Tengalai/Vadagalai

[Guest guest]

Thengalai/Vadagalai: about some settings related to the concepts

as heard from elders.

 

This is rather going to be a lengthy one and I prefer to do it in

instalments. May be most of what I am about to say may have

appeared in print and it is equally possible that it may not have.

My exposure to the current literature on the subject is

practically nil and yet I dare to write this as I had heard by

word of mouth from people who had deep experience of the presence

of Ramanucharya in Srirangam, being located in the field that still

exists and electrifies me every time I am there. I hope the field

will prevail; the vanishing breeds have vanished or about to

vanish.

 

I have been following with keen interest the debate on the two

sects. This debate triggered me to recall some of the

conversations I had some forty and odd years back with an elderly

Prapanna in Srirangam, who hailed from a family directly in the

line of one of the 74 disciples of Ramanujacharya. He was a scholar

both in the Granthas of the Acharya and his followeres and also

in the historical developments since that time, with a keen

understanding of the link between the prevailing social conditions

at various stages and the events that propelled the changes and

defined the states in SriVaishnavism.

 

I had also verified most of what follows with a relative of mine

who was equally a great scholar and publisher in the script Grantha

(otherwise known as Manipravala). For generations his family

resided in Srirangam and participated in the affairs of

SriVaishnavism making the Granthas written since then available to

the general public by inventing Manipravala, a hybrid script partly

tamil and partly Sanskritized representations easy to compose for

printing and harmonizing with the outlines of the Tamizh script. This

invention greatly influenzed the spread of SriVainavism among the

Tamizh speaking population and also the spread of Sanskrit

literature in Malabar after the Malayalam script was reformed on

the anlogy of Manipravala. In fact, the kings in the then Malayalam

speaking states had a joint effort made towards the reformation of

that script and sent delegations to Srirangam to study

Manipravala. My father used to tell me very interesting stories of

that time and the very many efforts that were made with great

dedication.

 

Now let me branch off to the subject in point in a rather

round-about way.

 

To be continued... venkat v.rao,

Oct.4,1994