SrI :
Dear Fellow Students of
history of Sri VaishNavam :
Few days back , author Sriman
V.Dhivakar was kind enough to send me
from India a copy of his
recent Tamil monograph entitled " Thirumalai Thirudan"
( Thief of Thirumalai or The
Thief at Thirumalai ) . We have heard of the Thief of
Bagdad . I wondered which
thief was at Thirumalai and what century that
theft took plce as well as
what he or she
stole at
Thirumalai .
I learnt that Sri V.Dhivakar
is a Member of our SaraNAgathy list and is devoted to
Swamy NammAzhwAr's dhivya
Prabhandhams .
I was intrigued and started
to read his book . I could not put it down .
The 348 page book written in
chaste Tamil is a literary feast built around
historical royal characters ,
their ministers, Commanders -in-chief and
Religious heads that strutted
on the stage
during the
last 30 to 40 years of
AchArya RaamAnujA's life .
This book is released by Narmada Publications
of T.Nagar , Chennai and is
priced at Rs. 150
.
As I read the book ,the echos
of Kalki's classical historical novels , " Ponniyin Selvan "
,
" Sivakaamiyin Sabhadham ", "
Parthipan Kanavu " flashed thru my memory .
The highly
researched book is
based on the difficult religious strifes during AchArya
RaamAnujA's time . Some
of the incidents that happened during this historically
important time are : the
betrayal of the VaishNava darsanam by the opportunistic
NaalUrAn hailing from Tillai
Thirucchitthirakootam , the power struggle between
fanatic and tolerant kings of
Chola dynasty , the collision between Jainism ,
Saivam and VaishNavam for the
minds of the people with the support of
the different members of the
Chola and ChALukya royal household ,
the establishment of
the identity
of Thirumalai
VenkatAchalapathy as
a Moorthy of Sriman
Narayanan by
AchArya Ramanuja .
The betrayal by a sishyan of
Swamy KurEsar and the damage to the Darsnaam at
the hands of this
sycophantic, turn-coat NaalUrAn and persecution
of
the VaishNavAs by the fanatic
ChOla king whom
NaalUrAn tried to please
for money and position ,
AchAryA KaurEsA's compassion for his errant
sishyan , NaalUrAn --- all of
these are woven in this sensitively crafted book
by Sri DhivAkar
.
The central theme of this
book is about the happenings at ThiruvengadamudayAn's
sannidhi ,
where AchArya
RaamAnuja settled the dispute about the identity of
ArchA Moorthy and the
establishment of His identity as Sriman Narayanan with
His charactrestric weapons of
Chakram (Sudarsanam) and Sanghu(Paanchajanyam) .
As I completed this
historical "epic" (VaralARRu Kaaviyam ) , It occured to me
that an overlay of the times
of VaishNavite AchAryAs and the major historical
events of the times
during which they lived would be of
interest to
the memebrs
of the e-lists that I serve .
Historical data is hard to come by and is often conflicting .
Hence one can not claim
for precision in pinning the events with the times
when they were
supposed to have
happened . Through
this brief series , I hope to list
the dates of the AzhwArs
and VaishNavite AchAryAs starting from Swamy
Naatha Muni to present
day AchAryAs and
the happenings of those times
very briefly to gain an
appreciation of the environment that they had to
carry out their avathara
mission .
May Sriman Narayana accept
this humble offering and guide me !
Daasan , Oppiliappan Koil
V.Sadagopan
P.S : I also learnt that Sri
Dhivakar, who resides now at VisAkapattinam
is well known for his earlier
historical work entitled "VamsatArA " and
this work has been highly
praised by distinguished Tamil authors like
Dr.Prema NandhakumAr and
Aanandh VikaDan's "SujAthA " .
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