Uttara Poorva Dinacharya by Sri T.A. Srinidhi - Kanchipuram - Upanyasam # 4

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Srimathe Ramanujaya Namah

 

11/06/04

 

Uttara Poorva Dinacharya by Sri T.A. Srinidhi - Kanchipuram - Upanyasam # 4

 

Srinidhi Swamin continued with poorva dinacharya on the 4th day .

 

 

 

* As said in "vEdaam vallArgalai kondu..." sadAchArya samAsharayanam is

 

needed to attain Emberuman. As AlwAr says in "minnnin nileyila..." the life is

so

 

short and we have to attain His tiruvadi for which sadAchArya sambhandham is

needed.

 

In keeping with this Erumbiappa approached mAmunigaL and then he starts

 

mAmunigaL's tirumEni soundarya varNanai.

 

 

 

* P.B.Annan swamy in his VaraVaraMuni Shataka says that there is one

 

similarity between us and EmberumAn. He has AhIna bhOgam as He reclines on

 

tiruanandAlwAn and we, the devotees of mAmunigaL have aheena (kurai illAda)

bhOgam

 

which is kainkaryam without limits.

 

 

 

* As in "pItahavAdai pirAnAr..piramaguruvAhi..." EmberumAn came both as

 

guru and shishya as it was not known to the jeevAs how to be a true

shishya(Badrikashrama – Nara Narayana avataram)

 

 

 

P.B.Annan swamy in VaraVara muni Shataka says that He himself took avatAra as

 

mAmunigaL. When He went to Bali Chakravarthi saying "moovadi maN innEtA...".

Then as

 

AlavandAr says in StOtra Ratna, One Being extended His feet, the other being

 

washed it ,the water from which went to the head of yet another being thus

purifying

 

him (kalAnidhi mowli). It is very obvious from this who is the greatest Being...

 

 

 

In a similar way, due to the srIpAda teertham of mAmunigaL, the shishyAs are

 

purified and are also kalAnidhi mowligaL. Lot of people think devatAntaras also

 

can give mOksha and fall to their feet wrongly. TirumaLishai AlwAr's story may

 

be recalled here. When he was asked by Shiva perumaan what boon he wanted, the

former

 

replied that it is mOksha that he desired to which Shiva peruman replied that he

was

 

incapable of it and that only JanArdhana could give mOksha. Further AlwAr tells

him to make

 

“those who are to die today to die tomorrow” in lighter vein. This makes Shiva

peruman

 

angry and wants to kill AlwAr. Then Alwar opens his eye in his foot and scares

 

Shiva peruman who then realizes Alwar's greatness and gives him the name

BhaktisArar.

 

Thus those who have mAmunigAl's sreepAda theertham on their head are greater

than devatAntaras.

 

 

 

*There SrimannArAyana did trivikramAvatAra and here mAmunigaL came to

 

transform everyone and release them from the cycle of birth and death. ArurALa

 

perumaL EmberumAnAr says in JnAnasAra " tirumAmahaL kOLunan tAnEguruvAhi

 

tannaruLaL mAnidarkai.." He comes down and gives His hand to lift us up.

Similarly

 

mAmunigAL took birth. Erumbiappa prays to mAmunigAL to accept him.

 

 

 

*Shloka 12-13: In these two shlOkas Erumbiappa says that whatever he

 

said in earlier shlOkas are absolutely true. He prays that he should be blessed

with the

 

devotion towards mAmunigaL always and not be attracted towards sense objects.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Ashta bujAshtakam Swami Vedantachariar says "You came all the way in response

to

 

the cry of GajEndran who was caught only by one crocodile where as I am caught

by

 

ten of those in the form of sense organs!”

 

 

 

mAmunigaL himself in Arthi Prabhandham pleads for paramapadam. Similarly

Erumbiappa pleads that he should be looking at mAmunigAL always. Many a time we

do things without willingness at heart. Unlike that he prays for a state when he

can think of mAmunigaL with all his

 

heart.

 

 

 

AlwAr says in TVM 5th pathu "kaiyAr shakkarathu..." that he simply said

 

His name outwardly but in spite of that, He gave Himself ("maiyyE

peththOlindEn...")taking my lies. As in "yen adiyAr adu shaiyyAr..." of

PeriAlwAr and "ponnALi kkaiyAN..." of Poygai AlwAr, He does away with our sins

even if we take His name outwardly.

