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Additional Thougts on the words " Om Ithi abhyubhyupagamya"

From the Bhakti List Archives

Sadagopan • June 19, 1998 


Dear Sri RanganAtha BhakthAs :

Swami Desikan is known for his choice of words 
and their depth of meaning (artha garbham ) .As we accept ,
Nothing is casual in his choice of words , since they 
flowed from Lord Hayagreevan , his upAsanaa murthy .

As I thought more about the above three words in 
the 30th slOkam of NyAsa Tilakam , a whole set of 
ideas came to me . I would like to share them with you
as an addendum to the previous note on the subject .

As Sri MahA NaarAyaNOpanishad declares :
" Om ithi yEkhAksharam Brahma --sAyujyam 
viniyOgam ".The Lord of Srirangam receiving
the Prapatthi of Swami Desikan is sitting under
the PraNavAkruthi VimAnam as PraNava SvarUpa
Parabrahman . PraNava Naadham is emanating from 
there ceaselessly and is spreading as a Doppler Radar .
Swami Desikan approaches (upagacchathi ) 
this PraNava svarUpi in the sapraNava prarthanA 
pUrvaka manner and makes his viNNappam ( appeal ) .
He prays for the granting of Moksha sukham and 
nithya kaimkaryam .

The choice of prefixes " Upa " and " abhi" used in conjunction 
with the root gam ( upagamanam and abhyupagamanam )
are so profound . Upagamanam means going to 
or reaching or being duly received . The coming
and going is both covered here (gathAgathAni ). 
I will dwell below on how the Upa sabdham and abhi sabdham 
get intertwined to form the firm rope bridge to travel over 
the frightening torrent of samsAram rushing below .

Abhyupagatha: means to come to the help of or
to arrive at a point in time (after removal 
of ahankAram and mamakArams here ) or to 
assent to or agree to a request ( the Lord's
response to the prayer ). 

Swami Desaikan"s prayer is " Omithi abhyupagamya ".
An assent to the prayer (so be it , I have granted you
Moksham is waht he wants to hear from the Lord ).
That is  is what he asks for , now that he has
declared his ananya sEshathvam .He asks the 
parama upakArakan to lead him ( upanayanam )
to the seat of reverence (upasthAnam) , Sri Vaikuntam .

That the Lord is the  Omnipotent , Omniscient ,
Omnipresent One and to perform saraNAgathi with
mahA visvAsam to Him thru MahA Lakshmi is the upAyam 
for moksha siddhi was the upadesam of Swami Desikan's AchAryA .

That the Divya dampathis alone can grant
one the moksha sukham and the associated nithya kaimkaryam
is what is known as " Abhyupagama siddhAntham " or the admitted
axiom of Sri VaishNavism . 

It appears to me that Swami Desikan chose therefore 
the word " abhyupagamya " to suggest the intertwining
relationship between the PrapannA and the Lord , who
accepts that Prapatthi .It is a very rich conception 
that Swami Desikan presents to us here and gets
to the core of our SiddhAntham .

Swami Desikan ThiruvadigaLE saraNam ,
Oppiliappan Koil varadAchAri Sadagopan