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Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00102 Apr 2002

 
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dear bhAgavathAs,

> is no solid evidence other than hearsay that the sannidhi
> of Emberumaanaar was constructed by Tirumalai Anantanpillai.
> In epigraphy the first reference to the shrine is in the 
> 13th century or so, at least according to S.K. Ramachandra
> Rao's excellent history of the temple. Does anyone have
> any evidence to the contrary? 

The only evidence about the emperumAnAr sannadhi we have is
circumstantial and words passed down through generations..

The cicumstantial evidence we have is as follows:
1. anantAzhvAn was the first AchAryA during/after rAmAnuja to 
reside there.
2. periyathirumalainambi was an elder contemporary of rAmAnuja, and
hence chances are that he attained paramapadam earlier than
rAmAnuja - so, he could not have built it
3. there is mention in thirumalai ozhugu about rAmAnuja
establishing certain practices in thirumalai (i donot have a
copy with me.. will search and provide data if available) -
i.e. he was a venerated figure in thirumalai
4. given the above, and the general acceptance of srI anantAzhvAn's
regard for rAmAnuja, it is very plausible that he built the
sannadhi. In fact, the "satAri" in rAmAnujA's sannadhi is known
as anantAzhvAn in thirumalai.

The above does not, of course provide 100% evidence.. one may claim
that the sannadhi was built later on and all these hearsay has
been ascribed later... Sure, there is that possibility as well.

Re: the book mentioned by maNi, the book is based mostly on the
inscriptions present in the temple in its current state.. It is
well known that vijayanagara kings did do a lot of temple
building, and hence, the book may deal with only what is present
in the current form! - The sannadhi may have been established
inside the temple in a different form, and when the renovation/
building was done, it may have taken the current form - and hence,
inscriptions dating earlier than 13th century may not have
been found..So, even this book may not present the *complete*
history of thirumalai..


> Varadhan has told me of the opinion that the periya (pedda)
> jeeyar matha was started by Emberumaanaar and that the
> chinna jeeyar matha was started by Maamunigal, but once
> again I don't think there is any evidence for the former,
> other than hearsay, and we know what that's worth.

again, there is cirumstantial evidence.. there is a lineage of
jeeyars starting from emperumAnAr/anantAzhvAn (who established the
maTam on command from rAmAnuja and chose the first jIyar) present
in the jIyar maTam. In fact, there is a large painting inside
the maTam that one can see.. Of course, the painting is
fairly recent (early 1920s..).. One has to accept that there
was no vested interest in later days in "creating" such a
lineage to come to the "periya jIyar maTam was established by
rAmAnuja" conclusion.

One difficulty with our Indian tradition is that there has been
very little attention paid to "documenting" history like the
western civilization. So, most of conclusions, one has to draw
from cirumstantial evidence and "plausibility" of hearsay.
This leads to *any* situation being plausible. So, one has to have a
preponderance of circumstantial/hearsay evidence to conclude that
something is "strongly possible". Also, a modicum of commonsense
mighe be needed (e.g. the situation where "ALL the temples were
vadakalai and have been converted to thenkalai, and due to the
heroic efforts of some people a handful have been saved by
being converted again" is certainly a "plausible" scenario, but it
does not mesh with the data we have currently and is certainly
not possible to be supported if we apply commonsense). But either 
way, anything, including rAmAnujA's life history as documented in 
6000-p-padi cannot be *proven* by current standards..

adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan,
varadhan






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