One more light hearted comment.

From the Bhakti List Archives

• August 4, 1998


                           Srimathe Narayanaya Namaha

On 8/3/98 8:13 PM Sri Mani wrote.

"..should we not think of what our dear Ramanuja himself
preferred? Unforunately for all you Tamil Nadu natives, the
kOyil of choice is Karnataka's "thirunaaraayaNa-puram /
yadugiri / mElkottai", the home of lord selva piLLai.  And
it is not even a divya desam! It was this place that
showered its love on Ramanuja in his time of crisis.

Ramanuja counselled those who could not follow any other
commandment of his to "at least build a small hut and live
in thirunaaraayaNa-puram".  Dare we disagree with the great
acharya? "

     While this is true, now I would like to bring here the greatness of
     our PermAL at Atthigiri. While at a later date, Sri Ramanujar
     preferred Melkottai, during his initial stages in his life, he was
     even reluctant to move out of Kanchi to Srirangam and DevaperumAL was
     not also willing to send him. It is only, Sri Ranganathar, who played
     a trick by sending the "arayar" to Kanchi and they did the beautiful
     job of mesmerising the DevaperumAL, who is very much interested in
     listening to the paasurams, by singing the paasurams in front of him
     and asked Sri Ramanujar as a boon.

     Now if you see, Swami Desikan also was living in Kanchi during his
     earlier period but DevaperumAL once again sent him to Srirangam for
     the welfare of Srivaishnavas.

     So, our "poor" PerumAL has made a great sacrifice by sending all the
     great AchAryAs to Srirangam as it was the Centre for the Sri
     Vaishnavas.

     Forget not that almost all AchAryAs in the Gurumparamparai lineage
     have done slokas and or paasurams on our DevaperumAL. However due  to
     my ignorance, I don't know exactly what are these slokas or paasurams
     excepting a few like Varadarajastavam etc.,

     So I try to remind everybody in this list while we are arguing about,
     Srirangam, Thirupathi, and Melkottai, one should not forget that it is
     only DevaperumAL's sacrifice which gave Sri Ramanujar and Swami
     Desikan to Srirangam for uplifting our Sri Vaishnavism.

     Sri PerundEvi ThAyAr samEtha Sri DEvaperumAL thiruvadigaLE saraNam


     adiyEn RAmAnuja dAsan

     Thirumalai Vinjamoor Venkatesh