3.1.3. Light to Sound – The letter “அ – ah” (Kural 1)

அகர முதல எழுத்தெல்லாம் ஆதி

பகவன் முதற்றே உலகு

Transliteration:

“Agara mudhala ezhuthellam aadhi

bhagavan mudhatre ulagu.”

         

This is the first Kural in the first chapter Praise of God. The most superficial translation of this Kural is:  Just as how “அ” (Pronounced as “Ah”) is the first letter, God is the beginning of the world. This is the depth to which we can reach on reading the Kural by ourselves. Most of us feel like we have achieved some level of mastery on Thirukkural with this superficial understanding.

Our ancestors believed in approaching the difficult and heavy subjects first and then followed it up with lighter topics. True to their belief, the first kural has a much deeper explanation drawn from the Shaiva Siddantham Thathuvam.

What is a Thathuvam? Each religion/philosophy has its own belief system about what is transient and what is permanent in this creation. A set of principles of how creation came into existence, what is real, what is illusion (Mayai) and so on. Those principles are called Thathuvams in Tamil.

Many questions arise on reading the first Kural:

1.   Thiruvalluvar says “அ” is the first letter. He didn’t say, first letter of Tamil Language. But we know A is the first letter in English! Does it mean that he is referring only to Tamil language in this kural?  in which case can we conclude that Thirukkural doesn’t really apply to people whose mother tongue isn’t Tamil?

2.   So just as how “அ” is the first letter, is God the first in the ordinal order of creation?

3.   There is one theory that states Adhi and Bagavan are the parents of Thiruvalluvar and he meant that parents are to be given priority in one's life.( This explanation is incorrect)

Keeping these questions in the back of the mind, let us proceed to the explanation.

Hindus believe in multiple births of the soul. In each birth, we accumulate good and bad karma. Understanding karma will help us to reduce hatred in our lives. Eg: When someone does something bad to us, or if we are going through a difficult time, we will understand that our bad past karma is playing out. Now, depending on our actions in the previous births, the soul takes up a new body to live out its karma (good and bad). The goal of life is to eliminate all karmas and eventually reach Veedu (becoming one with God).

Our body is called Thanu. Our soul has been given instruments such as nose, ear, eyes etc also called as Karunam, and has been allotted a place to live out the karma. That is, we are born in a particular country for a specific reason. That place is called Bhuvanam. The physical objects that our soul is blessed with in order to live out its experiences, are called Bogam. Once our karma is over, we will leave our Thanu, Karana, Bhuvana, Bogam and move on.

Now, body and soul are two different things. The body by itself is made of five elements (earth, water, fire, air, and space). The elements are non living things. The soul on the other hand is the intelligent part of us. Why do I say this? While we are sleeping, all our sense organs are very much alive, but we don’t see or hear or feel anything around us. That means something else inside our body is using the instruments and performing the action of “Seeing” , “hearing” etc. That something is our soul.

How does the experiences of the body reach the soul ? where is the soul linked to the body? To know this, we should understand something called Vaakku Thathuvam (Vaakku literally means speech) or the Principle of Sound. This Principle tells us where sound originates in our body. The Supreme Power is linked to our soul and is glued to our body by Vaakku. Vaakku is placed at an important place in our body called The Mooladharam. Our entire potential energy is stored in this Mooladharam.

Where is Mooladharam? Roughly speaking - if we cut our body from the top, into two halves (right and left) the place where the body separates completely into two halves is Mooladharam. Here sound energy is in its most condensed form which is light energy and it glues the body to the soul. (Siddhantam says that sound energy can be condensed to light energy and it happens so in our body). The Vaakku in Mooladharam is called "sukuma vaakku"("sukuma" means subtle). The sound that originates here travels up to the umbilical area and here it is called as “paisandhi vaakku”. Here also it is in the form of light. Next, it ascends to the chest area and is now called “mathimai vaakku”. Only here, the sound can be differentiated into aksharas (akshara is a symbolic representation of a sound – i.e., a letter).  For eg: When you close your mouth and say any word, try "amma", you will feel the word being said in your chest area (not below that), because it is in the chest that the Aksharas get separated. Hindu priests, would sometimes chant mantras without actually saying it aloud because in the 'Mathimai Vaakku' there is less contamination and hence mantras will have more power. With proper training, certain powerful mantras can also be chanted from the mooladhara. Those are called asavaa mantras. Then, the sound travels to the throat and is called “sukuma vaigari vaakku” and in the end it comes out of the mouth as the “thoola vaigari vaakku” (Thoola is the opposite of subtle, it means gross). That is the sound that we hear when we speak.

At the initial stages of the soul, we talk a lot. But as the soul goes through life experiences, the person becomes wiser and eventually the vaakku goes back to mooladhara. (For some, vaakku could even clutch the Supreme Power and for such people, their words become highly respected as irai vaakku). That’s why we see that enlightened beings don’t speak much.

What is the natural sound that is there in the mooladhara? Simply open your mouth and make the sound. That sound is “ah” (அ). Sound as we understand is produced by friction between two things. But this sound is not due to any friction. It is the natural sound for all human beings, not just for Tamilians. Tamilians just took this natural sound and made it the first alphabet of their language (I just want to pause here, and give them a respectful bow).

Now, using the four instruments 1) tongue 2) cheek 3)teeth, 4) lips we can twist the sound “ah” (அ) and get all the other sounds in our experience. For eg:  if we stretch our lower tongue and press against the lower row of teeth we get the sound “E” (இ). But the basic sound is only அ -ah. (An analogy - In playing stringed instruments, the Veena for instance, we press the string against the bar and different sounds are produced, but the basic sound is “sa”).  Since (அ) is the natural friction-free sound, from which other sounds are born, Valluvar took this letter to explain the nature of God. It can be said that all the languages in the world have different sounds for their first alphabet, but they all come from twisting the one fundamental sound “ah”  - அ. The first kural means just as how (அ) ah is the foundation of all letters for all languages, God is the fundamental force from which the entire Universe is created.

(In this first kural, there is a word “muthal”. It has more than one meaning in Tamil, but here we should understand it as “investment” or “foundation”. Not the ordinal first!).

Coming to the akshram – அ. All the letters of all languages can be boiled down to four basic strokes 1) Standing line 2) Sleeping line 3) Circle 4) Crescent. The others are only variations of these. If a child has mastered the four components he/she can easily write any letter in any language. Interestingly அ has all the components in it, and is rightfully placed at the beginning of the alphabet series.

We cannot see God, but we can understand him by looking at His creation. Parimelazhagar explains that Adi Bhagavan refers to God, as a generic name without any religious backing. It can be Jesus, or Allah or any other God. He didn’t want to attach any religion in explaining this concept, so he used the word Adhi Bhagavan as adjectives (Adhi means first, Bhagavan means God) and not as Proper nouns. (Parimelazhagar says that Adhi Bhagavan is iru peyarottu panbu thogai in Tamil Grammar. Those interested can refer to this grammatical context to understand that Adhi and Bhagavan are not names of people).