PROJECTS: formatted version

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srImathE ramAnujAya namah

 

dear devotees,

the following is a formatted version of the same

mail we sent.

 

adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan,

varadhan

 

---srImathE SaTakOpAya namah

srImathE rAmAnujAya namah

srImathE anantArya mahAguravE namah

srImathE vara vara munayE namah

 

 

Dear bhagavathas,

 

The following is a long post, written after many a

discussion with people from all walks of life

regarding our religion. Please take it for what it is

worth. The main reason behind our posting this on this

list is to spark a movement behind our religion, and

to channel the energy of all interested people towards

a common cause. Some projects that we have started (or

starting) are also mentioned at the end, as a starting

point for interested people to converge.

 

In our interaction with members of our community,

wefound out that there are four main pillars in our

religion- (i) the message (ii) institutions that

reinforce the message (iii) practitioners and (iv) the

teachers of the message.

 

The Message:

This as such, is the combined wealth of knowledge that

had been given to us by our acharyas - all the source

texts, the commentaries on them written by our

acharyas, and the religion as practiced by our

acharyas. We are bound to (a) preserve the message (b)

learn from the message and © propagate the message.

Preservation, in essence is ensuring that the message

is available for future generations. We all know about

the lost books that were written by our AchAryAs. In

this day and age, it will be a tragedy if we do not

preserve everything that is available - be it books,

commentaries, life histories, or be it upanyasams,

araiyar sevais and other forms of spreading the

message. More importantly, the message, once preserved

needs to be learnt and propagated. That necessitates

the translation into English for the benefit of most

of us, and/or paraphrasing the contents into simple

colloquial tamizh, telugu, kannada and/or other

languages. Learning is a personal thing that we can

address later. As far as the propagation goes,

upanyasams are one means of propagation. Making the

works available - through the web, or through a

library is another method. Audiovisual presentations

are another method that we definitely need to use.

Plus, we need to address the entire child population –

these messages need to be propagated in a manner that

is attractive to them - be it comics, CD-ROMs or any

other modern mode of communication

 

Institutions that reinforce the message:

Temples, jeeyar maTams and AchArya purusha

thirumaLigais. There is a physical aspect, as well as

the practicing aspect. From a physical perspective,

the temples should be in a good condition and must be

maintained on a regular basis. On the practice aspect,

temples should have daily/periodic kainkaryams and

festivals conducted in the frequency prescribed, and

in the manner and tradition prescribed. There have

been numerous renovations of dilapidated temples

recently. However after the renovation festivities are

over, there still remains the issue of maintenance and

lack of people visiting the temple. It is sad to see

that there is little local participation in many rural

temples. We HAVE to address the above two issues if we

want the temples to last for a long time. More

importantly, we need to create a viable and sufficient

source of livelihood for those who run the temple -

the archakas, the paricharakas and the adhyapakas.

 

Practitioners:

We, as practitioners of the religion need to strive to

make every effort to learn and understand the

religion. We represent the religion and by our

behavior, our religion will be judged. We need to be

true to ourselves, and the teachings of our acharyas.

Every person should think about questions like (i)

what can i do in 30 - 45 minutes everyday re: religion

 

(ii) what should I learn (iii) how can i help my

family and future generations practice this (iv) if

someone is interested, how can i show him the way and

(v) how can I support the various activities going on

in support of the religion. No answer is a wrong

answer. Everyone is interested in some form of the

other, and given his/her constraints will want to

participate is some form or the other- The challenge

is how to channel that participation so that it

benefits both the interested person as well as the

religion.

 

 

Leaders/AchAryAs:

Perhaps the most important pillar, since a strong

leader in this area can make a huge impact in the

other three areas. Unfortunately, this is perhaps the

weakest pillar in the ramanuja sampradaya. We need to

create an atmosphere in which matadhipathis and

acharyas are respected, and do things that are

constructive towards the sampradayam. We need to

provide incentives to young people who have the

inclination to go in this direction. We need to make

every effort to prepare them to take the position of

an acharya – birth alone does not make one an acharya

- are there institutions that will teach religion?

veda/nyaya patasalas? Not a lot - we need to think

along those lines. How do we create an atmosphere that

breeds future leaders in our religion?

 

The following are some observations that we gathered

about each of the four pillars mentioned above.

 

1. Message:

 

(i) Books/Publications: First of all, we need to have

all the available works of our acharyas available to

everyone and catalogued. There are numerous books and

publications that have been lost. People like

puththUr svAmi and srivaishnava-sri svami are

publishing the vyahkyanams of our purvacharyas, which

is just one aspect of the puzzle. The key thing

lacking is books and/or messages published by the

19th/20th century acharyas. These books are important

given our language handicap. Authors like PBA svami,

pattapa svami, karappangadu svami made it a point to

write in such a way that even a layman can understand

complicated concepts, and in a simple language. We

have to make an effort to save their books and

periodicals. Once collected, we need to convert them

into an electronic format.

