Where She reigns!

Nachiar Kovil, a town in Tamil Nadu, takes its name from

the Goddess in the Vishnu temple there. Here, the Goddess
is given more prominence than the Lord. In one of his
verses about this temple, Thirumangai Azhvar wrote about
a female crab watching its partner trapped in a lotus
flower.

Parasara Bhattar elaborated on the possible reason for

Thirumangai Azhvar’s verse, said Kidambi Narayanan, in a
discourse. Bhattar said that a male crab went to a pond full
of lotuses, to fetch honey from the flowers. The crab spent
the whole day in the pond. When the Sun set, the lotuses
closed up, and the crab was trapped inside a flower. The
next day, when the Sun came up, the flower opened up, and the crab went back to the water lily, in which the female crab was resting. Since water lilies close up during the day,by the time the male crab reached the water lily in which the female was resting, the petals of the lily closed up, leaving the male crab stranded! Parasara Bhattar said this was an expression of the female crab’s anger! The male
crab had spent the whole night away somewhere, and the
suspicious female crab had slammed the door shut on the
male!

When it was pointed out to Bhattar that this was unfair

to the male crab for, it had not been given a chance to
explain, Bhattar said that in the town of Nachiar Kovil, it
was women who ruled the roost and their word was law.
While Parasara Bhattar’s explanation is proof of his
humour and his imaginative enjoyment of Thirumangai
Azhvar’s verse, it actually was intended to emphasise the
importance given to the Goddess in the shrine in Nachiar
Kovil.