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s.ramachandran • March 25, 2003 


Respected Sir:


Temples/Vigrahas : There are various reasons as to their origin:

a. In some places, the Lord manifested out of his wish - this cannot be
questioned further
b. In some places the Lord manifested as a sport (Leela) to satisfy his
devoutees
c. In some places he manifested to teach a lesson, to punish someone, to
reward someone
d. In some places great kings who were great devoutees themselves built
temples commissioning sculptures to do the work
e. In some places people created out of devoution, love and bhakti
f. In some place miracles took place and people or kings built temples out
of gratitude

The Sthala puranas in most cases will tell the story. However, some of
these would also have been lost in antiquity.



Regarding why Lord is separate from his consort.  To answer this question,
just think how do you refer to the Lord. Srinivasa...Sridhara etc. Even the
entire sect is called Srivaisnava. The Sri is a prefix.  The  Sri lives in
the most critical part of the Lord i.e. heart.

Now Sri is the female principle, the Shakti.  Without Sri, the Lord has no
power. His power is derived from Her presence,.

At one point of time, due to a tiff, Lakshmi abandoned HIM and went away.
His entire life, work came to a standstill. He went deep into a depression.
His base was shaken. ...Then after various gods, etc implored him to
restore himself, he went in search of Lakshmi and so on the story
goes...then in the end somewhere in Tirupati area the LORD gets into a
anthill and a cow gives milk to the hungry LORD etc......some of you might
be aware of this story..sorry if the details are sketchy.

But bottomline is : without  going to the Supreme Mother you cannot expect
to proceed any other way...No one will give you audiance.  That is why the
Sandyavandanam ritual has the Gayathri (female aspect, mother of Vedas) as
the central  focal point.

To the limited knowledge of the writer from whatever little he has gathered
from various learned scholars, that which is special has to be given
special treatment. Do you deign to sit and casually talk freely and take a
cup of tea with the CEO of your company ? He has an airconditioned room, he
has a car, a driver. He comes and goes as and when he likes. Remember he
pays you and employes you. He is not involved in routines, smaller details.
He talks only in terms of Budget, vision, mission statements etc. Why?
because he is the CEO. His role is different. Nor can he mix with you nor
can you.  Each has a role - the ego factor is presumed is absent here, for
we will not discuss this right now.

So also, a temple is a special place. The Thayar is Thayar i.e. mother. Who
is important ?The Vedas have clearly answered " Mata, Pita, Guru and
Daivam".   God is last.

Om tat Sat
Tat tvam Asi





                                                                                                           
                      "D.Satish Kumar"                                                                     
                                          cc:                                                         
                                               Subject: question                                           
                      03/24/03 09:14                                                                       
                      AM                                                                                   
                      Please respond                                                                       
                      to bhakti-list                                                                       
                                                                                                           
                                                                                                           




dear bakthas
kindly accept my humble obeisances.i have some
questions (mainly borne out of curiosity) for which i
expect answers from the knowledgable members of the
group.the questions may look naive for most of them
but as a fledgling i would like to know them.
1. where did the vigrahas of the lord in divya desams
or for that matter any temple (ancient ones) originate
from ?were they sculpted or was it by lord's leelas?
2. why is the lord separated from His consort in most
of the temples..i mean why do we find a separate
Thayar sannidhi?
3. what  do we mean by Utsavar and Moolavar in the
temples?
regards
satish

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           - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH -
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