The True Petitions of the Universal Pure True Path

Above the title stands the sacred word Tiruchitrambalam, as in Vallalar’s own manuscript; the petition also closes with it. The word means “the holy small hall”, the name of the hall of the sacred dance at Chidambaram. The title names the work a viṇṇappam, a petition laid before God, and calls it true (cattiya) and small (ciṟu). The petition explains the word small: those who pray call themselves smaller even than a straw, and their petitions small, made with small knowledge. It speaks as “we” (yāṅkaḷ) throughout, while its companion, the Great True Petition (Peru Vinnappam), speaks as “I”. In the collected prose writings it stands first of the four petitions. The petitioners recall how they lay in the darkness of ignorance, passed through birth after birth, and were placed by God’s compassion in a human body. As they begin to adorn the Hall of Wisdom, they ask God to make them, and the others in this world who have received this body, true devotees established in Samarasa Suddha Sanmarkkam. They name religions, sects and paths as the chief obstacle to Suddha Sanmarkkam, and ask that the customs, notions and distinctions of these, and the worldly customs, notions and distinctions such as varna (caste) and ashrama (the stages of life), never take hold of their minds. They ask that the chief aim of Suddha Sanmarkkam, Anma Neya Orumaipadu Urimai, the right of oneness in soul-kinship, fill and shine among them always.

In the Tamil, this whole opening is one sentence. Name follows name, and all of them lead to a single cry: “O God of Great Compassion!” Before Vallalar asks for anything, he says to whom he is speaking.

The first three names are Truth, Intelligence and Bliss, each called natural (iyaṟkai): they are God’s own nature, not made and not received from anything else. Several names come in pairs that seem to be opposites: beyond the three qualities of nature, yet with Consciousness as His quality; the One and the Many; the First and the One without beginning. Both sides of each pair are true of the one God. Among them stands Arut Perum Jothi, the Supreme Light of Grace, the name by which this petition calls on God again and again.

These names are sacred indications and sacred words, beyond measure; those given here are only some of them. Through them the sages of Suddha Sanmarkkam praise God, think of Him, realize Him and unite with Him. God is not out of reach: He shines forth so that they may experience Him. The last word before kaṭavuḷē, “O God”, is great compassion (peruṅkaruṇai). It is to the God of Great Compassion that this petition is brought.

Then comes the first request, made as “we” (yāṅkaḷ). Smaller even than a straw, they make small petitions (ciṟu viṇṇappaṅkaḷ) with small knowledge (ciṟṟaṟivu), and they ask God to admit these to His holy ear and to protect them.

Vallalar first says where God shines. Far, far beyond all the tattvas, the constituents of body, mind and world, and beyond all the beings who preside over them, lies a Pure Space of Wisdom (cutta ñāṉa veḷi). All the energies, their agents and all the lords find that Space exceedingly hard to know. In it God shines as Arut Perum Jothi, with no equal and none above. Vallalar then says plainly that the Vedas and Agamas, laid down by people of true knowledge, find only “words of small worth” (ciṟutakai vācakam) for this greatness, and stand bewildered. If even they fail, how could “we”, smaller even than a worm bred in dung, find fitting words? So the petitioners ask God, the Treasure of Compassion, to accept their poor words without weighing whether they are fitting, and to protect them.

Vallalar calls on God as more compassionate than a mother. The petitioners confess where they began. By nature they lay in the darkness of ignorance (aññāṉam), dwelling in ignorance and knowing nothing; the Tamil words in the heading are taken from this line. Like the Tamil captions of sections 5 to 15, they are not Vallalar’s own: the printed editions do not have them. That was their state before any of the births they go on to tell. By His great compassion God made a little knowledge arise in them in a physical body; the Great True Petition gives the same testimony. They did not learn to use that knowledge so that knowledge alone became their form, senses, mind and experience. Instead, they say, fault alone has become all of these, and even this petition is nothing but fault. They do not know how to petition without fault, and so they take courage and petition as they are. Their hope rests on this: it is natural to the greatness of God’s grace to take even faults as virtues. So they ask Him not to mark their faults, and to look on them with compassion.

Vallalar now tells God the story of our births. First came the time in the darkness of ignorance, when we knew nothing and felt nothing. When that time passed and we came out of the darkness, our first births were among things fixed in one place (tāvaram, stationary): grass, paddy, trees, bushes, and herbs, and also stones, mountains, and hills. Bound to one spot, we were weeded out, chopped down, reaped, plucked, dried out, shattered, and blasted, and we died again and again until we were completely worn out. Vallalar counts even stones and hills among the births we passed through.

Vallalar tells God that we were next born among the creatures that crawl and the creatures that live in water. He names them: ants, termites, worms, snakes, and lizards; frogs, small fish, crocodiles, sharks, and whales. In these bodies we were scraped away, crushed, beaten, and caught, and we died again and again. Then he repeats his refrain to God: we passed through all these crawling and water-dwelling births, wandering endlessly, until we were thoroughly exhausted. Vallalar counts himself among them. It was we, he says, who lived these lives and died these deaths.

Vallalar tells God that we were next born among the winged creatures, from flies and bees to crows and eagles. In his refrain he calls these the bird births (paṟavaiyōṉi), yet he places flies, beetles, and bees in that class with the sparrows and kites: it is the class of winged creatures. In these bodies we were beaten, caught, tossed about, and tormented, and we died again and again. Then the refrain returns unchanged: we passed through all these winged births until we were thoroughly exhausted. The fly that is swatted and the bird that is caught are living what Vallalar says we ourselves once lived.

Vallalar tells God that we were then born as animals, from squirrels and dogs to elephants, tigers, and bears. He names what was done to us in those bodies: we were caught, beaten, stabbed, slashed, attacked, tied up, and struck, and we died again and again until we were thoroughly exhausted. The animal that is caught, tied, or beaten today is a soul on the road we ourselves have walked. Here the ground of Jeevakarunyam, compassion for all living beings, stands plain: it is the foundation of the spiritual life Vallalar teaches.