 

 

 

Even if His tirunAmam is used to tease someone or scold someone it gives the

fruit. Just like Tirumantra which fructifies uttered in any way (recall from

mumukshuppadi) becuase He possesses dOsha bhOgyatwam. This is true with AchArya

kripai also. Swami vEdAntAchariar in 'dayAshataka' says dayAdEvi(personification

of EmberumAn's kripai) has a big stomach and her food is bhakta's dOshAs but is

still not full. She can take all our defects inside and if she comes to

him(swami) her stomach will be full and he will be devoid of all sins!

 

Erumbiappa says that he should always pray to mAmunigaL with his heart.

 

 

 

When manDodari sees Ravana's corpse, she says that as earlier Ravana

 

controlled his senses and hence won the three worlds, his indriyAs (senses) took

 

revenge on him when he got tempted and destroyed him like an enemy would.

 

 

 

Tondaradippodi AlwAr's "kAvalil pulanai vaithu..." is interpreted in three ways:

 

1. Because of Indriya nigraha, I received EmberumAn's kripai.

 

2. kAval+il => I did NOT do indriya nigraha still He protected me.

 

AlwAr's story can be recalled here when he got tempted by deva dEvi.

 

3. Kaval => rakshakan (EmberumAn), il => in Him, I kept my indriyAs and got his

 

kripai.

 

 

 

AlwAr says because I did not keep them under control they kept me in

 

jail. "kalithannai kadakka pAyndu"

 

 

 

When EmberumAnAr took avatara, kali purushan ran thinking he has no place here

anymore. "namantamarhal talaihal mIdE..." we (srivaishnavas) transformed kali

yuga into krita yuga and stamped on yama’s and his doothas’ heads. Why is

plural used here? It is because when they saw Alwar transformed many other

shrivaishnavAs also came and joined him. Alwar then adds "nin nAmam katta..."

this greatness came due to His nAma.

 

 

 

* Both Swamy PillaiLOkAcharyar(in mumukshuppadi) and Swamy Vedantachariar(in

sankalpa

 

sooryOdaya) talk about the greatness of divya desams. People take dips in holy

 

waters to get purified and earn puNya. When EmberumAN's tirumEni has both

qualities

 

there is no need to do that. An AchArya submits the shishyA's Atma to EmberumAn

 

and He will reside in the shishyA's heart. Similarly, Erumbiappa says that

 

he should keep thinking of mAmunigaL and automatically EmberumAn will reside in

 

his heart.

 

 

 

 

 

In VaraVaraMuni Shataka P.B.Annan Swamy says fish always keep their eyes open.

Similarly mAmunigaL's shishyAs keep their eyes open to make sure no one is doing

the wrong thing in the name of this rich sampradayam.

 

 

 

ShlOka 14 and 15:

 

 

 

>From shlOka 14 the daily routine of mAmunigaL is described.

 

As in "shitram shirukAlE ..." and "brAmhE mahUrtE...", mAmunigaL wakes up early

 

morning thinking of EmberumAn, guruparamparA taniyan and the three

 

rahasyas namely Tirumantra, Dvayam and, CharamashlOka. As in mumukshuppadi

 

"prapattiyilE yilindavargalukku..." and in Tiruppavai "karaivaigal pinshenru"

verse,

 

a prapanna takes Emberuman ONLY as upAya. This is analogous to the story in

which a king asks his people to bring a bag and that he would fill it up with

gems/gold for them. One of them returns without a bag and when asked why, he

replies saying that when the king can give all the treasure can he not give a

mere bag too. In Tirumantra five important meanings are embedded. They are the

atma swaroopa, Ishwara swaroopa, upAya swaroopa, phala swaroopa and

 

virOdhi swaroopa.

 

 

 

Our AchAryAs say before learning this they are not considered

 

as being born. Dvayam tells about kainkarya at the divine feet of EmberumAn and

 

Piratti with piratti's purushakAram without which He will not do the needful.

