Guest guest Posted August 7, 1995 Report Share Posted August 7, 1995 Eswar Josyula (76142.1306) asked: * I have some basic questions on the "Alvars". * * Is it Alvar or Alzvar or Azhvar? What is the meaning of this word? * What is the sanskrit equivalent of this word? I think just a couple of weeks back we discussed about this. Mani might still have the material archived in his site (http://reality.sgi.com/employees/mani/bhakti.html). For those without access to www, perhaps he can repost them. using the accepted roman thamizh transliteration scheme (in the absense of any diacritical marks), the way to write this word is aazhvaar 'zh' is a letter characterestic of the language thamizh, not found in other languages (is that so?). Somewhat close to the way americans pronounce 'r', I think. In most books 'zh' is represented as `l' with two dots underneath. The most direct meaning I will ascribe to this word is 'someone who is immersed in the Lord'. The word 'aazh' is the root for words meaning deep, depth, to immerse in, deeply involved in etc. Mani informed us that Fredholm Hardy suggests that the word could have meant 'one who rules' based on the root word 'aaL' (= to rule). This word is used in addition to the 12 main aazhvaars, some more like kooraththaazhvaan. In the latter case, it is used as a respectful title and nothing more. Rama's brother Lakshmanan is referred to as iLaiyaazhvaar and hence aadhisEsha is also referred by the same title. In colloquial toungue, aazhvaan also refers to a mischivous person. I am not sure how this last meaning came about - most possibly a corrupted reference to Rama's monkey army, and particularly Hanuman, and from there to monkeys in general and from there to a monkeying mischief maker. The 12 main aazhvaars are denoted by 'yogi' in sanskrit, as in bootha yogi, saara yogi etc. * The number of Alvars is 12. Who recognized these individuals as Alvars * for the first time? Are there more to come? It was naathamuni who recognized the 12 aazhvaars and what is remaining of their works. There are no revelations or scriptures that talk about the number of aazhvaars etc. (at least I do not know of any) and by all accounts we aren't going to see any new aazhvaars. If anyone claims so, he/she would be an imposter. --badri ----------------- S.Badrinarayanan Graduate Student Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Cornell University ----------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 7, 1995 Report Share Posted August 7, 1995 -----------------------kirtaniyah sada Hari--------------------------- On 7 Aug 1995, Eswar Josyula wrote: > I have some basic questions on the "Alvars". > > Is it Alvar or Alzvar or Azhvar? What is the meaning of this word? > What is the sanskrit equivalent of this word? > > The number of Alvars is 12. Who recognized these individuals as Alvars > for the first time? Are there more to come? I want to add more to this list. How many of the Alvars are before Adi Sankaracarya? Basically I was looking for devotees between 2500BC - 8th Century (and trying to gaze the strength of the Vedic system during this period) I know Chanakya was there (as forecasted in Bhagavatam) around 300 BC But don't know if he a devotee. I only heard of his arthasastra and only know of him as someone who has done his best to keep India's integrity and uphold dharmic principles. I still need to introduce myself to this group. I am Kothuri Venkata Ravikanth doing my PhD in CS at UCSB. Basically from Andhra. Born and brought up in Vizag. Now we are settled in Secunderabad. We are called "dravillu" in Andhra. We are supposed to have migrated from somewhere near Tanjavore (called thangaimaans or something like that in there). Although we are supposed to be followers of Saivism, my father is more devoted to Lord Venkateswara. Thanks to Prabhupada, I too got interested in Vaishnavism and my childhood conviction (hearing all the tales of Dhruva... from my mother) that bhakti to Narayana and love of Krishna is the greatest, got reinforced as I read Gita. Our gothra is "ratitarasa". I don't know anything else. I am interested in knowing about the "thangaimaans" if anyone knows. (btw, I don't know Tamil). ravi > > -Eswar > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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