Vallalar tells God that we were also born in the deva births (tēvayōṉi): as ghouls, goblins, demons, titans, and gods (curar). Here tēva names these beings; it does not mean God. The afflictions of these births are of another kind. We were tossed about and trapped; we grew arrogant and exercised authority; we stayed forgetful or lost in thought; we were deluded and bewildered; we fought and were killed. Even arrogance and authority are counted among the afflictions through which we died again and again. So we passed through all these births too, until we were thoroughly exhausted.

Vallalar tells God that we were also born into the hellish births: as dwellers in the wild (kāṭṭakattār), as deceivers, and as killers. He says “we”, and so counts himself among them. In those births we died again and again through fear, imprisonment, and being broken apart, until we were thoroughly exhausted. Killing (kolai) is named here among the marks of hellish birth. With this the long list of births ends. The next lines say what brought it to an end: God took our exhaustion into His heart and, in compassion, placed us in this human body.

Here the petition turns from the long list of births to God’s compassion. In each of those births we went through exhaustion, fear, anguish, weariness, and sorrow. God took all of it into His own heart, took pity on us, and placed us in this human body. Vallalar says why this body matters: it has the high intelligence fit for attaining the imperishable great life (aḻiyāp peruvāḻvu), the life free of death. Before such compassion he confesses that we know of no recompense (kaimmāṟu) at all that we could make. The human body is God’s gift, given out of compassion.

Vallalar calls on Arut Perum Jothi as the Lord who shines in every living being, filling its inner, outer, inner-outer, and outer-outer and leaving no gap. No living being stands outside this Light, and none is far from it. That Lord was never absent from us. Yet from the time God placed us in this human body, through the time in the womb, in infancy, and in boyhood, many different afflictions left us without knowledge, and we did not come to know His immense compassion. Vallalar calls that time wasted (vīṇpōtu) and names the loss plainly before God.

Now that the years of childhood ignorance have passed, Vallalar tells God how His grace (aruḷ) has finally revealed the truth to them. By that grace they were made to know that there is one true God, who brings into being all universes, all worlds, all living beings and all things, makes them shine, removes their impurity, brings them to ripeness and grants them their fruit. When a person worships this single God with true love, that divine grace lights up their mind and conquers every human affliction, wiping out disease, old age, and even death itself to grant a perfect, endless life of bliss.

Grace had made the truth known to them: there is one true God, and if they worship Him with true love, His grace will shine in their minds and can bring them to the great life of supreme bliss. From then on they kept thinking about when all this would come to pass. Vallalar gives their four questions in their own words: When shall we worship God? On what day shall we attain the illumination of His grace? When will death, disease, old age and the other afflictions leave us? When shall we receive the attainment of supreme bliss that never perishes? They asked these again and again, but they did not know the way or the means (vaḻituṟai). So they stood in sorrow, longing for the day when old age, disease and death would give way to lasting bliss. In the Tamil the sentence does not end here. It was at that very time of grieving that God answered them, as the next section tells.

Vallalar calls God the ocean of compassion who knows their weariness and helps. He recalls what God made known through the intimation of grace, and gives it in God’s own words: that is why the Tamil says “you” (உங்களை) to the petitioners. To free them from death and the other afflictions and bring them to the imperishable attainment of supreme bliss, God will perform the dance of grace for an immeasurably long time in Uttara Jnana Siddhipuram, called Parvatipuram, north of Chidambaram; this is Vadalur. The time is near, and as a sign of that dance a Hall of Wisdom must be established. Then, abiding as grace within them and outside them, God made the Hall itself arise without any obstacle. It stands at Vadalur as the Sathya Jnana Sabha. Each time they remember this compassion, they are filled with great joy.

Vallalar tells God that the work of adorning the holy Hall of Wisdom now begins. God had indicated that the Hall must be adorned, and the petitioners begin “as You indicated” (kuṟippitta vaṇṇam). Then he calls on Lord Arut Perum Jothi. He asks God to take the form of grace (aruḷuru) and to abide within the devotees and outside them, as God did when He caused the Hall itself to arise. He prays that this presence will let no obstacle of any kind arise, in any way, in the holy service of adornment they are doing, and that God Himself will bring that service to completion. The work is theirs to do; its completion they ask of God. When it is complete, as the next prayer asks, God is to take His seat.

Calling on God as the God of unique supremacy, the All-Powerful, Vallalar asks for what is to follow the adornment. When the work is complete and God takes His seat, he asks that, by the illumination of God’s wondrous grace, the petitioners and all others in this world who have received this human body be made true devotees. For all of them he asks true knowledge and true bliss, a place in the state of Samarasa Suddha Sanmarkkam, the pure path of universal harmony, the true life, and life eternal. The word for those made eternal, nittiyarkaḷ, is the plural of nittiyar, the Eternal One, a name the opening invocation gives to God. He sets no condition and makes no exception: the petition is for every human being in this world.

Calling on the wondrous God, Arut Perum Jothi, who possesses all, Vallalar names the chief obstacle to Suddha Sanmarkkam plainly: the religions, the sects and the paths. He asks that from now on, for all time, neither their customs, notions and distinctions nor the worldly customs, notions and distinctions such as caste (varna) and the stages of life (ashrama) take hold of the petitioners’ minds. Elsewhere he states his verdict in plain words. In the Arut Perum Jothi Agaval he praises Arut Perum Jothi, who made him know at the very beginning that caste, sect and religion are false. In the Great True Petition he says God made him know that caste customs and life-stage customs are false. Against the chief obstacle he sets the chief aim: Anma Neya Orumaipadu Urimai, the right of oneness that souls share through their kinship. This kinship is also the ground of Jeevakarunyam, compassion for all living beings. In his teaching on compassion he says that all living beings, created by God as parts of the one natural Truth, are brothers with one right; that is why one melts at another’s suffering. He asks that this oneness fill and shine among them, always and everywhere.

The petition ends as it began, with names of God and with His compassion. Vallalar calls on God one last time as Lord Arut Perum Jothi, who is all things, unique and supreme. He asks for nothing more. Then comes the closing salutation, vantaṉam, said twice and offered to the great compassion of God’s divine grace. The petition has told what that compassion has done. It took to heart the weariness the petitioners suffered in all those births, and placed them in this human body. By grace it made them know that there is one true God. It caused the Hall of Wisdom to arise and shine. The petition opened by calling on the God of Great Compassion; having made their petition, the petitioners close by bowing to that same compassion. As at its opening, the petition closes with Tiruchitrambalam.

