Srimate SrivanSatakopa Sri Vedanta Desika Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:
The Lonely Lord
The Lord must get pretty lonely in His arcchAvatAra, the form in which He is to
be found in various temples. In His other forms, He is used to quite a crowd as
company.
As the ParamapadanAtan, He is constantly being addressed and adulated by the
nitya sUrIs, with whom He exchanges views, especially with Sri VishvaksEnar, on
matters concerning Universal administration. Sri Garuda is the Lord's dear
friend ("Dasa: sakhA, vAhanam, dhvaja:") and keeps Him constant company. Thus
He doesn't lack people to speak to and move with.
In the Vibhava avataras too, as Sri Rama, He was constantly surrounded by His
illustrious brothers and others whom He himself had acknowledged as
brothers-Sri GuhapperumAL, Sri Hanuman, Sri VibhIshana etc. In Sri
Krishnavatara, He enjoyed the boisterous company of young cowherds ("tan nEr
Ayiram piLLaigaLOdu taLar nadai ittu varuvAn"_Sri Periazhwar) and had His fill
of all sorts of sport. As Sri Balarama, He had Sri Krishna for company. As Sri
Nrsimha, He had the adoring company of Sri Prahlada, and so on.
However, in the arcchAvatAra, He has nobody to speak to. All the mortals look
up to Him as the unapproachable Lord and do not entertain even the thought of
speaking to Him. They ogle at Him from a distance with folded hands and bowed
heads, bring Him fruits and flowers, bedeck Him in the finest of silk and the
most precious of gems and jewellery. However, they don't think of talking to
Him. They may voice their prayers seeking this and that, they may recite
stotras in His praise, but they do not give a thought to speaking to Him.The
arcchakAs perform for Him all kainkaryAs and recite nAmAvaLis during arcchanA,
but when there is no devotee in sight, they too prefer to come out of the
shrine and pass time with their colleagues or visitors. The Lord is thus left
alone most of the time. All this is when the temple is open. When the visiting
hours are over, there is an exodus of people from the temple and everyone,
including His intimate servants, the arcchakAs, leave, practically codemning
Emperuman to a sentence of solitary confinement.
If He were a person who likes solitude, He would definitely relish the abundant
doses He gets: but He is a sociable Lord and never likes to be alone-"Sa EkAkI
na ramatE" says the Upanishad, confirming His distaste for loneliness. The long
hours He spends locked up behind doors like a truant child which can't be
trusted to be free, make Him terribly bored. With none to speak to, not a soul
to socialise with, He stands all alone for hours at a stretch, for days and
years and millennia, enduring all the solitude stoically and uncomplainingly.
However, He still doesn't like it. Thus the arcchA samAdhi or the absence of
interaction with His devotees is a source of tedium for the Lord.
One can endure only so much, and the Lord is no exception. When the solitude
begins to tell on Him, He does open His beautiful mouth and speak with devotees
of His choice, who mingle freely with Him, speaking to Him, telling Him not
only their woes but also every little thing that happened to them to that day-
in short, treating Him as a beloved friend and companion. We thus have several
instances of the arcchA samAdhi being broken and the Lord engaging in verbal
interaction with Sri Tirukkacchi Nambi, Sri Tirumalai Nambi, Sri Parasara
Bhattar and others. Such bhaktAs had developed an extremely intimate
relationship with the Lord and used to interact with Him daily, as freely as
they would with a human friend.
In Srirangam, there was a temple employee entrusted with the responsibility of
keeping all the temple lamps topped up with oil. In the course of performing
this uninteresting routine, once or twice he addressed the recumbent Rangaraja,
speaking to Him casually, asking Him how He felt that day, etc. Though he was
greeted only with silence for some time, when he continued this practice of
talking to the Lord, Sri Peria Perumal felt compelled to reply. Then onwards,
chitchat between the Lord and His employee became regular, and they used to
exchange views on anything and everything under the Sun. The Lord was touched
by the man's unassuming conversation and His chat-mate was thrilled that Peria
Perumal was actually speaking to him, a lowly employee in the temple hierarchy.
To people who watched him occasionally standing before Rangaraja and apparently
talking to himself, he appeared to be off his rocker, and was given the
sobriquet "Picchan" (mad man). Combining his job title and popular impression,
he came to be known as "ThiruviLakku Picchan". Even as he casually lent his ear
to the constant recitals of Divya Prabandam in the shrine, over the years
Picchan acquired quite a passable knowledge of these divine pasurams.
One day, while carrying out his chore, Picchan fell into conversation with the
Lord, who wanted to draw him out and asked him what he thought about great
people. In a deprecatory tone, Picchan replied that all great men had their own
weaknesses, their respective Aschilles' heels. Peria Perumal, who found
Picchan's remarks interesting and unusual, providing a welcome change from the
litany of stotras He was fed daily, asked Picchan whether he could find any
such frailty in the Azhwars.
Never at a loss for words, Picchan immediately replied in the affirmative and
proceeded to quote the following pasuram from Peria Tirumozhi , in support of
his contention-
"Sengamalatthu ayan anaya marayOr KazhicchIrAma ViNnagar en SengaN MAlai
ankamala tada vayal soozh Ali nAdan aruLmAri arattamukki adayAr seeyam
kongu malar kuzhaliar vEL Mangai vEndan kottravEl ParakAlan Kalian sonna
sanga mukha Tamizh mAlai patthum vallAr tadam kadal soozh moovulagukku talaivar
tAmE"
Picchan told Peria Perumal, "You asked me whether Azhwars had any failings. You
listened to the pasuram I just recited. Didn't You find that Sri Thirumangai
Mannan has, in the guise of singing Your praises, heaped upon himself quite a
lot of flattering sobriquets like " Ali nAdan, aruLmAri, arattamukki, adayAr
Seeyam, Mangai vEndan, ParakAlan" etc.? In fact, in this particular pasuram,
Azhwar blows his own trumpet much more than he sings Your praise. Devoted as he
is to You beyond measure, Sri Kalian is indeed susceptible to boasting and
bragging about his own prowess. Would you agree with me now that even the great
ones have their frailties?"
Peria Perumal was indeed amused at Picchan's observation and his irreverent
attitude towards the high and mighty. He chided the man for daring to criticise
Azhwars and clarified that such remarks by Azhwars, sounding like shameless
self-praise, reflected, in reality, their pride in their having been rescued by
the Lord from the bottomless pit of samsara and been given the exalted job of
singing His praises. When Sri Nammazhwar describes himself as "vazhuvAda tol
pugazh van KurugUr Satakopan", the pride he takes is not in his own glory, but
that of the Lord, who endowed him with blemishless wisdom, enabling him to sing
His praises forever. When Sri BhootatthAzwar says, "YanE tavam seidEn, YAnE
perum Tamizhan"etc., it is the pride of having been so blessed by the Lord.
These are totally different from the sort of pride and vanity that characterise
conceited mortals and lead to their downfall, and fall under the category of
SAtvika ahankAram, which comes from deep devotion to the Divine Being.
Convinced with Periya Perumal's explanation, ThiruviLakku Picchan passed on to
the next topic of the day and continued thus to regale the Lord lifelong with
his views of men and matters.
Srimate Sri LakshmINrsimha divya paduka sevaka SrivanSatakopa Sri Narayana
Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:
Dasan, sadagopan
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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