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re: saTamarSaNa gotra tAtAchari tanians and family lines

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jairam tirumala • August 27, 2001 


Shri sadananda and bhaktas,
Thank you for your kind response to the topic. it seems true that we belong to Parakala mutt   
right from brahma tantra swantantra jeeyars of hh. Sri vedantaDesika sisyas onwards. As mentioned in nrusimha priya june,'92, the tanians of hh ghatikasatam ammal alias sri narasimha vardacharyulu
established three different lineage maTams namely sri ahobala maTam by his son sri rangachariar, 
malawalamunulu ashram by his second son  sri Padmanabhulu and vanamamalai maTam by his
sisya  sri Pillai lokacharyulu.
My moola purushal sri conjeevaram tatachari who was most popularly known as pancha Bhanjanam
 tatachari left conjeevaram to ahobilam with the invitation of his maternal uncle Sri
ShasTaparAnkusa swami, the 6th peetadhipathi, who was his guru and teacher.   From the time 
onwards we were alienated to ahobila peetam as tatachari sisya parampara. The tAtAchari families
used to be  outstanding spiritual teachers of the time. His son sri lakshmi kumara tAtAchari was
very popular not only by virtue of his Performance of koti kanyadan but also gilded both the varadaraja
swamy (conjeevaram) and sri venketeswaraswamy (tirumala) temples with gold. He was a great person of importance and influence, being guru of both the veketapathirayas I(1575 -1614) and II (1630 -1642c.e.) belong to aravedu dynasty and, fortunate of crowning both of them. I am happy to note that sri krishna tata chari belongs to one his family line. I am sure our family line is more closely related to them than other tanians of tAtAchari who continued their association with parakala maTam like putaparti, kuntimadhi and other gandikota(dharmavaram) saThamarSaNa  vaishnavites.   i had come across one  great sanskrit scholar sri gopalaswamy iyyengar in tirupati  belonging to tirumala kumara families as mentioned in my previous topic on ' issues on sAthmuRai at tirumala temple' in reply to sri t.c.a venketesan. we are interested to know about them and  others like  gaddam, peddinti  too.
Can any of our learned shaThamarSanars or other bhaghavatars enlighten us with the particulars of tAtachari tanians and  the family links.
My bukkapatnam tirumala lineage started with highly erudite vishistTadwaita vedavedanga scholar sriman bukkapatnam tirumala raghvacharyulu(tAtAchari). It seems sriman Ananthachari was  his eldest son,  my bukkapatnam tirumala purushal who got Oruturu agrahAram.  We do not know the details of other son,  sri chinnayyacharyulu.  the tanians of ananthachari were sri varadachari and  sri veerraghavachari,  sri srinivasa tATAchari,  the kaniShTa and aShTama putra of sri varadachari, was my great grand father.  from the time of settlement of  sri ananthachari onwards we were native of oruturu agraharam till my  grand father  sriman venketachari as revealed by my elders and a relative late sri echampati rajagopalachari, advocate, guntur. He was dealing with a civil suit (succession case) of veeraraghvacharyulu's wife.     That is  how we migrated  to oruturu agraharam from bukkapatnam but  retained bukkapatnam tirumala  as our initial and tamil was our mother tongue at home. 
the same was confirmed in the hand written poetic kavyam, by name "kuvalAsya vijayam",
in telugu by my grand father's elder brother, sriman Raghavachari. it was recently printed by one of
his grand tanians and i am fortunate of having the copy of his holy prabhandha kavyum of great  scholarly nature.  my forefathers were all staunch sri vaishnvites and  great scholars in veda vedangas and andhra geervAnNa panditas having great artistic talents in music and  poetry.  most of them were asthna kavis in the asthanams of nuzvid rajas.
 my pedda tAtagaru, sriman Raghavacharyulu garu, expressed great love and affection to his third brother, sriman venketacharyulu, my grand father, by praising  him in his book  as "truly  unshakable vidwatkesari to the core" as praised by the scholars at the time.   out of sheer regard and gratitude to his brother, my grand father gave 'nAmakaraNam' to his only son as "mohan raghavacharyulu".  both were staying at nuzvid during the period.  i presume that his eldest brother sriman ananthacharyulu   continued to stay at oruturu agraharam.   sriman raghavacharyulu wrote  about his vamsam in a poetic form in telugu which i am reproducing the substance of  one of them into english  for the benefit of our bhaktas. 
"wherein the sreshta munis sriman natha yAmuna was born,
wherein HH sri venketeswar called the bhakta as tAtagaru and asked for teertam to quench his thirst,
wherein the purushals DhEvidhis were acharyas for nalanara pathis,
wherein the vamsAryans were stAnAcharis to rich kAnchyadhi nidulu gracefully(nimpu sompAraga)
wherein the  vamsaryAns of what an earth the santati were great sadAcharya purushals,  kotikanyadan pradAthas and srivaishNava pEtadhipathis, is my vamsam to be proud of".   one must read the actual telugu poetry and enjoy how sweetly he  expressed his great devotion and his attachment to his  vamsam and vaishnavism .  He was my padda tAtagaru(periya tAtaverghazh)- hats off to him and to my ancestry -adiyen, dasAnudasan, pranNamAmyaham    

