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thiru allik kENi - Part 7 - Similarities to thirup pathi and Srirangam

From the Bhakti List Archives

Sampath Rengarajan • March 10, 1997 


Acknowledgement Note: I thank Sri Sadagopan for his
excellent posting on the celebration of Lord Parthasarathy
by several great musicians of the era.
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Thiru allik kENi - Part 7 - Similarities to thirup pathi and Srirangam

The kshEthram is similar in few ways to both thiruppathi
and srirangam interms of certain festivals. Both this and thirupathi
kshEthrams are the abode of Lord Vengkatan under the vimaanam
anatha and anatha nilaya vimAnam.

Since thiru vEngadan appeared here as vEngada krishnan,
purattAsi sani (Saturdays of purataasi month) are  very
special  here  as  similar to thirumalai.  Thiruppathi.
Swami  desikan praises the Lord of kanchi  and  Arangam
and  vEngadam as Narayana, VasudEva and Vishnu and  one
will  get  the palan of chanting the veDa manthiram  by
worshipping  these  three lord at these  3  temples  or
together in this thiru allik kEni itself.

This is also the kshEthram as similar to many others that
the lord is in the 3 popular sayaNams ie

ninRAn - as parthasArathy
irunthAn - as theLLiya singam
kidanthAn - as man nAthar

Every  Friday
there  is  a periya thiru manchanam performed for  this
Lord  vEngada  krishnan as similar to  thriuppathi.  On
every aippasi moolam (moolam star of the month aippasi)
there is a special sevai performed known as "kaiththala
sEvai".  This  is  a  very special  occasion  for  this
temple. I am  reminded of the its parallel in Srirangam
known as "kaiththAngal sEvai" performed on iraappaththu
7m  thirunaal.  (ie I remember it as  occuring  2  days
after  our  upayam on 5m thiru naal). Lord  namperumaal
will be carried in  "bare hands" and darshan is offered
as  such.  ie no pallaku or dolai is used to carry  the
Lord.  Incidentally this day is also known in Srirangam
as  nammaazwaar moksham. In thiru allik kENi, Prior  to
every purappadu the changam is blown at this temple  as
similar  to  the Lord getting ready to goto the  battle
field.  There  is  also a set of drums  that  are  also
rolled marking the purappAdu. Although I had personally heard this
changam  during  my visit to this temple  I  wanted  to
confirm  this with a localler who is an ardent  devotee
of  this Lord. I already knew the significance  of  the
various  aspects  of  changam  used  here  through   my
analysis.  I  am  also  told by Smt  Vaidehi  that  the
changam  is also blown at each time the Lord is  coming
in  from  his  visits and a variety of   ubasArams  are
offered  to  this Lord. While all the Lords of different
divya desams are received with certain minimum protocol,
this Lord who is the Raja HIMslef of dwaraka is received
it seems with many such protocols similar to receiving a
king.  This is similar to receiving  a
King  back  to his pavilion or receiving a  modern  day
ruler  back to his capital by rolling a red carpet  and
offering the reception by all the chief's of the  three
armed  forces  etc.  in protocol. Since  this  Lord  is
HIMself a warrior this changam marks HIS presence  each
time  HE starts out. There other occasions HE had  used
changams  in  HIS avatharam that I will  discuss  in  a
separate  post. This is very unique to this  temple  in
all  the  108  DD's. No other temple has  this  changam
playing  the Osai of "paancha chanya changam"  (playing
the monotone) during the puRappAdu.

Sri Rukimin thAyAr samEtha Sri Parth saraty perumAL
thiruvadikaLE charaNam

Sampath Rengarajan