 

(ii)Upanyasams: All upayasams that are being

conducted now are recorded. So, they are safe for the

most part- But there are upanyasams of PBA,

karappangadu svami, velukkudi varadachar svami etc.

that might be available. If they are, we need to

collect them, and preserve them for posterity

 

(iii)Technology: With the advent of technology, can we

look into modern modes of conveying the message?

Video tapes of araiyar sevais, interactive CD-ROMs

about the religion for children etc.

 

(iv) Accesibility: Language is a key barrier. Very few

of us are comfortable enough in tamizh or sanskrit to

the extent required to understand the message. So,

there is a definite need to convey the message in

English, simple colloquial tamizh, telugu, kannada

and/or any other language that is necessary.

 

(v) Children! - We HAVE to communicate the message to

the younger generation. Otherwise we risk the

possibility of an entire generation being uninterested

in the message, and the tradition will be lost forever

without even giving people a chance to determine if it

is good or not. Comics, interactive CD-ROMS, videos

and other modern modes of communication HAVE to be

used in this case.

 

(vi) propagation: making the message in any form

available over the web, audio, through a library etc.

is a need - we are doing some of it now, but it has to

be a lot more than that

 

2. Institutions:

 

We will consider just temples alone in this for now.

 

(i) Every temple needs to be in good shape (no falling

roofs, collapsing walls, no water leaking on perumaL

etc.)

(ii) renovations are a huge affair, and are being done

regularly

(iii) The main point we have noticed is lack of

maintenance. It is appalling to see temples in good

shape not maintained properly and then becoming

dilapidated

(iv) There is a very small number of interested people

in most rural temples to take care of them - priests,

paricharakas and local community - In most rural

temples, the surrounding village people do NOT come to

the temple regularly. The sad part is, most of them

will if they are given a chance to.

(v) Severe shortage of priests and paricharakas.

(vi) We have to generate a means of sustenance in

these areas so that the priests, paricharakas and the

supporting staff stay in the area and take care of the

temple on a daily basis

(vii) The local community has to be involved; there is

no point in just a few regular temple goers and a

handful of visitors going to the temple

(viii)Daily thiruaradhanams and regular utsavams have

to take place properly. This is a question of

organization, people and money

(ix) The temple practices need to be authentic and

traditional, and these have to be recorded for

posterity's sake so that no future mischief can take

place

(x) We have to enable religious tourism as a viable

economic opportunity for the rural communities - i.e.

provide incentives to more people to visit these

temples, and in return for providing a service (tour

guide, food, lodging etc.), the local people should be

compensated decently. Unless this works, there is no

way local people will stay there without any source of

livelihood.

 

3. Practitioners:

(i) We have to follow at least the basic tenets -

kindness, no jealousy, no anger, humility, respect for

other people. The following needs to be in spirit, not

just in external appearance etc.

(ii) We have to learn as much as we can. Thisis the

only way the religion will be propagated. If we do not

know, how can we help others if they are interested?

(iii) Everyday, ideally, we should set aside sometime

for religious activity - be it reciting stotras, doing

thiruaradhanam for perumal, working on some project

for the religion or whatever one’s interest may be -

30 minutes a day per person will make a huge

difference

(iv) We have to support in whatever way we can,

(monetary, physical, volunteering etc.) to whatever

extent we can in the activities that we are interested

in.

 

4. Leaders/Teachers:

(i) We have to respect ALL leaders - all jiyars - all

acharya purushas.

(ii) We have to enable them to do their bidding in

life. They should be able to count on us to provide

help in carrying out their leadership role.

(iii) We must make it possible for youngsters who are

interested in such a calling to prepare themselves for

that - they need to learn about the religion, have

leadership qualities and the ability to organize

(iv) Developing leaders necessitates places of

learning, and means of support for them for their

livelihood

(v) Finally, if our leaders are organizing something

relevant to the sampradayam, we must support them

wholeheartedly.

 

 

Those are just some of the thoughts and observations

that we have collected over time. None of this is new,

but it definitely gave us the clarity in terms of the

issues facing the religion, and more importantly how

we can play a small role to support the religion. We

then decided to start doing something – after all, we

can analyze forever, and little will get done. We

recognize that there are multitudes of people that may

be doing similar things and we definitely need to

synergize with their efforts, and we will as time goes

along. But, for the moment, and it probably is just

youthful exuberance, we decided to plunge into the

following projects.

