Divya kshetram No. 1 - kumbhakONam.
From the Bhakti List Archives
• August 28, 1998
tirukkudandai - The divya kshetram par excellence. I have now gotten around to really get in the act. The kshetra purANam of tirukkudandai is found in brahmANDa purANa, pAdma purANa, bhavishya purANa etc. So what I am including below is not some folklore, but is based on authentic sources. My initial reasons for not voting for tirunvE~nkaTattAn are pure selfishness. Whenever I have gone there, He does not make it easy for me to get into His residence. Once, He even used His door keeper to keep me out by saying that I have girdhA (whatever it means, since I did not intentionally have it - I just did not worry about how I looked, and He decided this was sufficient reason to blame me with a girdhA!). ara~ngan is catching up with tiruvE~nkaTattAn in not being a friendly host also. Even when there are not too many people waiting in line, He uses His servants to kick us out of His sannidhi of late without allowing us time to enjoy His darSanam. This is not the case with my ArAvamudhan, and I hope He will not ever become an unfriendly Host. So on purely selfish grounds, I will vote for ArAvamudhan. But there are also very sound reasons why He is No. 1. tirukkudandai is where tiruppati ve~kaTAcalapati and triuvara~ngam's ran~gaSAyi ended up ultimately. First is the story of how SrInivAsa ended up in triukkuDandai. Lakshmi got angry that Her husband put up with bhr*gu maharshi's kick on the chest, and left SrIvaikunTham and came down to this earth. SrIman nArAyaNa could not live separated from Lakshmi in SrIvaikunTham, descended down to earth, and came to tiruppati, but here He met PadmAvati and married Her. When Lakshmi found out that SrInivAsa got married to padmAvati, she got furious and came to tiruppati looking for Him And SrInivAsa did not want to face Lakshmi and so He came to tirukkuDandai and took refuge in a cave in the temple of ArAvamudhan (the sannidhi in the temple in tirukkuDandai is called the pAthALa SrInivAsar sannidhi). Lakshmi became sad that She could not find Her Lord in tiruppati, and decided to do penance in the hema pushkariNi in triukkuDandai, and so appeared on a lotus flower in the pushkariNi. Bhr*gu maharshi who had committed the apacAram of kicking the Lord on the chest in SrIvaikunTham, which started this whole episode, decided to do severe penance in tirukkuDandai as hema maharshi to get Lakshmi as his daughter so that he can serve her and thus remedy his sin. When he found this beautiful child in the lotus flower, he was overjoyed and took the child with him and brought her up. When SrIvaikunTha nAthan came to KumbhakONam, He assumed the name of ArAvamudhan and married kOmaLavalli and decided to rest here in His serpent bed. For those of you who are pitching in for tiruve~nkaTam as the No. 1 divya deSam, just be aware that tiruve~nkaTattAn just had an intermediate stop in tiruppati, but then proceeded to kumbhakONam, where He assumed the name of ArAvamudhan, and got united with Lakshmi in the form of kOmaLavalli. This is confirmed by tirumaZhiSai AzhvAr in tiruc-canda viruttam - "Sezhu~nkozhum perum pani pozhindiDa uyarnda vEi vizhundu ularndu ezhundu viN puDaikkum vE~nkaTattuL ninRu ezhundirundu tEn porundu pUm-pozhil tazhaik-kozhum Sezhun-taDam kuDandaiyuL kiDanda mAlum allaiyE". Also remember that tirukkuDandai is where Goddess Lakshmi decided to take Her incarnation in the form of kOmaLavalli, and tirukkuDandai is where bhr*gu maharshi (assuming the name of hema maharshi) decided to wait for nArAyaNa to become His son-in-law. By now, it should be obvious what divya deSam is No. 1. Just to give additional reasons, we will look at more data. After the paTTAbhisheka, SrI rAma gave away the ancestral ArAdhana vigraha to vibhIshNa as a parting gift. vibhIshaNa rested the vigraha on the ground in SrIra~ngam, but could not take it back from the ground again, bhagavAn having assumed His reclining pose as Lord ra~naganAtha. But He told vibhIshaNa that He planned to proceed to tirukkuDandai with half of His vimAna (the vaidika vimAna) to marry Lakshmi (komaLa valli) and bless hema maharshi. Then He proceeded to KumbhakONam and assumed the name and form of ArAvamudhan and married kOmaLa valli. Thus, ArAvamudhan is none other than ra~nganAtha, who also ended up in kumbhakONam because kOmaLavalli decided to reside in kumbhakONam. It should be noted that our thAyAr is a paDi-thANDAp pattini in every sense of the term. Even for kanup-piDi, when the thAyArs from other temples come to the poRRAmarai tank just outside the temple, our thAyAr stays inside the entrance and does not come out of the door to the tank which is literally 10 feet away from the door. Such is Her devotion to the service of Her Lord. The chariot of perumAL in tirukkuDandai was given to perumAL by none other than tiruma~ngai AzhvAr (as found in the account by SrI A. ethirAjan in his account of the 108 divya kshetra-s), and is one of the largest in South India. The AzhvAr's composition tiruvezhukkURRirukkai, the words of which can be arranged like a chariot (you can see it in the temple when you visit the place), is on this perumAL. This emperumAn's role in the revelation of the nAlAyira divya prabandham should be well known to bhakta-s. It was here that nAthamunigal got his directive from bhagavAn for restoring the nAlAyiram. Thus, our ArAvamudhan is credited with giving us back the divya prabandham. He is also called ArAvamudha AzhvAr for this contribution of His. tirukkuDanthai is a svayam-vyakta kshetram like kA~nci, SrIra~ngam and tiruve~nkatam. This is also the place which was drenched by the nectar of creation that spilled from the pot (kumbham) soon after the waters of pralaya subsided, and in this sense kumbhakONam (tirukkuDanthai) is the nucleus of creation. kumbhakONam is also the place where bhAskara (Sun) performed intense penance to regain the luster that he lost in a battle with sudarSana cakra, and Sar~ngarAja ultimately acceded to bhAskara's request that kumbhakONam may also be remembered as bhAskara kshetram. The vaiDika vimAnam in which ArAvamudhan resides in kumbhakONam is one of three vimAna-s in which bhagavAn appeared in response to the penance by brahma and Surya (the second one is the praNavAkAra vimAnam in SrIra~ngam and third is the SrIvaikunTha vimAnam). Even the corridor of ArAvamudhan's residence is sung by periAzhvAr (tU-nilA muRRattE pOndu viLaiyADa...). Of the 108 tiruppati-s, the corridors of only three kshetra-s are sung by AzhvAr-s: that of ArAvamudhan, ra~nganAthan, and nIla meghap perumAL. There are 54 pASurams on this perumAL by our AzhvAr-s - bhutattAzhvAr, pEyAzhvAr, tirumazhiSai AzhvAr, nammAzhvAr, periyAzhvAr, ANDAL, tiruma~ngai AzhvAr, kamba nATTAzhvAr, and a Slokam by svAmi deSikan in tAtparya ratnAvaLi (Slokam 66). I could go deeper into the meanings of the outpourings of the AzhvAr-s on ArAvamudhan, but even without that, the point is made in my opinion on why His kshetram is the foremost one. -dAsan kr*shNamAcAryan
- Next message: narayanan kazhiyur: "Re: Re[2]: thirumAlai"
- Previous message: Mani Varadarajan: "Re: dhyAna"
- Next in thread: TV.Venkat_at_frco.com: "Re: Divya kshetram No. 1 - kumbhakONam."
- Maybe reply: TV.Venkat_at_frco.com: "Re: Divya kshetram No. 1 - kumbhakONam."
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]