PART-2 : kAnchi svAmi Sri PB Annangaracharya

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PART-2 : kAnchi Sri prati-vAdi-bhayankaram aNNangar-AchArya svAmi

(1891 - 1983) ~~ a short memoir ~~ (by tirumanjanam S. Sundara Rajan)

 

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BIRTH: vikrti-meena/panguni-viSAkham (March 1891)

EXPIRY: rudhirOdgAri-mithuna/Ani-Sukla-EkAdaSI (June 21 1983).

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The Sri-vaishNava religion has its commodious gallery of scholars, each

of them with a signal accomplishment of his own. kAnchi svAmi stands out

among them as one who liberated cloistered scholarship and reached the beauty

and message of religion to those who could not pursue learning or spiritual

observances for a career, and above all, as one who established proper

standards

of research based upon historical verification and internal evidences of our

classics

as correlated to corroborative externals. Shri kAnchi svAmi was the

twentieth

century's rare polymath scholar of the Tamil and Sanskrit languages, and of

the

Sri-vaishNava religion. In this, he ranks with the savants like

 

~~ gO-vardhanam rang-AchArya who raised (around the year 1857) the

Sriranga-nAtha shrine at the SrikrshNa's sportland of gOvardhanam and the

mammoth temple of gOdA-Sriranga-mannAr (referred to as 'rang-ji mandir')

at vrndA-vanam (district Mathura in Uttar Pradesh State), and who made a

Sanskrit translation of the extensive 'bhagavad-vishayam' commentary on

tiru-vAi-mozhi scripture;

 

~~ gAdhi anant-AchArya who raised the SrivEnka/TESa temple in Fanasvadi,

Mumbai; and besides authoring several works of his own, had got the

Sri Venkatesvara Steam Press set up and published the entirety of the

eighteen mahA-purANa, and the variorum edition of the various 'vyAkhya'

on Sri-rAmAyaNam;

 

~~ vAna-mA-malai jeeyar Sri chinna-kaliyan svAmi who toured all over the

country and installed shrines and won a considerable Sri-vaishNava following

in far-flung areas, including Nepal.

 

kAnchi aNNA svami's parents were Sri aNNA-rang-AchArya and alar-mEl-mangA.

The putative ancestor, prati-vAdi-bhayankaram hasti-giri-nAthar-aNNA, was

remembered in our kAnchi svAmi for learning and skills of studious research

and

disciplined debate, and for the worship of the archA-vigraham of

vEdAnta-dESika

which had been presented to the ancestor by svAmi-dESikan's son and had

come down to him as a centuries-old sacred heirloom.

 

kAnchi svAmi had his education successively under his own father, the

celebrated

gAdhi svAmi and his own maternal grandfather, shashThi azhakiya-maNavALa

jeeyar. He started on, and mastered, his instruction in the vEda as late as

his

22nd year under the celebrated tirumalai vinjamUr mAmpaLLam sudarSan-AchArya.

 

His life-long career of unflagging authorship (with as many as 1276 known

titles)

was inaugurated at a precociously young age with the Sanskrit work

'divya-prabandha-vivEka:', establishing the Tamil hymns of AzhvAr-s as

'Sruti-pramANam' (scriptural authority). On the works and themes of

SrivaishNava

religion which was his natural passion and sustenance, none wrote more

prolifically

than aNNA, more to purpose, more authentically, and more rewardingly for the

reader of literature and 'sampradAyam'.

 

In the year 1907, when he was sixteen, aNNA made his first pilgrimage to

Srirangam and came to the notice of kuvaLai-k-kuDi Singham aiyangAr who was

drawn to aNNA's ringing recital of the surpassing hymn Sriranga-rAja-stavam.

 

(This represents a poignant moment of the festival of irA-p-pattu /

tiruvAi-mozhi-t-tiru-nAL when the 'stavam' is rendered lustily in the

'gOshThee'

/ psalmody every day as the Deity Beautiful, namperumAL, emerges from the

parama-pada-vASal, strolls along the southern bank of chandra-pushkariNee

tank,

turns right and strides into the enchanting spread of sand,

maNal-veLi-azhakiyAn,

to gather in His arms, so to say, the ardent AzhvAr hurrying towards Him).

