In the Sruthi, Smrithi, itihAsam, purAnam, both in the beginning, middle and the end, the greatness of "Hari" and "Narayana" is primarily being mentioned. From the itihAsam and purAnam, if we keep on turning over the stories, we can never find a mention of the fact that one who believed in Narayana or one who performed namasankeerthanam or one who had taken shelter in the name of Narayana was doomed. This is the greatness of these itihAsas and the purAnas. In the Srimad Bhagavatham also it is mentioned that one can perform upAsana in the God he believes in, for example, if one wanted marriage to happen, then pray to this God, for beauty pray to this God, for life and health pray to this God, for getting rid of troubles from enemies, pray to a certain God. Ultimately in order to beget all this in
totality, perform the upAsana to Lord Narayana himself. Why, indeed should one perform upAasna to each and every God, because even if you did not need any of the above desires, yet performing upAsana to Lord Narayana is enough for one to get everything. If you need moksha, then perform upAsana to Lord Narayana.
totality, perform the upAsana to Lord Narayana himself. Why, indeed should one perform upAasna to each and every God, because even if you did not need any of the above desires, yet performing upAsana to Lord Narayana is enough for one to get everything. If you need moksha, then perform upAsana to Lord Narayana.
In those days, there will be a person (guduguduppu) who would be having a small toy drum in his hands which he would rotate making sounds and go to each and every house in the neighborhood. The woman of the house would come out and offer rice. The guduguduppu person would complain why this rice is full of worms. The woman would say that this rice is enough for your drum sound making. He will go to another house and when he performs the drum sounds there, they would offer him torn clothes and he would receive this in kind. However this will be the same story here also.
Likewise, for all other Gods, depending on the amount of mantras, japAs, Avarthis, we will get only this much in kind. For the amount of mantras or tapas, you would get this much in return. But in the case of Lord Narayana, how then would he give us kripa. Say for example, a mother does things for her child, is this because she is seeking something in return or no return from her child, no, this is only due to the daily relationship between the mother and her child. Likewise, bhagavan Narayana does everything for us, only because of the reason we are HIS children and no other. Even in case when the child does not behave properly and conduct himself or herself in a helpful way to the parents, yet they would do things for the child, likewise, bhagavan Narayana is doing the same for us.
nATTinAn deivam engum nalladOr aruL tannAlE
kATTinAn tiru arangam uibavarkku uyyum vaNNam |
kETTeerE nambimeerhAL geruDa vAhananum nirka
chETTai tan maDiyahattu chelvam pArttirukkinreerE ||
says azhwar.
If we go inside the Lord Ranganathar temple, we see many sannadhis. All sannadhis are inside the temple itself. So, if we have some troubles with the bhootas or pretas, or if some enemy has done some harming mantra upon us, when there is lot of doubts and confusion in the mind, we always will go to the sannadhi of the chakrathAzhwar and perform circumambulation there. Otherwise if we have fear from enemies, then there is the kOlavil Rama sannidhi where we can pray to win over our enemies.
If one wants a child there is the sannadhi of Krishna. If one wants to get relief from health problems, there is the sannadhi of Lord Dhanvantri. If one needs wealth, there is the sakshAth Ranganayaki thAyAr. If one needs moksham there there is our Lord Ranganathar. If one has a desire to perform bhajan, there is the sannadhi or Lord Vittal. So we find that in the one single temple of Lord Ranganathar, we obtain all we need, why then do we need to go to any other place. There is also garuda vahanam "geruDa vAhananum nirka". The fact that GarudAzhwar has two wings, two paksham, and the meaning behind this is that there are two divisions within vedas, one is karma and the other is upAsana and for both of this being the gNana swaroopam GarudAzhwar, the "geruDa vAhananum nirka" is being mentioned here. Gajendran when he cried, the bhagavan came. For the tapas of Dhruva, the bhagavan came. At that time, the bhagavan waited for the call of Gajendran. In todays time, the bhagavan does not even wait, he does not even wait for our call. All the time he is awaiting us, whether we will come or not looking with anticipation.
"kATTinAn tiru arangam uibavarkku uyyum vaNNam" - In Srirangam itself, the perumal awaits and expects whether someone would come and take shelter in HIS lotus feet and he is waiting to offer his grace and he is in the the lying posture there waiting for his devotees.
"kETTeerE nambimeerhAL geruDa vAhananum nirka" - HE is ready to offer anything. Like that HE is there waiting to give, but we are not going there. There is one who is ready to give you anything, and do good for you and awaiting there, yet no one is coming, says azhwar.
In Srirangam, Azhavandar after seeing izhaiAzhwar is now coming to stay here in Srirangam. Bhagavan is seeing Azhavandar and he wishes (sankalpam) to take him to paramapadam. So he tells this to Azhavandar himself. Azhavandar asks for eight days time and gets this request accepted by the bhagavan. After seeing izhaiAzhwar in kanchipuram, requesting Ramanujar to come to Srirangam and then initiating him in his own position, only then he wished to go to paramapadam. So getting all the eligible Sri Vaishnavas together, getting the stotra ratnams grantas with the vishayams of pEraruzhAzhan together, Azhavandar sends them all to invite Ramanujar to Srirangam.
