Thiruvilaiyadal () is a 1965 Indian Tamil-language Hindu mythological film written, directed and co-produced by A. P. Nagarajan. The film stars Sivaji Ganesan, Savitri, and K. B. Sundarambal, with T. S. Balaiah, R. Muthuraman, Nagesh, T. R. Mahalingam, K. Sarangapani, Devika, Manorama, and Nagarajan in supporting roles. K. V. Mahadevan composed the film's soundtrack and score, and Kannadasan and Sankaradas Swamigal wrote the song lyrics.
Thiruvilaiyadal was inspired by the Thiruvilaiyadal Puranam: a collection of sixty-four Shaivite devotional, epic stories, written in the 16th century by Paranjothi Munivar, which record Shiva's actions on Earth in a number of disguises to test his devotees. Thiruvilaiyadal depicts four of the stories. The first is about the poets Dharumi and Nakkeerar; the second concerns Dhakshayani. The third recounts how Shiva's future wife, Parvati, is born as a fisherwoman; Shiva marries her in the guise of a fisherman. The fourth story is about the singers Banabhathirar and Hemanatha Bhagavathar.
Thiruvilaiyadal was released on 31 July 1965 to critical praise for its screenplay, dialogue, direction, music and the performances of Ganesan, Nagesh and Balaiah. The film was a commercial success, running for over 25 weeks in many theatres and becoming a silver jubilee film. It was also responsible for a resurgence of devotional and mythological cinema, since it was released when Tamil cinema was primarily producing social films. Thiruvilaiyadal received the Certificate of Merit for the Second-Best Feature Film in Tamil at the 13th National Film Awards and the Filmfare Award for Best Film – Tamil. A digitally-restored version was released in September 2012, which was also a commercial success.
Plot The Hindu god Shiva gives a sacred mango fruit, brought by the sage Narada, to his elder son Vinayaka as a prize for outsmarting his younger brother Muruga in a competition. Angry with his father, Muruga (dressed as a hermit) goes to Palani. He meets Avvaiyar, one of his devotees, along the way. Despite her attempts to convince Muruga to return to Mount Kailash, he remains adamant about his decision to leave his family. His mother, the goddess Parvati, arrives there and tells the stories of four of Shiva's divine games to calm Muruga.
The first story is set in Madurai, the capital city of the Pandya Kingdom. Shenbagapandian, the king, wants to find the answer to a question posed by his wife (whether the fragrance of a woman's hair is natural or artificial), and announces a reward of 1,000 gold coins to anyone who can come up with the answer. Dharumi, a poor poet, desperately wants the reward, and starts to break down in the Meenakshi Amman Temple. Shiva, hearing him weeping, takes the form of a poet and gives Dharumi a poem containing the answer. Overjoyed, Dharumi takes the poem to Shenbagapandian's court and recites it; however, the court's head poet Nakkeerar claims that the poem's meaning is incorrect. On hearing this, Shiva argues with Nakkeerar about the poem's accuracy and burns him to ashes when he refuses to relent. Later, Shiva revives Nakkeerar and says that he only wanted to test his knowledge. Realising it was Shiva's will that Dharumi should get the reward, Nakkeerar requests Shenbagapandian to give it to Dharumi.
The second story focuses on Shiva marrying Sati against the will of her father, Daksha. Daksha performs a Mahayajna without inviting his son-in-law. Sati asks Shiva's permission to go to the ceremony, but Shiva refuses to let her go because he feels that no good will come from it. Sati disobeys him and goes, only to be insulted by Daksha. She curses her father and returns to Shiva, who is angry with her. Sati says that they are one; without her, there is no Shiva. He disagrees, and burns her to ashes. He then performs his Tandava, which is noticed by the Devas, who pacify him. Shiva restores Sati to life (who is reborn as Parvati) and accepts their oneness.
In the third story, Parvati is banished by Shiva when she is momentarily distracted while listening to his explanation of the Vedas. Parvati, now born as Kayarkanni, is the daughter of a fisherman. When she is playing with her friends, Shiva approaches in the guise of a fisherman and tries to flirt with her. The fishermen are troubled by a giant shark who disrupts their way of life, and Shiva says that he alone can defeat the shark. After a long battle, Shiva subdues the shark (who is the bull deity Nandi in disguise) and marries Parvati.
The last story is about Banabathirar, a devotional singer. Hemanatha Bhagavathar, a talented singer, tries to conquer the Pandya Kingdom when he challenges its musicians. The king's minister advises the king to seek Banabathirar's help against Bhagavathar. When the other musicians spurn the competition, the king orders Banabathirar to compete against Bhagavathar. Knowing that he cannot win, the troubled Banabathirar prays to Shiva—who appears outside Bhagavathar's house in the form of a firewood vendor the night before the competition, and shatters his arrogance by singing "Paattum Naane". Shiva introduces himself to Bhagavathar as Banabathirar's student. Sheepish at hearing this, Bhagavathar leaves the kingdom immediately and leaves a letter for Shiva to give to Banabathirar. Shiva gives the letter to Banabathirar, and reveals his true identity; Banabathirar thanks him for his help.
After listening to the stories, Muruga realises that this too was one of Shiva's divine games to test his patience; he then reconciles with his family. The film ends with Avvaiyar singing "Vaasi Vaasi" and "Ondraanavan Uruvil", in praise of Shiva and Parvati.
