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From the Bhakti List Archives

Thirumalai Anandanpillai • January 21, 1999 


>There are SriVaishnava monks, known, I believe, as ekAngis,
>who have many of the same rites and responsibilities as the Brahmin Jeears,
>except for the practice of these vEdic rites.  However, I am not sure
>whether they have the authority to perform samAsrAyanam or not (I look
>forward to learning from Sri Mani and others about this.)


EkAnkis do not fall under the category that is quoted above.
an EkAki is a bramhAchAri that is kind of an "assistant" to
a jIyar that performs kainkaryam to the jIyar & the sishyAs
of the matam. Perhaps their most important responsibility
is continuing the kainkaryam to the Lord of the temple to which
the jIyar is normally the kainkarya parar. The most
prominent example of an EkAnki can be seen in thirupathi
periya jIyar matam. There, the EkAnkIs basically run the matam
and the temple kainkaryams when the jIyar svAmi is doing
sanchAram. {actually, to be accurate - there are two jIyars
in thirupathi - chinna jIyar & periya jIyar.. periya jIyar comes
first - then the chinna jIyar, if both are not personally present
in thirumalai, then the periya jIyar matam's EkAnki does
the kainkaryam}.


adiyEn madhurakavi dAsan,
Varadhan