Unmai Neri Vilakkam

The true path moves from knowledge of the instruments to knowledge of the soul and its life in Siva.

The title joins unmai, truth, neri, the path, and vilakkam, illumination or explanation. The poem gives names to changes in understanding that are easily confused with one another. Knowing the names of the tattvas differs from recognising that they do not know; recognising that fact differs again from ceasing to identify oneself with them.

The same care governs its account of the soul. Awareness emerges from obscuration, recognises its dependence and rests in grace. The final four realisations concern Siva: His nature, His presence, union with Him and the enjoyment of that union.

Unmai Vilakkam explains the tattvas and the soul's distinction from them. Sivaprakasam unfolds knowledge, purification and attainment. This short work gathers related distinctions into an ordered account of realisation. Its ten names give the reader a way to follow what is being understood and what is being relinquished.

The received grouping names Umapathi; an appended verse gives grounds for attributing the work to Tattuvanathar.

The attribution to Umapathi Sivam rests on the work's received place among his eight Sastras, while the attribution to Tattuvanathar of Sirkazhi rests partly on an appended venba that names Tattuvanathar and on the literary account that places him among Sitrambala Nadigal's disciples; these grounds leave the authorship open.

Umapathi is the fourth of the Santana Kuravars and the disciple of Maraignana Sambandar. Tiruvarutpayan tells his life and his teaching about grace. Under the attribution to him, the work belongs to his early fourteenth-century period, supported by the Saka-era date corresponding to 1313 CE in Sankarpa Nirakaranam.

Tattuvanathar belongs to the Sirkazhi teaching lineage associated with Sitrambala Nadigal (சிற்றம்பல நாடிகள்). He is also credited with a commentary on Irupa Irupathu. A detailed life and an exact date for him are not established. The poem itself gives no dated life story with which to settle the attribution.

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The first two verses each teach three realisations; the remaining four each teach one.

The main text has six numbered verses; an appended venba concerns its authorship. Dasa karya (தசகாரியம்) means the ten attainments or realisations. Their order is the order of the poem.

✦The tattvas: verse 1

1. 1

   1. Tattva rupam · தத்துவ ரூபம்

   Recognise the nature and arrangement of the tattvas, from earth to Siva tattva.

2. 2

   2. Tattva darisanam · தத்துவ தரிசனம்

   Discern that these principles are insentient and belong to the bond.

3. 3

   3. Tattva suddhi · தத்துவ சுத்தி

   Through grace, cease to identify the soul with them.

✦The soul: verse 2

1. 1

   4. Atma rupam · ஆன்ம ரூபம்

   Recognise the soul as awareness when obscuring darkness recedes.

2. 2

   5. Atma darisanam · ஆன்ம தரிசனம்

   Stand without the claim to an independent self and action.

3. 3

   6. Atma suddhi · ஆன்ம சுத்தி

   Rest in the Real with the soul's separate self-assertion relinquished.

✦Siva: verses 3–6

1. 1

   7. Siva rupam · சிவ ரூபம் · verse 3

   Recognise within the soul the Lord who acts through His power for bound souls.

2. 2

   8. Siva darisanam · சிவ தரிசனம் · verse 4

   See His presence everywhere, without I and mine, and enter bliss beyond speech.

3. 3

   9. Siva yogam · சிவ யோகம் · verse 5

   Attend to object, knowing soul, grace and Siva; abide united with Him.

4. 4

   10. Siva bhogam · சிவ போகம் · verse 6

   Enjoy His presence as He sustains the soul's embodied life, without action claimed as one's own.

The three recurring words mark distinctions. Rupam is the recognition of nature; darisanam is discerning or seeing it truly; suddhi is purification from the mistaken attachment. The Siva sequence continues beyond seeing into union and enjoyment.

The tattvas are instruments that do not know; the soul knows through them, and comes to know itself through grace.

Verse 1 spans the tattvas from earth to Siva tattva. “Siva” at the upper end of this range names a tattva; it does not make the Lord an insentient instrument.

