Bhakti List Archives

Re: Udayavar Thittam

From the Bhakti List Archives

tavaradhan • Thu Jul 11 2002 - 20:01:33 PDT 


maNi wrote
---
>   or "low", in general.  I doubt that even the personality of
>   Bhagavad Ramanuja could manage politically to give Dalits
>   a large role in service of the Great Temple. Recall that in
>   Tirunarayanapuram, the Dalit Tirukkulattaars ("people of holy
>   birth") were allowed temple entrance only three days in the
>   year, that that itself was a tremendous accomplishment by our
>   Saint. -- Moderator ]
---

just to add to the above, the entry of "dalits" in the Great Temple 
on a normal basis seemed to have happened only after the 1930s (or 
maybe 1940s). There are incidents narrated by people that point to 
that - i.e. many brahmins were upset about the entry of the "dalits" 
into the Great Temple and protested vehemently etc. -

Similarly there are many people from the earlier generations that 
have stopped going to temples after the entry of "dalits" became a 
normal affair.

This only proves how difficult it must have been for our AchAryAs to 
have brought the level of universalism in our religion to include 
*everyone*. One can only imagine the difficulties that would have 
been faced by svAmi emperumAnAr, svAmi nampiLLAi, svAmi piLLai 
lOkAchAriAr, svAmi azhagiya maNavALa-p-perumAL nAyanAr and svAmi 
maNavALa mAmunigaL in this regard! - All the above AchAryAs went to 
great lengths to remove the caste barrier from our religion even 
during their times - and if there is such a resistance to reform even 
during the 1900s (or even now, when we refuse to let "non-brhamins" 
in the gOshti!), it is quite natural that such AchAryAs who tried to 
remove the barrier did face a lot of negative resistance and dush-
prachAram.

Sometimes, we do not appreciate "pAr ulagil aasai udayOrkku ellAm 
aariyargAL koorum enRu pEsi varambu aruththAr pin" {svAmi 
emperyumAnAr removed the hurdle and instructed to provide religious 
teaching to *anyone* who has the interest - from upadEsa rattina 
mAlai of svAmi maNavALa mAmuni}. These kinds of discussions are a 
good place where we can pause, and reflect on the greatness of our 
AchAryAs.


adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan,
varadhan




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