The title names this work a viṇṇappam, a petition laid before God, and calls it true (cattiya) and great (peru). It names the path: Samarasa Suddha Sanmarkkam, the Universal Pure True Path. It is popularly called the Samarasa Suddha Sanmarkkam Sathya Peru Vinnappam, or simply the Peru Vinnappam. The printed text rests on Vallalar’s own manuscript; six copies by his devotees were also found, and all of them place it second of his four prose petitions. Vallalar wrote no title on the manuscript; the editions gave it its title. Below it stands Tiruchitrambalam, “the holy small hall”, the hall of the sacred dance at Chidambaram; the petition also closes with it. Like the True Petition of Wisdom, it speaks as “I” and addresses God as Tēvarīr, the most reverent word for “You”. It tells what God’s grace has done for Vallalar: in the darkness of ignorance before any body, in the father’s seed and the mother’s womb, at birth, and in infancy, boyhood and youth. God made him know that caste customs and life-stage customs are false, and that the religions, with their practices, gods and goals, are varieties of attainment within the tattvas. God gave him the good endeavour of compassion, which desires that all living beings attain bliss, and made him hold to the one path of Suddha Sanmarkkam. Again and again he asks how to know, contemplate and praise that compassion.

Vallalar opens by naming the God to whom he speaks. He names three things, each called natural (iyaṟkai), that is, belonging to God’s own nature, not made and not received from anything else. Natural truth fills the place, a pure Space of Siva-experience; Sivam, the Auspicious, is a name of God. Natural illumination shines in the form: there God is, in His own form, Arut Perum Jothi. Natural bliss rises in the act, the holy dance of the oneness of Siva-bliss. God performs that dance out of compassion, so that all living beings may attain bliss. Near the end of the petition (§25) God gives Vallalar the good endeavour of compassion (karuṇai naṉmuyaṟci) that desires the same. Jeevakarunyam, compassion for all living beings, begins in God’s own compassion. Then Vallalar begins his account, before any body. For a long time he lay in the great darkness of bondage (pācāntakāram) called ignorance, a tiny atom-soul (ciṟṟaṇuppacu): pacu is the soul bound by pācam, bondage. Even there God was the inner light (uḷḷoḷi) within him. God lifted him out, placed him in this human body, the highest of all bodies that are born, and made “a little knowledge” shine in him. Vallalar claims no more than a little. Then come three questions: how shall I know, how shall I contemplate, what shall I say? They return, with small changes, as each stage of his story closes.

Here the story enters the body, and it begins with the father. A new name of God opens the stage: the God of natural truth, who can do all things. Vallalar calls the father “a man called father, who begot me only by courtesy of speech” (upacārattāṟ peṟṟa tantai eṉpāṉ), and in the next section he names the mother in the same way. Upacāram is a courteous way of speaking: the parents are called father and mother, yet in this same passage it is God who creates his form. In the drop of seed God made a great atom of primal matter (pakutip pēraṇu) and was within it as the inner light (uḷḷoḷi), the same light that was within him in the darkness of ignorance (§2). God bore what no one outside could bear, its loathsomeness, impurity and foul smell, and stayed in that drop as a form of vital breath (āvi). Many hostile tattvas were in it; none of them could hinder his form in the least. The powers of the soul only budded there (arumpiya); God made them come forth and shine, and nurtured them. In the mother’s womb, Vallalar will say, the same powers have blossomed (pūtta, §6).

Before his form reached the mother’s womb, harmful forces (turicu) rose against it again and again to destroy it, and each time God subdued them (nikkirakam). The mother, like the father, is named “a woman called mother, who bore me only by courtesy of speech”. Later Vallalar sets their care beside God’s (§12, §13): the father, the mother and other living beings, guarding someone for a single moment, grow weary and break off, while God guarded him through every moment without wearying. Through this whole passage God is the one who acts: You created, You bore, You protected, You nurtured, You subdued. Vallalar is the one acted upon. The stage closes with the three questions that closed the account of the darkness of ignorance (§2): how shall I know, how shall I contemplate, what shall I say of the power of the great compassion of Your grace?

Another name of God opens this stage: the God of natural illumination, who possesses all. With the God of natural truth (§3) and, later, the God of natural bliss (§12), these names take up the three natural things of the opening address (§2). The pattern of the father’s seed now repeats in the mother’s womb. In the seed the form was a great atom of primal matter (pakuti); here, joined to the mother’s blood, it becomes an elemental great atom (pūtap pēraṇu), an atom of the elements (pūtam) of which the body is made. Again God is the inner light within, and creates the form. Again God bears what no one outside could bear even a little, its impurity, loathsomeness and foul smell, and stays in the mass of blood as a form of vital breath (āvi). Again many hostile tattvas are present, and again they cannot hinder the form in the least. Vallalar does not hide the impurity of the womb. He names it, and with it what God bore for one small life.

Two more acts of God belong to the stage of the elemental atom. First, the harmful forces (turicu) that rose against the new life there, God subdued (nikkirakam), as He had subdued those that rose against it before it reached the mother (§4). The forces rose; God held them down. Second, the powers of the soul (āṉma cattik kalaikaḷ), which had only budded in the father’s seed (§3), have now blossomed (pūtta), and God nurtured them so that they came forth and shone without withering. Vallalar tells the growth of the soul’s powers in the same steps as the growth of the body: budded in the seed, blossomed in the womb, and kept from withering. At every step the act is God’s: ceytaruḷiṉīr, vaḷarttaruḷiṉīr, “You graciously did”, “You graciously nurtured”.

This section follows the form from the elemental atom to the body. Until the elemental great atom became a physical embryo (pavutika piṇṭa vaṭivu), it could have been scattered and changed by calamities (uṟpātam): poisonous germs, poisonous air, poisonous flame. God kept the form whole through all of them. Then, once the embryo had a physical form, God built in it the organs it would need. Vallalar calls them the serviceable organs of the tattvas (upayōka tattuva uṟuppukaḷ): the parts and faculties built from the tattvas, the principles of which body and mind are made. They serve to aid and to increase such workings as the bringing forth of the soul’s desire, knowledge and action (iccai, ñāṉam, kiriyai), the three powers by which a soul desires, knows and acts. God shaped them, arranged them, left none of them lacking, and then nurtured and protected them, all while he still lay in the womb.

