Is Bakthi Marga Still Possible? Rediscovering Periyapuranam In The Age Of Cold Rationalism

You do not choose books; books choose you. Free will is a myth. In my case, Periyapuranam literally leapt off a shelf in the Ramanashram bookstore in Thiruvannamalai. I was already floating in the post-darshan bliss of Lord Arunachaleswara when R. Rangachari’s translation of Periyapuranam decided that I was its next victim.

Later, I understood Sekkizhar’s own confession in the very first verse: “Am I like that greedy dog that wanted to drink the whole ocean?” If the author himself felt dwarfed, what chance do reviewers have?

What strikes hardest today is the absolute incompatibility between the Nāyanars’ white-hot fervour and our air-conditioned rationality. Kannappa tears out his eyes. Sundarar calls Shiva “Pitta! Piran!” (You madman!). Siruthonda carries his enemy’s son on his shoulders because the child once uttered the Panchakshara. These are not “inspirational stories”. They are scandals of love.

If the same intensity appeared on X tomorrow, the timeline would explode with “toxic devotion”, “mental health red flag”, and “seek help”. In a secular, serious society that prides itself on balance and boundaries, where do today’s bhakti-margis go? How are the few who are still wired that way quietly coping, perhaps writing anonymous poetry at 3 am, or weeping alone in temple corners?

None of the 63 saints would have survived social media cancellation. The new heroes of our era are perfectly in tune with the algorithm: measured, marketable, mentally stable, politically correct. Passionate commitment, once the highest virtue, now looks almost inferior next to certificates, IQ scores, and follower counts.

Yet Periyapuranam keeps shouting the opposite. Again and again, it is raw, unreasonable love that triumphs over knowledge, pedigree, and even morality. The scholar who knows a thousand scriptures is gently sidelined. The hunter, washerman, untouchable Pulaiya, and cobbler rise straight to Kailasa because their hearts caught fire.

Beauty, too, is treated as a divine blessing, never as vanity. Sekkizhar spends pages on coral lips, conch necks, and lotus eyes, of both God and devotee. Even the Tamil word oḍu (body) becomes sacred when it houses Siva-bhakti. Even the handsome Sundarar, married to Paravai Nachiyar and Sangili Nachiyar, is not scolded for desire. Desire, rightly aimed, is just another arrow towards the Lord.

We have inverted this wisdom. Middle-class parents still tell children, “Don’t think about looks, think about marks,” while simultaneously worshipping deities dripping with silk and gold.

Economic prosperity, too, is repeatedly shown as Shiva’s grace. Kings, merchants, and landowners pour wealth at His feet and are praised, not condemned. Divinity lives in beauty, in prosperity, and in the body itself.

The text is also among the most powerful antidotes to caste poison ever composed in India. A Brahmin prime minister (Sundarar), a Chola king (Kochenkannan Chola), and an “untouchable” Pulaiya, along with a washerman, a potter, and a tribal hunter, all sit at the same table in Sekkizhar’s verse. This all-encompassing Hindutva existed a thousand years before the word was invented.

And yet, astonishingly, most of North India barely knows these stories. We need urgent, contemporary translations, perhaps even a Netflix-style series that reimagines the Nāyanars in today’s world. Imagine a Kannappa who is a tattooed biker donating his kidney to a roadside Shiva lingam, or a Meypporul Nayanar who is a CRPF officer choosing death over betraying his enemy because that enemy once said “Shivaya nama”.

Parents with young children especially need these stories, because what we are currently feeding the next generation is ambition without soul and success without surrender.

Every single Nayanar is tested, sometimes cruelly, before being crowned. The Lord hides, teases, robs, starves, and humiliates, only to finally appear with the words, “Fear not, my child.” That pattern has not changed. The tests today are subtler: distraction, cynicism, comfort, and the slow freezing of the heart. But the cure remains the same, to fall absurdly and dangerously in love with the One wearing the moon in His hair.

Periyapuranam is not a book. It is a fire that refuses to die. Eight centuries after Sekkizhar, it still burns anyone who touches it without the gloves of irony. I came to Tiruvannamalai looking for peace. The book found me and demanded war, a war against my own mediocrity, my safe devotion, and my fear of looking mad for God.

May that war never end.

Thiruchitrambalam!