The distinction is between an instrument and the one who knows through it. Eyes, mind and memory are not themselves the soul. Their activity supplies experience, but the soul can mistake that changing activity for its own nature. Purification concerns that identification. It takes place through grace.

Unmai Vilakkam explains the principles individually. This verse adds the movement from recognising their nature to loosening the soul's attachment to them.

Verse 2 then turns towards the knower:

The verse's disappearance language concerns the loss of self-assertion in union. In Siddhanta's Advaitam, the soul remains, inseparable from Siva and knowing through Him. Freedom does not destroy the one who receives it.

Sivaprakasam, verse 71 and its following sections, gathers the fruit of knowledge under atma darisanam, atma suddhi and atma labham. Unmai Neri Vilakkam spreads related concerns across ten realisations: it separately names the recognition of the soul's nature and continues through the recognition and enjoyment of Siva. The two accounts approach the same transformation with different divisions; their names do not form a mechanical correspondence.

The instruments named in verse 1 are set out in full in The 36 Tattvas.

The five elements met at the five shrines, and why the soul is not the elements: The Pancha Bhoota Sthalams.

Recognition of the Lord opens into seeing through grace, abiding with Him and enjoying His presence.

Verse 3 calls the recognition of Siva within the soul Siva rupam. His form is understood through His power and His activity towards souls:

This recognition concerns the Lord who has always acted for the soul, rather than an image newly constructed by the mind. The tattvas and the soul have been distinguished; now the soul recognises the divine power that sustains and frees it.

Verse 4, Siva darisanam, describes grace removing “I” and “mine” as His feet, His presence wherever one looks as His face, and bliss beyond speech as His crown. The sacred form becomes an account of realised knowing. Awareness no longer runs back to objects or rests in its own claim to independence.

Verse 5, Siva yogam, asks the reader to discern the encountered object, the soul that knows it, the grace above that soul and the reality of Siva. Union is sustained by that recognition. It is more than a bodily posture or a passing concentration of the mind.

Verse 6, Siva bhogam, brings the teaching into embodied life: eating, sleeping, walking and experience continue, while the Lord sustains the soul without its claim to be an independent doer. Its stark references to offences are governed by the condition “without an action of one's own”; they do not make deliberate wrongdoing a means of release.

Sivaprakasam explains why union neither destroys the soul nor gives it the Lord's cosmic powers. Its account of atma labham and this poem's closing Siva realisations meet in the fruit of knowledge: abiding in Siva through love. Tiruvarutpayan unfolds the relation between grace and the bliss enjoyed through it.

The six verses give a compact text for study, reflection and conversation with a teacher.

The work continues to be taught through Tamil literary courses and recorded explanation. Its brevity makes it possible to keep the whole sequence in mind while returning carefully to each distinction.

Begin with verse 1 beside Unmai Vilakkam. Name the instruments, then attend to the difference between their activity and the soul's knowing. Read verse 2 beside Sivaprakasam, allowing its explanation of the soul to unfold the compressed language of purification.

The final four verses can be read beside Tiruvarutpayan. Recognition, sight, union and enjoyment describe a life illuminated by grace. Reading aloud, reflecting and asking a teacher about difficult phrases are ways to remain attentive to their meaning.

Read all six verses together, with the longer Sastras beside their compressed statements.

✦Tamil text and explanation

• Project Madurai: Unmai Neri Vilakkam, with six numbered verses and the appended authorship venba.
• Shaivam: Tamil text and an audio explanation by Siva. Sowrirajan.
• Tamil Virtual Academy: the work and its two attributions.
• Tamil Virtual Academy: Tattuvanathar and the Sirkazhi teacher-line.
• Roja Muthiah Research Library: A. Isvaramurti Pillai's commentary, catalogued as a 1961 publication.

✦Related Sastras

• Unmai Vilakkam: the tattvas and the soul that knows through them.
• Sivaprakasam: the soul's states, purification, attainment and union without destruction.
• Tiruvarutpayan: Umapathi's life, grace and bliss.
• Sivagnana Bodham: the relation of Lord, soul and bond, and the freed soul's life in service.