Swami Kooratthazhwaan greatness - for 1000th year celebrations

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SrI:

SrImathE Ramanujaya nama:

Dearest all

 

Thai Hastham Kuresa Thirunakshathram. 1000 years ago- Swami appeared for our

sake. A personification of Athma guNAs. A wonderful prathama sishya of Sri

Ramanuja....

 

Let us enjoy the seventh verse of Amudhanaar's

Iraamaanusa nooRRanthAthi:

 

Though I am not qualified, what I am doing is apt for

my swaroopam. There is nothing worng. adiyEn due to

KooratthAzhwAn sambandham, can compose these verses.

EmperumAnAr Ramanuja’s glories are ineffable. yathO

vaachO nivartthanthE apraa aapya manasa sa: Where the

words can not reach, the mind also can not describe or

contemplate the glories. Knowing fully well, one

can’t still stop praising Ramanuja. It is one’s

karthavyam [duty] to do so. It is not to fully

comprehend His glories and sing; but attempt and show

his gratitude. Why are you trying then- one may ask

me. You may try on your own acharya KoorathhAzhwAn. He

is also beyond one’s description as he has crushed

three kuRumbu. [described below]. Even foe one

sthuthi, I am not qualified. How can I compose two

sthuthis – one on Ramanuja and another on AzhwAn. It

si AzhwAn’s grace that I can even think of

attempting this. He [AzhwAn] gets pleased by such an

attempt of mine because I am praising his acharya-

Paramaachaarya.

 

mozhiyaik katakkum perumpuka zaan,vancha mukkuRumpaam

kuzhiyaik katakkumn^am kooraththaaz vaan_charaN kootiyapin

pazhiyaik kataththum iraamaa Nnuchanpukaz paatiyallaa

vazhiyaik kataththal enakkini yaathum varuththamanRE. 7

 

Indescribable KooratthAzhwAn (Sri Ramanujacharya's

prime disciple) has got immense and enormous greatness

in him; He could get rid of and is able to cross over

the three great pitfalls that pushes one down with its

strong influence and do great damage to the individual

(they are: False pride for being born in the highest

caste; for being blessed with the good education and

jnAnam; for being a strict follower of VairAgyam and

anushtaanam - AzhwAn has no pride even though he

fulfils and has all three above attributes! What a

personality!) I, after taking refuge at his feet, am

able to compose on the greatness of Emperumaanaar Sri

Ramanujacharya, (who enables his disciples get over

their karmic bondage and samsaaric afflictions), and

am able to go away from the track of being away from

the Greatest Bliss. Hence, there is no grievance or

regret for me.

 

When one sings of Ramanuja, all sins would vanish.

EmperumAnaar, his millions of sishyas and their

sishyas, their ArAdhyan Lord RanganAthan-0 due to

Their limitless compassion and dayA on me, all my

paapms would evaporate. Emeprumaanaar, is the acharyan

of asmadhAchArya [my acharya] Swami KooratthAzhwAn,

who has crossed the great pitfalls. Thus my sthuthi is

also kind of Acharya sthuthi. As per saasthrAs, when

Acharya’s acharya is present, one should first

prostrate at Pracharya and then only Acharyan. It is

Sishya kruthyam.

 

Sishya’s Parama purusha praapthi [The ultimate goal

of attaining Parama Purush’a Lotus Feet] alone is

the consideration and thinking of Acharyas.

Acharya’s glory and praising their greatness alone

is the goal and thought of sishyas. KooratthAzhwAn

thus has been immensely pleased about these verses

that are sung in praise of his acharyan, Swami

Emperumaanaar and thus adiyEn [Amudhanar] is also

happy about that as it is my acharyan ThiruvuLLam.

Kaimkaryamaavadhu Swami ugandha yEval thozhil

seyvadhu- says Swami Desikan. Kaimkaryam is serving

what is acharya’s thiruvuLLam [in acharyan’s

mind]. Thus, these verses are accepted and are enjoyed

by Acharyan, Praachaaryan as well as all millions of

Paramacharya’s sishyas.Mozhiyai kadakkum.. vanja

mukkuRumbaam kuzhiyai kadakkum…

 

AmudhanAr further says kooraththAzhvan is the One

who has surpassed the mukkuRumbhu. What is mukkuRumbhu?

 

Smt Sumitha Varadarajan adds beautifully:

 

It is nothing but considering oneself great due to the

wealth he possesses, or due to the family or caste in

which he is born or due to his educational

qualification or intelligence. KooraththAzhvan had

all the three. He was so wealthy that he used to do

anna dhAnam throughout the day which even surprised

perundEvi thAyar of kAnchipuram, who is none other

than the goddess of wealth (SridEvi). KooraththAzhvan

was a high class Brahmin but he never cared about

that, he cared about only rAmAnuja sambhandham and

considered all rAmAnuja sambhandhis irrespective of

their birth to be equal. Thirdly, the intelligence of

ooraththAzhvan. Azhvan is the prime reason for us to

have got SribhAshyam today. He was an Ekasandha krAhi

(one who learns all the lessons in just one session).

He just out of interest scanned through the pages of

the bhOdhAyana vriththi grandham got from the

saraswathi bandharam during the nights when ethirajar

was asleep.

 

After losing the grantham to others, rAmAnujar was

struck with grief but Azhvan with great confidence

assured that he can recollect whatever he has read in

the two or three nights and since he has seen through

the whole book he will help EmperumAnAr with the

writing of SribhAshyam. Only with this confidence

EmperumAnAr started writing the bhAshyam and completed

it successfully. In appropriate places, Azhvan

corrected EmperumAnAr without any hesitation. Such

was the understanding between the acharya and shisya.

But at no time did Azhvan feel that he is more

intelligent and great. He always considered himself to

be only the shisya of EmperumAnAr.

 

The three egos, which generally puts down a person was

won by koorththAzhvan and that has been remarked by

amudhAnAr in the above paasuram.

 

Azhvan gave his darshan for our darshanam (rAmAnuja

darshanam). He is the acharya who saved the life of

our ethirajar. Even when ethirajar forced him to pray

to the lord to grant him vision he refused saying that

it is against the norms of a prapanna to ask for

anything from the lord. A prapanna is deemed to

accept whatever the lord grants him and always remain

in the service to the lord. KooraththAzhvan showed it

in practice. Even after loosing vision he did not

keep quiet but continued to do pushpa (flower)

kainkaryam to Azhagar in thirumAlirunchOlai. He sang

excellent prabhandams famously known as panchastavams

viz., Sri Vaikunda stavam, athimAnusha stavam,

sundarabhAhustavam, VaradarAja stavam, Sri stavam.

Thanks to Smt Sumithra Varadarajan. [if one wishes to

inculcate Athma guNAs, one needs to constant

contemplate on Swami KooratthAzhwAn’s glories. ]

 

AzhwAn, even when Ramanjua was writing the Sri

bhashyam, used to write what Ramanuja orally tells and

AzhwAn will check if it is alignment with what he had

read in bodhayanavritthi. If there is any

inconsistency, he would not even voice due to greatest

respect for acharyan and Ramanuja would understand and

revisit what he had said to enhance and improve upon.

AzhwAn would happily start again. That is sishya

lakshaNam.

 

Though he himself had such an apaara jnAnam, he had

sent his sons Vyaasa bhattar and Parasara bhattar to

Embaar. No vidhyAmadhakuRumbu.

EmeprumAnAr ThiruvaDigaLE SaraNam

Regards

Namo Narayana

dAsan