Sri Srinivaasa Vaibhavam- Kulasekara perumAL anubhavam- Introduction

[Guest guest]

SrI:

SrImathE Gopaladesika mahadesikaya namah:

Dearest all,

 

After the four AzhwArs, let us enjoy Kulasekara

AzhwAr’s wonderful verses on ThiruvEnkatam.. Before

enjoying his verse, we need to immerses ourselves in

his divine life history and his pAsurams.

 

KumbhE PunarvasU jaatham KeraLE KOLa pattaNE

KousthubhAmsam DharAdhIsam KulasEkaharam AasrayE

 

This AzhwAr born as a Kshathriyan is an amsam of

the gem Kousthubham on the Lord's chest. He incarnated

on a Maasi Sukla DwAsasi day , when Punarvasu

constellationwas in ascendance.He was born as the son

of Dhruta Vratha RaajA,king of Kolli Naadu, whose

capital was VanchikkuLam in today's

KeraLA. KulasEkhara raaja was a brave king and

protected saadhu janams of his kingdom.

 

KulasEkarAzhwar was born as a prince to ChEra king

Dhidavradhan and nAdhanAyagi in the month of mAsi and

the nakshatram of punarpoosam (same as that of Lord

Rama). The child looked divine and made everyone who

saw it happier and cheerful. The entire kingdom was in

a jubilant mood. The kid was named kulasEkaran and

when he grew he was taught all sAstrAs, epics, arts,

Tamil and Sanskrit and was also given training on

fighting, Horse riding, Elephant riding, etc. In each

endeavour, he excelled and came out in flying colours.

When Dhidavradhan became old, kulasEkaram ascended the

throne and since then he was ruling like Lord Sri Rama

and brought in RamaRajyam to his kingdom. People were

very happy and there was rich harvest throughout the

year; there were regular rains and there was only

subheeksham. Hence the citizens had great amiount of

love and respect for their king kulasEkarA.

 

Once without knowing kulasEkarA's strengths, the

neighbouring kings (Chola and pAndyA) came to fight

and during the battle kulasEkaran won with no

difficulty. Impressed PandyA king gave his daughter to

kulasEkarA for marrying her. kulasEkarA was blessed

with a son (whom he named dhidavradhan) and a daughter

ILai. One night, The Lord wished to divert

kulasEkarA's attention to Him and he appeared as Lord

Tirupati Venkatachalapathi in the king's dream and

blessed him. The king was overwhelmed with the Lord's

love and became silent and was only thinking of the

Lord at all times. He became totally like water in

Lotus leaf (Water never wets the Lotus leaf) and was

ruling the kingdom without any attachment; He was

spending his time more and more on ThiruvArAdhnam and

Bhajans and listening to stories of Rama and KrishNa.

He even started disliking the battles since he did not

like to see more loss of lives in the battle. He spent

his most of the time only on religious activities and

attending discourses. KulasEkharar was a great Raama

BhakthA and was deeply involved in listening to the

KaalakshEpams of Sri VaishNava BhaagavathAs at his

court.

 

He was so deeply involved with Sri Raama charitham as

told by Sage VaalmIki --in his illustrious Srimath

RaamAyaNam --that he would have difficulty in relating

to the incidents of this IthihAsams

as events that happened a very long time ago. At one

time , when he heard from the BhAavatha pravachanam

that Lord Ramachandra went all alone to fight with the

powerful group of 14,000 raakshasAs, KulasEkharar

became anxiety ridden about the safety of the Lord and

ordered his ministers to assemble quickly his army to

join the Lord in His fight.The Bhagavathar ,

who was performing the KaalakshEpam quickly took

control of the situation and quoted another famous

slOkam from Srimath RaamAyaNam that described the

Lord's single handed destruction of the same 14,000

RaakshasAs at JanasthAnam and SitA Devi's welcome

embrace of Her victorious Lord:

 

tamm dhrushtvA ChathruhanthAram MaharshINAm SukhAvaham

bhabhUva HrushtA VaidEhI BharthAram parishasvajE

 

KulasEkharar was relieved to hear the good news and

happy over the Lord's safety and cancelled the plans

to march his army in support of the Lord.Such was

the intensity of KulasEkhara's involvement with

Sri Raaama Charitham.

