Pearls of Wisdom ~ Azhaikindran Arangan Episode May 30th 2012

We said about the Sarangapani Peruman in the Kshetram of Kumbakonam. Next to it is there is a separate shrine for Sri ChakrathAzhwar. Inside this temple we can see the Lord Suriyanarayanan, the Lord of light who showers his grace upon this world. For whom there is no greater light, this Lord Suriyanarayanan himself stands with folded hands inside the shrine of Sri ChakrathAzhwar.



More than the tejas of Lord Suriyanarayana, the chakra in the hands of Perumal is more powerful. This side Sarangapani Aramudhan and on the other side the sannadhi of Sri ChakrathAzhwar. Since the Lord Suriyanarayana himself stands in front of Sri ChakrathAzhwar with folded hands this kshetram goes by the name of "Bhaskara Kshetram". Normally we speak about 2 ways, Uttarayanam and Dakshinayanam. "ayanam" meaning route. Thats why Ramayanam, ayanam meaning route and therefore Ramayanam meaning the route taken by Lord Sri Rama. This does not mean a road route but the path of Dharma taken up by Lord Sri Rama. 

Uttarayanam means the direction that the Sun takes North or South for Dakshinayanam. When we say these two we say Krishnapaksham or Shuklapaksham. If we take Rama Krishna avataram we can see a difference. Ramar was born in the daytime and Krishnar was born in the night. At midnight 12am was the avataram of Lord Sri Krishna. Ramar was born in Uttarayana and Krishna was born in Dakshinayana. The word Krishnam meaning black, thats why we talk of Theypirai or Krishnapaksham. Shuklam means bright. Thats why we we talk of Valarpirai we say Shukla paksham. For the child Sri Rama, Sage Vishwamithra takes him to face the three enemies namely Mareechan, Subhahu and tAtakai. Similarly the child Sri Krishna faced the three enemies Trinavarta, Shakata and Poothana. We see the similarities here. Lord Sri Rama tells about his charithram briefly to Soorpanaka in the same manner in the Srimad Bhagavatham the story of muchupanthan is told briefly. These are the similarities between the two avatarams. 

In the Srimad Bhagavadgita, the Lord says that the Yogis leave their lives behind during the time of the Uttarayana and attain my world. The reason is the atma of the uttamars takes up the path of light and the atma of those who have sinned take up the path of darkness. When the jeevan takes the irunda vali (path), then when the jeevan leaves the body, it encounters fear. When the soul leaves the body, it does not mean the next second it goes to Vaikuntam or pithruloka nor to heaven or hell. Even in this earth we just suddenly dont surface in a second somewhere, we get created in the stomach of our mothers and only after 9 months do we take birth. Similarly a jeevan cannot just go to another world, there is a time and procedure for this. At that time and in a process (the paksham and tithi) with the way shown by the devathas the jeevan will make its way. Thats why when someone dies we identify in which thithi this happened, we perform sacred rites for 10 days and then we do the rites once in 27 days in a month and again once in 6 months. The reason is the path is opened for the jeevan during these times. There is also the charity of light (deepams) being done for those who are dead because when this gift of light is performed the path taken by the jeevan will be filled with light. Similarly they will be thirsty and they need to cross rivers, thus the sastras describe the process. So once one dies, they will not immediately see God or anything. By and Large, the jeevan may just go to the nearest world and then come back to be born again in this world. Thats means as soon as one dies, an athiest cannot become a non-atheist immediately, a materialistic one cannot immediately become a bhakthan. With whatever vasanas he has accumulated at the time of death, with the same vasanas he will be reborn again. An example we can see in our day to day life is, in whatever way we sleep in the night, the same way we wake up in the morning. In the same way death and rebirth in the case of the ordinary mortals happen. If one who does not beleive in the other worlds after death, he may just be convinced with the fact that there is a rebirth after death but surely he wont see devathas or God. He may not even go up to heaven or hell. 

Therefore when we say uttarayana and dakshinayana, in the 6 months following mid-January tamil month called thai, the jeevan will attain the uttama path. In the Dakshinayana months such a path will not be attained is being said in some of the scriptures. In the kshetram of Kumbakonam if one attains death, there is no requirement of the time of uttarayana or dakshinayana for him is what is being described in the temple lore of this Bhaskara Kshetram. We can see this in the Aramudhan temple of Kumbakonam. After we have the darshan of Sri Komalavalli thAyar and performing the pradakshinam we find a set of steps named the door to uttarayana. On another set of steps we find named the door to dakshinayana.

Just like we find the paramapada door in the temples of perumal, in this Aramudhan temple of Kumbakonam we find these two doors respectively.

Starting from the tamil month of thai (mid January), the door of uttarayana will be kept open, we see the perumal through this door and come back the steps. For dakshinayanam starting from the tamil month of Adi, the other door will only be kept open. There is a small patham of Sri Sarangapani and in that patham there is Lord Srinivasan and we have the darshan of Lord perumal. In Kumbakonam for one who has attained death here, there is no requirement of uttarayana or dakshinayana is what this temple depicts as we have the darshan of the perumal going through both of these doors. This is the famed Bhaskara Kshetram. The sakshath Sun god Lord Suriyanarayana who is the prathyaksha deivam meaning one which we can see in real (as other Gods we cannot see in real and we need to be gifted to be able to see). For even a child looking up at the sky can see the Sun God and is visible to one and all. For all our actions, the Sun God is a witness, he sees both our papam and punyam. There is no time nor place where the Sun God is not there. The prayer to Sun God will remove the defects in our eyes, health will improve, lifespan will increase, conquer of enemies all this are the benefits of prayer to Sun God. Such a Sun God, Lord Suriyanarayana himself stands in supplication towards the Lord ChakrathAzhwar denoting the greatness of the Lord.

