srImathE saTakOpAya namah
srImathE rAmAnujAya namah
srImathE anantArya mahAguravE namah
srImathE vara vara munayE namah
dear bhagavathas,
The last post on svami's vaibhavam had information on
his life till erumbiappa became his shishya.
After that, more scholars became shishyas of svami
maNavALA mAmuni. appiLLai, appiLLAr were the chief
among them. This appiLLai is the acharya that has
written the vazhi thirunamams for all the azhvars
and acharyas. Further revelations were made by the
Lord to some srivaishnavas about svami manavala
mamuni being adisesha and ramanuja himself (uttama
nambi, for example).
At this time, svami fulfilled one of the commands
of his acharya - he wrote commentaries on the works
of pillai lokacharya, svami azhagiya manavalap perumal
nayanar, wrote the nitya grantham of ramanuja in
tamil, wrote a summary of thiruvaymozhi in the
form of thiruvaymozhi noorrandhaadhi and the great
songs givin details about azvharacharyas lives -
upadesa rattinamalai. The main rahasya commentaries
that svami wrote were on thattva trayam,
mumukshuppadi,
srivacana bhooshanam and acharya hrdayam. He also
wrote commentaries on the works of svami arulaalap
perumal emperumanar - gnyaana saaram and prameya
saram. It is further said that svami wrote a
commentary on sri bhagavadgita called tAtparya
deepam.
Our elders, when they refer to the commentaries and
works written by svami manavala mamunigal always point
out to the anustanam of svami as a true srivaishnava.
svAmi did not write any work on his own (other than a
mangala slOkam for varadaraja and a sthuti for
ramanuja - all others are summaries/commentaries on
azhvar acharya works)- he only made the works of our
acharyas available and more accessible through his
commentaries. This shows svami's strong belief and
bhakti in the teachings of his acharya and acharyas
before their time period.
There are further details abot svamis vaibhavam that
I will skip for the moment - vaibhavams that include
prativadi bayankaram aNNan becoming a sishya of svami,
svami establishing the chinna jeeyar matam at
thirumalai, the avataram of the venkatesa suprabhatham
due to svami's command, and svami's establishment
of acharyas at kanchipuram and other divyadesams.
Now comes perhaps the most important gesture of Lord
Ranganatha towards all the souls - It is very obvious
that all the souls need to have the knowledge about
the 5 things (nature of soul, nature of the Lord,
nature of the means to the goal, nature of the goal
and the nature of the obstacles to achieve the goal)
to attain nitya kainkarya to the lord in srIvaikuNtam.
And for the vast majority of us, this happens due
to contact with an AchArya. Obviously, the better the
a
charya, the better the learning for us and the more
chances we have of surrendering to the Lord due to our
conviction. The Lord had been searching for eons
to show the universe the perfect AchArya. Even while
the Lord came to the Universe in the form of rama and
krishna, he had ample amount of teachers that he could
have shown to us as the epitome of an AchArya. But,
the Lord waited for the most perfect Acharya to be
present on this earth so that He can show the world
who the jagadAcharya was. svAmi manavala mamunigal was
that acharya.
The way in which the perfect acharya was shown to the
world is of course through the Lord composing the
srIsailEsa daya patram thaniyan. The events leading
to the avataram of that great thaniyan has been
described numerous times by many people on this list -
I will skip those details for the sake of brevity.
In this mail, I would like to paraphrasea commentary
on the thaniyan, written by jagadacharya
simhasanadhipathi, vaikunTa vasi, svami PB
aNNangarAchAriAr svAmi.
srIsailEsa dayA pAtram:
The Lord feels that, in rama avatara, he surredered to
a person that was a sailEsa dayA pAtran, and that
that
surrender was not perfect. sailam refers to the
rishyamooka parvata, the lord of that mountain was
mathanga maharishi - the person that was the
receptacle
of mathanga's grace was sugreeva - so,
sailesa daya paatra here refers to sugreeva. rama
("sugrivam saranam gathah","sugreevam naadham
ichchathi") surrendered to sugreeva for various
purposes, but had to threaten him with destruction as
sugreeva forgot to repay the debt to rama, before
sugreeva came to help the Lord. To overcome that
("kurai") dissatisfaction, that the
He surrendered to an imperfect being in that avatara,
the Lord chooses to become the sishya of the epitome
of an AchArya, the one that is the receptacle of the
grace of srisailesar (thiruvay mozhip piLLai).
dheebhaktyaadhi guNa aarNavam:
in rama avatara, the Lord surrendered to an ocean
(ArNAvam)- an ocean of salt - lavaNArNavam - Even
here, the samudra raja refused to obey the Lord and
the Lord had to threaten destruction before he agreed
to help the Lord. In the case of maNavALa mAmuni, the
Lord surrenders to an ocean of knowledge, wisdom and
bhakti. This again addresses His own concern for
having surrendered to an imperfect person earlier.
yatIndra pravaNam:
After listening to ramanuja noorrandhaadhi (97th song)
-
thannai uRRaatcheyyum thanmayinOr, that talks
about the greatness of the devotees of ramanuja, the
Lord felt that it is even more special to be the
sishya of the greatest devotee of ramanuja than
ramanuja himself. (There are various instances quoted
by our acharyas as to the acharyathvam of ramanuja vis
a vis the Lord - thiru-k-kurungudi, the incident in
thirumalai etc..).
vandhE ramya jaamaatharam munim:
In rama avatara, the Lord's teacher was viswamithra.
We all know about the imperfections of sage
viswamithra. In krishna avatara, the Lord's teacher
was sandeepani maharishi. When Lord KrishNa asked him
what he would like as guru dakshiNa (even though he
knew that his sishya was the Lord Himself), the rishi
asked for reviving the life of his dead son rather
than srIvaikuNta. The Lord was dissatisfied with the
completeness of these teachers,and hence chose the
epitome of a sanyasi - ramya jaamaatru muni.
Thus, this thaniyan expressed by the Lord Himself is
not only an instance of the Lord showing the universe
who a great AchArya is, but also an expression of His
infinite causeless (nirhEthuka) compassion towards the
souls in this universe -
Other AchAryas have written commentaries on this word
of the Lord too. I will attempt to paraphrase those
later.
Today, Monday 22nd OCtober is the thirunakshattiram of
this great AchArya. Let us all chant his glory and
surrender to this acharya on this day -
srIsailEsa dayApAtram dheebhaktyAdi guNArNAvam,
yatiNdra pravaNam vandhE ramya jaamaataram munim.
AzhvAr emperumAnAr jIyar thiruvadigaLE saraNam,
adiyEn madhurakavi dAsan,
varadhan
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals.
http://personals.yahoo.com
|
Home Page
http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia |
ramanuja-subscribe@yahoogroups.com To subscribe to the list |