Vallalar describes the womb from inside, as the one who lay there, and he calls himself aṭiyēṉ, Your servant, the word he used of himself in the darkness of ignorance (§2). The womb is far harder than iron, far darker than a dark cave, very small, and full of impurity. Pressed and heated, he suffered again and again (varunti varunti) and grew faint. Each time, God made a breeze of nectar (amutak kāṟṟu) blow softly within that closed place and took the suffering and the faintness away. The verb is causative (vīcuvittu, “made it blow”): the breeze came from God. The relief came often (aṭikkaṭi) and gently (melleṉa), as the child needed it, and the section ends, as §5 and §7 do: You protected me.

Hunger reached him even in the womb, so sharply that he was tormented (paratavittu) and fainted. Each time, God had him fed (ūṭṭuvittu) with nectar formed of the elements (pūtakāriya amutam), the nourishment of a body made of the elements, took the hunger away and brought him out of the faint. Even this nourishment, which seems to come by itself, he receives as God’s own feeding. In Vallalar’s teaching of Jeevakarunyam, compassion for all living beings, relieving hunger stands first; here he finds God relieving his own hunger before he was born. Fear came next. In the darkness of the womb he was terrified by ghosts (pēy) and by the great darkness. God answered each with its opposite: against the terror, the sound of Nada (nāta oli); against the darkness, the light of Bindu (vintu viḷakkam). Nada and Bindu are among the highest of the tattvas; here Vallalar names the one as sound and the other as light. Then come the calamities of the womb, each called great: great fire, great wind, great noise, great flood, great worms. God warded off every one. Last, in that embryonic form God made one kind of awareness (ōraṟivu) shine in him, the first of the six kinds of awareness that the human body has (§2).

While he still lay in the womb, God had already prepared the life to come. In that very embryonic form (appiṇṭa vaṭiviṉkaṇṇē) God set in place for him the good things he would enjoy once he was born into the world: an abundance of auspicious experience (cupa aṉupavam), an abundance of life-span (āyuḷ), and others with them. The closing ē of kaṇṇē stresses the point: in that very form, before birth. The opening “moreover” (aṉṟiyum) adds this gift to all that God had already done in the womb: creating the form and guarding it, forming its organs, relieving its heat and hunger, removing its fear and lighting its first awareness (sections 5 to 9). How much good a life will hold, and how long it will last, Vallalar receives as God’s gift, laid down before the child has drawn a breath in the world.

Birth itself is an ordeal (avattai). Vallalar names two: the blows of the wind of the blood (cōṇitak kāṟṟu) and the pressing of the birth passage. God did not let danger come of them; He guarded him and brought him forth into this world. With birth, the account that began in section 5 with the call to the God of natural illumination comes to its close. In the womb God created his form, bore its impurity, guarded it from hostile tattvas, harmful forces and calamities, formed its organs, relieved its heat and hunger, removed its fear, lit its first awareness and prepared its life in the world. Now He brings it into the world. Vallalar closes the whole account as he closed the darkness of ignorance (section 2) and the father’s seed (section 4), with three questions, and this time the third is praise: how shall he praise it? A footnote in the Urainadai editions compares this passage with Manikkavasagar’s Potri Tiruvakaval in the Tiruvasagam, which also counts, month by month, the dangers survived in the mother’s womb.

Vallalar calls on God as the God of natural bliss, who is all things. With the God of natural truth (section 3) and of natural illumination (section 5), this completes the three names that echo the petition’s opening (section 2). From the moment he came into the father’s seminal sac until the moment before he reached the mother’s blood-sac, he counts, “in some fashion”, ten million, nine hundred and sixty thousand moments (kaṇappōtu). Through every one of them God guarded him as he lay in the atomic form of primal matter, within and without, as the formless and as form, without wearying, with love and with grace (aṉpoṭum aruḷoṭum). Beside this he sets the care of the father and other living beings. Guarding someone for a single moment, they grow weary, grow faint, feel disgust, lack freedom, become distracted, and break off. His mind does not dare call their compassion equal to God’s, in any way, even a little. In sections 3 and 4 he called his parents father and mother only by courtesy (upacāram). Here he withholds that courtesy from their compassion: he will not call it equal to God’s even as a figure of speech. Against one moment of human care stand millions of moments of God’s unbroken care, and he can only ask how to contemplate it and how to praise it.

Now Vallalar calls on God as Arut Perum Jothi, the God of unique supremacy, and measures the second stage. From the moment he came to rest in the mother’s blood-sac until the moment before he appeared in this world, he reckons, in some fashion, sixty-four million, eight hundred thousand moments (kaṇappōtu). Through all of them, while he lay in the elemental atomic form (pūtap pēraṇu) and in the great form of the embryo (piṇṭam), God guarded him within and without, as the formless and as form, without wearying, with great kindness (peruntayavu), so that no hindrance and no danger of any kind came to him. Then, as he did for the father, he names how the care of the mother and other living beings falls short. Guarding someone for a single moment, they grow weary, grow faint, feel disgust, depend on others, become distracted, and break off. So his mind does not dare, to any degree, call their compassion equal to God’s, and he will not say so even as a courtesy. Section 12 measured God’s care in the father’s seed; this section measures it in the mother’s womb. Both end with the same two questions: how shall he contemplate the great compassion of God’s grace, and how shall he praise it?

This section has no call to God of its own. It follows the praise that closes section 13 and turns from God’s compassion to God’s power (pērāṟṟal). Vallalar goes back to the state before any body. He lay in the great darkness called pācam, bondage, for time beyond measure, with no before and no after. He was so shrunken and mingled with it that no difference between “I” and “it” appeared, and he lay in a swoon. No one, he says, could in any way separate him from it. God did it within a single moment, by supra-causal action (atikāraṇak kiriyai), separating him out of the darkness in a supra-causal form of pakuti, primal matter. This is the first of the forms through which he would pass; the next section follows him through the rest. Section 2 spoke of the same darkness: there he lay shrunken, a tiny atom-soul, in the great darkness of bondage called ignorance, until God, as the inner light within him, lifted him out and placed him in this human body.

