Thaniyans

[Guest guest]

Dear BhAgawathAs

 

I have two questions.

 

Question #1:

I understand that the Thaniyans such as

 

"Srisailesa Dayapathram deebakdyadhi

guNArNavam......." and "Ramanuja DayapAtram gyAna

vairAgya bhooshaNam......." were added to the 4000

Diwya Prabhandam after the times of NadhamunigaL.

 

I wonder what was the beginning/starting paasuram of

the 4000 diwya prabhandam before the dhaniyans were

added.

 

Can anyone educate me on this ?

 

Question #2

 

Also, I was very happy to read quite a lucid

description of our Guruparamparai at

www.srivaishnavan.com. Thanks to all involved in

creating the web site, it certainly helps people like

me with limited tamil reading skills to understand more

about our sampradaayam.

 

I was also reading the Vadakali-Thenkalai Doctrinal

differences presented excellently by Sri. Mani Varadarajan and

Sri. Anbil Ramaswamy at

http://members.tripod.com/~sriramanujar/tVsv.html

There it is said that the doctrinal differences crept up

about 100 years after the times of ManavaaLamaamunigaL in one,

however the other says that it is between the times of

"Emberumaanar and Swami Desikan". I wonder which

interpretation is correct ? Do we have any evidences ?

I am sorry, I might be starting that has already been discussed

on this forum. If so, can any one please refer me to the

appropriate Bhakti Digest.

 

Adiyen Ramanuja Daasan

Govindarajan Varadarajan

[Guest guest]

govind writes:

> Dear BhAgawathAs

>

> I have two questions.

>

> Question #1:

> I wonder what was the beginning/starting paasuram of

> the 4000 diwya prabhandam before the dhaniyans were

> added.

 

Dear Govindarajan,

 

I do not have a complete answer to this question but here

is what I have pieced together. Most of the taniyans

to the Divya Prabandham were composed between the time

of Sriman Nathamuni and Bhagavad Ramanujacharya.

Take tiruvAymozhi, for example. The first taniyan

"bhaktAmRtam..." was composed by Sri Nathamuni himself.

The succeding taniyans are by his successors, with the

fifth and final one by Bhattar, in the post-Ramanuja

era.

 

We also know that in Sri Nathamuni's time, only the

iyaRpa was formally recited (hence the name 'iyal').

The rest of the hymns (isai) were literally sung, with some

abhinaya, by the araiyars, descendants and disciples

of Nathamuni. Even today, as I understand it, the

araiyars do not recite taniyans when they do their

sEvai as they are supposed to represent the Alvars

themselves in their experience of the Lord.

 

What I gather from this is that the practice of reciting

taniyans before the Prabandham only became widespread

once recitation of the 'isai' section were formally

and ritually recited. This can probably be dated to the

time of Sri Ramanuja who greatly expanded the community.

 

My feeling is that originally the Prabandham was recited

without taniyans, just as any other poetry would be.

But, once the dramatic and intense 'anubhava' of rasikas

such as Ramanuja, Bhattar, et al, became well known,

their verses in honor of the Alvars came to be prepended

to the hymns so that we too could share in their experience.

> Question #2

> I was also reading the Vadakali-Thenkalai Doctrinal

> differences presented excellently by Sri. Mani Varadarajan and

> Sri. Anbil Ramaswamy at

> http://members.tripod.com/~sriramanujar/tVsv.html

> There it is said that the doctrinal differences crept up

> about 100 years after the times of ManavaaLamaamunigaL in one,

> however the other says that it is between the times of

> "Emberumaanar and Swami Desikan". I wonder which

> interpretation is correct ? Do we have any evidences ?

> I am sorry, I might be starting that has already been discussed

> on this forum. If so, can any one please refer me to the

> appropriate Bhakti Digest.

>

> Adiyen Ramanuja Daasan

> Govindarajan Varadarajan

>

>

 

There definitely were intellectual differences in the days

of Sri Vedanta Desika -- but whether these differences were

the basis for animosity or for sectarianism is totally

a different story. We have no indication of anything but

friendly interchanges between scholars who mutually respected

each other.

 

These differences may very well have existed in seed form

in the time of Bhagavad Ramanuja himself. Realize that Ramanuja

greatly expanded the Sri Vaishnava community, gathering an

extremely diverse group of disciples. With this diversity came

differences in understanding the shastras and where to make

tradeoffs, which may have been extremely inconsequential at

first, but which developed into greater differences over

generations. The basic tension is between the traditional 'vaidika'

(i.e., smArta) way of looking at things, with all the practices,

rules, and regulations that go along with it, and the emotionalism

of intense devotion, where everything else fades into the background.

Even today each one of us makes tradeoffs between these two,

and the acharyas were put in the position of doing the same.

Apply some logic and argumentation and you get intellectual

differences that crystallize into differing doctrines.

 

What we do know for certain is that Sri Pillai Lokacharya and

Sri Vedanta Desika, the two great systemizers of that time period,

differed subtly on a few issues of significance, but lived together

in Srirangam and cooperated on the preservation of the treasures

of the sampradaya during Malik Kafur's invasion. We also know that

Sri Manavaala Maamunigal considered Swami Desika one of his

own respected predecessors (and indeed has Sri Desika in his acharya

parampara) and quotes him as such, and does not seek to debate

Sri Desika when the latter disagreed with his own direct predecessors.

We also know that Prativadi Bhayankaram Annan of Tirupati Suprabhatam

fame was a disciple of both Sri Desika's son and Sri Manavaala Maamunigal,

indicating that there was no such thing as two different sects at that

time. Different paramparas, yes, but there are in actuality so many

different acharya paramparas within the tradition that that is of

little consequence. Recall Bhagavad Ramanuja had 74 different

chief disciples, each in the position of being an acharya.

 

We also know that the first truly sectarian works were written

a few generations after Sri Manavaala Maamunigal. This indicates

that the notion of separate sects ("us" vs. "them" mentality)

firmly took place only at this point.

 

Hope this clarifies,

aDiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan,

Mani