Daily prayers

A familiar time, a short hymn and a moment of attention give daily remembrance a practical shape.

Choose a moment you can keep: after getting ready in the morning, before beginning work, or when the household settles in the evening. Stand or sit before your shrine if you have one. Bring your attention to Siva, join your hands if that is your practice, and read or sing a short verse. The suggestions here are a beginning you can adapt, rather than a timetable required of every home.

The table offers choices, not four things that must all be completed. For a first daily form, choose one of the Tevaram verses and read its meaning. When the Magudam becomes familiar, you can add it as the closing praise. On a day with more time, sing slowly and leave a little silence afterwards.

For remembrance through the day, turn to The five syllables. That teaching gives the name and its meaning; we do not repeat its explanation here. If a teacher has given you a particular practice, keep that guidance as you learn these songs.

To learn the outward signs and the place of home and temple worship, read Worship and daily practice. Here the immediate task is smaller: have words ready, know their meaning and say them with care. If you are reading with a child or another beginner, explain one image before singing rather than stopping after every word.

Sambandar gives words for wearing sacred ash; Appar gives words of reliance on the Lord.

✦When wearing sacred ash

When to say it: this is a suitable verse to sing or read when you wear sacred ash, or during your morning worship. Sambandar's Tevaram 2.66.1, from the Tiruneetru pathigam at Alavay, Madurai, keeps returning to the word neeru, ash.

As you say the verse, remember whose sign you wear. The repeated praise can turn a familiar movement into an act of attention. You need not explain all the verse's terms before beginning; start with its final image, Siva with Uma, and return to the fuller meaning as you learn.

✦When asking for steadiness and help

When to say it: sing or read this during daily worship, or when you wish to turn anxiety into an appeal for Siva's company. Appar's Tevaram 4.11.1 names the Lord's name as the good companion even in the image of being bound to a stone and cast into the sea.

The sea and stone belong to the verse's strong language of refuge. You can pray with that confidence while bringing your own ordinary concerns: a difficult conversation, work you fear or someone you love who needs help. Say what troubles you in your own words after the verse, then pause. The hymn gives that appeal a voice.

For more of Appar's hymn and its setting, read Tirumurai 4. Learn the Tamil from someone who knows it, repeating a short phrase after them. Reading is also a good beginning when the tune is unfamiliar.

Two short verses bow to the four saints who sang and to the four teachers who explained.

Many Saiva homes and gatherings salute the teachers before or after worship. Two short verses do this, each naming four people with one line apiece.

✦The four saints who sang

When to say it: at the beginning of worship, before singing from the Tirumurai. The Nalvar thuthi salutes the four Samaya Kuravars, the saints whose hymns we sing. It is attributed to Umapathi Sivam.

Each line names a saint by a deed the hymns and the Periya Puranam remember: Sambandar, who cured the Pandya king at Madurai; Appar, thrown into the sea tied to a stone, who floated to shore; Sundarar, Siva's bold servant from Tirunavalur; and Manikkavasagar of Tiruvadavur.

✦The four teachers who explained

When to say it: after the Nalvar thuthi, or before reading from the Meykanda Sastras. The Santhana Kuravar thuthi salutes the four Santhana Kuravars, the line of teachers who set out the doctrine, each the disciple of the one before.

Meykandar wrote Sivagnana Bodham; Arulnandi wrote Sivagnana Siddhiyar; Maraignana Sambandar taught Umapathi; and Umapathi wrote eight of the fourteen Sastras. The people page tells their story.

Pattinathar's verse names our many failings and asks the Lord of Kanchi to forgive them all.

When to say it: at the close of the day, or at the end of worship, before the Magudam. This verse, attributed to Pattinathar, is often called a prayer for total forgiveness. It names each way we fall short and asks pardon for all of them.

The verse does not ask us to list our failings in detail. It names them in kinds, and then gives them all to the Lord. You can pause after the third line and bring your own day to mind.

✦The same prayer in Sanskrit

Some households say a short Sanskrit verse of refuge with the same heart.