Vallalar calls on God as the God of unique supremacy who is true Wisdom and Bliss. Section 14 drew him out of bondage in a supra-causal form. This section names the forms that followed, step by step, each with its own means. By causal action God moved him into a causal form, by ultra-subtle action into an ultra-subtle form, and by subtle action into a subtle form; each of these is a form of pakuti, primal matter. Then the means change. Through the higher energies and their agents (parattuva catti cattar) he came into a form of the elements (pūtam). Through the lower energies and their agents (aparattuva catti cattar) he came into the physical form (pavutika vaṭivu). Vallalar says all of this happened within a single moment. And he says God moved him “without moving” him (celuttāmaṟ celuttiya). He leaves the paradox as it stands. Section 16 has the same turn of phrase, where God, standing within, makes the whole body appear without appearing.

This section is one long sentence in the Tamil. It calls on Arut Perum Jothi, undivided, complete Bliss, and lists all that God made appear within this physical body; its verb and its cry of praise come only at the close. The list moves from within to without. First come the five elements (pūtam), each named with what it does for the soul (jīvaṉ): earth supports it, water makes it grow, fire makes it shine, air makes it increase, space makes it pervade. Then come the secondary elements; five kinds of knowing through qualities, with their inner and outer organs; and five kinds of knowing through action. Even speaking, walking, giving and taking, and voiding excrement and urine he calls a knowing (aṟital). Then come the subtle instruments (karaṇam), mind, intellect, cittam and akaṅkāram, with the ultra-subtle instruments behind them and the qualities (kuṇam) that serve them; the intermediate actions; and the higher actions, such as causing impurity to be removed and being the way to bliss, with the tattvas that perform them. Then come the chief actions of knowing and experiencing, done by energies and their agents (catti cattar); wind, bile and phlegm; the energies of the sun, moon, fire and stars, and of Brahma, Maya and Rudra, with the agents who run them; and the states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep. These he counts as inner and inner-outer organs. Last come the outer and outer-outer organs: skin, nerve, bone, blood, flesh, seed, brain and nectar, and five colours with their twenty blends. All of it God made appear together to serve him, standing within and not appearing. Section 15 has the same turn of phrase: God moved him without moving him. He can only ask how to know, contemplate and praise that power.

Vallalar calls on God as the God of true wisdom (cattiya ñāṉam) who is the goal (lakṣiyam) of Suddha Sanmarkkam. Then he gives thanks for where and how he was born. The world, he says, is so great that living beings cannot measure it. In other places in it, great faults mostly grow, and he names ten, each one called great: greed, anger, lust, pride, miserliness, envy, egotism, hatred, folly and delusion. God did not have him born there. He was born “here” (ivviṭattē), where good qualities mostly grow, and in the human birth, which he calls the high birth, lacking in no limb. A footnote in the Urainadai editions describes this passage as his thanks to God for having him born in the Tamil land; in section 21 he gives thanks that God fixed his mind on Tamil. In section 2 he called the human body the highest of all the bodies that are born, with six kinds of awareness; here he adds the place and the whole body. All of it, he says, is the work of the great compassion of God’s great grace, and he can only ask how he shall contemplate it and how he shall praise it.

Vallalar calls on God as the True Reality (meypporuḷ), who shines without any division in the form of Arut Perum Jothi in the great Space of Grace (aruṭperu veḷi). Then he looks back on his childhood, from infancy (cicup paruvam) to boyhood (kumārap paruvam), and names its dangers one by one: being frightened by spirits, suffering affliction (tōṣam), bringing up milk, becoming a weakly child (cavalai), being seized by disease, crying from hunger, crying out in fear, turning from food, and mishaps to the body. None of them hindered him, because God kept watch within him and without and raised him. The God who shines in the great Space of Grace is the same God who guarded a small child from hunger and fright. The next two sections stay in his boyhood: the faults God kept him from and the good ways God led him into (section 19), and the learning God gave him from within (section 20).

Vallalar calls on God as the God of great nobility, Arut Perum Jothi of great grace, who has every form that knowers know. Then he tells what God did in his boyhood (kumārap paruvam). God did not lead him, even a little, into the faults of boys: childish games, craving snacks, idle arts, gaping at spectacles, foul talk, whining, petty quarrels, mischief, roaming at his own will, fretting at his mother. God made a little understanding shine in him and led him into good deeds: staying alone, eating without craving, prayer and austerity (japa and tapas), praising God, having compassion for other living beings (piṟavuyirkku iraṅkal), holding to noble qualities, singing and bowing, abiding in devotion. Compassion for other lives already stands among a child’s good deeds; in section 25 it returns as the good endeavour of compassion that longs for all living beings to attain bliss. He claims none of these virtues as his own. The verbs belong to God: You did not lead me into faults; You led me into good deeds. So the section ends in the petition’s refrain.

Vallalar calls on God as the God of unique supremacy, who is all things and yet none of them, and who fills and shines within and without all the universes and all that moves and does not move. That same God dwelt within one boy’s heart. In his boyhood no teacher trained him in learning (kalvi). God trained him from within his heart (uḷḷakam), in a learning that at his level was very hard to study and to know. A footnote in the Urainadai editions takes this passage as his own testimony that God taught him and that he studied under no other teacher. He claims no credit for it. As in every stage this petition tells, the doer is God: You trained me. The next section says where that inner training led: to Tamil, and to the hymns God made him sing in it.

Vallalar names five things that Āriyam (Sanskrit) and the other such languages produce: pomp (iṭampam), clamour (āravāram), toil (pirayācam), great concealment (perumaṟaippu) and the wasting of time (pōtupōkku). God did not let his desire go toward them. God made his mind hold to the southern language alone, Tamil (teṉmoḻi), which came to him by the strength of God’s holy grace (tiruvaruḷ valam). He gives Tamil three marks. It is very easy to learn and to know. It is very sweet to sing and to praise in. It makes known with ease the learning of deathlessness (cākākkalvi). In that language God made him sing hymns of praise of many kinds, the songs later gathered as Thiru Arutpa. Here too the choice is God’s: God turned his desire away, and God made his mind hold.

