svami manavala mamuni's vaibhavam - part 5

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srImathE saTakOpAya namah

srImathE rAmAnujAya namah

srImathE anantArya mahAguravE namah

srImathE vara vara munayE namah

 

 

dear bhagavathas,

 

The last post on svami's vaibhavam had information on

his life till erumbiappa became his shishya.

 

After that, more scholars became shishyas of svami

maNavALA mAmuni. appiLLai, appiLLAr were the chief

among them. This appiLLai is the acharya that has

written the vazhi thirunamams for all the azhvars

and acharyas. Further revelations were made by the

Lord to some srivaishnavas about svami manavala

mamuni being adisesha and ramanuja himself (uttama

nambi, for example).

 

At this time, svami fulfilled one of the commands

of his acharya - he wrote commentaries on the works

of pillai lokacharya, svami azhagiya manavalap perumal

 

nayanar, wrote the nitya grantham of ramanuja in

tamil, wrote a summary of thiruvaymozhi in the

form of thiruvaymozhi noorrandhaadhi and the great

songs givin details about azvharacharyas lives -

upadesa rattinamalai. The main rahasya commentaries

that svami wrote were on thattva trayam,

mumukshuppadi,

srivacana bhooshanam and acharya hrdayam. He also

wrote commentaries on the works of svami arulaalap

perumal emperumanar - gnyaana saaram and prameya

saram. It is further said that svami wrote a

commentary on sri bhagavadgita called tAtparya

deepam.

 

Our elders, when they refer to the commentaries and

works written by svami manavala mamunigal always point

 

out to the anustanam of svami as a true srivaishnava.

svAmi did not write any work on his own (other than a

mangala slOkam for varadaraja and a sthuti for

ramanuja - all others are summaries/commentaries on

azhvar acharya works)- he only made the works of our

acharyas available and more accessible through his

commentaries. This shows svami's strong belief and

bhakti in the teachings of his acharya and acharyas

before their time period.

 

There are further details abot svamis vaibhavam that

I will skip for the moment - vaibhavams that include

prativadi bayankaram aNNan becoming a sishya of svami,

 

svami establishing the chinna jeeyar matam at

thirumalai, the avataram of the venkatesa suprabhatham

 

due to svami's command, and svami's establishment

of acharyas at kanchipuram and other divyadesams.

 

Now comes perhaps the most important gesture of Lord

Ranganatha towards all the souls - It is very obvious

that all the souls need to have the knowledge about

the 5 things (nature of soul, nature of the Lord,

nature of the means to the goal, nature of the goal

and the nature of the obstacles to achieve the goal)

to attain nitya kainkarya to the lord in srIvaikuNtam.

 

And for the vast majority of us, this happens due

to contact with an AchArya. Obviously, the better the

a

charya, the better the learning for us and the more

chances we have of surrendering to the Lord due to our

 

conviction. The Lord had been searching for eons

to show the universe the perfect AchArya. Even while

the Lord came to the Universe in the form of rama and

krishna, he had ample amount of teachers that he could

 

have shown to us as the epitome of an AchArya. But,

the Lord waited for the most perfect Acharya to be

present on this earth so that He can show the world

who the jagadAcharya was. svAmi manavala mamunigal was

 

that acharya.

 

The way in which the perfect acharya was shown to the

world is of course through the Lord composing the

srIsailEsa daya patram thaniyan. The events leading

to the avataram of that great thaniyan has been

described numerous times by many people on this list -

 

I will skip those details for the sake of brevity.

 

In this mail, I would like to paraphrasea commentary

on the thaniyan, written by jagadacharya

simhasanadhipathi, vaikunTa vasi, svami PB

aNNangarAchAriAr svAmi.

 

srIsailEsa dayA pAtram:

The Lord feels that, in rama avatara, he surredered to

 

a person that was a sailEsa dayA pAtran, and that

that

surrender was not perfect. sailam refers to the

rishyamooka parvata, the lord of that mountain was

mathanga maharishi - the person that was the

receptacle

of mathanga's grace was sugreeva - so,

sailesa daya paatra here refers to sugreeva. rama

("sugrivam saranam gathah","sugreevam naadham

ichchathi") surrendered to sugreeva for various

purposes, but had to threaten him with destruction as

sugreeva forgot to repay the debt to rama, before

sugreeva came to help the Lord. To overcome that

("kurai") dissatisfaction, that the

He surrendered to an imperfect being in that avatara,

the Lord chooses to become the sishya of the epitome

of an AchArya, the one that is the receptacle of the

grace of srisailesar (thiruvay mozhip piLLai).

 

 

dheebhaktyaadhi guNa aarNavam:

 

in rama avatara, the Lord surrendered to an ocean

(ArNAvam)- an ocean of salt - lavaNArNavam - Even

here, the samudra raja refused to obey the Lord and

the Lord had to threaten destruction before he agreed

to help the Lord. In the case of maNavALa mAmuni, the

Lord surrenders to an ocean of knowledge, wisdom and

bhakti. This again addresses His own concern for

having surrendered to an imperfect person earlier.

 

yatIndra pravaNam:

 

After listening to ramanuja noorrandhaadhi (97th song)

-

thannai uRRaatcheyyum thanmayinOr, that talks

about the greatness of the devotees of ramanuja, the

Lord felt that it is even more special to be the

sishya of the greatest devotee of ramanuja than

ramanuja himself. (There are various instances quoted

by our acharyas as to the acharyathvam of ramanuja vis

 

a vis the Lord - thiru-k-kurungudi, the incident in

thirumalai etc..).

 

vandhE ramya jaamaatharam munim:

 

In rama avatara, the Lord's teacher was viswamithra.

We all know about the imperfections of sage

viswamithra. In krishna avatara, the Lord's teacher

was sandeepani maharishi. When Lord KrishNa asked him

what he would like as guru dakshiNa (even though he

knew that his sishya was the Lord Himself), the rishi

asked for reviving the life of his dead son rather

than srIvaikuNta. The Lord was dissatisfied with the

completeness of these teachers,and hence chose the

epitome of a sanyasi - ramya jaamaatru muni.

 

Thus, this thaniyan expressed by the Lord Himself is

not only an instance of the Lord showing the universe

who a great AchArya is, but also an expression of His

infinite causeless (nirhEthuka) compassion towards the

 

souls in this universe -

 

Other AchAryas have written commentaries on this word

of the Lord too. I will attempt to paraphrase those

later.

 

Today, Monday 22nd OCtober is the thirunakshattiram of

this great AchArya. Let us all chant his glory and

surrender to this acharya on this day -

 

srIsailEsa dayApAtram dheebhaktyAdi guNArNAvam,

yatiNdra pravaNam vandhE ramya jaamaataram munim.

 

 

AzhvAr emperumAnAr jIyar thiruvadigaLE saraNam,

adiyEn madhurakavi dAsan,

varadhan

 

 

 

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