Dear SriVaishnavas
Adiyen forwarding a mail from Sri Vasudevan from
SriRangam(SriRangaSri) about NamperumAl's return to SriRangam , Pl go thru it
and come back if you need any further info..
Adiyen Ramanuja Dasan
Guna Venkat
----- Original Message -----
From: Krish Vasudevan
To: guna_venkat@xxxx
Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 12:45 PM
Subject: Return of Namperumal Respected Guna , Can you please publish the
following article in the Ramanuja Egroup . Thanks .
Adiyen VAsu, Srirangam .
********************************************************************
Friday , May 31 2002, corresponds to the Tamil
calendar day of vaikASi 17, year chitra-bhAnu.
The calendar day of vaikASi 17 of year pareetApi of
a certain cycle, Saka year 1293 bandhu-priya, corresponding to 1371 AD, ~~ this
was the blessed day on which nam-perumAL and the ubhaya-nAcchimAr were brought
back to the Great Temple of SRIRANGAM after a grievously long exile of 48
years. And, as the Great Temple chronicle 'kOyil ozhugu' records it,
the Lord never thereafter deserted His own seat of
'bhU-pAla-rAyan'.
The Lord's exile was occasioned by the savage
southern raids of Malik Kafur and Ulugh Khan (later known as
Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq), specially targeting the ancient temples. This
occasioned carnage in diverse "artistically cruel" (to quote Dostoevsky) ways of
the unfeeling raider-vandals.
Sri Pillai Lokacharya escaped with nam-perumAL and
the ubhaya-nAcchimAr and the rescue party wended its way cautiously,
anxiously, distressfully towards Jyotish-kuti (near Madurai Aanai-malai
terrain), where the venerated AchArya passed away. There were
sojourns next at tiru-mAl-irum-SOlai (azhakar) hills, thence tiru-k-kaNAmbi,
kozhi-k-kODu, tiru-nArAyaNa-puram (mElkOTE), tirumalai, Chenjee and finally, the
glory be, back to Srirangam.
Sri Sudarsana Suri / bhaTTar (author of
Sruta-prakASikA) was among those slaughtered on the banks of river koLLiDam, the
northern arm of kAvEri, and it was given that svAmi vEdAntAchArya could smuggle
out the precious work and the two children of the victim and take them to
Satyamangalam.
The most signal act of self-sacrifice for
protecting the Lord came from tiru-t-tAzhvarai-dAsar who tied himself over to
the sacred Lord-and-Consorts with a creeper and got himself lowered into an
inaccessible ravine of the tirumalai hills before the lead was
severed. The raiders stayed in siege of the foothills and
carried on their fanatic search, but in vain, and the Lord could be traced and
brought out much later from the ravine hideout and worshipped in the sannidhi of
tirumalai-appan. Hence the name 'ranga-mandapam' in tirumalai
temple.
The Vijayanagara empire was nascent at thelater
half of this period of exile, and the ruler of the time was Harihara-II whose
son was virUpAksha, a steadfast devotee of Lord Sriranga. He had an
able and equally committed vassal in Gopanna Udaiyar, at Chenjee
('SinGha-rAya-puram'). Gopanna was constantly posted with the
dedicated 'human antanna', Sri tiru-maNa-t-tooN nambi, about the movements,
camping, the consolidation and decline of the savage raiders.
Gopanna discreetly moved the Lord from tirumalai sannidhi to his own
capital at Chenjee where, after biding his time, organised a quick and
successful expedition against the muslim invader-marauders, and cleared the
region of the pestilence. He, the noble
Gopanna, accomplished the restoration of the Lord to His own favoured
seat bhUpAla-rAyan in the holy 'periya-kOyil-AzhvAr' of
Sriranga-vimAnam. This was in year 1371 AD, the Tamil calendar day
was vaikASi 17 of year pareetApi. And it is vaikASi 17
to-day.
This precious regenerative event is recorded in
Gopanna's lithic inscription cut in the eastern wall of the rAja-mahEndran
(second) tiru-c-chuRRu (enclosure), a few steps from the vishvak-sEna
shrine. The inscription is carried at No.286 of South Indian
Inscriptions, vol.XXIV, 1982 [ Srirangam Inscriptions ] so well edited and
issued by the Epigraphy Office of the Archaeological Survey of India, at the
Mysore office.
The Sanskrit inscription, consisting of two
SlOkam-s, is in grantha character, and begins with
"AneeyA-neela-SRnGa-dyuti-rachita-jaGad-ranjanAm-anjanAdrEh...."
The first SlOkam is reproduced, with a
minor variation, in the Great Temple chronicle, kOyil-ozhugu as
well. We owe it to V.N. Hari Rao for highlighting this important
historic and chronological record (which survives to this day) in his research
work, History of the Srirangam Temple, 1976, Sri Venkateswara University
Tirupati.
svAmi vEdAntAchArya must have spent all his waking
moments in his Satyamangalam exile praying for the restoration of Lord Sriranga
to His abode in Srirangam, and for the return of peace and piety in the Holiest
of Holies. He composed the prayer into the hymn 'abheeti-stavam',
and beseeched of the Lord,
"nirasta-ripu-sambhavE kvachana ranGa-mukhyE, vibho
!
paraspara-hitAishiNAm parisarEshu mAm vartaya !
"
[Grant so my Lord, that I reside somewhere
(even) in the approaches of any of the
divya-dESam-s (blessed sites)
which are marked by the natural bonhomie
of the devotees, and which have Srirangam as their
capital !]
So be it that the Lord keeps our mind steady in
remembrance of this precious day of vaikASi 17. The entire townof
Srirangam has this day been plastered with a very timely, moving and succinct
message issued by Sri A. Krishnamachari, on behalf of the Divya-desa pAramparya
pAdu-kAppu-p-pEravai.
Thanks are owed to him for this precious reminder
and sensitisation on the most poignant moment of our history !
aDiyEn rAmAnuja-dAsan,
tirumanjanam Sundara Rajan,
at Srirangam. |
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