At that same young age God made Vallalar know that caste custom (jāti ācāram) and the custom of the stages of life (ācirama ācāram) are false worldly custom (poyyulaka ācāram). He says “false” twice in one breath: false worldly custom, made known as false. God did more than make him know; God kept him from practising them. Vallalar holds this verdict throughout his teaching. In the Small True Petition he prays that the worldly customs, notions and distinctions such as varna and ashrama never take hold of the minds of those who pray. In the Arut Perum Jothi Agaval he praises the Light who made him know at the very beginning that caste, sect and religion are false. Then, as his age advanced step after step (ēṟuntōṟum ēṟuntōṟum), God made his understanding shine again and again, raised him again and again to a higher state, and set him firm there. The doubled words (ceytu ceytu, ēṟṟi ēṟṟi) show the work done over and over, and every step is God’s.

At the very time youth (vālipap paruvam) was drawing near, God held down the desires for sense objects (viṭaya iccai) that belong most of all to that age, and did not let them raise their head even a little. Youth is a new stage; until now the petition has spoken of boyhood (kumārap paruvam). Vallalar does not say he conquered these desires by effort. He says God subdued them. A footnote in the Urainadai editions takes this passage as his own testimony that he had no desires for sense objects in his youth. It also prepares what comes later. In section 25 God does not let his understanding cling, even by an atom’s measure, to the desires for gold, women and land. There, freedom from desire comes joined to the compassion that longs for all living beings to attain bliss.

Even before his youth began, God made the true knowledge shine in Vallalar: there is only one true God, Arut Perum Jothi, who shines within and without to give bliss to all living beings. Then, as youth appeared, God made known to him, “exactly as they are” (uḷḷapaṭiyē), what the religions and their scriptures are. First, the countless religions, Saivism, Vaishnavism, Jainism, Buddhism and the rest, with the practices, gods and goals laid down in them, are varieties of attainment within the tattvas (tattuva citti vikaṟpaṅkaḷ). The tattvas are the constituent principles of which bodies, minds and worlds are made. Second, all their scriptures, the Vedas, Agamas, Puranas, Sastras and the rest, are imagined lore of attainment within the tattvas (tattuva cittik kaṟpaṉaik kalaikaḷ). God kept him from practising the customs of those religions even a little. Third, the sects and paths (mataṅkaḷ, mārkkaṅkaḷ) named Vedanta, Siddhanta, Bodhanta, Nadanta, Yoganta, Kalanta and the rest are distinctions of attainment of a slight fraction (lēcam) of the Suddha Sanmarkkam experience. God kept him from practising these too. The grading is his own: the religions and their scriptures he places within the tattvas; the sects and paths he measures against the Suddha Sanmarkkam experience, as a slight fraction of it. The knowledge of the one true God came first, and the verdicts followed. In the Small True Petition the same religions, sects and paths are named the chief obstacle to Suddha Sanmarkkam.

In the Tamil, all of this section before the refrain is a single sentence. God did more than keep Vallalar from the religions, sects and paths. In worldly life God did not let his understanding cling, even by an atom’s measure, to the desire for gold, for women, for land or for any other sense object. In their place God gave him “the good endeavour of compassion” (karuṇai naṉmuyaṟci), which looks on all living beings alike (potumaiyil nōkki) and longs for all of them to attain bliss, the bliss Arut Perum Jothi shines to give them (section 24). This is Jeevakarunyam, compassion for all living beings, and in the sentence it comes before the path: then God made him hold to the one unique path of Suddha Sanmarkkam alone. Then he names the great life of supreme bliss (pēriṉpap peruvāḻvu), lived in possession of four things: the deathless bodies, Suddha Deham, Pranava Deham and Jnana Deham; the unique great power that directs all the tattvas; the true wisdom that knows there is only one God; and the gift of grace (aruṭpēṟu) by which every attainment is obtained. To bring him into that life, God, as Arut Perum Jothi, did five things beyond his reach in any way: made him know great true knowledge, showed him great true visions, made him do great true deeds, made him attain great true goods, and made him experience great true experiences. Then the verbs turn to the present. God guards him without ceasing, dwells in his inmost heart, mingles with his life, and in great kindness (peruntayavu) performs the holy dance. The closing question, asked since section 2, is in the present too: “You who graciously do all this.” In the edition based on his manuscript, the petition closes, as it opened, with Tiruchitrambalam.

The title names this work a viṇṇappam, a petition laid before God, and calls it true (cattiya) and of wisdom (ñāṉa). It also names the path in which the petition is made: Samarasa Suddha Sanmarkkam, the Universal Pure True Path. In the collected prose writings it stands third of Vallalar’s four petitions, and it is often called simply the Petition of Wisdom (ñāṉa viṇṇappam). Below the title stands the sacred word Tiruchitrambalam, “the holy small hall”, the name of the hall of the sacred dance at Chidambaram. The Small and the Great True Petitions also open with it, and this petition closes with it too. The printed text rests on six handwritten copies made by Vallalar’s devotees. One heads it “the special petition on the holy presence of Grace” (tiruvaruṭ camuka vicēṣa viṇṇappam). Another says what it tells of: how rare is the sacred form of the holy presence of Grace, and how very rare is the power of attainment of the true sages who reached that presence. Like the Great True Petition, it speaks as “I”, and it addresses God as Tēvarīr, the most reverent word for “You”. Three acts run through it: to know (aṟital), to contemplate (karututal) and to praise (tutittal). In the end, as far as a servant can, Vallalar has known without knowing, contemplated without contemplating and praised without praising.

The petition opens by calling on God through three things, each called natural (iyaṟkai) and true (cattiya). Natural illumination is the True Hall of Wisdom (cattiya ñāṉacapai). Natural truth is God’s true holy form. Natural bliss is the true holy dance that God graciously performs in that Hall. Natural means God’s own nature: not made, and not received from anything else. Vallalar calls Him the unique great Lord of natural, unique and great compassion, the God of unique supremacy.

