King Sundarapandian otherwise called as "Mudalam Sadayavarman", chola king had a great bhakthi and performed kainkaryam to lord Sri Ranganathar. His period of rule was from 1250AD to 1284AD. When thiruvAradhanam was being performed for Sri Ranganathar, first would be the offering to the screen with the thiruvAradhanam being performed inside as was the custom.
In Sri Ranganathar temple there are two types of thiruvAradhanam - bahiranga thiruvAradhanam and the other in which the perumal would be offered the thiruvAradhanam inside the sanctum sanctorum itself. Inside the sanctum sanctorum the thiruvAradhanam will be performed by putting the screen. When perumal will be taken on the procession, the thiruvAradhanam will be formed as bahiranga and there will be no screen present. From the vessel in which the theertham would be given is called as - Sundarapandiam pidithel, perumal will say this two times once when alankarasanam and then at the showing of the thirukannadi, which shows how this king performed bhakthi to Ranganathar.
In Sri Ranganathar temple there are two types of thiruvAradhanam - bahiranga thiruvAradhanam and the other in which the perumal would be offered the thiruvAradhanam inside the sanctum sanctorum itself. Inside the sanctum sanctorum the thiruvAradhanam will be performed by putting the screen. When perumal will be taken on the procession, the thiruvAradhanam will be formed as bahiranga and there will be no screen present. From the vessel in which the theertham would be given is called as - Sundarapandiam pidithel, perumal will say this two times once when alankarasanam and then at the showing of the thirukannadi, which shows how this king performed bhakthi to Ranganathar.
Often this king will come to serve the Lord Sri Ranganathar, the king will come in full regalia with his crown and dress. When the king was about to accept the offering of the pAdhyam, argyam of the water, to catch hold of the water there will be a vattil, thirupadikam which the priest did not have but the king without any hesitation took off his crown and accepted the water. Thats why even today the vessel that takes the argya pAdhyam is called Sundarapandiam pidithEl. This happens twice in an year. Its nearly 850 years since, perumal is still thinking of the kainkaryam performed by this great king. As long as the sun and moon exist, this offering will always be named after this king. Because of this even now when the perumal is brought out in procession, his crown is called pandian kondai or sundarapandian kondai. It is a pearl studded crown. Thats why even for the crown placed for all of the different divyadesam perumal, it came to be commonly known as pandian kondai. If the crown is taken out and turned upside down then we can see it is in the form of a "vattil".
The King was always desirous of performing some kainkaryam to the perumal. Thats why he was always giving thulabharam in gold equal to his weight often and he was performing kainkaryam associated with it. Once the king with all his ornaments, sword, coat of armour sat upon the elephant which was standing in a big boat. As the boat settled under the weight of the elephant, this royal elephant being of a considerable weight as well as the king sitting upon it with his full royal dress, metal armour, shields, sword and crown. There was also a similar boat by its side. In the temple there will be a scale for the thulabharam, one on which the king can sat and which will hold the weight of the king alongwith the other scale that could hold the equal quantity in gold, but it was not possible for the scale to hold an elephant not to mention the king sitting on it! So in the cauvery the king will be sitting atop an elephant which will be on a boat, there will be a similar boat exactly same by the side and on which there will be gold placed. The gold of sufficient quantity will be placed on the second boat, the submerged depth of which will have to match exactly with the first boat on which the king and his royal elephant are placed. Such gold would have been deposited, one can only imagine notwithstanding the generous heart of the king to offer such huge quantities of gold to perumal. Not content with the usual thulabharam at the temple on the weighing scales, he offered this way by using the boats as well. But perumal did not accept the offering it seems. The gold just stayed in the same place in the fromt mantapam as it is without being touched for nearly 2 years. It is being said that only after 2 years having seen the dedication of this king, the lord finally accepted that this offering. In addition, studded with lots of precious gems and rare stones, the king made a thirumudi which is the legendary Pandian Kondai. The king has made the adisesha in gold. In the katazhagiyasingar kshetram, the narasingar has been made of gold by this king. The king has made a gold aerial car for vishwaksena. He has made gold garlands. He has made a golden chariot for Lord Ranganathar. The king has made the Garuda in gold. There is a thotti for performing the thirumanjanam for perumal and the whole thotti has been made of gold. For the theppam procession, the king has made a boat made of gold. The pranavakAra aerial car was made of gold. He also made a gold statue of himself praying to the perumal but the temple chiefs and priests objected to this and did not give permission to the king. The king was quite powerful, he had done so much for the temple, he was a great devotee but even then the elder priests and the chiefs of the temple did not give permission. The king did not worry about this and thought that this was the right thing. But the king made a statue of the perumal and named it Hemachandanaraja hari.
The king made a vishnu status in his own name. In those days playfully it was told that even the Meru mountain itself was made of gold. Thats why adisesha, pranavakara vimana, katazhagiyasingar, golden garlands, golden boat, golden chariot, golden pond was not a big thing for this king as he wanted to dig out the Meru mountain which was made in gold and wanted to offer the whole mountain itself to the Lord Sri Ranganathar. But it seems there is a form resembling a fish on the Meru mountain. But King Sundarapandian whose royal emblem was that of the fish and since the Meru mountain showed the form of the fish, he left the mountain as it is. Otherwise even he would have brought that as an offering to the perumal it is said. In Srirangam there are lots of theerthams, chandra pushkarini being one which is inside the temple itself. In the chandra pushkarani dharmaverma performed tapas and the perumal presented himself there which has already been told. In the chandrapushkarini periyanambi, thirukoshtiyur nambi and tirumalai nambi were sitting and talking about their acharyar Azhavandhan.
For a true devotee, thinking about his Guru or acharya will be sometimes more than that of thinking about the bhagavan himself. So the nambighal were talking about the feats of Azhavandhar, his doctrines, discipline, stotra ratnam, how he treated his devotees, his compassion to them thinking of all this they almost attained the state of samadhi it seems. So much anandam, all these three were mahatmas and they were talking of the mahan. At that time when the bali was about to be performed, the perumal thiruvAradhana was coming. So the three nambigal as the perumal was coming, they got up to offer their respects and made the offering to the perumal. They kept saying how wonderful the time had been and how long they had been here in the chandra pushkarini and how nice it was talking of their Guru Azhavandan and his great deeds. They felt that this procession of the perumal had disturbed this talk and if this has not happened they would have been talking more of their acharya Azhavandan. They say that if in the future they were to talk of their acharya, they would got to a temple where there would be no bali procession of the perumal and they can talk undisturbed. Lord perumal it seems turned back to them and said, you may talk of your acharyar henceforth and I will not arise and come for the bali anymore in Srirangam. Even today thats how its happening in Srirangam. The bali would be put as usual but the perumal would not arise and come. So just so that the nambigal can talk about the greatness of their acharya and not cause "rasa bhangam", the anandam would not be disturbed for the nambis, perumal himself stopped coming. As we behold the various uthsavams in Srirangam, the way those mahans talked about the perumal, their vaibhavams, the greatness, we come to know one thing. The perumal was very much present like a raja, managing a kingdom, talking to each and everyone, if and when a kainkaryam was done he accepted it, talked about it, granted their wishes. Just like a king, perumal moved about, not only perumal all those devotees, the priests, the mahans, bhattars, their kainkaryams, just like if we had a a great person amidst us. How we would do our work amidst the presence of this great person, how we would act according to his wishes and perform the respective duties, such a bhAvam is being represented as we visualise the various vaibhavams in the temple of Srirangam and thats how perumal also lived there.
Subham
Radhe Radhe!
