svAmi maNavALa mAmuni's vaibhavam - part 3

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srImathE saTakOpAya namah

srImathE rAmAnujAya namah

srImathE anantArya mahAguravE namah

srImathE vara vara munayE namah

 

dear bhAgavathAs,

 

I will continue with the paraphrasing of some parts of

yatIndra pravaNap prabhAvam. This post contains

portions

of our AchAryA's life when he first moved to

srIrangam,

his pilgrimage to

thirupathi/kanchipuram/sriperumbudur,

his return to srirangam and his taking sanyasashramam.

 

The previous email ended with srI. AM nAyanAr reaching

srIrangam after having performed maNgaLasAsanams at

srIvillipuththUr and thirumAlirunchOlai.

 

When srI. AM nAyanAr reached srIrangam with his

sishyAs,

he went straight to the house of an acharya called

kOttUril aNNar. This acharya took srI. AM nAyanAr to

the then adhipathi of the temple, srI thirumaalai

thandha perumaal bhattar, who took srI. AM nAyanAr to

the temple escorted by scores of srivaishnavas to

perform mangalasasanams to Lord ranganatha. After

performing mangalasasanams to the Lord, nayanar went

to the houses where the previous acharyas

(emperumanar,

embar, bhattar, nanjiyar, nampillai etc..) lived and

performed obeisances at each place. After that

sri nayanar stayed at srirangam, listening from the

elders about the previous acharyas. One day, when sri.

nayanar went to the temple to perform mangalasasanams

to perumal, the Lord commanded him as follows -

"You stay here just as our ramanuja did, taking care

of my work, and spreading the rahasya granthas till

the time you leave your body", which sri. nayanar

took as a great gift and accepted the command readily.

 

after taking permission from Lord ranganatha, for

a short period, srI. nayanar undertook a pilgrimage

of thirupathi, sriperumbudur, kanchipuram and enroute,

went to sholingur and thirukkovalur.

 

in thirumalai, the following is quoted by our elders

as a proof of svami's greatness - it was the first

day of the 10 day annual (purattasi) brahmotsavam

in thirumalai. The elder jIyar at thirumalai (this

maTam was established by ramanuja when he visited

thirumalai, with the duty of the jiyar of that maTam

being to oversee the affairs of the temple - the

name of this pIta in tamizh is "periya kELvi appan

rAmAnuja jIyar" - i.e. the jIyar who oversees/

questions the affairs of the temple) had a dream

where he saw a glorious, beautiful, resplendent

with tEjas srivaishNava in the lying down posture,

with his head on the west, legs on the east and

facing south. This srivaishnava was the length of

the entire mountain and at his feet was a glowing

sanyasi. In the dream, further, periya keLvi jIyar

asked the people around him as to who those two were,

to which they replied that the glorious one who

was lying down was sri. azhagia manavala nayanar and

the sanyasi at his feet was ramanuja jiyar (

ponnadikkal jiyar, 1st jiyar of vanamamalai mutt).

 

periya kELvi appan jiyar narrated this dream to

thozappangar (descendant of periya thirumalai nambi,

one of the heriditary caretakers of the thirupathi

temple) just before the nalayira divya prabhandam

goshti was about to begin for the day. many other

srivaishnavas in the goshti, on listening to this

were very pleased and everyone was eagerly hoping

that this glorious srivaishnava would come to

thirupathi for the utsavam.

 

sri nayanar then reached thirupathi/thirumalai, and

all the srivaishnavas there received him with full

respect and took him to all the sannadhis where

he performed mangalasasanams. A mention is

made of the ramanuja sannadhi inside the temple

(along with other sanandhis - varadarajar,

azhagiyasingar..), the only sannadhi for someone

other than perumAL on the hill. This sannadhi was

established by srI. anantAzhvAr immediately after

ramanuja left this world, and our elders have

consciously avoided building sannadhis for any other

azhvar/acharya on the hill, since the belief of our

acharyas is that the hills themselves are very

holy (peria thirumalai nambi used to crawl on

the hills to go to the temple, not wanting his

feet to touch the holy hills).

 

After that, sri nayanar went to kanchipuram where

he performed mangalasasanams to Lord varadaraja,

and the Lord at the other divya desams in

kanchipuram, then he went to sriperumbudur where

ramanuja commanded him to go to kanchipuram

and learn/preach sribhasya. The first post in

the series contained the details about svAmi's

greatness with respect to learning/expounding

on sribhasya.

 

After leaving kanchipuram, sri nayanar went back

to srirangam, where he felt that the grhastashrama

life was an impediment to perform unimpeded

kainkarya to the Lord. So, he took permission

from Lord ranganatha and took sanyasashramam

from srI. satakOpa jIyar, a contemporary of

him and a great jiyar of the ramanuja sampradaya

who was residing in srirangam then. the Lord

had commanded both sri. nayanar as well as

sri. satakOpa jiyar about His wish to have

sri. nayanar take sanyasashramam.

 

After receiving sanyasashramam, he went to

the sannadhi of the Lord. The Lord gave him

His own name - "azhagiya maNavALa mAmuni", and

gifted him what used to be the pallavarayan

maNtapam. This maNtapam was originally used

during ramanuja's time by srI. aatkoNdavilli

jIyar as his maTam and his aradhana moorthy

was called "ennai theemanam keduththar"

{the one who removed my ignorance - this is

a very rough paraphrasing of the phrase, I

will get a better version from elders here

in the next few days - Varadhan}. After him

for various reasons, it was in a state of

disuse and was used later as a ramanuja

kUtam by a srivaishnava called pallavaraya,

and then was not used after his time.

 

The Lord gifted this maTam and commanded the

archakas and srivaishnavas to lead srI.

maNavALa mAmuni to the maTam, and presented

him with all prasadams appropriate for

a great sanyAsi. srI. maNavALa mAmuni then

repaired this maNtapam with the help of

his shisyas, built a discourse room called

"thirumalai azhvar" named after thirvaymozhi

piLLai. It is further mentioned in the book

that srI. maNavALa mAmunigaL made it a point

to bring the sand and material from where

srI. piLLai lOkAchAriAr used to live and

built this maTam with that material - i.e.

srI. MM treated this maTam as srI. PL's

house and his stay there as gurukulavasam.

In the thirumalai AzhvAr maNtapam, svAmi

MM performed upanyasams of sastras, the

nAlAyira divya prabhandham and rahasya

granthas. {To this day, one can see this

mutt, and the thirumalai azhvar mantapam

in srirangam - in the east corner of

south uttara street - this sannadhi and

the mutt is maintained by the descendants

of srI. MM}

 

I will continue in the next post.

 

AzvhAr emperumAnar jIyar thiruvadigaLE saraNam,

adiyEn madhurakavi dAsan,

varadhan

 

 

 

 

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