Then he reports what the great ones declare, marvelling again and again. All the Vedas and Agamas set out to know and praise the power of attainment (citti vallapam) of the true sages who have reached the holy presence of God’s grace (tiruvaruṭ camukam). For a time beyond measure they measured it, each by its own means and all together, found no end, and so embellished their words and marvelled. Neither the ruling lords of creation, preservation and the removal of impurity, nor the energies and their agents who run the tattvas, can reach it; they stand bewildered. So Vallalar knows without doubt that no one can grasp that power. How then shall he, a small one, begin to know the holy presence that gave it? This is the first of three questions: how shall he begin to know, to contemplate (section 3) and to praise (section 4)?

Vallalar calls on Lord Arut Perum Jothi, the Supreme Light of Grace, who in compassion looked on his false words, made up from false knowledge, as true words. He calls himself smaller even than the worm bred in dung. Then he tells what the wise have told him many times, in wonder. The lords of the five functions and others wished to contemplate the compassion of the holy presence of God’s grace. But the instruments they would contemplate with, their inner faculties (karaṇam), have not attained in full such auspicious qualities as purity and love. Knowing this, they hold back from contemplating it, think on it again and again, and grieve. The passage names what contemplating God’s compassion asks of the one who contemplates: auspicious qualities such as purity (tūymaiyuṭaimai) and love (aṉpuṭaimai).

Vallalar now turns this on himself. How shall he, the smallest of the small, begin? His own inner instrument is the storehouse of every evil quality, such as lust and anger: the very opposite of the auspicious qualities the lords have not attained in full. He gives it two images of hardness: it is like the gnarled stump of the parāy tree, a hard and knotted wood, and it is black stone. He names his own mind plainly, without excuse.

Calling himself lower than a dog, Vallalar calls on God as the great Lord of great compassion, who took all his faults as virtues and who sits within his heart, mingled with his very soul. Then he tells what he learned from the true words of the learned. The deities (mūrttikaḷ) and others wished to praise the great glory of the natural great qualities of the holy presence of God’s grace. But they hold that their tongues, the instruments of praise, are not perfected in such disciplines (oḻukkam) as speaking truth and speaking sweetly. So they do not praise; they stand in fear. As contemplating God’s compassion asks for purity and love (section 3), praising His glory asks for a tongue perfected in truth and sweet speech.

As with contemplation, Vallalar turns what he has learned onto himself. His own tongue is impure (acutta), grown thick from practice in the opposite: telling lies and speaking useless words. With such a tongue, how shall he, the lowest one (kaṭaiyēṉ), begin to praise? Like the stone-hard mind of section 3, the impure, thickened tongue is named plainly.

Vallalar calls on Arut Perum Jothi as the Complete One (pūraṇar), who fills and shines within and without all things: the universe (aṇṭam), the body (piṇṭam) and all else. After all he has confessed, he names his threefold longing: to know the holy presence of God’s grace, to contemplate its compassion, and to praise its glory. This longing dwells in his heart without ceasing; it springs up and swells like a flood breaking over its dam. So he takes as his support (paṟṟukkōṭu) a true saying (uṇmai vācakam) of the sages of true wisdom: Arut Perum Jothi has all the forms (vaṇṇam) that knowers know, that contemplators contemplate, and that praisers praise. Holding to that word, he, who calls himself without worth, begins to know, to contemplate and to praise.

In the Tamil this is one sentence, with the call to God in the middle. Vallalar began on the strength of the sages’ word that Arut Perum Jothi has all the forms (vaṇṇam) that knowers know, contemplators contemplate and praisers praise (section 5). Before he began, some of those forms had seemed within reach of his knowing, his thought and his tongue. Now that he stands here, not one of them appears fitting. So he marvels. Again and again he perceives, contemplates and speaks, asking: of what nature are the natural forms of the holy presence of God’s grace? His knowing, his thought and his tongue are all at work, and each ends in wonder. The sentence closes: “I have become one who marvels.”

Sections 7 and 8 form one long sentence, and its frame comes only at its close: all of it is what Vallalar heard “those who have realized” (uṇarntōr) tell in wonder. It opens by calling on Lord Arut Perum Jothi, who fills all without separation as the Reality of natural truth, the State of natural illumination and the Joy of natural bliss, the three with which the petition opened (section 2). The first report concerns the sages of Suddha Sanmarkkam. By the power of God’s grace they have conquered all the tattvas (the constituents of body, mind and world), have become stainless and stand where the tattvas end. They know their own truth, have gained natural awareness and enjoy natural bliss. Vallalar names them by six “ends” (antam): they are the pure Yogantars, Kalantars, Bodhantars, Nadantars, Vedantars and Siddhantars. These pure ones are themselves the sages of Suddha Sanmarkkam. The sects and paths that bear these six names he judges separately: in the Great True Petition he calls them distinctions of attainment of slight fractions of the Suddha Sanmarkkam experience. Asked to tell the natural holy presence of Grace as it is, the sages in every assembly answer alike. In their lament they speak of God: He is all the marks of all things and is also not them; He touches them and is untouched; He fills every region without a gap. Yet of His holy presence of Grace as it is, they cry: “How shall we know it! How shall we contemplate it! What shall we say it is!” Their cry echoes Vallalar’s own three longings, to know, to contemplate and to praise (sections 2 to 5).

The sentence that began in section 7 ends here, with its frame: Vallalar heard all this from “those who have realized” (uṇarntōr), told in wonder. Their second report concerns the sages of Samarasa Suddha Sanmarkkam, who hold the powers listed first. They are wholly free to grant with ease the five functions over all the tattvas and the tattvis; the lords who carry out such functions are bewildered and grieve (sections 2 and 3). They have attained the full form of the blissful experience of natural true wisdom. They are eternal ones with bodies pure, of sound and of wisdom; the words recall the three bodies of the Great True Petition, Suddha Deham, Pranava Deham and Jnana Deham. By a gracious glance they can perform every attainment (citti) of the tattvas and tattvis. They are the True Ones (cattiyar) in whom the six ends of section 7 are one in harmony (camaracam). Seekers granted entry by the power of merit into their holy hall of the play of Consciousness (citvilācam) put the same request to them. Unlike the sages of section 7, who sighed and spoke, these give no word at all. Tears of bliss pour from their eyes of great compassion, and they remain still (cummā irukkiṉṟaṉar). Hearing this, Vallalar cries out, rejoicing again and again: “The natural holy presence of Grace as it is: what is it!”

