You are here: SriPedia - SriRangaSri - Archives - Feb 2007

SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00100 Feb 2007

 
Feb 2007 Indexes ( Date | Thread | Author )
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]


SrI:
SrImathE Gopaladesika mahadesikaya namah:
Dearest Srivaishnavas,

KulasEkarAzhwar was born as a prince to ChEra king
Dhidavrathan and nAdhanAyagi in the month of mAsi and
the nakshatram of punarpoosam (same as that of Lord
Rama). Today is this AzhwAr?s Thirunakshathram. The
child when born looked divine and made everyone
happier and cheerful. The entire kingdom was in a
jubilant mood. The child 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 Dhidavrathan
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
here was rich harvest throughout the year; there were
regular rains and there was only subheeksham. Hence
the citizens had great amount 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 started
singing in Tamil and sanskrit with full of love and
Bhakti in praise of the Lord.

He spent his most of the time only on religious
activities and attending discourses. Once when the
UpanyAsakar was narrating Rama RavaNa yuddham where
the battle was going on for a long time and RavaNa was
giving a tough fight, kulasEkara was so much attached
to the story and it the discourse he ordered his Army
General to immediately organise to send the soldiers,
elephants and horses and the king was also making
himself ready for the battle to give a helping hand to
Sri Rama. The upanyAsakar and all others were totally
perplexed and could not say anything. The upanyAsaker
at last came to the king and said" O, mighty king, We
need not go. The Lord Rama has already killed rAvaNa
and is on his way back to AyOdhyA for his
pattAbhishEkam". That made the king silent and he came
to normalcy; Such was kulasEkarA's bhakti for Rama. It
is told Lord Rama appeared in his dream that night and
said" kulasEkarA, I am deeply moved by your readiness
to offer me help in the battle. Since you are having
blind affection and live for me , you did not realise
my Strength and parAkramam. We can win asurAs with no
effort; You are acting just like LakshmaNA, who is
also attached to me deeply. From today you will be
called 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 Bhagavadh
Bhakti and Bhagavadha 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 can 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 these scholars
...could..........have.....taken...." 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; He could not believe
his ears as to how these minister can even think of
these GREAT BHAKTAAS as ones who could have flicked;
"What are you saying? Are you talking about these
adiyArs of Sriman NARAYANA. Are you not ashamed to say
that? Is your tongue still alive? How dare you think
them as thieves when their love is only for the Lord
and they consider the Gold and dust the same; Those
UTTHAMARGAL - Do you think they have stolen the
MAALAI? . He did not stop with that. He called someone
to bring a pot wherein he had arranged to place a
poisonous snake; Bewildered ministers obeyed. He
showed them the pot with the snake inside. He said and
prayed to the Lord" If the mAlai has been taken by one
of the BhaktALs, let the snake bite me; If not, I will
come out unscathed." He put his hand inside the pot.
The snake NEVER TOUCHED his hand. The minister came
out openly saying "we are very sorry and we beg your
pardon. We are the ones who removed the MALAI and put
the blame on BhaktA so that you will start disliking
them and will concentrate on administrative matters.
Please forgive us for this irresponsible act."

Such was his love and reverence on Bhagawathas. He has
written special ten for Bhagawatha sEshathvam in His
perumAl Thirumozhi.

In one of his paasurams , he revealed to us that those
, who wear the dust from the feet ( Thondar adippodi)
on their heads do not need GangA snAnam to wash away
their sins :

aadip paadi arangavO yenrazhaikkum
ThondaradippodiyAda naam peRil ,
Gangai neer kudainthAdum vEtkai yennAvathE ?

In another paasuram, Azhwar states that his hairs
stand on end over the thought of those BhagavathAs ,
who enjoy Sri Ranganaathan as the SaarnghaPaaNi and
get goose pimples:

..tiNNa maamathiL TennaranganAm meysilaik
karumEhamonRu tamm nenjil ninru thihazhap pOy mey
silippavar tammayE
ninainthu yenn manam mey silirkkumE

In another paasuram of PerumAL THirumozhi, AzhwAr
expressed his deep desire. He revealed that his prayer
was to lose his mind in devotion to the BhagavathAs,
who sing and dance with aanandha paravasam about the
glories of the Lord of Sri Rangam with the beautiful
eyes reminding one of the beauty of the soft, red
lotus flower. He wanted to become one of the
BhagavathAs to get closer to the Lord of Sri Rangam
(Thondar vAzhvukku maalayuRRathen nenjamE ).

Let us get back to his history. Sorry for the
digression. We were lured by the Bhagawatha sEshathvam
of AzhwAr.

