PART-7:PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO SAIVA NAYANMAR’S LIFE:

 

Saiva nayanmars lives are described in detail in the saiva tenets mainly in the periyapuranam written by sekkizhar. Although the lives of these serviteurs were described by Sundaramoorthy nayanar and Nambiyandar nambi also, the most elaborate commentary on their lives are in” periya puranam” published from Chidambaram itself under the patronage of king Kulothunga-II by his minister Sekkizhar(  1150s AD). 

This book describes 72 nayanmars. They are 63 individuals and 9 groups of servitors. The main part of the book deals with the lives of thirugnanasambandar, thirunaavukkarasar and sundaramoorthy nayanaar. The remaining  sixty servitor’s  life  are  shown in small chapters. 

In these adiyaar’s lives we see many peculiarities. Their thoughts, habits,actions and behaviours does not confirm to a normal personality of human beings. They can be best understood by systematically classifying them into one of the personality distortions. But the amount of information available are less than desired and hence they can be classified in psychodynamic terms into a borderline or narcissistic personality.

These concepts are understood in the object relation theory by OTTO KERNBERG and  HEINZ KOHUT’S self psychology. They are pathological behavior attributed to narcissism or borderline tendency.

The anava and anaadhi theories , pasa ideas, the anma concept  and many of the core issues in saiva siddhantham can be seen in the development of the psychodynamic theories from Freud to later object relationship theorists, attachment theorists and self psychologists. Let us see in the following chapters - how they can be studied from this perspective within the framework of saiva religion.