(i) Āzhvār to the Lord: “Sire, are you keeping me on in this abode, just to witness and realise the harrowing depth of the sufferings of the worldlings, tossed up between birth on one side, and death, on the other, and old age and pestilence, in between? and then there are the postmortem sufferings in hell, far more severe. I pray Thee not to stir up my feelings any more,
In this fifth pāśuram of the chapter, having witnessed the cosmic order and the supreme dominion of Sriman Nārāyaṇa, our Āzhvār is now overcome by the profound and inescapable suffering inherent in the material realm. He observes the nature of this world, filled with countless ātmās trapped in a relentless cycle of birth (janma), old age (jarā), disease, and death,