In the Tamil, the call to God and the question after it are one sentence. Vallalar first names God by what He is in every experience of attainment (citti), in his own order. Four kinds come first, each at its base stage and at its crowning stage: the attainment of the wisdom of action (karuma ñāṉam), of yoga, of the tattvas and of the soul (āṉma ñāṉam). Then come pure wisdom (cutta ñāṉam) and, last, Samarasa pure wisdom (camaraca cutta ñāṉam). In every one of these experiences God becomes that very experience: He fills it, shines in it and is its sweetness. In each He is also the transcendent (atītam), blended with it. He becomes all of them and is one, and He shines alone as the transcendent beyond the transcendent (atītātītam). Then comes the conclusion. The holy presence of Grace is the cause of everything in three ways. For a pot, the primary cause is the clay it is made of, the instrumental cause is the potter who makes it, and the supporting cause is his wheel and stick. The holy presence of Grace is all three for all energies and their agents, all divine forms and those who bear them, all goddesses and gods, all who practise and all who have attained, all living beings, all tattvas, things, qualities, actions and experiences, and everything else; and it is also none of these. The sages could not tell even this holy presence as it is: some sighed, and others wept tears of bliss and remained still. How then could anyone know the natural sacred form of God Himself, the great Lord of great compassion of that holy presence?

Vallalar calls on God as the One who shines with none equal and none above. All that he has heard leads here: neither God’s own sacred form nor the sacred form of the holy presence of Grace can be known, contemplated or praised in any way at all. He had longed to know the natural truth of the holy presence of Grace, to contemplate its great compassion and to praise its great glory, and he began, holding to the word of the sages of true wisdom that God has every form that knowers know, contemplators contemplate and praisers praise (section 5). Now, as far as a servant (aṭimai) can, he has known without knowing, contemplated without contemplating and praised without praising, and so he has made firm his right (urimai). The three words that run through the whole petition, know, contemplate and praise, come back here for the last time. The petition closes with a twofold salutation, vantaṉam, and, as it began, with Tiruchitrambalam.

The title calls this work a viṇṇappam, a petition laid before God, and calls it true (cattiya). It is the petition of the caṅkam, the Sangam: the fellowship of those who walk Vallalar’s path of Samarasa Suddha Sanmarkkam, the Universal Pure True Path. The name stands within the petition itself, at the end of its opening address (§2). The editions did not always keep it: some placed this petition first and called it a small petition, and in the copies made by his devotees it is not numbered with the other three. Here it stands fourth, as in the later printed editions. It is the shortest of the four. Like the Great True Petition and the True Petition of Wisdom, it speaks as “I”, addresses God as Tēvarīr, the most reverent word for “You”, and opens and closes with Tiruchitrambalam.

The opening follows the invocation of the Great True Petition (Peru §2) almost word for word. God is named by three things that belong to His own nature: natural illumination fills the place, natural truth is His holy form, natural bliss is His holy dance. That dance has one purpose: that every living being may attain bliss. Two things are new here. The place is named: Vadalur, which the world also calls Parvatipuram, and which grace has named Uttara Jnana Siddhipuram and Uttara Jnana Chidambaram. And where Peru speaks of a Space of Siva-experience, here it is a Hall of Wisdom (ñāṉacapai), the Sathya Jnana Sabha at Vadalur. The printed editions read “filled with natural illumination”; the online text repeats “natural truth” here. Vallalar makes his petition in the holy presence of God’s grace (tiruvaruṭ camukam).

Vallalar says plainly what he asks for. He does not ask to leave the body, or to be released from it at death. He asks that this very body (it tēkattaiyē) be made an eternal body (nittiya tēkam), free of death, disease, old age, fear and suffering. The Small True Petition names the same afflictions and the same great life (Siru §13), and the Great True Petition calls this body the highest of all bodies, with six kinds of awareness (Peru §2). He calls it his true desire and his most intense endeavour (atitīvira virupa muyaṟci): the aim of all his effort.

Now the question is how. The answer comes from grace itself: by no other way, only by the freedom of grace (tiruvaruṭ cutantaram). Cutantaram means freedom: the power to act by one’s own right. Here the freedom is God’s. The deathless life cannot be won by effort, practice or merit; grace gives it, acting freely. Vallalar does not say he found this out. He says grace made it known (aṟivikka), and he knew it as it is.

Here the petition turns. The freedom of grace comes only where our own freedoms have gone. Vallalar names three, and together he calls them “my I” (eṉatu yāṉ). The freedom of the body (tēka cutantaram) is the claim that the body is ours to rule. The freedom of enjoyment (pōka cutantaram) is the claim over what the body receives and enjoys. The freedom of the soul (jīva cutantaram) is the claim that life itself is our own. He asks how grace comes “to us” (namakku): what he learns, he learns for all.

Vallalar does what grace has shown him. He gives all three freedoms to grace as all freedom (carva cutantaram), keeping nothing back. At the moment of giving he learns a second truth: the body, the soul and the things enjoyed were never won by his own freedom. God’s great compassion gave them. What he gives up was never his. So from now on, with grace as witness, no claim of freedom will appear in him over any of them. Only then does he ask again for what he asked at first, the eternal body and the deathless great life, now as one who holds nothing as his own. The sentence on what grace made him know at the moment of giving is missing from the online text; it is given here from the printed editions.

The petition does not end with Vallalar. The deathless life he asks for himself, he asks for every living being who has received this body (it tēkattaip peṟṟa ellāc cīvarkaḷ). The word is urimai, right: what grace gives one, it gives as a right to all, as in the right of oneness in soul-kinship of the Small True Petition (Siru §18). This is why it is the petition of the Sangam: a prayer for all.

The petition ends with praise. God rules, and His rule is great compassion (peruṅkaruṇai āṭci). Then Vallalar signs it, as a letter is signed: “Thus” (iṅṅaṉam), and his own name, Chidambaram Ramalingam. The printed editions keep this sign-off, and so do three of the copies made by his devotees. Tiruchitrambalam closes the petition, as it opened it (§1).