திருவான சேறையடா பஞ்ச சாரம்
திகழ்தெய் வமுஞ் சாரம் தேவிசாரம்
ருவான க்ஷேத்திரமும் சாரம் சாரம்
உற்றதொரு புஷ்கரணி யதுவும் சாரம்
கருவான மானமதும் சாரம் சாரம்
கண்ணான சாரமதைக் கண்டேன் கண்டேன்
குருவான பலசாரக் கோப்பும் கண்டேன்
கோக்கனக மாஞ்சாரக் கொதிப்புங் கண்டேன்
thiruvaana sERaiyadaa panja saaram
thigazhdey vamuñ saaram dEvisaaraam
ruvaana kshEththiramum saaram saaram
uRRathoru pushkaraNi yathuvum saaram
karuvaana maanamathum saaram saaram
kaNNaan saaramathaik kaNdEn kaNdEn
guruvaana palasaarak kOppum kaNdEn
kOkkanaka maañsaarak kothippuṅ kaNdEn
O man, in the sacred Tiruvānacērai—[there is] the five-fold essence (pañca-sāram).
The shining divine essence; the goddess-essence.
The holy kṣetra (sacred field/temple-site) too is essence—essence upon essence.
Even the Pushkaraṇi (sacred tank/pond) is essence.
The womb-like mānam/manam too is essence, essence.
I saw the essence that is the eye; I saw, I saw.
I saw also the ‘koppu’ (cup/vessel/compound) of many essences that is the Guru.
I saw also the boiling/ebullition of kokkanakam’s māñcāram (a “māñ/sāram”-essence/juice/compound).
All the revered markers of religion—place, deity, goddess, shrine-field, temple-tank—are finally not “things” but condensations of one sought-after sāram, the quintessence.
The practitioner claims direct seeing: the “eye-essence” (inner seeing/gnosis) is encountered, and with it the Guru appears as the vessel in which many sārams are held and unified.
Even the cryptic alchemical image—“kokkanakam’s essence boiling”—points to the same operation: by heat (tapas/inner fire or laboratory fire) the gross is cooked down until only the concentrated principle remains.
This verse is built as a refrain of “sāram”—essence, pith, extract, quintessence—repeated until ordinary religious categories collapse into a single pursuit: what is the concentrated reality behind name-and-form. Siddhar diction often moves in two registers at once.
1) Sacred geography as inner geography: “Tiruvānacērai,” “kṣetra,” and “Pushkaraṇi” can be read outwardly as a temple-town, its sacred precinct, and its ritual tank; inwardly, Siddhar texts frequently treat these as the body’s holy sites—subtle centers, channels, and inner reservoirs (notably an “inner tank” as a store of nectar/amṛta/bindu). In that reading, pilgrimage is redirected from external travel to internal realization.
2) Deiva/Devi as polar forces: “divine essence” and “goddess-essence” can be simple devotion, but also a coded pair (Śiva/Śakti; solar/lunar currents; stillness/force). The insistence that both are “sāram” suggests non-duality: the two principles are recognized as one extractable reality.
3) ‘Pañca-sāram’ and the reduction of the five: The “five-fold essence” can point to the five elements, five senses, five vāyus, or even five-syllabled mantras—anything “five” that constitutes embodied experience. Declaring it “essence” implies that the multiplicity of the five is to be distilled into a single living concentrate (ojas/tejas/bindu in yogic physiology; a purified “rasam/sāram” in alchemy).
4) The eye-essence and direct knowing: “the essence that is the eye” can mean the physical eye’s ‘light’ (tejas), but more typically signals inner sight—jñāna-dṛṣṭi—often associated with the brow-center or the awakened faculty that ‘sees’ truth without mediation.
5) The Guru as ‘koppu’ (vessel/compound): Calling the Guru a “koppu of many essences” presents the teacher not merely as a person but as a container/crucible in which disparate knowledges and powers are already integrated. The disciple’s claim “I saw” suggests initiation-level recognition: the Guru is the living laboratory.
6) Alchemical boiling as yogic heat: “boiling” is a standard alchemical operation (cooking, calcining, extracting), and simultaneously a yogic metaphor for tapas—the inner heat that transforms bodily constituents. “Kokkanakam” and “māñcāram” remain intentionally opaque, but the image itself is clear: essence is obtained by controlled heat and careful processing, whether in a pot or in one’s own body-mind.