கடைய னென்றே கழறிடுவே னாயி னேனே
கடைவிரித்த கடையெல்லாம் கடையாய்ப் போகக்
கடையிலே காலன்வந்து கதுவா முன்னம்
கடையெழுத்தா மூமத்தான் கருவைக் கண்டேன்
கடையிலே பிரமாண்டக் கூடத் தப்பால்
கடைநின்றார் சதகோடிச் சித்தர் கூட்டம்
கடையனே னவர்தமக்கு ளொருவ னாகக்
காரைநகர்ப் பீடத்தைக் கட்டி னேனே
kadaiya nendre kazhariduve naayi nene
kadaiviriththa kadaiyellaam kadaiyaayp pogak
kadaiyile kaalanvandu kathuva munnam
kadaiyezhuththaa moomaththaan karuvaik kanden
kadaiyile piramaandak koodath thappaal
kadainindraar sathakodich chiththar koottam
kadaiyane navarthamakku loruva naagak
kaarainagarp peedaththaik katti nene.
“I became one who speaks of himself as a ‘kadayan’ (a lowly fellow / the ‘last one’).
As the ‘kadai’ (what I opened or spread—shops/ends) all turned into ‘kadai’ (mere endings) and passed away,
before, at the end, Kālan (Death) comes and seizes me by the throat,
I saw the ‘karu’ (embryo/seed) of the one of three measures, said to be the ‘last letter’.
At the end-place, by the side of the vast Brahmāṇḍa hall,
stood a gathering of a hundred crores of Siddhars.
I, the kadayan, became one among them,
and I built/established the seat (pīṭam) of Karai-nagar.”
“Calling myself the lowest and the last, I watched every outward ‘kadai’—every enterprise, every ‘end-point’—collapse into impermanence. Before Death could come to choke me, I perceived the seed hidden in the ‘final letter’: the tri-fold sound/measure (readable as the threefold A–U–M or a three-part bīja). In the immense inner ‘hall’ of the Brahmāṇḍa (the cosmic egg / subtle body-space), I beheld an immeasurable assembly of Siddhas; and though I claim lowliness, I became one among them. From that attainment I ‘built the pīṭam’—a stable seat of realization associated with Karai-nagar (the shore-city / the siddha’s own seat).”
The verse is driven by layered wordplay on “kadai,” which can mean (1) shop/market (worldly transactions), (2) end/last (mortality, finality), and (3) a “lower” or “bottom” sense in yogic mapping (the base or terminal point). The speaker adopts the self-designation “kadayan” to signal deliberate humility and also to mark himself as one who stands at the “end” of worldly identity.
Against the decay of external life, the text pivots to an inner discovery “before Kālan comes”: the realization of a “karu” (seed/embryo)—a common Siddhar code for bīja-mantra, bindu, or the subtle causal germ of consciousness. The phrase “three measures” strongly invites a reading of OṂ as having three mātrās (A-U-M) while remaining cryptic enough to include other triadic principles (three guṇas, three nāḍīs, three bodies, or Trimūrti). “Brahmāṇḍa kūṭam” can mean the cosmic egg as metaphysics, but also the yogic “inner hall”—often mapped to the cranial vault, heart-cave, or the subtle body as a universe.
The “hundred crores of Siddhars” can be read literally as an immense siddha congregation, or symbolically as the countless perfected forces/powers within the realized field. “Building the pīṭam” then becomes twofold: historically, establishing a seat or lineage-center at a place called Karai-nagar; yogically, stabilizing the ‘seat’ (āsana/pīṭa) of awareness—an unwavering ground where realization is installed rather than merely glimpsed. The verse thus moves from impermanence and death-fear to seed-realization, entry into the siddha-sphere, and the founding (outer/inner) of a permanent seat of attainment.