Cast
Production Development
In 1965, after the critical and commercial success of Navarathri (1964), its director A. P. Nagarajan and producer A. M. Shahul Hameed came together to make a film entitled Siva-Leela, later retitled Thiruvilaiyadal. It was inspired by the Thiruvilaiyadal Puranam, a collection of sixty-four 16th-century Shaivite devotional epic stories by Paranjothi Munivar, which describe the actions (and antics) of Shiva on Earth in a number of disguises to test his devotees.
Four of the Thiruvilaiyadal Puranam stories are depicted in the film, including the story where the Tamil poet Nakkeerar confronts Shiva over an error in his poem, exaggerating his sensitivity to the right and the wrong. Nagarajan had previously used this story as a play within a film in K. Somu's Naan Petra Selvam (1956). In addition to directing, Nagarajan co-produced Thiruvilaiyadal under the banner of Sri Vijayalakshmi Pictures, and wrote the screenplay. M. N. Rajan and T. R. Natarajan edited Thiruvilaiyadal; K. S. Prasad and Ganga were the film's cinematographer and art director, respectively.
Sivaji Ganesan was cast as Shiva, and Savitri as the goddess Parvati. R. Rangasamy did the make-up for Ganesan, and Savitri was given green make-up to portray her character. K. B. Sundarambal was chosen to play Avvaiyar, reprising her role in the 1953 film of the same name. Nagesh was cast as Dharumi, and had a call sheet of one-and-a-half days to finish his portion. Besides directing, producing and writing, Nagarajan appeared as Nakkeerar. M. Balamuralikrishna initially wanted to portray Hemanatha Bhagavathar but Nagarajan refused, believing T. S. Balaiah would be able to emote the character better. Balamuralikrishna agreed, and remained on the film as a singer.
Filming
Thiruvilaiyadal was shot on a custom-built set at Vasu Studios in Madras (now Chennai). It was filmed in Eastmancolor, thereby making it Nagarajan's first picture to be shot in colour. Before he began filming, Nagesh learned that Ganesan's arrival was delayed because his make-up had not been completed; he asked Nagarajan whether they could film any solo sequences, which included a scene where Dharumi laments his misfortune in the Meenakshi Amman Temple. While filming, Nagesh spontaneously came up with the line "Varamaattan. Varamaattan. Avan nichchaiyam varamaattan. Enakku nalla theriyum. Varamaattan" (He won't come. He won't come. He will definitely not come. I know he won't come). According to the actor, two incidents inspired him. One involved two assistant directors discussing whether Ganesan would be ready before or after lunch; one said he would be ready, the other said not. The other was when Nagesh overheard a passerby talking to himself about how the world had fallen on bad times. He also took inspiration from Mylapore Krishnasamy Iyer.
Dubbing of the scenes with Nagesh and Ganesan was completed soon after the footage was shot. After watching the scenes twice, Ganesan asked Nagarajan not to remove even a single frame of Nagesh's portions from the final cut, because he believed that those scenes along with the ones involving Balaiah would be the highlights of the film. The conversations between Shiva and Dharumi were improvised by Ganesan and Nagesh, not scripted by Nagarajan. Thiruvilaiyadal was the first Tamil film since Jagathalapratapan (1944) in which the lead actor plays five roles in one scene. Ganesan does so during the song "Paattum Naane", where he sings and plays four instruments: the veena, mridangam, flute and jathi. Asked by his biographer, T. S. Narayanawami, about the Tandava he performed in the film, Ganesan replied that he simply learned the movements necessary for the dance and followed the choreographer's instructions. Thiruvilaiyadal was the last film produced by Hameed, who died on 20 May 1965, a few days after the filming ended. Neither he nor Nagarajan was credited in the film as producers.
Themes The film's title is explained in an introductory voiceover. Greeting the audience, it quotes Shiva's literary epic of the same name. According to the narrator (Nagarajan), Shiva does what he does to test the patience of his disciples; the god plays games, which evoke more devotion in the hearts of his worshippers. Therefore, the film's title refers to the games played by Shiva. According to Hari Narayan of The Hindu, Thiruvilaiyadal celebrates the deeds of a god (in this case, Shiva) by depicting miracles performed by him. R. Bharathwaj wrote for The Times of India that the story of the competition between Hemanatha Bhagavathar and Banabathirar is comparable to a contest between Carnatic music composer Shyama Shastri and Kesavvaya, a singer from Bobbili. Sastri had sought divine intervention from the goddess Kamakshi to defeat Kesavayya, mirroring Banabathirar's plea for Shiva's help. Mana Baskaran of Hindu Tamil Thisai notes that the film, despite being a mythological, also depicts contemporary social issues.
Music K. V. Mahadevan composed the film's soundtrack and score, Kannadasan wrote the song lyrics except for the first portions of "Pazham Neeyappa", which were written by Sankaradas Swamigal. Nagarajan initially wanted Sirkazhi Govindarajan to sing "Oru Naal Podhuma", but he refused and M. Balamuralikrishna sang the song. Each line in the song is from a different raga, including Darbar, Todi, Maand, and Mohanam. "Pazham Neeyappa" is based on three ragas: Darbari Kanada, Shanmukhapriya and Kambhoji. "Isai Thamizh", "Paattum Naane" and "Illadhathondrillai" are based on the Abheri, Gourimanohari and Simhendramadhyamam ragas, respectively. Vikku Vinayakram and Cheena Kutty were the ghatam and mridangam players, respectively, for "Paattum Naane". Subbiah Asari made the Macha Veena seen in "Paattum Naane", and the crew of Thiruvilaiyadal purchased it from him for .