Sri Nrusimha Priya

[Guest guest]

I was cleaning up my hard drive and found this article I

had keyed-in and posted in SCT almost two years ago. I

am sure you will enjoy it as much as I did, for the second

time today.

 

This was among the first English articles that started

appearing in Sri Nrusimha Priya. Now, each issue

contains at least one or two English articles. Plans are

afoot for a complete English edition of the magazine. We

the expatriates and our children are the ones who will

benefit most by an English edition. Just imagine, Sri

Bhashya and Sri Rahasyathriayasara published in English

on a monthly basis (presently RTS in Tamil is appearing

in Sri NP) It is doubtful that an English edition of Sri NP

will ever come out without the significant financial

support from all of us here. So, please come forward and

pledge a life-time subscription to Sri NP. Sri Jaganath

has already posted the details. I ask him to post them again.

 

Let me close by citing the historical cross-sampradaya

nature of Srimad Ahobila Mutt. It is the first Jeeyar of

Srimad Ahobila Mutt who initiated Sri Manavala

Maamunigal into sanyasam. The fifth jeeyar of Srimad

Ahobila Mutt was a Thenkalai Sri Vaishnava. He

undertook barasamarpanam under the 4th jeeyar before

taking on sanyasam and the jeeyarship of the mutt.

(Source Sri NP; visit web page

http://www.utc.edu/ahobilam

and look for this article under 2nd - 7th azhagiya singars.)

 

Now, the Bhavan's Journal article that was reprinted in

the March 94 issue of Sri NP.

 

 

-- Parthasarati Dileepan

 

 

 

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An Episode to Remember

Prof. S. Ramaswami

 

(There are certain incidents in one's life which are not

easily forgotten. Prof. S. Ramaswami (82), Chief

Professor of English (Retd.) of the Madras Presidency

College, recalls here one such incident which throws a

flood of light on the benignity of our Acharyas. The

Professor does not remember the name of the Jeeyar in

his purvashrama. From the information he has given

about his passing away at Naimisharanyam, It is

presumed that, he was Srivan Satakopa Sri Veeraraghava

Satakopa Yateendra Mahadesikan, the 43rd Jeeyar.)

 

 

 

It was in the thirties, the middle thirties, that it happened.

Many of the details have quite faded out of my memory.

Indeed, what I recall now may also be inaccurate in this

or that detail. But the main outlines of the experience I

shall set out herein are vividly present in my mind.

 

I had gone to have darsan of Lord Srinivasa at

Gunasekharam across the sacred river Cauveri at its

broadest. At the shrine itself I felt that I had one of those

experiences which one cannot easily forget, even if one

wished to. There were, on that occasion, quite is few who

swung their heads with varying degree of intensity and

speed, with their hair flung over their shoulders. One felt

a deep, a very deep pity for these, mostly women, who

did this peculiar form of penance before the Lord, in the

fond hope that the Lord would, as the Almighty Physician

of all human ills, give them a measure of relief from their

state of severe mental disengagement and distraction.

 

The darsan of the Lord was an enchanting experience. I

felt deeply gratified and indeed happy. I wonder why this

happens when one is in the presence of the Lord in

shrines like Gunasekharam, Swamimalai or Tirumalai. At

the last of these places, although one has to compress

one's faculties of perception to an extreme degree amid

calls of 'Jaragandi,' one's experience gains an unusual

acuteness and intensity. I did not quite feel like leaving

the shrine but, as Wordsworth says, the world, is, whether

we like it or not, too much and too long with us. There

was a sudden alarm bell ringing in my ear. The bus

would start for Tiruchi around 1 p. m. And one has to

cross the Cauveri besides.

 

I came out and got back to where I had started from, for

the shrine. As I raced across, I found the bus leaving and

picking up speed rapidly. Had I made a mistake in

thinking of the bus in the temple? Several times,

undistracted by any thought of transportation back to

one's home, I had emerged from temples and found no

difficulty in getting back home. But this time I had

missed the bus, Why? What follows will give you the

answer.

 

Tired, hungry and yearning, yes, yearning for somewhere

to rest one's head, I walked into a street and sat on the pial

of a big but old-fashioned house. The outer marks

showed that it was the house of a Sri Vaishnava. But the

pial was both long and broad. I had just thought of

resting my head and body on the pial when the door of the

house opened and out came a majestic figure. On seeing

him, I ventured, in fear and trembling, to ask if I might

rest my body (and my mind, too now in a state of anxiety)

on the pial of the house. The great and good man, noting

my troubled look and unmistakable embarrassment said

"Emperuman has sent forth unique blessing. Usually, a

little earlier I come out to look for an athithi (guest) to

whom I could pass on the Lord's Prasad before partaking

of myself. Today, I finished my aradhan a little later than

usual. And I wondered if the Lord would gratify my daily

wish this day too, as he had always done. And lo! and

Behold He sends me in His infinite compassion and

measureless mercy a person who has just had darsan of

the Lord. I believe it was Lord Srinivasa who sent you to

me. Deign I beg of you to accept my humble offering of

the Lord's prasad. I cant eat at all, unless the Lord in His

mercy sent someone to accept it at my hands before I take

it myself. How merciful is the Lord.

 

He brought two potsful of water and very reverentially

washed my feet. And taking me into the house he spread

out a long rosewood plank with silver ornamentation at its

four edges and prayed to me to sit thereon. He went

inside to his puja room and brought out Perumal

theertham, richly fragrant with tulasi leaves and Kasturi

and gave me three spoonfuls. Then he and his

dharmapatni cane out together and did four namaskaras

me. I ventured, all in vain, to point out that I was young

and not a Sri Vaishnavite. Came a very gently-phrased

rebuke to avidya. "We are all Sri Valshnavas. The Lord

is within you and in all of us. When we do a namaskar, it

is to the Lord within every one of us. When we say, 'May

you live a hundred years', we are playing the role of the

Lord, though wholly unconscious of it. Who are we mere

mortals to grant even a single year of life to another, not

to speak of a hundred years! It is the Lord speaking

through us. Pray, feel thoroughly at home. This is your

home. Since it is in the Lord's universe it is His, yours,

mine and everybody else's."

 

 

Rich feast

Then followed a rich, a sumptuous feast. I cannot say I

did justice to the rich variety and the highly sanctified

quality of the food I was served. For sheer

sumptuousness it was hard to equal and impossible to

excel.

 

When I rose I was taken to the well in the rear of that

magnificent house and given plenty of water to wash my

hands and feet. And when I came back to the dining hall,

I was given a coconut, 'thambulam' and a silver coin on a

silver plate I returned the silver plate and was about to

return the silver coin when that, great and gracious man

said, "Pray, accept our humble offering. Really, it is not

my offering but the Lord's. Is not all this the Lord's?"

I was reminded of the first verse of Isopanishad. Here

was man living the Upanishadic teaching. When I took

leave of him around four p.m. his eyes were not dry nor

were mine.

 

Years later, I heard of him. He had become the Jeeyar of

the Ahobila Vaishnava Math. He was on his way to

Badari Asram to worship Lord Narayana there. And as

he was returning via Delhi, at Naimisharanya, the Lord

called him to His Lotus Feet. And he should have been

happy to rest there as he had always thought, dreamed,

and meditated on those Lotus Feet, your refuge, His, and

ours.

 

Courtesy: Bhavan's Journal 31-12-93

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