 

He is called as kulasEkara perumAL like ILayaperumAL

LakshmaNA. Even today he is revered as kulasEkara

perumAL. The pAsurams he sang were compiled under

" perumAL thirumozhi " . One can see his feeling of deep

regret for not being born during RamA's time in his

pAsurams. As he was getting more and more involved in

Bhagavath Bhakti and Bhagavatha Bhakti and was

spending all his time in such activities, the

ministers were not clear as to how to bring the king

back to his administration. The king had even

consecrated a Golden statute of Sri Rama in the palace

where he was spending most of the time with other

pundits and upanyAsakALs.

 

Once during a Ramanavami day (the birthday of Sri

Rama), the king was astonished to see a big nice

Navaratna mAlai which had adorned Sri Rama missing. He

was confused as to how someone could come inside the

palace with so much security and so many people

around. The ministers were asked; One of them (may be

the chief minister) hesitantly stammered to say " May

be ..O .king........one of upanyAsakALs, or

pundits...could..........have.....take...n. " He did

not even finish his statement. The king was shivering

and was literally shocked to hear that statement as if

he has stepped on a Red hot burnt iron; Because of his

special reverence for the BhaagavathAs, kulasEkharar

had permitted them to have total access to all parts

of the palace at all times. The ministers were very

unhappy about these privileges of the VaishNava

BhaagavathAs that interfered with KulasEkharar's

conductance of the royal duties; they had thus

conspired to reduce the influence of the BhAgavathAs

at the royal court.The ministers took an aabharaNam

from the AarAdhana Moorthy of their king , hid it and

blamed the VaishNavaas as scoundrels , who stole that

piece of Jewelery. KulasEkharar refused to accept that

the vaishNavAs would do such a thing . He asked the

ministers to bring a pot containing a poisonous cobra

and declared that he would put his hand inside the pot

and if he was right about the innocence of Sri

VaishNavAs , the cobra will not bite his hand.Lo and

Behold ! The hungry cobra did not even touch the hand

of KulasEkharar .The ministers admitted their

conspiracy.

 

KulasEkarA thought silently after listening to all

this and understood the underlining concern of his

ministers for the kingdom and the rule. He immediately

decided to bring his son into the forefront and

trained him for some time before he started off his

pilgrimage throughout India singing Lord's Glories and

GuNAs.

 

He visited almost all the temples and he lost his

heart for Sri Rama. He sang lullabies for Sri Rama as

" RaghavanE ThAlElO! " . He has even sung pAsurams on

Devaki's misfortune of not able to enjoy kaNNan's

leelA's and " thollai inbam " which yasOdhA was blessed

with. One can greatly be moved by his pAsurams on

ThiruvEnkatam [which we would enjoy in this series]

where he pleads for performing ceaseless service to

the Lord of ThiruvEnkatam. Such was his desire to

serve the Lord ceaslessly and that too from a

king!.(One can imagine our plight with so little(or

no) material possessions and for that we walk with so

much pride with even a very little achievement(which

too is possible only with His grace)).

 

It was Lord’s will that he wanted to project this

AzhwAr born as a king and yet long for the lowliest

birth in ThiruvEbkatam.. and desire for eternal

kaimkaryam to Him… This is to give us a message..

 

He lived till 67 years and then reached His abode and

it is also told that his daughter ILai followed her

father kulasEkara perumAn and was also blessed with

the Lord's ThiruvaruL.

 

He shared his wodnreful anubhavams and devotion

through two of his Sri Sookthis , one in Tamizh and

the other in Sanskrit :

 

1.PerumAL Thirumozhi (105 Tamizh Paasurams)

2.Mukundha Maalai (40 Sanskrit SlOkams)

 

Swamy Desikan salutes this AzhwAr's prabhandham as "

Nann PoruL sEr Thirumozhi " ( the divine utterances

that have deep and auspicous doctrines(meanings)

embedded in them. These unquely Sri VaishNavA

doctrines are Lord's Parathvam , Prapatti at His

sacred feet , Sesha-Seshi relationship , Bhaktha

Paaratantryam (subservience to BhakthAs),

fearlesslness after SaraNAgathi, SrinivAsathvam and

others.

 

KulasEkara AzhwAr's deep attachment to the archai form

of the Lord at Thiruppathi pours out in the form of

moving plea to be born as any thing on the sacred

hills of ThiruvEnkatam: With that avathArikai, let us

enjoy his verses on ThiruvEnkatam from tomorrow.

[Reference: Sri Satakopan Swami’s article on

KulasekaraperumAL and Sri Anbil Ramaswamy Swamin’s

article on Alwars: Kulasekara]

 

KulasEkara PerumAn ThiruvadigaLE SaraNam

Regards

namo narayana

dasan