The blessing at the head of the Kanda Puranam asks for rain, plenty, just rule and the good of every living being.

When to say it: at the very end of worship, after the Magudam, or whenever you gather to pray together. This verse stands at the beginning of the Kanda Puranam of Kachiyappa Sivachariyar, as its blessing. It is sung at the close of many Saiva gatherings.

The prayer moves outward: from rain and harvest, to just rule, to every living being, and finally to the whole world. It asks nothing for the one who prays.

✦The same blessing in Sanskrit

A short Sanskrit line, said at the end of many prayers, carries the same wish.

The closing prayer gathers lines of praise from Manikkavasagar and ends with a pair from Appar.

When to say it: at the close of worship. Magudam, மகுடம், means crown. Here it names a gathered prayer, with potri, “praise” or “hail”, returning at the end of each line. It brings together passages from Tiruvasagam and a closing pair from Tevaram; it is not a single continuous hymn by one poet.

✦Where each pair comes from

The numbers in the first column count the lines in the compiled prayer above. Tiruvasagam 4 is the Potri Tiruvagaval. Tiruvasagam 1 is Sivapuranam. The final pair belongs to Appar's Potri Tiruttandakam, 6.55.9.

The prayer moves through several beloved places while addressing the same Lord. You do not need to visit each place before you can say its name. Learn the names gradually and attend to the words of relationship: our Lord, our Father, the One who gives joy, the One whose care we ask. The opening reaches from the southern land to the people of every land; the ending makes the appeal close and personal: “Protect me.”

For learning, take the prayer in pairs. Hear the first line, repeat it, then do the same with the next. When the words are familiar, join the pairs into the full closing prayer. The source table is there for returning to the poems, not something you must recite alongside the prayer. Tirumurai 8 introduces Manikkavasagar's larger work.

Karpuragauram bows to Siva with Bhavani; the Mrityunjaya mantra asks the three-eyed Lord for freedom from death.

When to say it: if this prayer belongs to your household's worship, you can say it during that prayer time, before the closing Tamil praise. This is an optional place in the simple sequence here. The prayer beginning Karpuragauram appears in collections of commonly recited prayers and before a list of Siva's names.

The words gather a few images for attention: camphor's whiteness, compassion, the serpent garland and the heart as a lotus. Bhava here names Siva; Bhavani names His consort. You can begin with the final meaning, “I bow”, and learn the preceding descriptions as you become familiar with the sound.

✦The Mrityunjaya mantra

When to say it: in daily worship, or in a time of illness or fear, if it belongs to your household's practice. The Mrityunjaya mantra, "the conqueror of death", comes from the Rig Veda. It prays to Siva as the three-eyed Lord.

The image is gentle: a ripe fruit comes away from its stalk by itself, without force. The prayer asks to be released from death in that way, and never from the deathless Lord.

Listen to a person who knows the pronunciation and repeat slowly. The Roman letters are a reading aid. If this prayer is new to your household, the Tamil verses already give you words for daily worship; you can learn this one when you wish to add it. Keep the meaning beside the sound as you practise.

Return to a short prayer regularly, and let the care of the words continue in your dealings with others.

For tomorrow morning, choose your smallest workable beginning. Read one Tevaram verse with its meaning. If you already know the Magudam, use it to close. Then pause before going about your work. In the evening, you can return to the same verse and name something for which you are grateful or something for which you need help.

✦A pattern you can keep

This is a suggested pattern for beginning. A family may sing more, choose another hymn or follow the teacher's received order. If you join others in worship, listen first and learn their sequence. Familiarity grows through returning to the same words together.

When you miss your usual time, choose the next quiet moment and begin again. When you stumble over a word, read it more slowly. When the tune is difficult, speak the verse while you learn. These are ordinary parts of learning a prayer. Keep the book open for as long as you need it.

Try carrying one phrase into the day: the Lord as companion, the appeal for protection, or the invitation to praise. Let it help you answer someone patiently or complete a small act of care. At your next prayer, bring that encounter back into your words to Siva. Daily remembrance can have that steady movement between worship and the life you are living.