Avvayar

Avvayar is a famous Tamil Sangam era poet. It is not entirely clear when she lived or whether there was more than one person with the same name. However we do know that she existed as her works are still with us. Some place her around the time of 100 BCE whilst others place her much later at around 700 to 900 CE. She was an ardent devotee of Lord Ganesha.

I remember studying her poems in primary school during my Tamil lessons,  Aathi choodi and kondrai vendhan. Not sure if these are taught anymore to our Singapore Tamil language students.

Why I brought her up is because Avvayar used to feature in many Tamil devotional movies that came out in the 1960s and 1970s. I would watch these movies with my parents and she was always featured as a wise elderly lady who went around singing devotional songs and offering sound advice to all. There was an entire Tamil movie made about her entitled Avvayar which was released in 1953. I have seen this movie and in particular I remember there was a scene where nearly towards the end of the movie, she encounters a young boy sitting atop a naval tree asking her if she wants a sutta palzham or a sudatha palzham. It turns out that it was Lord Murugan who came as the young boy wanting to teach Avvayar a lesson and to finally allow her to leave this world.

Whilst on the way to Palamuthir Solai, the driver pointed me to a tree, which was near the temple, which is supposed to be the very same tree from which Lord Murugan had asked Avvayar that question. The tree was fenced up with a statue of Vinayagar.

Fascinating!