 

 

1. Ramanuja sampradaya Library: By this, we do not

mean a large building named “Ramanuja Library etc.”.

We have noticed that there are collections of books

that a lot of people have, that are very very

valuable. Unfortunately, most of these get destroyed

with time due to a state of disuse. We want to collect

every book, article, magazine and pamphlet that has

been published by our acharyas and scholars –

contemporary as well as in olden times. We want to

make a catalogue, store the books at many places till

we reach a time where the collection is large enough,

and we have sufficient funds to store it in a

commonplace. We have started the process of acquiring

books published by many people (PBA svami,

kArappangadu svamu, puththur svami, velukkudi svami

etc.) and started cataloguing them. We intend to

collect all the available pUrAcharya commentaries that

 

have been published also. The biggest need we see is

books that have been published from 1870 – 1970 or so.

There are thousands of books published by great people

that are present in many homes. We request everyone to

lend us any book that they find about the sampradayam.

If we do not have a copy, we will may a photocopy and

return the original. We will release the initial

catalogue of books we have access to in the next few

days. As a priority, we are looking for issues of the

periodical "ramanujan", that was published for many

years by PBA svAmi

 

2. Translation into English/other languages - We have

prioritized a few key books for translation into other

languages - {for example, in that list, there are two

books by PBA (i) ramanuja sampradaya saram (ii) nitya

aradhana kramam of svami manavala mamuni}. We need

volunteers that can translate from tamizh to english,

telugu etc. The basic requirements are that the person

be able to understand simple tamizh and sanskrit, and

is familiar with srivaishnava terminology. We will

help with proof reading and getting the translations

corrected by learned people. We believe that retired

bhagavathas are a prime source of volunteers for this

activity. If anyone knows someone that can help,

please let us know. If they are located in chennai, it

makes co-ordination easy. But, if they are located

elsewhere, we will mail copies of the relevant

material.

 

3. Availability to information: radioramanuja.com and

the tele-upanyasams are two visible efforts in this

area. We intend to make all possible information

available publicly at cost so that anyone that is

interested can have access to the information.

Accesibility to scholars and acharyas is a major

effort. Some of the activities will result in

computers being put in various matams and acharya

purusha homes so that there can be instant

communication between the srivaishnava community and

its leaders.

 

4. Temple maintenance: We have tried variations of

this in the past, with varying levels of success, but

we have settled on a more local model now. We have

chosen two areas - thirunangur and kanchipuram for two

pilot projects. These two areas were chosen primarily

because we either happen to be intimately familiar

with these areas, or have managed to rope in someone

who is intimately familiar with these areas. That

makes it easier for the volunteers to co-ordinate. A

local committee is being formed (consisting of a

temple person, non-temple person, local leader of the

community and the temple EO in some cases) in each

area. A corresponding foreign committee will be

formed. The foreign committee will be entrusted with

the task of publicity and raising funds for small

projects in the temple. The local committee will

involve the local community, and implement the

projects as planned. The local committee will also

include a representative from a major donor in some

cases. If someone wants to visit the temple etc., the

local committee will co-ordinate. We require

volunteers in India as well as abroad for this

project.

 

5. As a physical service, we have decided to take up

the cleaning of the nammazhvar sannadhi in the

varadarajar temple at kanchipuram, and making it a

safe place without bugs, grass etc. We are in the

process of co-ordinating with the elders of the

community to gain their permission to begin the work.

People in and around kanchipuram/chennai that are

interested are requested to volunteer.

 

6. Creation of a volunteer/management pool: It is

absolutely essential that we maintain a pool of

volunteers for any purpose - especially very skilled

people in their retirement that can spend a lot of

time in these activities. We have no clue how to go

about doing this yet, and we request your input.

 

7. Practitioner information: We intend to collect

information pertinent to daily life and what is

prescribed etc., and make it available. We need

volunteers to type text, and translate or

transliterate a few pages for this. This is a

relatively easy task and we can finish this very fast

if we get the right people involved.

 

The above is a very rough email intended to convey

information. We will follow up with information about

each project separately. The key need now is for us to

get more volunteers, and start developing the projects

in a better manner.

 

In the meantime, we consider it important that there

be discussion about these projects, and any

suggestions for additional projects that are doable

and reasonable in scope (i.e. no calls for renovation

of a major temple costing 20 lakh rupees etc.)

 

We hope that with discussion on the ramanuja list, we

will be able to identify projects that can be done,

get interested people together and implement the

projects, and more importantly enjoy the anubhavam of

the Lord and His devotees through this small squirrel-

like thing we get to do.

 

azhvar emperumanar jeeyar thiruvadigale saranam,

ramanuja dAsAs,

mukundan, venkatEsh, guNa and varadhan

 

 

 

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