EkAnkI

[Guest guest]

>There are SriVaishnava monks, known, I believe, as ekAngis,

>who have many of the same rites and responsibilities as the Brahmin Jeears,

>except for the practice of these vEdic rites. However, I am not sure

>whether they have the authority to perform samAsrAyanam or not (I look

>forward to learning from Sri Mani and others about this.)

 

 

EkAnkis do not fall under the category that is quoted above.

an EkAki is a bramhAchAri that is kind of an "assistant" to

a jIyar that performs kainkaryam to the jIyar & the sishyAs

of the matam. Perhaps their most important responsibility

is continuing the kainkaryam to the Lord of the temple to which

the jIyar is normally the kainkarya parar. The most

prominent example of an EkAnki can be seen in thirupathi

periya jIyar matam. There, the EkAnkIs basically run the matam

and the temple kainkaryams when the jIyar svAmi is doing

sanchAram. {actually, to be accurate - there are two jIyars

in thirupathi - chinna jIyar & periya jIyar.. periya jIyar comes

first - then the chinna jIyar, if both are not personally present

in thirumalai, then the periya jIyar matam's EkAnki does

the kainkaryam}.

 

 

adiyEn madhurakavi dAsan,

Varadhan

[Guest guest]

Sri Mohan wrote:

> >There are SriVaishnava monks, known, I believe, as ekAngis,

> >who have many of the same rites and responsibilities as the Brahmin Jeears,

> >except for the practice of these vEdic rites.

 

To which Sri Varadhan replied:

> EkAnkis do not fall under the category that is quoted above.

> an EkAki is a bramhAchAri that is kind of an "assistant" ...

 

Varadhan,

 

Though this is the terminology used at Tirupati,

the word "ekAngi" also refers to sAttAda (non-brahmin)

Sri Vaishnava sannyAsis. I refer you to Sri M. Srinivasan's

post from 1995:

 

http://www.best.com/~mani/sv/bhakti/archives/dec95/0070.html

 

where he mentions a svAmi who bore the title "ekAngi". This

title is used regularly by sannyAsis in our sampradayam

who are not brahmins.

 

Mani