INTRODUCTION
Arivattaya Nayanmar or Thayanar was one among the 63 Nayanmars, and he is regarded as the great devotee of Lord Shiva. Nayanmars were born and lived before thousands of years ago. In the Periya Puranam, Sekkizhar had written about the life and the importance of 63 Nayanmars.
Thayanar was born in a rich family in a village located at Thanjavur district. Thayanar was an ardent devotee of Lord Shiva and lived in Thanjavur with his family.
Though he was a rich person in his village, he led a simple and a noble life. He was the owner of several farm lands. And through that, he and his noble wife cultivated the crops and provided food to the shiva devotees. Due to his continuous service, one day he had lost all of his wealth, but even then, he continued his routine service of feeding food to the devotees of Lord Shiva.
In course of time, he sold out all of his farm lands, and he and his wife were begun to work as labourers in other wealthy people’s fields. Even in that difficult situation, with his meagre income, he started feeding the poor and the devotees of Lord Shiva. His situation was further worsened due to the severe drought occurred in his village, and he and his wife were starved for several days without food.
One day, somehow the couple managed to prepare simple food and arrived towards a Shiva temple to offer the food to the Lord as Prasad and then to offer it to the devotees of Lord Shiva. Due to hunger and starvation, the couple fell down on the ground with the food and the food was wasted. Unable to tolerate the wastage of food, he took a weapon and tried to pierce it on his neck.
He was stopped from doing that act, by Lord Shiva, and he appeared along with Parvati and they appreciated the couple’s sincere bhakti and their selfless service of providing food to the devotees and given them Salvation.
IMPORTANCE
He was a great nayanmar who thought only about doing food offering to the god and to his devotees, and didn’t think about himself and his wife. He had lost all his riches through his charity work, and even then, he didn’t felt bad about that. Instead of living comfortably, he lived a simple life and performed siva puja and offered fruits and flowers to shiva. His wife was an affectionate woman who always takes care of his husband, and does her duties according to his desire. She also got great bhakti on Lord Shiva similar to her husband.
Let us worship the great nayanmar saint and be blessed.
“OM SREE ARIVATTAYA NAYANMARE NAMAHA”
“OM NAMAH SHIVAYA”
WRITTEN BY
R.HARISHANKAR