Kannappa Nayanar is known for his unparalleled devotion for giving away both his eyes to Lord Shiva. Let us read about his birth life, previous birth and how he established his devotion and attained fame in his glorious path of self realization…
Nayanmars
Nayanar or Nayanmar or Saivates are devotees of Lord Shiva and Sekizhar in his literature – Periya Puranam has meticulously compiled the life stories of the 63 Nayanmars. All the stories emphasize the fact that self-realization is not reserved for the educated or rich. On the contrary, people from all walks of life – illiterate, poor or the rich who lost their wealth and still went on with their duty; attained realization by means of staunch faith and devotion.
Parents
The village of Uduppur (in current day Andhra Pradesh state) was filled with greeneries, wild life and surrounded by hills and rainfalls. Human life inhabiting the forests were hunters and a courageous supremo by name Nagan was the leader. His discipline was crime, hobby was to kill, profession to hunt, valorous in the archery and well suited as the leader as his ancestors. His wife, Thaththai, also belonged to a family of powerful archers and hence wore ornaments made from tiger nails and snake skin.
After repeated prayers to Lord Muruga for a child, a baby boy was born. With tears of joy, Nagan took his son like a huge mountain holding up a dark cloud. He celebrated the occasion with thanks giving sacrifices of animals to Lord Muruga and the entire town rejoiced the arrival of their future leader. The marvelous kid was so powerful that even his father felt him heavy to hold up. So, he named the kid Thinnan (meaning “strong”), amid the roar of the hunting folks.
When Thinnan grew up to the age of learning archery, his father found an auspicious day for his first course in archery and made a big announcement through his hunters in all the directions. The hunters from many areas came along with the gems, leather, ivory, honey, favorite flesh varieties, fruits and roots to offer to their young boss. With the festivities and Thinnan learnt the art as his profession beyond doubts and inefficiencies.
First Hunt
When Thinnan reached the age of sixteen, Nagan had grown old and was unable to lead the hunt in the forest. As the residents in the forest had their livelihood dependent on hunting, Thinnan was nominated to lead after propitiating the forest deities.
Thinnan started with the fellow hunters early in the morning, tremoring the animals in all directions as they penetrated into the deep forest with different dreadful arms. As they were rejoicing about their successful day in hunting, there came a wild boar, which broke the nets and pits of the hunters. It leaped escaping the piercing arrows of the hunters and only three people were able to chase it to the end. Thinnan and his friends Nannan and Kaadan followed the wild boar as it went far away from their hunting place to another hill in the thick forest.
The hill in the holy region of Kalahasthi was the abode of Lord Shiva and the wild boar stopped under a tree out of exhaustion. Thinnan hunted the boar with his dagger and then realized that they had travelled far from their residence. Nannan suggested they refresh in a river called Ponmukali on the other side of the Kudumithevar (Lord Shiva) hill. As they crossed the forest, Thinnan saw the divine lingam on the hill and kindled by an intuition, he walked like an iron attracted to a magnet.
Thinnan fled to the Lord overflowing with love, embraced and kissed the Lingam. Happiness manifested through every inch of his body and expressed his concern, “Oh my Lord! In this dense forest with a whole of wild animals moving around, there is nobody to guard you here !! Oh! You are alone!”. He felt bad that the Lingam stood lonely and also was unhappy about the offerings made of green leaves and flowers.
Thinnan had no knowledge of the sacred scriptures and was alien to any custom of worship. He had the life of eating hunted and cooked meat, so he assumed God would also like the same.
Thinnan refused to leave with his friends, back to their home. Instead, he went to the forest, gathered vibrant flowers and put it on his head, took water in the mouth to bath the lingam and carried cooked meat in his hand to offer it to the Lingam. After he completed the worship, he stood guard the whole night.
As the day dawned, Thinnan left to hunt food for the god. When Thinnan was away, the priest who worshipped the lingam by name Shiva Kochariyar turned up. He was shocked at the sight of strewn bones and flesh in front of the Lord. He screamed, “It should be the act of those dreadful hunters”, he concluded. He cleaned the altar, took bath in the river and performed his ritual and chanting of hymns.