The situation for izhaiAzhwar is that yAdavaprakAsar was telling one thing which was contradicting with izhaiAzhwar thoughts. When things were happening like this, yAdavaprakAsar distanced himself from izhaiAzhwar. Performing theertha kainkaryam under the shelter of thirukatchinambi, izhaiAzhwar was still in kanchipuram itself. For izhaiAzhwar, there was no mahatma greater than thirukatchinambi at the moment and he did not think of any other as well. Being guided from his childhood days by thirukatchinambi, izhaiAzhwar's mind was not taking anyone higher than thirukatchinambi as the Guru. Secondly, leaving the kanchi kshetram and going to another place was not desirable for izhaiAzhwar. Thirdly, he knew no other God other than pEraruzhAzhan, no kshetram other than satyavratha kshEtram, no achAryan other than thirukatchinambi, like this izhaiAzhwar was performing the theertha kainkaryam.
For kainkaryam, some would talk in a sabha and ten people would garland them, give a shawl, give a crown, offer sambavanas but this is not a big thing. Kainkaryam means carrying the lord and his sripAdam, carrying the umbrella upon his head, fanning the perumal, do the azhavatta kainkaryam, sweep the floor and clean the temple of the perumal, put the rangoli, being the thiruvArAdhanam for the perumal and perform the madapalli (area where offering of food is prepared for the lord) kainkaryam (service) in full. The fact that one does kainkaryam is to get humility. In this kainkaryam, if one does comparison that a certain kainkaryam is greater or lesser, then there is no use in performing at all. All is bhagavan kainkaryam and we should be ready to do any kainkaryam, in fact we have to take up the lesser kainkaryam as the greater thing indeed. One should not think that the other is fanning the lord, performing the discourse while I am just bringing in water for the madapalli which is a lower kainkaryam. izhaiAzhwar himself being such a avatAra purushar is performing theertha kainkaryam and is so very humble and he is showing us how to perform kainkaryam. In his heart there is no kshetram other than kanchipuram as he does not know of any other God other than pEraruzhAzhan and no other mahatma other than thirukatchinambi. How then to bring him to srirangam. So Azhavandar sends the Srivaishnavas with the stotraratnam performed upon pErarizhAzhan accompanied with them to Kanchipuram. Why the stotra? In English there is a moral, one would say "tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are". We can identify ourselves based on who our friends are and based on that we can find out what type of people we are.
Like that, coming from the heart of a mahatma, a stotram or a grantam, reading that, we can easily find out the greatness of the mahatma.
By and Large, when performing discourses upon the stories of mahatmas, the basis upon which we are performing the discourse is - since we do not know if there were somebody who performed this discourse at the time, we take upon the pAsurams told at that time as the basis.
For example, taking the pAsurams of the nAcchiAr thirumozhi in an order, one can perform the discourse of Sri Andal. Why because, it is the experience itself that has issued forth in these pAsurams. The experience coming from the heart has come as the discourse and one can know what is the heart of Andal and how she must have been at that time. Starting from Marghazhi thingal, VAranamAyeeram, taking one pAsuram at a time, one can know beautiful was the heart of Sri Andal.
Likewise, by and large, by reading the stotram and grantas of the mahatmas, we can know the depth of their hearts, we are able to perform the discourses.
An Acharyan will take a sishya and by way of his speech connect with the disciple. In Ramayana, when it begins, the sloka ""Tapah Swadhyaya Niratam,Tapasvii Vaag Vidaam Varam, Naradam Paripapraccha, Valmiki Muni Pungavam". There should be a good speech. An acharya himself does upadesha of a mantra to his disciple. Only with mantrOpadesham, there is a relationship developed between the Guru and his disciple. That also should come via the mouth and based on the word spoken by the acharya, then there is a relationship developed between the acharya and his disciple.
Therefore amongst the qualities, the most important ones that acharya has to possess being good conduct, be in truth, be follower of dharma, be a fearless person and on top of all this, the acharya should be one who is capable of pouring out the bhagavath anubham from his heart as a rain to all the people who are listening to him. Just after performing ten upanyasams, there is nothing more to tell is not a good discourse. Just like how the water springs from the underground in new, novel ways, all that stems from the depths of the heart would have to be expounded again and again in various forms and beautiful discourses. One should not think that the acharya is telling the same discourse and there is nothing more to listen and one should listen closely and take in the fine qualities within the discourse being expounded. The discourse would be filled with bhava and be with such wonderful outpour of a variety of expositions. If such a discourse is told, only then the disciple would enjoy the beauty of the discourse told by the acharya.
Therefore, how to turn izhaiAzhwar to their side, being always in kanchipuram, devoted to thirukatchinambi and pEraruzhAzhan. So they decided that only by listening to such a stotram that would make izhaiAzhwar turn to their side was the need of the hour and it also should be one such great stotram. So when presented with such a stotram, izhaiAzhwar would certainly ask questions on who composed this stotram and thus making him interested would be the best course of action. So Azhavandar sends Srivaishnavas with such a stotram containing the expositions of peraruzhAzhan to kanchipuram.
Radhe Radhe
Read more translations of the other episodes at: http://aranganinarumai.blogspot.com/
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