நாணமிலா மோனமடா நாமறவே நாமமடா
வாணமிலா வானமடா வாணலியா நல்குமடா
Nāṇamilā mōṉamaḍā nāmaṟavē nāmamaḍā
Vāṇamilā vānamaḍā vāṇaliyā nalgumaḍā.
“A silence without shame, my dear—
when the ‘name’ is forgotten, that itself is the Name, my dear.
A sky without ‘vāṇam’, my dear—
it bestows (gives) as the vāṇali, my dear.”
True mouna is not a socially-polished quietness but the ego-less, fearless stillness beyond self-consciousness. When all ‘names’ (labels, identities, mantric syllables as mere sound) are let go, what remains is the real Name—the nameless presence. In that open, sky-like awareness stripped of its usual adornments, grace/attainment is ‘given’ within the vāṇali—the bodily/alchemical vessel where transformation is cooked and matured.
The verse is built from deliberate paradox and wordplay: it praises a kind of silence that is “without nāṇam” (nāṇam = shame/modesty/self-conscious inhibition). In Siddhar idiom, this can indicate the dropping of egoic defensiveness and social persona, not vulgar shamelessness. Such “shameless silence” points to mouna that is spontaneous and unmanufactured—silence not maintained by repression, but arising when the sense of “I must appear as…” dissolves.
The next clause, “nāmaravē nāmam” (“when the name is forgotten, that is the name”), shifts from ethics/social affect to ontology. “Name” (nāma) can mean: (1) worldly designation and identity; (2) the spoken divine name/mantra; (3) the entire field of naming (nāma-rūpa). The Siddhar move is classic: the highest ‘name’ of the Real is precisely its namelessness. When the mind stops clinging to labels—whether “I”, “mine”, sectarian titles, or even the mantra as mere phoneme—the presence that remains is the true ‘Name’.
The final couplet uses “vānam” (sky) as the standard metaphor for consciousness/space (ākāśa): open, ungraspable, and containing all without being stained. But it is qualified as “vāṇam-ilā vānam”—a “sky without vāṇam.” Because “vāṇam” is semantically slippery (and Siddhar verses often exploit such slipperiness), the line can be read as: a consciousness-space without ornamentation (no rainbow/bow, no display), without speech/sound (if vāṇam is heard as vāṇi/speech), or without a particular ‘rain/flow’ or ‘desire’ (other possible senses). In any case, it suggests a purified expanse: not the mind’s sky full of phenomena for display, but the bare expanse.
“It gives as the vāṇali” introduces an alchemical-embodied frame. “Vāṇali” commonly denotes a cooking pot/pan and, by extension in Siddha usage, an alchemical vessel/crucible. The teaching then becomes practical: this realization is not merely abstract; it “bestows” within a container—often implying the body itself as the vessel where inner heat (tapas/agni) ‘cooks’ and transmutes. Thus the verse can be read as connecting (a) ego-free silence, (b) dissolution of naming/identity, and (c) the ripening of siddhi/gnosis within the embodied laboratory of practice.
Overall, the verse keeps ambiguity intact: it does not specify whether the ‘bestowal’ is grace, knowledge, nectar (amṛta), or attainment; it hints that what is received depends on becoming a proper vessel—quiet, unnamed, and sky-like.