Fwd: Devotees- Part 1 (An effort to remember and chant the glories of vaishnavas)

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna,

Please Accept My Humble Obeisances,

All Glories to Srila Prabhupada,

 

From Today onwards we will Chant the life history of almost all the devotees of

Lord Hari in India Starting From South India...

 

Introduction

Alwars (in pure Tamil " AzhwAr " ) means " One who immerses himself " .

They really, deeply immersed themselves in their devotion and bhakti towards

the Lord Sriya: Pathi Sriman Narayanan. The AzhwArs are reported to be

incarnations of NithasUris of Sri Vaikuntam, namely, the weapons, the

Vanamaali, the GarudA, et al. They lived like human beings and burst out

bhakti laden great works for the sake of humanity. The works of Alwars stood

mysteriously a replica of the Vedas themselves and therefore came to be known

as Dravida Veda. In fact, there is a view that even the great Rishis are no

match to the greatness of the Alwars because these Rishis got their

'jnAnam' ( wisdom) as a result of their own actions of 'spiritual merit' (

Punyam) whereas the wisdom of the Alwars was the direct result of the Lord's

divine grace and therefore called ' Divyam'. It is because of this that the

works of Alwars is called ' Divya Prabandham' are 4000 poems (pAsurams).

 

1. Poigai Azhwar

2. Boothath Azhwar

3. Pey Azhwar

4. ThirumazhisAzhwar

5. Namm Azhwar

6. Madhurakavi Azhwar

7. Kulasekara Azhwar

8. Periy Azhwar

9. Andaal

10. Thondaradipodi Azhwar

11. Thiruppan Azhwar

12. Thirumangai Azhwar.

 

There were twelve Alvars who appeared in South India. Not all at the same

time, but over a period of several centuries. They established the

basis of the Krsna bhakti cult in the Kali-yuga. The appearance of such great

devotees in the Kali-yuga is predicted in the Srimad-Bhagavatam.

Srimad-Bhagavatam was spoken at the beginning of the Kali-yuga, and when Krsna

left this planet then he took with Him dharma. The Vedic dharma at that point

disappeared, or became invalid, and spiritual knowledge was a bscured. But it

says in the same versethat Lord Krsna left the Srimad Bhagavatam for the people

in Kali-yuga

to get light out of.

Now still, the book Bhagavata was there but they also needed the person

Bhagavata, or one who lives the Srimad-Bhagavatam. In other words, they

needed the spiritual master. So in the initial stage of Kali-yuga, the first

few centuries, these twelve Alvars appeared in South India, and actually

established the basis of what would later on become the four Vaisnava

sampradayas. The four sampradayas all had their origin in South India, and

the founders of these sampradayas each in their own way drew, to a greater or

lesser extent, from this tradition of the Alvars, especially in the Laksmi

sampradaya(SRI SAMPRADAYA), but it is also there in our sampradaya too, and in

the others.

The Radha Krsna cult is the further development of the devotional tendency

of loving God in close fellowship and in the spirit and relation of a woman

to her husband or lover. This tendency is striking in the Prabandham of the

Alvars. Goda, the famous woman Alvar, is said to have been married to the Deity

Ranganath of the Sri Rangam temple. Thodaredipodi Alvar (Bhaktanghri Renu in

Sanskrit) expresses in his book TirupPalli yezhucci (Paramatmar Jagarana in

Sanskrit) that to serve and love God one's spiritual body is the summom bonum of

one's service to

God.