Near Chidambaram there is a kshetram called Veeranarayanapuram and that is where  today's Kattumannarkoil is located. For Krishna being also called Rajamannar, the place called Rajamannargudi is another place where the bhagavan is like a king, rajagopalan. In the morning when Mother Yashoda will tie a nice knot over the head of our little Sri Krishna surrounded by lots of flowers and with a nice pearl necklace on the neck, bangles on the hands, gold rings on the fingers, with nice ear rings on his ears being a sarva alankara bhushitan with a gold braided waist band, anklets on his legs taking the food lovingly prepared by Mother Yashoda and with a rope in his hand, stick to manage the cows and with grace he would leave for his work of tending to the cows. Still our Sri Krishna is a gopalan but coming in the lineage of the kings, he is also a rajagopalan. Will someone tending to the cows be thus adorned with jewels and beauty, and as he walks in the neighbourhood everyone would come out to watch this spectacle with a sense of wonderment. Once Sri Krishna goes into the forest he will remove all these adornments and alongwith the cowherds he will adorn himself with a garland of flowers, wear a turban over his head and pick up some scents from the herbs on the forest and smear on his body which will make his skin glow. Just like a kattu (forest) mannar, our Sri Krishna will hold a stick with a turban over his head and with a rope in his hand alongwith fellow cowherd children who have made a garland which he would wear, this gopalan is our Kattumannar. The temple in which he resides is the Kattumannar koil. In India, within Tamilnadu there are three gopalan - Kattumannarkoil at veeranarayanapuram, Mannargudi rajagopalankoil at Mannargudi where there is this famous vennai thazhi uthsavam - looking at the gopalan each and everyone will throw butter on the gopalan, like a child with vennai thazhi our gopalan resides there.

The third rajagopalan in Tamilnadu is at a place called manimangalam, this is a very ancient town, we can see ancient stones dating back a 1000 years. What is the significance of this rajagopalan at manimangalam which is only 10kms from Tambaram. There are books which have research founded on these ancient stones within this temple at manimangalam then just imagine how ancient this place as well as this manimangalam temple would have been. The swami here is called Rajagopalan. How this Rajagopalan came to be here is that in Dwaraka,  there came upon a curse upon the whole Yadava dynasty that there will be no further progeny for this dynasty as has also been mentioned in the Srimad bhagavatham. The people came to know this and that Dwaraka will soon be engulfed by the sea and with worry they all went to Sage Agasthya and surrendered to him. 

In those days as we read from the historical accounts, the kings used to destroy forests and create living cities to create land for living. Similarly there is research ongoing to find out if we can convert sea water into drinking water. Today we have electricity which we need to put to immediate use and there is research ongoing to see if we can save this electricity. Similarly we also want to find out how deep we can go into the sea. This is however not new, when Sri Krishna created Dwaraka he indeed did this within the sea depths. Dwaraka itself means Door. Foreigners who entered our land used this as a door, otherwise known as port. This was an important port as we see in the history later, Muhammad Ghazni or Ghori came through this port to enter and invade india. Thats why this important port was called Dwaraka.

So when the sea water engulfed Dwaraka in a tsunami, we find that there were others in addition to the yadava dynasty. The curse was only pronounced upon the Yadava dynasty however, it was only told as "Musalam kula nasanam", these people went to surrender to the Sage Agastyar telling that the sea is rising and taking in the land of Dwaraka itself. But in the Srimad Bhagavatham it is said that the Krishna mandiram was not destroyed, thats why even today amongst the Pancha Dwarakas, we go today to pray at Moola Dwaraka. Sage Agasthyar brought some of the inhabitants of Dwaraka and offered them a place of refuge in certain towns. One of these places was Manimangalam.

Thus near Tambaram on the way to Sriperumbudur, at this place called Manimangalam some of the inhabitants of ancient Dwaraka came to stay. The ancestors of the current inhabitants of Manimangalam were indeed the same people who had been with Lord Sri Krishna during his time at Dwaraka. In addition, there is also a temple of their ishta devata called Rajagopalan which has been created here in this holy place. The stone carvings are visible proof that some of the great events and uthsavams have taken place in this famous rajagoplan temple.

How famous this temple is can only be described by the fact that just as the yatris of South India who yearned to go to the North India to visit places such as Badrinath, puri, brindavanam, Ayodhya, Dwaraka, Naimisaranya and pray to the Perumal, similarly once upon a time the yatris from the North of India yearned to see the rajagopalan at Manimangalam which shows us how great a kshetram this manimangalam had been 1000 years since.

Similarly Mannargudi rajagopalan and then kattumannar rajagoplan koil which is at veeranarayanapuram near chidambaram. The significance of kattumannar koil is that a mahatma called Nadamunigal, a great acharyar and mahapurashar of Sri Vaishnava Sampradayam itself, has been the avatara sthalam of this great mahan and this place has being called as Veeranarayanapuram. Nadamuni himself after taking leave from Kattumannar Rajagopalan sets out to visit the great kshetrams all over India such as Brindavanam, Ayodhya and then comes back to tamil nadu. After which, Nadamunigal visits the kanchipuram perazhuzhalar and then finally comes to the sannidhanam of Aramudhan at Thirukkudanthai.
== Subham ==
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