Kodikkavi

The raising of a temple flag becomes an address to grace and a teaching about the soul's release.

Kodi is the flag; kavi is the poem. The verses repeatedly return to the flag being tied or raised. Umapathi gives the act an inward purpose: the soul, immersed in its bonds, is to reach grace.

Kodikkavi belongs to his Siddhanta Astakam, the eight Sastras that explain, question and sing the teaching. Sivaprakasam unfolds the soul's conditions and the means of release. Tiruvarutpayan explains grace, the guru and bliss. Kodikkavi brings those relations to the festival flagstaff.

The poem's brevity leaves much inside its words. Light and darkness, knowing and not knowing, utterance and silence all appear. The reader meets these distinctions within a rite that can be seen by everyone gathered in the temple.

The Dikshitars called back the disciple they had excluded; his verses accompanied the raising of the flag.

His life and the setting of the poem are told as the tradition remembers them. Umapathi was a learned Dikshitar of Chidambaram. He became Maraignana Sambandar's disciple and received the rice-gruel that flowed from his guru's arm. His former circle excluded him, and he lived at Kottravankudi, outside the town.

When the temple festival approached, the Dikshitars tried to raise its flag. It would not rise. They were directed to summon Umapathi, and went to bring him back. He sang Kodikkavi; the flag rose, and the festival could proceed.

Tiruvarutpayan tells his life in full, including this story. Umapathi is the fourth of the Santana Kuravars, after his guru Maraignana Sambandar. In Kodikkavi, the teacher who had been excluded stands again within the temple's worship.

His period is the early 14th century CE, established through the Saka-era date in his Sankarpa Nirakaranam, corresponding to 1313 CE. That dates the author without fixing the year of these verses.

Umapathi Sivacharyar · All the poets and teachers ›

The opening prayer for grace leads through knowing, inseparability and the letters to release.

The complete Tamil has five verses, while the older four-verse presentation ends before the closing verse on release. The opening is in kattalai kalitturai, a regulated form of four long lines; the remaining four are venbas. There are no separate chapters.

1. 1

   1 · Light and darkness

   Divine knowledge remains undimmed while the soul is immersed in the three impurities; the flag is raised for the soul to reach grace.

2. 2

   2 · The realities to be known

   Questions about reality, awareness, the seeing eye, light and darkness are addressed to the giver of grace.

3. 3

   3 · Knowledge through inseparability

   Speech and mind cannot reach the Lord by themselves; grace reveals the relation that cannot be understood by separating Him from the soul.

4. 4

   4 · The letters and silence

   The five letters and other mantra forms are pressed into the heart, including spoken and unspoken utterance.

5. 5

   5 · The movement of release

   Impurity is removed, the soul and its illuminating knowledge are revealed, and its knowing is transformed towards Siva's attainment.

The soul's darkness does not diminish Siva's knowledge; grace brings the soul out of its obscuration.

The dwelling is the soul. Siva is present as its sustaining life, while Anavam obscures its awareness. The obscuration belongs to the soul's knowing; it does not enter Siva's knowledge. His presence and the soul's ignorance can therefore be spoken of together.

The verse names all three impurities, not Anavam alone. In verse 5, the removal of impurity leads to the soul's being shown and to the knowledge that illuminates it. The raised flag gathers that movement into a visible sign: a life bound and obscured is brought towards grace and release.

Sivagnana Bodham, sutra 5, explains that the soul knows through divine assistance. Tiruvarutpayan explains the obscuration that prevents it from recognising that help. Kodikkavi places the prayer for recognition within worship.

Where the flagstaff stands, and its place in the festival: The temple and its plan.

The mantra is brought inward, from spoken letters towards the knowing that grace makes possible.

The verse explicitly begins with the five letters. It also names other forms and gathers spoken and unspoken utterance within one inward attention. The phrase nenju azhuthi, pressing into the heart, prevents the list from remaining a count of syllables.

Unmai Vilakkam explains how the five letters hold the Lord, grace, soul and bonds together. Tiruvarutpayan develops their relation to release. Kodikkavi adds a public sign of that inward teaching: the flag is raised so that the letters and what they reveal may become known.

Verse 3 prepares this movement. Speech and mind cannot reach Siva by their own power; grace reveals His inseparable relation with the soul. Silence therefore belongs within a teaching about knowledge received through grace. It is not simply the absence of sound.

The festival flag still opens temple celebrations; Kodikkavi gives that visible act an inward meaning.

Kodiyetram (கொடியேற்றம்) is the raising of the temple's festival flag. At Chidambaram, the Margazhi Arudra and Ani Tirumanjanam festivals begin with flag-hoisting. The bull flag raised before the Chitsabha places the opening of the festival before the gathered devotees.

Kodikkavi's remembered singing belongs to this setting. The work also lives through printed explanations and recorded Tamil exposition, including Sivagandhi's teaching. Reading its opening verse before attending a festival gives the outward act a question to carry: how does the soul come to recognise grace?

The flag-hoisting in the year of festivals: Festivals and Guru Pujas.

Read the short Tamil work beside the teaching of grace and the five letters in the other Sastras.

✦Tamil and explanation

• Project Madurai: Kodikkavi, the second work in the file. Verse 1 above follows this text.
• Shaivam: the complete Tamil Kodikkavi. Verse 4 above follows its Tamil wording; both English renderings are our own.
• Tamil Wikisource: Kodikkavi.
• Shaivam: the older English presentation and notes, including the festival story and explanations of verses 1–4.
• A. Isvaramurthi Pillai's commentary, listed in the Meykanda Sastra bibliography.
• Recorded Tamil exposition by Sivagandhi.
• Dinamani's account of the Chidambaram festival flag-hoisting, 25 December 2025.
• Hindu Tamil Thisai's account of the Ani festival, 25 June 2023, including its opening flag-hoisting.

✦Related works

• Tiruvarutpayan: Umapathi's life, the flag story, grace and the five letters.
• Unmai Vilakkam: the meanings held within the five letters.
• Sivagnana Bodham: divine assistance, the guru and release.
• Sivaprakasam: the soul's obscuration and the knowledge received through grace.
• Potrippahrodai: another act of praise in which the soul recognises Siva's care.
• Tirumantiram: grace as light and the inward teaching of the five letters.