Kannappa Nayanar

[Guest guest]

Namaste everybody,

This is the story of another saint that I have heard from my

childhood days and enjoyed very much. This writeup is from a website

that I had surfed into once. My compliments and thanks to the author.

Jai Shree Maa

Jai Swamiji

Vasantha

 

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Kalahasti is a holy Saivite (worshippers of Lord Siva) place in the

state of Andhra Pradesh. There are five temples of Lord Siva in five

different places representing the five elements, viz. fire, water,

air, ether, and earth. This holy shrine represents air (vaayu). The

purana (history) of this place says that a spider worshipped

Kalahasthinathar, the presiding deity. The holy river Swarna Mukhi

runs in this place. Atop the mountain in this holy place there is a

Siva temple. In the ages gone by a hunter lived in this mountain

forest. He was an ardent devotee of Lord Siva of this temple. After

spending the whole day in hunting, at nights he used to visit this

temple to worship Siva.

 

A deep desire developed in him to do pooja and abhishekha to Siva.

But he did not have in his possession any pot to carry water, any

basket to carry flowers or any vessel to cook food for offering to

Lord Siva. So, he would place the flowers on the matted locks of his

hair, carry as much as water as possible in his mouth and the meat

of the animals hunted during the day in his hands. Arriving at the

temple he would just spit all the water onto the Siva Linga, shake

the flowers off his hair onto the Linga and offer the meat as

Naivedya. At day-break he would leave the temple.

 

In the mornings when the priest of the temple came up to do pooja

and abhishekha he found that someone had offered fresh flowers and

meat for God every night. This upset him greatly. He would clean the

whole place, do pooja and abhishekha and leave the temple

sorrowfully. Since this strange night worship continued, the priest

not knowing how to stop this , prayed intensely to Lord Shiva to

give him an answer. That night the Lord appeared in his dream and

instructed him to hide himself in the temple the next night and

watch all that would take place. The priest hid himself in the

temple and anxiously awaited the night happenings.

 

The hunter arrived at the temple as usual and conducted the

abhishekha and pooja. Suddenly one of the eyes of the Linga started

bleeding. Immediately, without a second thought, the hunter plucked

out one of his own eyes with the help of his arrow and fixed it onto

the Linga. He was happy to find that the bleeding stopped. However,

blood started oozing out of the other eye. Immediately he decided to

fix his other eye there but stopped a while wondering how he would

be able to locate the right spot to fix it as with both eyes gone he

would be blinded. The idea then struck him to place his foot on the

bleeding eye. He plucked out his other eye and fixed it on this

spot.

 

The priest was totally awe-struck and broke down witnessing the deep

devotion of the hunter. He realized that his own devotion to the

Lord was only superfluous compared to the hunter's. Just then Lord

Siva appeared on the Rishaba (bull) and blessed the hunter. The

priest felt a sense of fulfillment of his life being blessed with

Lord Siva's darshan. The hunter was none other than Kannappa

Nayanar, one of the sixty-three Nayanmars (Saivite Saints) who are

worshipped by all.

 

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