Son’s (child) meat: the inner intricacies

Son's (child) meat: the inner intricacies

 

He left his job (not on his own accord, made the king relieve him; no dismiss from job, was relieved with an honor). After he returned to his home town leaving his job, and started doing service to the devotees of lord Siva, his son siralan was born. Paranjyoti was not inclined in married life and was constanly thinking of the lord within, and was other wise busy with the warfare.

 

The son was born when he was already old. In fact it was this beloved child that he did not think twice to use as meat when the lord Siva came in the form of a yogic devotee of the lord and asked for meat to be served for food.

 

While it may be quite awful to listen to, there are several interesting matters interlinked with each other in this episode. Vatapi, the demon whose name is attributed to the place where paranjyoti made his victory, was actually served as meat by his own brother. You can call that as "brother meat", this is now son's meat. Sage agastya digested that meat (curry) of the demon with the power given by another kari (the elephant headed god). The same god made siruthondar's home town's temple into ganapathiswaram. When siruthondar was paranjyoti and killed the enemies to make a river of blood in vatapi, the same elephanted headed god perhaps made the demon's blood flow in the birth place of paranjyoti and let it be called thiruchengattukudi (the place with red flow), and he also called himself kapilar. There is a statue for the lord Siva who came as the yogi bhairava (who asked for the child meat) in the ganapatiswara temple. He is called uttarapa ishwarar. He told that name to siruthondar. The emperor harsha-vardhan in the northern India had a title uttarapa ishwarar. During his time of reign, pulakesi ruled n the southern India, and he won over harshan and titled himself dakshna-pathiswarar. Paranjyoti vanquished pulakesi himself. Aftger that he forgot those things and became a devotee of lord Siva, the lord came to challenge his fame with the name uttarapathiswarar! The leader of the army who won over the dakshinapathiswarar became a devotee and did a great service to the uttarapathiswarar that no one else could have done.

 

While we find the title of harsha, uttarapathiswarar in the chola kingdom's thiruchengattakudi, it is because the pallava capital kanchipuram also has two Siva temples to remind him of his capital: piravattanam and iravattanam. The main idols in these temples are called piravataneswarar and iravataneswarar respectively. The capital of harshavardan is thanesar. Staniswaram only became in colloquial form thanesar. The wood that has been seasoned well is called stanu. The lord who does not have any movement such as birth or death is called stanu. it looks that the pallava capital also absorbed the stanu iswara from the capital of harsha's kingdom.

 

We do not know how many heads paranjyoti would be removed in the war field, though he was originally a Brahmin. As if to make up for these sins, the lord played a drama in which he made him kill his own son. In the case of Arjuna the lord had to give him counsel. But in the case of paranjyoti, he without advice from any one, following his own duty as per his job, decimated the enemy army. Later when he became siruthondar, when the lord came as bhairava yogi he served his only son as food for the lord without any selfish feeling. The lord asked siruthondar to serve a human meat of a 5-year old single son of a mother. It was siruthondar who found his son suitable for that condition and served him—it is very awful to describe indeed. In such a dreadful act, the father and the mother who did not hesitate even one bit when it came to serving the devotees of the lord, demonstrated their true devotion to the lord.

They served the meat to the yogi without disclosing that it was the meat of their own son. The yogi also, as if not aware of anything, asked siruthondar, "Please invite your son to sit down with me and eat together." Siruthondar only replied that "he won't be fit for that now". "If so, then I will also go away without eating here. If you want me to eat, please call your son now," shouted the yogi pretending an angry mood. Without any choice the couple went out to call their son. Immediately, because of the divine miracle of the lord, the little boy came running without any blemish to his body. The bhairava yogi disappeared and gave darshan as the lord somaskandar with the goddess mother, the child subramaniar, sitting on the bull. The story in periya puranam ends with the line that the lord who asked the couple to cook their own child, gave darshan as the divine couple, with their son subramaniar.

 

Because the first son vigneswarar did Siva pooja as his repentance the lord formed a temple in that town. When I say these I can think of one more match. As how siruthondar had beheaded his own son, the lord Siva had also in the past beheaded his son created by his consort.

 

Starting to tell the meaning of the word "kapilar", we went very far discussing the red color of vigneswarar, the town becoming red, being called changattakudi, and then to the story on how vatapi came and sat there, and then to the recent research stories.