You are here: SriPedia - Ramanuja - Archives - Jul 2005

Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00025 Jul 2005

 
Jul 2005 Indexes ( Date | Thread | Author )
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]


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


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 




azhwAr emberumAnAr jeeyAr thiruvadigalE saranam
 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ramanuja/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    ramanuja-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
 



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index ] [Thread Index ] [Author Index ]
Home Page
http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia
ramanuja-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To subscribe to the list