Search:
Bhakti List Archives

Re: Question on Alvars

From the Bhakti List Archives

GORKESHAVA • August 11, 1995 


"Men who live in Krita Yuga and other ages long to be born into this world in
the age of Kali, O King. For it is in the Kali age that men who are wholly
devoted to Lord Narayana will appear. O King, they shall be found everywhere,
but they shall be found in large numbers in the Dravida country where the
rivers Tamraparni, Kritamala, Payasvini, the extremely sacred Kaveri, and the
great Vetravati (which flows to the west) flow. The men who drink the waters
of these rivers will become pure of heart and devoted to Lord Keshava."

Bhagavatam 11.5.38-40

"When by the influence of the wicked (daityas), virtue wanes, the Perfect
incarnates on earth to re-establish it. When again, by the effects of time,
God-dear virtue wears away, Three are born in the Krita-age, and Three in the
Treta. And Three in the Dvapara, and Three in Kali; and these emanate from
the Shanka, Chakra, Gada, Padma, Sarnga, and Senapati (the Lord of Hosts).
And Sesha, Lakshmi, and the effulgent Sanaka and others, take birth among all
grades of society, Brahma, Kshatra, etc. Some pure souls of Vishnu descend
ex-uterine, and in the Dravida Land mostly, and proclaim (truths) by
(Dravida) hymns. Sesha, as post-disciple of Natha (-muni), takes birth in the
Kali age to proclaim the real import of the Vedanta Sastra. The wicked
Daityas, who were killed in Tripura, and those on the Saugandhika-occasion,
are born on earth; and they upset the Vaishnava System. Matarisva is
similarly born, and battering down evil systems, establishes the righteous
one. All these show men virtue. Pure Godly souls are to be worshipped with
God. And this course was established in the past. God (Garuda-dhvaja) granted
them the privilege, that unless they were worshipped, His own worship would
be fruitless. Also God put to them the power of composing the Prabandhas,
-treating of His Greatness-when on the Gandhamadana-mount, they were
performing Tapas, immersed in His service. They thus deserve worship along
with God (in His Temples). Hence (O Bharadvaja), I (Angiras) have related all
to thee, -how lost virtue was restored, etc."

>From The Holy Lives of the Azhvars by A. Govindacharya
Introduction #2, Pages xxxi-xxxiii.