace,

     Thou that ever stoodest as One, O Pure Form, never-

        waning Substance, great Ocean of Goodness,

     O Splendour that art the beginning and the end and

        very bliss, O Truth, Wealth imperishable,

    Thou didst of thy great and divine grace set the earth

        and all the spheres of this wide universe,

    So that the countless kinds of living things may grow

        and thrive, which, born in egg and womb, root and

        dirt, pass unceasing through the seven orders.*

    

And in order that helpless souls may prosper which

        not even for the twinkling of an eye have intelligence

of their own,

    Thou didst according to their deed of old cause bodies,

        from atom to mighty mountain, to be, and time

        from an instant to measureless aeons.

    Thou didst lovingly give unto each soul desire, that

        whatsoever body it took, it may regard life in it

        to be happiness not pain, and may rear it as its

        own and inseparable.

 

    Thou didst make ignorance seem as wisdom, the undiscerning

        Soul saying "This body is I."

    To cure the delusion thou didst make time and act,

        Institution and rule, hell and heaven.

    Thou didst fittingly, of thy limitless love, for the stablishing

        of virtue and wealth, pleasure and freedom, †

        inspire as Teacher millions of religions.

 

    Thou didst stand in each religion, while it like the

        rest showed, in splendid fullness of treatises,

        disputations, sciences, each its tenet to be the

        truth, the final goal.

    Thou didst stand in each religion, yet of a nature

        Beyond all religions. ‡

    And when the celestials, sages and others gave themselves

        up to thee and cried, "Take us, O Lord,

        for thy vassals" and stood still, their acts over,

        thou didst grant them even the flawless boon of

        Wisdom.

    To me too that boon to grant of thy grace it is meet.

    P. A.

[* Gods, men, quadrupeds, birds, creeping things, aquatic things trees.

† The four classes into which human acquisitions may be divided, and which have been pithily explained by a great Tamil woman Auvaiyar as follows:-

    ஈதலறந்தீவினை விட்டீட்டல் பொருளெஞ்ஞான்றுந்

    காதலிருவர் கருத்துறவைத் – தாதரவு

    பட்டதே யின்பம் பரனைநினைந்திம்மூன்றும்

    விட்டதே பேரின்ப வீடு.

 

    "Giving is Virtue, what is acquired without wrong-doing is Wealth;

        the devotion of two lovers living ever heart-united is Pleasure;

        the giving up of these three for the Supreme is the great bliss

of Freedom."    

    

    Her definition of Wealth is one after the heart of Ruskin, and reconciled two thousand years ago the conflict which modern Economists have in vain endeavoured to reconcile between Ethics and Economics. Compare it with a definition given by Mr. Goschen in his address on Ethics and Economics and which is unsatisfactory enough. "Human energies, faculties, and habits, physical, mental and moral which directly contribute to make men industrially efficient and therefore increase their power of producing wealth. Manual skill and intelligence are included in the personal wealth of the nation."

 

‡ cf. Tennyson –

    "Our little systems have their day,

    They have their day and cease to be,

    They are but broken lights of Thee,

    Thou, O Lord, art more than they."]