Thinnan’s father came to take him back to be the leader of the hunters. But, Thinnan flatly refused and said after seeing the Lord, he ceased to feel as the leader but rather the slave of that Lord.
The routine continued with the priest cleaning and performing pooja in the morning and Thinnan performing his pooja and standing guard overnight. Shiva Kochariyar was so desperate to find a solution to this problem. He prayed to the Lord to show and remove the person who had been doing the misdeed. However, God appeared in the dream of the priest and told him, “Don’t think that he is a miscreant. His form is full of my love and his deeds are the delightful for me. The water he spits on me is more sacred than the Ganges River, the flowers from his head are holier than that are offered by Devas. It is all because of His love. You can see the excellence of his devotion tomorrow, if you hide and watch”. With mixed feelings, the priest performed his worship during the day and hid behind.
On that seventh day morning of his worship of the Lord, Thinnan brought the unusual materials of worship with unprecedented love. To show Shiva Kochariyar, the affection of Thinnan, the Lord was having his right eye bleeding. Thinnan raced to the forest to bring herbs to stop the bleeding, but none was effective. With a broken heart, he cried holding the feet of the lingam.
Thinnan then remembered an old saying “flesh for flesh”. He instantly removed one of his eye with the sharp arrow and kept on the bleeding eye. He jumped from the ground to the sky, appreciated himself for the brave deed when it arrested the bleeding. Lord Shiva dint stop there, he desired to show the limitlessness of Thinnan’s devotion. As the bleeding stopped in the right eye, now the left eye started bleeding. After being in the shock for a moment, Thinnan told to himself, “Now I know the medicine. I have one more eye. That should cure this”. He realized the difficulty of placing the eye in position once he took off the other eye too. So, he held his foot on the bleeding eye of the lingam, as a mark and raised the arrow to take his other eye off.
The Lord Himself was not able to bear this great action, not just appeared, but came holding his hands to stop from plucking the other eye, shouting, “Oh halt, Kannapa!”.
The priest the divinity of the pure love of Kannapa and realized the Lord accepted the flesh as a fruit only due to the presence of true love. Having been blessed thus, the Lord accepted Kannapar and took him to always stay to his right.
Myth Vs Truth
According to historical chronicles, Kannapa Nayanar was Arjuna of the Pandavas in his past life. Once, Arjuna was meditating on Lord Shiva for Pashupatastra to be used in the Kurukshethra war. To test him, Lord Shiva disguised as a hunter, went into a race with Arjuna for killing a demon named Mooka. Both their arrows hit the demon and duel started between Lord Shiva and Arjuna, as to whose arrow killed the demon.
When Arjuna realized that it was Lord Shiva himself, overpowered with love, he asked the Lord to bless him with Bhakthi (true devotion), instead of the asthra. Impressed by Arjuna’s word, Lord Shiva blessed him saying that Arjuna will possess unbounded devotion in his next birth and that he will be provided with the Pashupatastra, that is required now.
Another version is that Arjuna because of his boastful nature being the greatest warrior, had to be born as a humble devotee in the Kali Yuga as Kannappa Nayanar to get liberation.
It is believed that the lingam worshipped by Kannapa Nayanar is not the Vayu lingam deity in the temple of Kalahasthi, but is in one of the forest hill away from the pilgrim temple.
Kannappa Nayanar has been praised and mentioned in verses of the prominent Saivates (Lord Shiva devotees) including Thirugnana Sambandar, Manicka Vasagar, Sundarar, Thirunaavukarasar, Adi Sankarar and Nakeerar. We keep pondering over the fact that he was admired by equally devoted saints from different centuries. It is remarkable to learn from his life that devotion is all about faith to the almighty and no custom/procedure/principle has to be adhered. Kannapa Nayanar is cherished as the person who stood guard to the God, who guards the whole universe all the time.
End-Note
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