    the sacred book on "kuvalAsya vijayam" ia a 'hUNabhASAndra divyakathA prabandam'.   the 
pachamAsvAsam kavyum (five chapters) comprised of stotras, vamsAbhivanam, kuvalAsya katha,
sri ramayanam, sundarakhAndam, dasAvatAra varnanam; bhagavatam, sri krishna leela, rukmini
kalyANam, narakAsura vadha;  and sri mahabhAratam, subadra varnanam (description), araNya
parvam, virATa parvam, udyOga parvam,  sri bhagavat geeta, yudda parvam, etc., etc. all in 363
pages comprising  about 1725 poems, each had its own  outstanding telugu jilugu with intermittent preponderance of vachana sahityam and bhakti bhavams. I received this sacred book only week days back from my friend.   I am thinking of translating the telugu poetry into english if god permits.
 
Coming to the details of tengalai saThamrSaNa gotrakaras, they are srimat tirumala families aliented 
to vanamamalai maTa sampradayam.    sri padmanabhAcharyulu (alias dharmacharyulu - brother of sri kurusheshuluk tAtAchari) son of sri pundarikakshar and grand son of the abhiman putra of sri rAmanujar, namely.  sri tirukkuruhaipirAn pillai  (other names, if  i am correct, were  satagopalachari, kurusheshulu?),  was the moola purshal to ayanampudi tirumala families. His santati in eighth generation was sri narahari desikulu.  He was very famous sanskrit scholar and wrote many talapatra grandhas.  He wrote 'narahariyam' a detailed vakhyanam to sri vishnu puranam.  A tamil-sanskrit mixed talapatra grandha on 'sriman narahari desika prabhavam' written by one his tanian was printed (around 1940's) by sri vashnava mudrakshasala..  It contains many historical bhakti events of great interest.  continuing further  details  in the srimat tirumala vamsa vriksham, the jgnana guru of sri narahari desikar was sri paTTAbhiraan residing in tirunagari and popularly known as sri bhattesh yogi. By his upadesam, sri narahari desikar alienated to tengalai sampradayam and was followed by his tanians. Sri narahari family tanians spread all over andhra. Some of them become jeeyars preaching bhakti and spreading vaishanvism 
One of his tanians migrated to srikAkulam, and became  stanacharya to sri andhra mahavishnu temple after making samskaram as per agama sastras. From the time onwards they were following chandramAnam instead of suryamAnam.   the   family line  known to me are continuing in panasalavalasa of srikakulam dt. as mentioned in my last topic on 'agiripalli kshetram and next'.  justise sriman t.v.r.tatachari of delhi (retired.),   is highly stotriya vaishnava scholar.  Due respects to him, he is in early nineties by now and is quite active. He belongs to one of srimat tirumala families settled in vijayanagaram.
One such family was (tengalai)tAtAchari families settled in gaddipadu, who published a booklet on 'sri aynampudi tirumala vari guru parampara tanians' containing bhakti slokas, vAkya guruparampara, Acharya parampara, charama slOkas, mangallAsAsanams etc printed (1951) on the occasion of demise(acharya tiruvagzhali) of the famous Acharya vedanta ugma sriman lakshmEkumara tAtAcharyulu.
reviewing the brief comments in the vamsa vriksham written by srimat tiumala families, it was revealed that  addanki families and tirupati satamarshana families are the tanians of chinna siriya tirumala
