Question on 4000 Divya Prabhandam

[Guest guest]

namO nArAyaNA

 

Sri ranganAtha divya mani pAdukAbhyAm namaha

 

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

 

I have heard from my many different sources that it was nAtha munigal

who found all 4000 Pasurams, after he went to Azhwar Thirunagari and

chanted Kanninunsiruthambu for many millions of times. One thing that I

need clarification is that 4000 Divya Prabhandam has rAmAnuja

noorrandadi as part of it. Thiruvarangathu Amudanar was way after

nAthAmunigal, so what nAthamunigal found from nammazwar cannot be 4000

but must be only 3892. Is this the correct fact? Can anyone confirm

this?

 

namO nArAyaNA

 

Dasan,

Srivatsan Santhanam

[Guest guest]

> I have heard from my many different sources that it was nAtha munigal

> who found all 4000 Pasurams, after he went to Azhwar Thirunagari and

> chanted Kanninunsiruthambu for many millions of times. One thing that I

> need clarification is that 4000 Divya Prabhandam has rAmAnuja

> noorrandadi as part of it. Thiruvarangathu Amudanar was way after

> nAthAmunigal, so what nAthamunigal found from nammazwar cannot be 4000

> but must be only 3892. Is this the correct fact? Can anyone confirm

> this?

 

Dear Srivatsan,

 

Yes, you are correct that the Divya Prabandham that Sri Nathamuni

restored did not contain the irAmAnuca nURRandAdi (RN 108), for the

obvious reasons that you have stated above.

 

The RN 108 was composed by Tiruvarangattu Amudanaar (SrI rangAmRta yogi)

during Sri Ramanuja's lifetime, as a tribute to the latter. The story is

that Sri Ramanuja disapproved of Amudanaar's first version because

it didn't contain enough reference to the Alvars. Amudanaar went

back to the drawing board and rewrote his verses, to the great

appreciation and admiration of Sri Ramanuja. The final version contains

numerous overt references to Ramanuja's service of the Alvars and many

embedded references to their aruLiccEyal. Sri Ramanuja was so pleased

by Amudanaar's composition that he ordered that the RN 108 be recited

immediately after the iyaRpa in the Divya Prabandha sEva krama (source:

kOyil ozhugu). So the RN 108 came to be inseparably associated with

the Divya Prabandham.

 

Subsequent to this, there arose two different methods of arriving

at the count of "4000" pAsurams for the Divya Prabandham. One

method includes the RN 108 as part of the Prabandham proper, another

includes it as an appendix. These various ways of counting are

discussed in a previous article:

 

http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/nov99/0099.html

 

Irrespective of counting or formal inclusion in the 4000,

the RN 108 is held in as high esteem as the pAsurams of the

Alvars themselves and is always included in printed editions

of the Prabandham.

 

rAmAnuja dAsan,

Mani