 

Singham svAmi was a philanthropist of Srirangam and had established in

East Chitra street an ubhaya-vEdAnta-pATha-SAlA which became renowned for

turning out a large and distinguished band of scholars. Singham svAmi

recognised

the young prodigy in aNNA and he gave him a prompt cash reward of rupees

one hundred, this in the year 1907. aNNA svAmi has recalled in his

autobiography

how ecstatic this made him; he had money and would travel. He rightaway set

out

on a pilgrimage of Sri-villi-puttUr, AzhvAr-tiru-nagari, tiru-k-kurunkuDi,

vAna-mA-malai to worship the deities and acquaint himself with the eminent

scholars of the places. This was a fulfilment he had sought for ever since

he

started remembering things.

 

aNNA was barely 20 when he married kOmaLammA, daughter of tirumalai

anant-AN-piLLai vEnkaTa-varad-AchArya. kOmaLamma passed away quite

young leaving behind her husband and two daughters. T.A. krshNamAchArya and

gOpAlAchArya, the scholar-brothers (who, happily, are still in their long

years of

invaluable service in the tirupati-sannidhi of Sri gOvinda-rAja, are the sons

of

kOmaLammA's brother.)

 

aNNA's life was entirely devoted to restoring and vigilantly protecting the

ancient

systems of worship in the temples, and to his extraordinary career of

authorship.

He wore his scholarship lightly, and to purpose. He happened to the

definition of

what a scholar be, learning informed by a critical faculty ~~ " vidvAn

vipaS-chit

dOsha-jnah". To cite just two instances of his skill of verification. He

proved

that the well-known and beautiful hymn 'mukunda-mAlA' cannot be attributed to

kula-SEkhara-AzhvAr, as is fondly believed. The second one is in the

context

of svAmi-dESika's well-known allegorical play 'sankalpa-sooryOdayam' which

was in refutation of the precedent vaishNava-advAita allegorical play

'prabOdha-chandrOdayam'. The fact that the two works are of a common genre

and that the 'sooryOdayam' actually contradicts the 'chandrOdayam' led to a

popular assumption that the authors of the two works were contemporaries.

This was not so, and kAnchi-svAmi established (as though he was adopting the

best critical tools of the Oxford Indologists) that krshNa-miSra, author of

'chandrOdayam' lived in the 9th century and hence not a contemporary of

dESika.

The same date of miSra ~~ long after kAnchi svAmi's finding,~~ had been

arrived at independently by a lady professor of the Delhi University in her

edition of 'chandrOdayam' published in the 1960's. His reasoned expose`s

remind

one of Dr Samuel Johnson's exposure of the spuriousness of an ostensible

medieval

Latin classic, Hessian, as published by a pseudo-scholar Macpherson. Also,

kAnchi-svAmi indeed never took a holiday from his favourite task of textual

purification which he pursued not out of any pedantic conceit but from an

outgoing concern for preserving the salutary thoughts of the noble

philosophers

of the 'sampradAyam'. He did it for the classic 'AchArya-hr.dayam', and for

a

certain reading of the celebrated gOvinda-rAjeeyam gloss on Sri-rAmAyaNam.

 

An evaluation of his contributions in these two respects cannot be

accomplished in a single life-time. aNNA indeed belonged to a bygone era when

writing flowed from research, research was supported by scholarship,

scholarship

was built through long apprenticeship and preserved in integrity, and

integrity

was matched by a love of learning. The prolificity of his writing never

suffered

the predictable banality of hack-writing. His prose had its own sap and

fibre

and organic vitality like the writing of, say, Francis Bacon and Ralph Waldo

Emerson, an all-time demonstration of the qualities of good writing, "mitam

cha sAram cha vachO hi vAgmitA" (brevity and essentiality). Suffice it for

a

short account as this to identify some milestones of his career as would

speak

of this colossal personality.

 

aNNA had digested the entirety of the divya-prabandham exegesis and written

excellent and reliable synopses under the comprehensive title

'divyArtha-deepikA'.

This apart, he published consolidated critical editions of the complete works

of

vEdAnta-dESika, maNavALa-mA-muni and rAmAnuja. He also wrote precious

commentaries on the hymnal works of Sri-vatsAnka (=koora-t-tAzhvAn) and his

renowned prodigy-son, parASara-bhaTTa. aNNA's minor Tamil works

'Sri-bhAshya-sArAmrtam' and 'Srimad-bhagavad-geetA-sAram' are clear capsule

expositions of Sri Ramanuja's source works. His 'dramiD-Opanishad-prabhAva

-sarva-svam' highlights the specific instances of Sri rAmAnuja's indebtedness

to the Tamil scripture, divya-prabandham.

