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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 -----
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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