காரியத்தை யேகணிப்பான் கனவிஞ் ஞானி
காரணத்தி லேநிற்பான் கனிமெய்ஞ் ஞானி
சாரியத்தி லேசரிப்பான் சடவிஞ்ஞானி
தாரியத்தி லேயிருப்பான் சரிமெய்ஞ்ஞானி
சோரியத்தி லேசுகிப்பான் தொடுவிஞ்ஞானி
தூரியத்தி லேமிகுப்பான் சுடர்மெய்ஞ்ஞானி
ஆரியத்தி லாணவத்தி லடவிஞ்ஞானி
அன்பருளின் பூரணத்தில் அமரன்ஞானி
kaariyaththai yEgaNippaan kanaviñ ñaani
kaaraNaththi lEniRpaan kanimeyñ ñaani
saariyaththi lEsarippaan saDaviññaani
thaariyaththi lEyiruppaan sarimeyññaani
sooriyaththi lEsugippaan thoduviññaani
thooriyaththi lEmiguppaan suDarmeyññaani
aariyaththi lAaNavaththi laDaviññaani
anbaruLin pooraNaththil amaranñaani
He who only measures (reckons) the effect (kāriya) is a “dream-jñāni”.
He who stands in the cause (kāraṇa) is a “ripe/true-jñāni”.
He who keeps moving within cāriya (charyā) is a “corpse/inert-jñāni”.
He who remains within dhāriya is a “right/true-jñāni”.
He who delights within sōriya is a “touch-jñāni”.
He who surpasses (abides in fullness) in turīya is a “luminous true-jñāni”.
He who is in āriya yet in āṇava (egoity) is a “forest/wild-jñāni”.
He who abides in the completeness of loving-grace is the “immortal-jñāni”.
The Siddhar ranks “knowers” by where their awareness actually stands.
If one’s wisdom is confined to outcomes and outer happenings, it is like knowledge inside a dream—appearance-counting, not truth-seeing.
If one turns toward the causal ground behind appearances, that knowing ripens and begins to be “true”.
Mere movement in the devotional/ritual mode (cāriya) without inner transformation is still an inert kind of spirituality—alive in activity, dead in realization.
Stability in a deeper discipline (dhāriya—holding, containment, inner steadiness) is closer to true knowledge.
Enjoying bliss in an intermediate state (sōriya) is still a “touch-knowledge”: it knows by contact with experience, not by identity with the Real.
But one who is established in turīya—the Fourth, beyond waking/dream/sleep—becomes the true knower who is “light” itself.
Even “noble” attainments (āriya) are corrupted if the subtle “I”-sense (āṇava) persists; such a one still wanders in the forest of ego.
The culmination is not achievement but grace: in the fullness of love and divine compassion, the jñāni is called “immortal”—one who has crossed death-bound identity.
This verse is a deliberately cryptic typology of jñāna (knowing) arranged as a movement from the outer to the inner, from effect to cause, from practice-as-activity to realization-as-abidance, and finally from self-effort to grace.
1) Kāriya vs. kāraṇa: “Effect” (kāriya) indicates fixation on manifested phenomena—events, powers, results, bodily changes, even “miracles”. The Siddhar calls this “dream-knowledge” because it remains within appearances. “Cause” (kāraṇa) points toward the unseen substrate: the causal body, the seed of experience, or the originating principle behind manifestation. Standing in the cause signals a ripening toward mey-jñāna (truth-knowledge).
2) Cāriya/dhāriya/sōriya/turīya as graded interiors: The middle terms look like Tamilized Sanskrit labels that mark successive interiors of practice and consciousness. Read one way, they resemble a progression from external religious discipline (cāriya/charyā) toward a deeper “holding/containment” (dhāriya—suggestive of dhāraṇā, inner steadiness), then toward an enjoyment/blissful state (sōriya—possibly “solar”, radiant, energetic), and finally to turīya, the non-dual “Fourth”. The Siddhar’s critique is sharp: devotion or bliss alone can still be “inert” or merely experiential; only turīya is described as “sudar” (light), implying identity with awareness itself rather than experiences within awareness.
3) Āṇava (ego-impurity) as the decisive test: In Śaiva Siddhānta vocabulary, āṇava mala is the primal constriction that produces the sense of separative “I”. The line about being “in āriya yet in āṇava” warns that refinement, virtue, caste-like “nobility”, or even elevated states do not equal liberation if egoity remains. Such a practitioner is likened to one lost in a forest—still roaming, not free.
4) Grace (aruḷ) as completion: The final line shifts the axis from attainment to aruḷ (grace), specifically “anbu-aruḷ” (love-grace). “Immortal” (amaran) need not mean bodily deathlessness alone; in Siddhar idiom it can mean the deathlessness of realized identity (jīvanmukti), and in some lineages also hints at kāya-siddhi (body-perfection). The ambiguity is preserved: the verse presents grace as the seal that makes knowledge complete.