nambi (mitratara, todappar, siriya/pillai tirumala nambi were his other names?).   the santati of sri kuruseshulu tAtAchari werespread in kanchi, tanjavoor, navalpakkam.  Among them sri kotikanyadanam tatachari, ballari raghavacharyulu, vanapalli? Venketachari (vanapalli?  tirumala ramachandra seems tobe one of his tanians) were famous tanians. sri kuruseshulu tAtAchri was the rajaguru of vijayanagar rajas, tanjavur nayaks and further on rajaguru of Anegondi samsthanam (the present dattamandalam comprising gadwal etc.).  Further details needs to be addressed.   It is also intersting to find out how bukkapatnam tirumala family tanians differed from tirumala bukkapatnam families.
In ttd. monthly magazine "saptagiri", one of  tirumala kumara family taninan, sriman T.K.T. viraraghvacharya's article  on  "history of  tirupati " mentioned that sriman sottai ettur tiumala nambi kumara tattayyangar, son of sottai ettur tirumala nambi srinivsayyangar belonged to saThamarShaNa gotram.  he was the most prominent man among the acharya purshal during  sri krishna devaraya and achyutaraya times. He made a significant endowments and was the recipient of the donor's share in the offerings to the tirupati - tirumalai temples made by his disciples (june '01-p24-26). While he was very old during the period of sadasivaraya, he made an endowment(1549/1554) as detailed there in.  sriman ettur kumara tattayyangar had  two sons, namely sri tirumala (kumara)  tattayyangar, who came to the notice as acharya of Singaraja son of salakkayyadeva maharaja during the reign of achyutaraya maharaya (iv.170,10-2-1542). The other son was sriman(tirumala kumara?)  srinivasayyangar (Iyyengar, ayyangar and ayyavarlangaru as well as chari/charyulu are synonymous) who was honoured by sadasivaraya with the magnificent grant of pedda ekkalur village (in jagadabhi gutti sirmai). The two brothers occupied the place of acharyas to one or other of the two powerful rival royal parties.)..
sri  ettur thirumalai kumar tatachariar as mentioned in the august issue was the spiritual guru of venketapathiraya  before he became emperor succeeding sri ranagarayadeva maharayar, whom he crowned him.  he was the famous  person among srivaishnavas and said to have regilded the vimanam of sri venketeswara temple. He made several endowments in kanchipuram and his descendants have always been holding the key position in sri varadarajaswamy temple.  going throuh the two issues of `saptagiri' i think  sri lakshmikumara kotiknyadan tatachari mentioned earlier was the same sri ettur tirumala kumara tatachariar, son of sri ettur nambi kumra tatachari(panchabhanjanam tatachari?) which needs to be  confirmed.  it requires further studies to understand more about them.

These are some of my findings of saThamarShaNa tAtAchari family lines in a.p.,  to be addressed in detail about their Acharya purushals and their family links.  pl forgive if any mistake was found sheer out my ignorence. we heartily welcome for any corrections and additions.
'srimatY srivenketewara parbrhamaNNY namah!!'
adiyen
b.t. jairam(an) 
 
 






































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