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 picture and trained
him for some time before he started off his Divya
Desam pilgrimage throughout India singing Lord's
Glories and GuNAs.

He visited almost all the temples and he lost his
heart for Sri Rama. He has sung 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" (naughty Kannan?s divya
chEstithangaL) which yasOdhA was blessed with. 

One can greatly be moved by his pAsurams where in he
longs for being born as a step in Tirupathi Lord's
temple or a fish in the Holy pushkaraNi or a seNbhaga
tree in Tirupathi(standing in front of the temple) or
a Big stone which can not be removed so easily; He
even wished to be born as a servant holding the Golden
Bowl in front of Sriman nArAyaNan to spit the water
after washing, gargling and cleaning His mouth in the
morning. Such was his desire to serve the Lord
ceaselessly and that too from a king!. [One can
imagine our plight with so little(or no) material
possessions and with that few pennies in our wallet we
walk with so much pride, with arrogance with even a
very little achievement in our lives (which too is
possible only with His grace).]

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.

As mentioned earlier, this AzhwAr had dreamt about
pilgrimage to Srirangam every day from his kingdom. He
gave up his kingdom finally and moved to Srirangam and
reached the Lord's sacred feet there. He blessed us
105 marvellous pAsurams in his PerumAL Thirumozhi
known for their depth of Bhakthi. The first three of
his ten decads are about Azhagiya MaNavALan Sri
RanganAthan.

In the first decad, KulasEkarA longs for the day, when
he would be able to stand in the courtyard of Sri
RanganAthan hugging the two ThirumaNatthUNNkal (huge
pillars in His sannidhi)- that one can see even today
in Srirangam. These two pillars are known as the
marriage pillars. They are recognized as a pair
representing the fragrance of Sri RanganAthan. The
BhakthAs overcome by the Lord's beauty hold on to them
to maintain their balance, when the flood of the
Lord's beauty hits them as they stand in the
ThirumuRRam of the Lord :

KadiarangattharavaNayil paLLIk koLLUM MaayOnai, maNat
thUNE paRRi ninru yenn vaayAra yenru kolO vAzhtthum
nALE

(when will that day arrive, when I can stand holding
the two marriage pillars in the sannidhi of Sri
RanganAthan and praise Him with all the power
of my tongue?).

In the third decad , AzhwAr explains the
transformation in him as his mind fell in love with
the BhaagavathAs of Lord RanganAthan . He says that he
developed VairAghyam [detachment] and lost interest in
pomp and circumstance and discarded all perishable
pleasures that are fleeting. He says that he avoided
from then on all those who confuse their body with
their AthmA and equate the perishable worldly
pleasures with the divine Bliss of relating to the
Lord. In the sixth paasuram of this
decad , Azhwar states with conviction:

yemparatthar allArodum kUdalan
umbar vAzhvai onRak karuthalan
TampirAn amararkku , Aranganahar
EmpirAnukku Yezhumaiyum pitthanE

(Meaning ) : I will not associate with those, who have
are not the servants of the Lord like me. I will
always stay intoxicated with the love for my Lord of
Nithya Sooris, who is at His Periya Koil
at Srirangam .

A sample pAsuram to taste the sweetness and longing
desire of AzhwAr for ThiruvEnkatamudaiyaan and be
there in Tirumala in any form whatsoever.

AznAtha selvatthu arambaiyargaL thaRsoozha/
vAnALum selvamum; maNNarasum yAn vENdEn/
thEnAr poonchOlai thiruvEngadatthu chunaiyil/
meenAi piRakkum vidhiyudaiyOnAvEnE/

Such a wonderful pAsuram. adiyEn requests all those
who can read Tamil to read these 105 pAsurams of
PerumAl Thirumozhi today and it takes only about 30
minutes at a maximum. adiyEn?s daring and rash desire
to start the anubhavams of these verses as next
kaimkaryam. 

May AzhwAr bless the kaimkaryam and grant me strength
to take up his divine verses for sharing with you all
soonest

kulasEkara perumAn thiruvadigaLE saraNam

Regards
Namo narayana
dAsan
Reference: Sri Satakopan Swami write up and Sri SMS
Chari's book on Alwars. 



 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Never Miss an Email
Stay connected with Yahoo! Mail on your mobile.  Get started!
http://mobile.yahoo.com/services?promote=mail


 
Yahoo! Groups Links

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

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SriRangaSri/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:SriRangaSri-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
    mailto:SriRangaSri-fullfeatured@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    SriRangaSri-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
srirangasri-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To subscribe to the list