The Wedding Party in the Forest

Parakālan then resolved to take wealth from others by force and use it to serve the devotees of Sriman Nārāyaṇa. Seeing his mind turn this way, Emperumān resolved to transform him. Sriman Nārāyaṇa and Periya Pirāṭṭi, Sri Mahālakshmī, took the form of a newly wedded couple and passed through the forest where Tirumangai Mannan waylaid wealthy travellers and seized their jewels and money. He and his men stopped the wedding party and ordered everyone to hand over their jewels and wealth.

Everyone obeyed, the bridegroom and the bride among them. Tirumangai Mannan checked that every ornament had been surrendered, and noticed that the bridegroom still wore a ring upon his foot. He demanded that it too be removed. The bridegroom replied that he could not remove it, and that Parakālan was welcome to try. Nīlan tried and failed; he even tried to pull it off with his teeth, and still he could not. Marvelling that this stranger was as strong as himself, he called him Kaliyan, the mighty one.

In truth, it was so that Kaliyan might come into contact with the sacred feet of Sriman Nārāyaṇa, and that this might be revealed to the world, that all of this took place.

Leaving the ring, he ordered his chief soldier, Thōḷā Vazhakkan, to tie up the jewels and wealth and carry them away. But the soldier could not lift the bundle. Tirumangai Mannan tried, and he too failed.

Angered, he accused the bridegroom of casting a spell to make the bundle immovable. The Lord, in the guise of the bridegroom, asked Kaliyan to come close so that He might explain the mantram. Then Perumāl whispered into his right ear the Ashṭākshara mantram, which shone before his eyes like light. From that moment Tirumangai Mannan became Tirumangai Āzhwār. He recognised the bridegroom and bride as none other than Emperumān and Sri Mahālakshmī, and he was lost in the meaning of the mantram.

His eyes flooded with tears, his hands rose above his head in worship, and he began to sing the praise of Perumāl:

"Kulam tharum, selvam thandhiḍum,

aḍiyār paḍuthuyar āyinavellām

nilantharam seyyum, nīḷ visumbaruḷum,

aruḷoḍu perunilam aḷikkum,

valam tharum, maṭrum thandhiḍum, peṭra

thāyinum āyina seyyum;

nalam tharum sollai nān

kaṇḍukoṇḍēn, Nārāyaṇā ennum nāmam."

"It grants status and bestows wealth; it levels to the ground every sorrow that besets His devotees; it grants the vast heavens and, with grace, the wide earth; it gives strength and all good things besides; it does more than even a mother who bore us would do. I have found that word which bestows all good: the name Nārāyaṇa."

Here "the earth" means not only land as property, but the ground on which a person comes to be recognised.

The Āzhwār sang ten Pāsurams in praise of Sriman Nārāyaṇa. Hearing them, Perumāl gave His darshanam with Sri Mahālakshmī upon Garuḍa, and asked the Āzhwār to sing His glory at His many kshethrams. Then He vanished from sight.