 

 

 

In that respect dvaya mantram is superior to Tirumantra. Pillai PerumAL IyengAr

says He

 

is more like mother than father. Piratti transforms the chEtana by her aruL

(grace),

 

and EmberumAn by Her aLagu (beauty). CharamashlOka tells about the

 

charamOpAya(ultimate means).

 

 

 

Then mamunigal would recite and contemplate on nadadoor ammAL’s... paravyooha

...antaryAmi..(paratvaadi panchakam) and then think deeply about Udaiyavar.

 

 

 

ShlOka 16: mAmunigaL did his daily anushtanams. When Bhattar stays in

 

tirukkOttiyUr for some time he is in distress to be missing NamperumAL.

 

Nanjeeyar knows that his state of mind. It is then that he composes the

 

Taniyans on Alwars(bhootham sharshcha...) and Andal(NeelAtunga...). He will be

 

longing to go and have dip in kAvEri. "adiyEn" is the term for the Atma when it

is

 

devoid of ego and it shows the servitude of the Atma. Once nadAdur ammAL tells

 

tiruvaLLarai swami to go to engaLAlwAn. When he reaches there upon enquiry from

Engal alwan as to who is at the door, nadadoor ammal says ‘naan’. For this

EngalAlwAn says "nAn sheththu vArum" ...here, by "nAn" he meant the ego.

 

 

 

Like mAmunigaL himself says in upadEsha ratna mAlai "JnAnam anushtAnamivai..."

he was

 

one such AchArya. He would perform all the prescribed anushtAnams.

 

 

 

ShlOka 17 and 18: He would then arrive at his maTam and perform

 

tiruvArAdhanam to aranganagarappan. EmberumAn lends Himself to be archaka

parAdhIna

 

and stays at various divya dEsams waiting for chEtanAs. What is more surprising

 

is that He takes different forms in our residences even though we do not follow

 

any elaborate rituals and even greater than this is that He accepts the

apachArams we do as upachArams.

 

 

 

Once a srivaishnava comes to Bhattar to learn about niyamas to be followed in

doing bhagavad tiru ArAdhanai. The whole process of explanation took more than

12 hours. After listening he wondered how Bhattar had time to do all that. So he

went to Bhattar's house to find out and was surprised to see that Bhattar

finished up everything in a few minutes. When he enquires with Bhattar's mother

AndAl, she says "For you the day long procedure was too less but for Bhattar

even those few minutes was too much!". She said that Bhattar would get into

anubhavam and swoon if he spent too much time in tiruvAradhanai. This was the

connection he had with Emberuman.

 

 

 

Although we keep modifying our tiru ArAdhanai as we please, He still accepts

everything due to His grace.

 

 

 

Tirumalai AnandAlwAn says “why did we come here for a lowkeeka job”! It is

better to be in divya dEsam even if it amounts to doing a donkey's chore.

 

 

 

MAmunigaL did tiruvArAdanam to his perumAl and stayed there to perform pancha

samskAram when ever shishyAs came to him. Just like one’s thoughts are portrayed

by one’s facial expressions, as we do more kainkaryam to Emberuman and He gets

happy, then on seeing that we get happy from inside, then this happiness is

shown as a sparkle through the face. Since Emberuman enjoyed and was very happy

to receive Mamunigal’s kainkaryam, Mamunigal was always happy and this was seen

in his divine face that was happy all the time. His face would always have a

smile. This would also show that he is so ready to take the jeevatmAs across

this samsAram.

 

 

 

ShlOka 19: ShishyAs such as koil annan took care of his bodily protection. With

 

the purushakAra of other shishyAs he did dvaYOpadEsham to Erumbiappa.

 

 

 

Shloka 20,21: In Rahasya Traya SAra Swami Vedantachariar says there is nothing

 

equal to dvayOpadEsham. As Swamy PLC says in SVB, for an AchArya, ultimate good

of the shishyA's Atma should be the main goal in this and should be performed as

a representative of his own AchArya. Also for an acharya it is important to have

a shishya with lakshanams so that the shishya can perform mangalasasanams to the

acharya. The shishya should be in a position to do mangalasanams to his/her

acharayan always.

 

 

 

To be continued…

 

 

 

rAmAnuja aDiyArgaL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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