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The Life of Kuresan-8

From the Bhakti List Archives

sampath kumar • January 27, 2000 


Dear Friends,

After Mahapurna's cruel death at the palace of the
Chola king at Ganga-konda-sozha-puram, and after he
had himself been violently blinded for life, Kuresan
returned to SriRangam. 

Life in Srirangam without the benign presence of his
"achAryA" Ramanuja soon became unbearable for Kuresan.
In the meanwhile, all the stalwarts of the times began
to pass away, one by one.

Goshtipurna, a great mentor of Ramanuja passed away.
Tirumalai-AndAn and Tiruvaranga-perumAl-araiyar were
next to pass away. The news came to Kuresan that
SriSaila-purna in Tirupati, the maternal uncle of
Ramanuja and his mentor too, had expired. And finally
the news came from Kanchi that Ramanuja's most beloved
mentor, Sri.Kanchipurna too had passed away. Kuresan
had spent many years of his life in the company of
Kanchipurna in Kanchi and in his passing away Kuresan
felt a deep and painful void.

The city of Lord Ranga took on the forlorn and eerie
appearance of a ghost town in Kuresan's eyes. Ramanuja
was in exile, the leading lights of the SriVaishnava
movement were all dying one by one around Kuresan, the
SriVaishnava movement had suffered a setback, and
Vaishnavas everywhere lived in constant fear of the
ugly bigotry and fanaticism of those times. Suddenly,
Kuresan began to feel extremely lonely and abandoned
in life....

One day the blind Kuresan tottered through his way
from home to the temple of Ranganatha to have
'darshan' of the Lord there and to unburden his heart
in the presence of God of all the untold grief and
loneliness that had piled up within it.

The temple guards however stopped him at the gates and
told him,"Blind man, we have instructions from the
King to let people in only if they swear that they
willingly renounce RamanujachAryA as their guru. If
you denounce your guru you can enter the temple of
Ranganatha. If you won't this holy temple is out of
bounds for you!".

Kuresan told them, "Sires, please tell your King that
Kuresan is prepared to forsake Lord Ranganatha in this
world and even in the next. But denounce Ramanuja...he
never will!"

The blind Kuresan then hobbled back to his home and
told his wife, "AndAl, call the children and pack up
to leave Srirangam. We shall live here no more."

Kuresan and his family left the holy city of SriRangam
and trudged away to the town of TirumAlirunjolai (near
Madurai).

They settled down there and lived in exile as complete
recluses for many, many sad years.

(contd)

dAsan,
Sampathkumaran   
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