Jumping to conclusions: Was When is one ready for Prapatti?

[Guest guest]

Sri:

Sri Lakshmi nrisimha parabrahmaNE nama:

Sri Lakshmi nrisimha divya paduka sevaka

srivan satakopa sri narayana yatindra mahadesikaya nama:

 

Here is an interesting story from Idu about the

greatness of Thiruvaymozhi.

 

There was a poor but devout Araiyar from Sri Rangam.

He spent most of his time singing Thiruvaymozhi for

Perumal.

 

He had the habit of chewing beatle leaves. So, he

kept a small box of beatle nut (paakku kottai) and

beatle leaves (vetrilai). Whenever he felt like

chewing vetrilai he would first pop a paakku kottai

into his mouth and bite off small pieces from it.

Then, he would proceed with the vetrilai.

 

He was very poor with few possessions. Therefore he

kept his Aradhanai Perumal, a Salagrama moorthy, in

the same box he used for his paakku kottai and

vetrilai. Due to poor eye sight the ariyar would

sometimes mistake the small round Salagrama perumal to

be a paakku kottai and put it into his mouth. Only

after a few bites he would realize that he was biting

on Perumal. He would immediately take Perumal from

his mouth, do a mini-thirumanjanam with water he kept

for gargling, and then would movingly sing a few

Thiruvaymozhi paasurams for Perumal.

 

One day a Sri Vaishnava friend noticed the half blind

Araiyar friend pop Perumal into his mouth and bite.

Shocked by this he approached the Araiyar and appealed

to him to give up the Perumal to his care so that

Perumal may be spared of the apacaaram. The Araiyar

agreed and gladly gave the Perumal to the Sri Vaishnava.

 

The Sri Vaishnava took the Perumal home. He performed

elaborate ThiruvAradhanai. He did Thirumanjanam with

pure well water laced with Saffron, cloves, sandalwood

paste, etc. Then he installed Perumal in a beautiful

Kovil Azhvar. He then offered the delicious Cakkarai

Pongal his wife had prepared, dripping with ghee,

cashew nuts, and raisins. Finally, with nice incense

burning, he let Perumal go to bed.

 

With the satisfaction of having completed a nice

Thiruvaradhanai for Perumal, the Sri Vaishnava went to

bed. But to his horror, Perumal appeared in his dream

and was completely displeased. Perumal protested that

he was very happy with the Araiyar, enjoying the

fragrance of Thiruvaymozhi from the mouth of the

Araiyar. Perumal demanded that He be returned to the

Araiyar. The very next day the Sri Vaishnava returned

the Salagrama Perumal to the Araiyar and begged to be

forgiven for the offense.

 

The point of this story is to venerate Thiruvaymozhi.

If one is not careful, he/she can easily jump to the

wrong conclusion that this story gives permission to

commit any apacaram as long as we propitiate

afterwards with singing a few verses from Thiruvaymozhi.

 

It is easy to jump in. The temptation is often

irresistible. But, before we do, let us make sure we

do it with proper understanding of what was said.

 

srimad azhagiya singar thiruvadigaLE saraNam

 

-- adiyEn ramanuja dasan

 

 

p.s.

This is a popular story well known to many. Yet, it

is a treat to listen to Srimad Azhagiya Singar narrate

it and read the original from Idu. BTW, the comment

above the proper interpretation of the moral of the

story is directly from Srimad Azhagiya Singar.