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clarification

From the Bhakti List Archives

Mohan Sagar • March 29, 1997 


Forward from Varadhan:

Dear bhaagavathaas,

Here is a clarification on my previous post  on  MaNavaaLa maamunigaL's
vaibhavam.

Sri.Mani brought to my notice the portion of the post which reads

'PiLLai LOkaachaaryaar, in his immeasurable kindness, was the first aacharya
 to give the SriVaishnava community granthams on the rahsyaarthams'.

The above is an inaccurate statement. PiLLai LOKaachaaaryar was the first
aachaarya to give the SV community a clear and easy to understand
(uLLankai nellik kanipOl) work on the rahsyaarthams.
Before him, there were many works - the most notable being AshtaslOki.
AshtaslOki is a sanskrit work - 8 verses in length written by Bhattar.
The first four deals with the meaning of the thirumantram, the next two
deal with dvayam and the last two with the charama slokam.

There are also two more works called 'parandha rahasyam'  and 'nigamanappadi'.
Nigamanappadi is considered to be a summary of parandha rahasyam.
There however is a difference if opinion among our elders as to who actually
wrote these two granthams. One view, taken by puttur Srinivaasa Iyengar,
is that these two were written by periya vachchaan piLLai. Another view,
taken by PBA, among others, is that these were written by Naayanaar Achchaan
PiLLai. Periya vachchaan piLLai's period is before PiLLai lOkaachaariyar's.
Naayanaar achchaan piLLai's period is after PiLLai lOkaachaariyaar's. So,
depending
on whose view one takes, these two works may be considered before or after
mumukshuppadi.

My thanks to Sri MaNi for pointing out the error.

Aazhwaar emperumaanaar jeeyar thiruvadigaLE saranam,
Varadhan