In the same month, in the same pre-dawn hours, on the same old girls' vow, the Shaiva tradition sings a different set of verses. Manikkavacakar's Tiruvempavai — twenty verses within the Tiruvasagam — is the Tiruppavai's counterpart, and the two are sometimes sung on the same streets on the same morning.
🌑 Tiruvempavai at a Glance
Poet: Manikkavacakar
Length: 20 verses
Part of: the Tiruvasagam, eighth Thirumurai
Composed at: Tiruvannamalai, by tradition
Same month: Margazhi; same pavai nombu as the Tiruppavai
Culminates at: Tiruvathirai — Arudra Darshanam
📑 Table of Contents
🌑 The Shape of It
The Tiruvempavai follows the pavai form: girls calling one another awake in the dark, going to the water, keeping the vow together. The first ten verses wake the sleepers; the later verses are at the tank, in the water, singing.
| Tiruppavai | Tiruvempavai | |
|---|---|---|
| Poet | Andal | Manikkavacakar |
| Verses | 30 | 20 |
| Deity | Krishna, at Nandagopa's house | Shiva |
| Canon | Divya Prabandham (Vaishnava) | Thirumurai (Shaiva) |
| Voice | A girl among the girls | A poet writing in the girls' voice |
| Register | Conversational, teasing, collective | More rapturous; heavier on the imagery of water, light and immersion |
| Culminates | Vaikuntha Ekadashi | Tiruvathirai / Arudra Darshanam |
📌 The parallel is the interesting part
Two rival traditions, in the same century or thereabouts, took the same pre-existing folk observance and wrote it into their canons. Neither borrowed the vow from the other; both found it already in Tamil practice and made it scripture. It is a clear case of a local custom being absorbed by two theologies at once, and of the custom surviving both.
💧 Manikkavacakar
His name means he whose words are rubies. The traditional account: a minister to the Pandya king, sent to buy horses, who encountered Shiva as a teacher at Tirupperunturai and spent the money on the temple instead. The episodes that follow — the king's anger, the jackals turned to horses and back, the flooding of the Vaigai — are among the best known in Tamil Shaiva narrative.
tiruvāsagattukku urugār oru vāsagattukkum urugār
Those who do not melt at the Tiruvasagam will not melt at any word.
🌟 Tiruvathirai
The Margazhi observance culminates for Shaivas at Tiruvathirai — the day the star Ardra is in ascendance in Margazhi — also called Arudra Darshanam. It celebrates Shiva as Nataraja, and it is the principal festival at Chidambaram.
The observance
- The Tiruvempavai sung daily through Margazhi, before dawn.
- Abhisheka of Nataraja at Chidambaram — one of the six annual abhishekas of the deity there.
- Kali and ezhu kari kuzhambu — a sweet and a seven-vegetable dish — prepared as the day's offering in Tamil households.
- Processions before dawn, as with the Tiruppavai.
💡 The Tiruvempavai in Thailand
One of the more striking survivals in the Indic world: verses of the Tiruvempavai have been recited in the Thai royal court's brahmanical ceremonies, associated with the Triyampavai-Tripavai observance and historically with the Giant Swing ceremony in Bangkok. The transmission is very old, arriving through the same Southeast Asian channels that carried Shaiva ritual into the region, and the Thai court brahmins preserved the practice long after the swing ceremony itself was discontinued.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Tiruvempavai?
Twenty Tamil verses by Manikkavacakar, part of the Tiruvasagam and so of the eighth Thirumurai, sung through Margazhi before dawn. It follows the pavai form — girls waking one another in the dark and going to the water — with the first ten verses waking the sleepers. The Shaiva counterpart to the Tiruppavai.
How does the Tiruvempavai differ from the Tiruppavai?
30 verses against 20; Krishna against Shiva; Prabandham against Thirumurai. Andal writes as a girl among the girls — conversational, teasing, collective; Manikkavacakar writes in the girls' voice — more rapturous, heavier on water, light and immersion. The interesting part is the parallel: two rival traditions took the same pre-existing folk observance and wrote it into their canons.
Was Manikkavacakar one of the 63 Nayanmars?
No — he is not in Sundarar's Tiruttondattogai, which predates him on the usual dating. He is nonetheless one of the four Samayacharyas, alongside Appar, Sambandar and Sundarar, and his Tiruvasagam is the eighth Thirumurai. Canonical but outside the sixty-three — a straightforward consequence of the chronology of the lists.
What is Tiruvathirai?
The day Ardra is in ascendance in Margazhi, also called Arudra Darshanam. It celebrates Shiva as Nataraja and is the principal festival at Chidambaram, marked by one of the six annual abhishekas there. In households, kali and ezhu kari kuzhambu — a sweet and a seven-vegetable dish — are the day's offering.
Is the Tiruvempavai recited outside India?
Yes — verses have been recited in the Thai royal court's brahmanical ceremonies, associated with the Triyampavai-Tripavai observance and historically with the Giant Swing ceremony in Bangkok. The transmission is very old, arriving by the same channels that carried Shaiva ritual into Southeast Asia — and the court brahmins preserved it long after the swing ceremony itself was discontinued.
🙏 Conclusion
The same month, the same cold pre-dawn walk to the water, the same girls calling each other awake — and two canons, Vaishnava and Shaiva, that each took the vow and wrote it into scripture. Neither invented it. What Manikkavacakar added was a register of his own: less argument at the doorstep, more water and light. And a set of his verses ended up, by a route nobody planned, in the court ceremonies of Bangkok.