ANNAMAYYA

[Guest guest]

lakshmI nrusimha charaNau SaraNam prapadyE.

 

Dear BhAgavtas,

 

namO namah.

 

As it is well-known and widely accepted, Sri annamayya was the disciple

of AdivaNN SathakOpa jIyar of ahObilam mutt. He had had another AchArya

called "Ghana VishNu". According to a book published by TTD, it is Ghana

VishNu who performed samASrayaNam to annamAchArya. This doesnt seem to be

correct. I came to know from Sri Tallapaka Satyanarayanacharyulu of

Tirumala that they traditionally belonged to Sri Ahobilam mutt. Sri T S

does the kainkiaryam of singing the kIrtanas of his mUlapurusha during

suprabhATa sEvA and "pavaLimpu" sEvA during which the Beloved Son of

vaikhAnasas is sent to His nAga paryankam.

 

In addition to rahasya trayam, Sri annamayya received the

32-syllabled "nrusimhAnushtup" mantra from Sri SathakOpa dESikan. SrI

annamyya used to chant this incessantly just like SrI AnandALwAn used to

recite kaNNinuN SiRuttAmbu and SrI Periya JIyar dvayam. In the opinion of

Sri Peddibhotla Subbaraya Sarma, a great scholar of advaita school of

thought, SrI annamayya could compose 32000 kIrtanas only due to chanting

the anushtup mantra which is 32-syallbled.

 

While most of SrI annamayya's kIrtanas are on the Lord of

TiuruvEngadam and alarmEl mangai, most of the remaining ones are on

mAlOlan, by Whose grace (thru SrI SathakOpa yati) He could become an

exponent of ViSishtAdvaitam. It is due to the extensive research done by

Sri Veturi Prabhakara Sastri, another vidwAn of advaita school of thought,

that most of SrI annamayya's works esp. almost all on mAlOlan, have seen

light.

 

SrI annamayya's works are the true essence of SrI rAmAnujar's and

SrI dESikar's preachings and are in simple Telugu. SrI annamayya has been

an inspiration for later VaishNava bhaktas like SrI rAmadAsu of

Bhadrachalam and SrI tyAgarAju.

 

In his kIrtana "malasI jUdarO maga simhamu", SrI annamayya salutes

the Male Lion wandering in the forests of "pedayaubaLam" (upper

Ahobilam),VEnkatagiri and vEdAchalam (Vedadri, Krishna Dist.).

 

I will write on Sri sundara narasimhar at Lord SrInivAsa's temple,

Tieumalai, in my next posting.

 

rAmAnujArya divyAjnA vardhatAm abhivardhatAm

dAsan

Vishnu

 

PS: Most of you might have seen the Telugu film "annamayya" or its Tamil

dubbed version "annamAchAryar". While the theme of the film and the motive

behind its shooting are very good, most of the incidents seen in the film

did not take place at all and they have re-written SrI annamayya's

life-history.