Pushpa, ThyAga, BhOga ....11

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Ramanujar was little disappointed, as he was not able to get Thirukkacchi

Nambigal as his AchArya. He still wanted to get some kind of sambandham with

Thirukkachi Nambigal. He decided to invite Thirukkachi Nambigal to his house for

lunch, and planned to eat the left over of the food that Nambigal had eaten.

 

Can one eat the left over food of another person? There are 5 cases, where this

can be done. They are with the food eaten by:

 

Elder Brother

Father

Husband

BhAgavathAs

AchAryan

 

Thondaradippodi Azhwar has indicated about this in his ThirumAlai as,

 

‘pOnakam seytha sEdam tharuvarEl punitha manRE?’

 

Azhwar refers to the sanctity of food eaten by BhagavathAs.

 

Raman sent Lakshmanan to Sugriva’s place to get him back. Since Sugriva was not

able to keep up his word on returning on time, Lakshmanan went to Sugriva’s

place with full of anger. In order to please Lakshmanan, Tharai, the wife of

Sugrivan got a plate full of fruits to Lakshmanan, with the thought that

Lakshmanan was a royal person. This was what Lakshmana immediately replied to

her,

 

‘Thara, you don’t know what I eat. I don’t eat anything that Raman has not

eaten. If there is something that is not eaten by Raman, it is equivalent to the

food eaten and left over by a dog.’

 

That was the kind of bhakti shown by Lakshmanan. There is also an interesting

story. There was a person, who used to start eating with Thayir Amudhu (curd).

One day, when asked why he was eating in reverse order. For that, the person

replied that he eats on the leaf that was used by his AchAryan. In order to get

the anubhavam of the prasAdham, he started eating from where his AchAryan had

left.

 

Let us look at another interesting story. A shaiva sanyasi used to live on the

other side of Tamraparani. He had a dog with him. Due to severe drought, the

river got completely dired. He decided to let atleast his dog to go to the other

bank of the river, where NammAzhwar (SriVaishnavite) lived. This side of the

river was full of SriVaishnavates. Hence, the sanyasi did not want to get to

this side to get his food. Because of hunger, the dog ate the food left over on

the banana leaves. In the evening, the dog wanted to return to his master’s

place. Due to heavy rain, the river got flooded. When the dog stepped in to the

river, the sanyasi witnessed a very interesting thing. He saw the kapAlam of dog

getting burst, and the soul of dog being carried away to SriVaikuntam. The

sanyasi immdiately realized the greatness of NammAzhwar and started singing in

praise of him. If we look at the life of dog, just because it ate the left over

food of BhagavathAs, it got Moksham.

 

Let us see if Ramanujar was able to get what he wanted from Thirukkachi Nambigal

in the next posting?

 

aDiyEn,

 

ramanan

 

 

 

 

 

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