Thiru Arangan Ula- the sojourn of the Lord. – 5. The beginning of “dark era”

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Thiru Arangan Ula- the sojourn of the Lord. – 5. The beginning of “dark era”

 

 

 

ArjunA was staying in Madurai for a few days during his pilgrimage. He married

princess ChitrAngadai, the daughter of the Pandiya king. Her story later became

famous as pavalakkodi in the literary circles. ArjunA built a town by the shore

of the vaigai river, and named the town “kuntheenagaram” after his mother

kuntidevi.

 

 

 

piLLai lOkAcharyAr was residing at Srirangam, and Swami vEdAnta dEsikan visited

Srirangam twice; Swami dEsikan was younger than Swami piLLai lOkAchAryar by 63

years. When dEsikAn visited Srirangam for the first time, things were very calm

in the town, and that was the time when Swami dEsikan composed divine works like

pAdhukA sahasram, munivAhana bOgam, etc. Swami dEsikan’s second visit happened

during the time of deep turmoil. What was the reason for all the turmoil?

 

 

 

King mAravarman sundarapandian was ruling nampiLLai’s time. He defeated the

ChOLa dynasty and annexed their empire, which included SriRangam. Since he

retrieved Madurai from the ChOLa empire, he was also glorified as “Madurai

Meetta SundaraPandian” (“SundarapAndian who retrieved Madurai”). King

sundarapandian was a huge devotee of Lord ranganAthA; he was the person who

consecrated the massive GarudA deity inside the temple. He contributed a lot to

the Srirangam temple- he even performed “Gaja-tulabaram”, wherein he gifted a

huge amount expensive items (like diamond and golden jewelry, silk clothing,

etc) which, when weighed together would be equivalent to the weight of a

full-grown elephant!! Once, during the thiruvAradhanA of the Lord, when the

priests were missing a container, the king donated his golden throne

spontaneously to be used as a utensil for the Lord’s service. For that reason,

even today that throne-converted-vessel is used in Srirangam, and the priests

call it

sundaraPandiam. The items used for the Lord’s service and decoration are indeed

named unique in Srirangam. For example, the pin that is used to hold

namperumAL’s dressed is called “AndAL”, as the pin gets to have contact with the

divine form of the Lord.

 

 

 

jatAvarman was the great-grandson of such sundarapAndian; his son was named

“KulasEkara pAndian” (not to confuse with kulasEkara AzhwAr). King Kulasekara

Pandian had two sons: VeerapAndiayan and SundarapAndian. It is interesting to

note that the same names were used to christen kings of alternate generations in

the ancient pAndya dynasty. VeerapAndiyan was the son of the King’s mistress,

whereas SundarapAndian was the son of the royal queen herself. However, King

KulasEkara pAndian decided to anoint VeerapAndiayan as the next King, which

disappointed SundarapAndian as he felt royalty was in his blood.

 

 

 

Overcome with the greed for power, Prince SundarapAndian killed his own father,

and claimed the throne. But VeerapAndian didn’t give up. With the help of his

uncle, he collected his own army and easily defeated Prince SundarapAndian, and

threw him out of the kingdom. The defeated and insulted SundarapAndian realized

he had no support whatsoever, hence deciding to seek outside support. He went to

Delhi, and surrendered to AllAuddin Khilji who was ruling Delhi at that time.

AllAuddin Khilji sent his mighty army with mAlik kAfur as the commander. This

huge army went south towards the pAndya kingdom and attacked King VeerapAndian,

whose army was no match to the mighty army from the North. King VeerapAndian

decided that he could not withstand the enemy, and ran for his life. Sensing

danger to his life, even sundarapAndian ran away and disappeared. Hence, the

whole area became an open-field with no opposition. MAlik KAfur and his army

just plundered Srirangam. They didn’t harm the deities

in the temples though; they acted more like bandits looking for loot. They went

to all the temples and took all the expensive items- thereby robbing the temple

town off all its riches. Thus, loaded with all the expensive items, the army

headed by mAlik kAfur returned to Delhi and surrendered all their loot to King

Allauddin Khilji. This happened in the year 1311. A small note on Malik KAfur:

he was a Hindu who was converted to Islam; was a eunuch, yet he was heartless in

pursuing and torturing the enemy.

 

 

 

There was a gap of 12 years filled with peace and no anxiety. Year 1323; the

political scenario was rather turbulent and unstable in present day TamilnAdu.

Soldiers lacked training in warfare; the whole scenario appeared to be succulent

for any hungry invader. Uloob Khan was one such invader. He was the person who

conqured Delhi and renamed himself “Mohammad Bin Tuqlaq”. He invaded the South

with ease, as the southern armies were yet to recover the battering they

received from MAlik Kafur and his army; further, the armies of the south lacked

both the training and the weaponry to withstand the might of Uloob Khan’s army.

 

 

 

The denizens of Srirangam came to know of the advancing enemy just as when Uloob

Khan was defeating the Hoysala Kingdom (present day Karnataka).The aim of the

enemy was to not only cause destruction to Srirangam alone, but also destroy the

beautiful deity of the Lord of Srirangam. The enemies were camping at Kannanoor

(present day Samayapuram, which houses the famous Durga temple) and planning

their next moves.

 

 

 

The thousands of SrivaishnavAs in Srirangam became highly worried. They were not

warriors; still they wanted to save the Lordships. They had two choices: stay

back and defend as much as they could (which would eventually prove futile) or

get moving with the deities and avoid the enemy. namperumAL, the processional

deity communicated: “I would like all of us to visit kulasEkara AzhwAr’s land”.

But, it was a matter of concern for the VaishnavAs, as they didn’t want the

divine body of namperumAL to be affected because of the apparent journey through

the hills, the jungles, and the rivers. After all, is he not very dear to all

the SrivaishnavAs?

 

 

 

Why did namperumAL express desire to visit kulasEkara AzhwAr’s land? kulasEkarar

was a very special devotee of the Lord at Srirangam. He gave his daughter in

marriage to the Lord of Srirangam. Although he was from Kerala, he didn’t visit

the famous AnanthapadmanAbhaswamy at Thiruvananthapuram, instead all his desires

were centered on visiting Srirangam, glorifying the Lord along with other

devotees; singing with them, jumping and dancing with them to the glory of the

Lord; roll on the sand moistened due to the tears of joys coming from the

Srivaishnavas’ eyes.

 

 

 

To be continued…….

 

 

 

 

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