vaikuNda Ekaadasi

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Today's (vaikuNda Ekaadhasi) upanyaasam by Srimad Azhagiya Singar was

excellent. It was about the thiruppaavai paasuram 'maayanai'.

 

The upanyaasam was so elaborate that he had to stop it by the line

'thooya peru neer yamunaith thuRaivanai'.

 

I have to apologise as I can't really go in detail right now. I am

leaving for Sri Rangam in a few hours. In the following I will try to

give whatever I could retain from his upanyaasam.

 

'maayan' - in describing this epithet, Srimad Azhagiya Singar said His

'maayam' is such that not even Balaraman could understand that. Then

he related a story about Brahma stealing away the cows and calfs, as

well as the cowherd children, and how Krishna became them all and

playacted the roles of every little kid in the village and every

single cow in the village for one full year, and not even Balaraman

realised this.

 

The current azhagiya singar is a consummate story teller. He uses

several nice lowkika stories to drive home the point. We are indeed

fortunate to listen to his upanyaasam.

 

'vadamathurai maindhan' - For the word 'maindhan' Srimad azhagiya

singar gave the meaning as 'a man with enormous strength'.

 

'thooya peru neer yamunai' - Here the upanyaasam touched its heights.

Srimad azhagiya singar compared Godavari and Yamuna. When Sita was

abducted by Ravana, Sita cries and begs every little shrub in the

forest, and the river Godavari to inform Rama that she is being

abducted by Ravana. But the river Godavari does not inform Rama -

because she is afraid of Ravana even though he is so far away in

Lanka. But river Yamuna is not at all afraid, even when Kamsa is just

a couple of miles away. When Krishna is born, the river happily makes

a way for them. Therefore river Yamuna is the pureset river of them

all - "thooya peru neer".

 

River Ganga only has association with Lord Vishnu's feet. But River

Yamuna is associated with the entire body of Krishna! After all how

many times has Krishna bathed in river Yamuna?

 

'peru neer' - the river is huge, because it has to provide water to

bathe for the 5 lakh Gopis.

 

At this stage Srimad Azhagiya Singar talked about how the chains on

vasudEvar broke when Krishna was born, and quoted nammaazhvaar

paasuram 'thandhaiyin kaal vilangu', and then quoted a verse from

Swami Sri Desikan which makes fun of this above paasuram - Krishna is

capable of breaking even stronger chains - "the bonds that bind us to

the samsaara, what is the big deal about breaking an ordinary steel

chain and that too an old chain?" (vasudEvar was bound with those

chains during the birth of their first child, Krishna is only their

8th child, so the chain is old and rusty and breaking that off is

easy!).

 

For the word 'thooya', Srimad Azhagiya SIngar also quoted a verse from

kambaraamaayanam where kamban describes the 'thooymai' of 'paththinip

peNkaL'. At this point Srimad Azhagiya Singar narrated a funny story

which is quite popular and almost everyone of us would have heard

about it.

 

(this posting has already become too long... so let me end this with

something that made me pleasantly surprised)

 

Before even starting this paasuram, Srimad Azhagiya Singar had to

complete the previous day's paasuram. During the course of that, he

talked about the quality of a 'sishya'. For this, he quoted a verse

from mumukshupadi(!). Not only that, but more interestingly, the

commentary to this padi from maNavaaLa maamuni had quoted a verse from

Swami Sri Desikan. Then, he quoted verses by Swami Desikan praising

periya vaachchaan piLLai and other prominant "thenkalai" acharyas.

Srimad Azhagiya Singar then pleaded for the two sampradayas to unite

together and said even the primary acharyas of the two sampradayas

agree with each other, why not those of us who hardly know anything on

the philosophy! He also said that it is his dream that the two sects

will merge into one in future, and that in his aruL vaakku (in

Nrisimhapriya), he regularly quotes from works of both the

sampradayas.

 

You had to be there to see and hear those passionate words spoken by

Srimad Azhagiya Singar.

 

For me, this upanyaasam meant a lot more than stepping on the 'svarga

vaasal'.

 

--badri

 

(PS: I have typoed this on the fly, without checking the contents.

I apologise if I have made any mistakes. Any mistakes above

are my own creations. They weren't part of the upanyaasam by Srimad Azhagiya

Singar.)