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From the Bhakti List Archives

V.Srimahavishnu • June 11, 1999 


 lakshmI nrusimha charaNau SaraNam prapadyE.

        Dear BhAgavtas,

            namO namah. 
 
   As it is well-known and widely accepted, Sri annamayya was the disciple
of AdivaNN SathakOpa jIyar of ahObilam mutt.   He had had another AchArya
called "Ghana VishNu". According to a book published by TTD, it is Ghana
VishNu who performed samASrayaNam to annamAchArya. This doesnt seem to be
correct. I came to know from Sri Tallapaka Satyanarayanacharyulu of
Tirumala that they traditionally belonged to Sri Ahobilam mutt. Sri T S
does the kainkiaryam of singing the kIrtanas of his mUlapurusha during
suprabhATa sEvA and "pavaLimpu" sEvA during which the Beloved Son of
vaikhAnasas is sent to His nAga paryankam.

              In addition to rahasya trayam, Sri annamayya received the
32-syllabled "nrusimhAnushtup" mantra from Sri SathakOpa dESikan. SrI
annamyya used to chant this incessantly just like SrI AnandALwAn used to
recite kaNNinuN SiRuttAmbu and SrI Periya JIyar dvayam. In the opinion of
Sri Peddibhotla Subbaraya Sarma, a great scholar of advaita school of
thought, SrI annamayya could compose 32000 kIrtanas only due to chanting
the anushtup mantra which is 32-syallbled.

           While most of SrI annamayya's kIrtanas are on the Lord of
TiuruvEngadam and alarmEl mangai, most of the remaining ones are on
mAlOlan, by Whose grace (thru SrI SathakOpa yati) He could become an
exponent of ViSishtAdvaitam. It is due to the extensive research done by
Sri Veturi Prabhakara Sastri, another vidwAn of advaita school of thought,
that most of SrI annamayya's works esp. almost all on mAlOlan, have seen
light.    

      SrI annamayya's works are the true essence of SrI rAmAnujar's and
SrI dESikar's preachings and are in simple Telugu. SrI annamayya has been
an inspiration for later VaishNava bhaktas like SrI rAmadAsu of
Bhadrachalam and SrI tyAgarAju. 
 
      In his kIrtana "malasI jUdarO maga simhamu", SrI annamayya salutes
the Male Lion wandering in the forests of "pedayaubaLam" (upper
Ahobilam),VEnkatagiri and vEdAchalam (Vedadri, Krishna Dist.).

I will write on Sri sundara narasimhar at Lord SrInivAsa's temple,
Tieumalai, in my next posting.

                         rAmAnujArya divyAjnA vardhatAm abhivardhatAm     
                                 dAsan
                                 Vishnu  
         
PS: Most of you might have seen the Telugu film "annamayya" or its Tamil
dubbed version "annamAchAryar". While the theme of the film and the motive
behind its shooting are very good, most of the incidents seen in the film
did not take place at all and they have re-written SrI annamayya's
life-history.