 

The admirers of aNNA would severally have their own choice of what they

regard

as aNNA's magnum opus. Of such varied identified works would be prominently

aNNA's Sanskrit version of the entirety of divya-prabandham, besides the

Sanskrit

translation of cardinal 'rahasya' classics Sri-vachana-bhUshaNam and

mumukshu-p-paDi. (The late Dr Krishna Datta Bharadwaj, a professional

teacher

of Sanskrit who had headed the elite Delhi Modern School, was also a

passionate

viSishTAdvAita scholar and SrivaishNava savant. He had remarked to me with

great feeling that he was admitted into the portals of the unique

divya-prabandham

literature only after he acquired copies of the kAnchi svAmi's Sanskrit

translations.)

aNNA has rendered each verse of divya-prabandham into a Sanskrit SlOkam with

metric correspondence to the Tamil original, and has thereunder given the

dEva-nAgari transliteration of theTamil verse, and has also written a concise

and

succinct summary in Sanskrit of the classical commentaries on each verse.

This is

the unique achievement of aNNA, and is something so non-pareil that one has

to

consider it as only of divine dispensation.

 

Near the western gate of Sri varada-rAja temple is the majestic nampiLLai

shrine

(consecrated in the year 1940, in tribute to the 13th century aesthete par

excellence

and author of the precious commentary ~ eeDu ~ on the scripture

tiru-vAi-mozhi).

This will be regarded as the outstanding institutional achievement of aNNA.

(The original shrine of nampiLLai is in Srirangam in the middle of the

stretch

between tiru-manjana-kAvEri and the lofty southern gOpuram edifice built by

achyuta-rAya of the vijayanagara empire. It is over this edifice that the

44th jeeyar

of Sri ahObila-maTham had got the massive gOpuram raised.) Much earlier,

around the year 1916, he set up in the eastern mADa street of vishNu-kAnchi

the vEda-pAThaSAlA named 'vEdAnta-vaijayantI'.

 

aNNA's discourses on 'tiru-p-pAvai' constituted an unfailing annual festival

of

the month of mArkazhi in the city of Chennai over a span of 22 years

(1931-83).

In the last year of the discourses, aNNA rendered the Day's Verse in the

idiom of

'aRaiyar-sEvai'. His 120-day-long exposition of the 'AchArya-hrdayam' (in

the

year 1939) right in the sacred site of AzhvAr-tiru-nagari must have been one

of

his most prized memories. On his regular visits to Srirangam, he made it a

point

to begin with a brief talk in Sanskrit before switching over to his

substantive

Tamil discourse (arranged in the kuvaLai-k-kuDi pAThaSAla).

 

The SrivaishNava religion has the core concept of ukandu-aruLina-nilangaL,

meaning the Chosen Seats of the Lord, and are referred to as 'divya-dESam'.

There are 108 divya-dESam hymned by the blessed AzhvAr-s and located across

the length and breadth of the country. The svAmi had led groups of devotees

and scholars on memorable pilgrimages to these hallowed places.

 

The svAmi had in his time written and issued several periodicals, viz.,

manju-bhAshinI, vana-mAlika, brahma-vidyA, amrta-laharI, and Sri-rAmAnujan

(all in Tamil), vaidika-manOharA (Sanskrit), Sri-rAmAnuja-patrikA (Telugu)

and SrivaishNava-sudhA (Hindi).

 

Honours came copiously to this versatile, humanist genius. tiru-nArAyaNa

aiyangAr of the scholarly journal Sentamizh (Madurai) admired him as the

Sentamizh-c-chelvar. Sivananda of Hrsheek/ES called him vyAkhyAna-vAchaspati.

 

The President's Certificate of Honour for Sanskrit Scholars was awarded to

him in

1965, followed by the Republic Day civil award of Padma-Bhushan in 1967.

In the year 1971, the Vice-President of India, G.S. Pathak, presented to him

the title

'mahA-mahimO/pAdhyAya' on behalf of the bhArati parishad of prayAg

(allahabad).

The svAmi submitted to the worldly honours as instances of service to

religion,

but nonetheless used to repeat that he had the distinction that he never did

miss

participating in the adhyApaka-gOshThee recitations in the Sri-varada-rAja

temple

in his native kAncheepuram.

 

Any tribute to Sri aNNA svAmi would ever fall short of his eminence and

humanity.

John Dryden's adoration of William Shakespeare could be all of the

description that

would fit aNNA, as "that large and comprehensive soul". The geet/AchArya,

SrikrshNa,

declares "I appropriate the Wise unto Myself !" (jnAnee-t-vAtmaiva mE matam).

 

kAnchi-svAmi could well be of the Wise thus identified.

 

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