Tradition connects our next stanza with a story of Apparswami being smitten with an inward disease when he forsook Saivism and became a Jain. The pain proved, says the legend, a convincing argument which reconverted him, whereupon he was promptly cured. But internal evidence proves this hymn to have been composed long after his return to Saivism. Nandi is the name of Siva's bull.

56. Thou takest not my deadly pain away,
My torments, Nandi-rider, never cease;
At Thy feet would I worship night and day,
But since my bowels writhe, and ne'er find peace,
I can no more! O Sire, to Thee I cry,
Who dwell'st by Kedila, in Athihai.

Nature sometimes spoke to our author of God. The union of sexes even in animals one day spoke to him as a revelation of divine things.

57. I'll follow those who going to the shrine their praises sound,
With blooms and water for the god who wears the moon so mild
All lovely in His locks, a garland wreathed His neck around,
And with Him sing they Parvati, the mountain god's fair child.
Once as I went to Aiyaru, with light and reverent tread,
I saw come two young elephants, male by loved female led,
And in that sight I saw God's foot, saw secret things unsaid.

God is the great yogi, the wielder of mystic powers.

58. "O greatly loved, our King, our Lord, from all eternity,
Our portion, our true mystic," thus from day to day I sing.
O golden one, O hill of coral, I in love of Thee
Have wandered far and wide, Athihai Virattanam's king,
Have wandered far the shining blossom of Thy foot to see.

One whole hymn, from which our next verse is taken, is a prayer for the opening of a door. Tradition has it that the great locked temple door at Vedaranyam swung open in answer to this song.

59. Uma is Thy portion, whose words are like song.
In fair Maraikkadu men circle round Thee
In worship. O graciously open this door
That we Thy true servants Thy glory may see.

Here is a very popular stanza. There used to be a beggar in Madras who recited it, and it alone, all day long.

60. He is ever hard to find, but He lives in the thought of the good;
He is the innermost secret of Scripture, inscrutable, unknowable;
He is honey and milk and the shining light. He is the king of the Devas,
Immanent in Vishnu, in Brahma, in flame and in wind,
Yea in the mighty sounding sea and in the mountains.
He is the great One who chooses Perumpattapuliyur for His own.
If there be days when my tongue. is dumb and speaks not of Him,
Let no such days be counted in the record of my life.

Whatever karma may teach of the inevitable consequence of evil, devotees hold that they may count on receiving divine forgiveness, for which the gracious nature of God is a sufficient pledge and guarantee.