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srIvaishNavam in North India

From the Bhakti List Archives

tavaradhan • October 4, 2001 


srImathE rAmAnujAya namah

dear bhAgavathAs,

we have had a couple of posts on srIvaishNavam in
North India. adiyEn would like to share some of the
information I have on that -

Even from rAmAnujA's times, there has been an
influence in North India of srIvaishNavam - The
rAmAnandi movement traces its roots to the rAmAnuja
sampradAya. 

In recent times, HH vAnamAmalai jIyar svAmi in the
early to mid parts of this century, and jagadguru srI.
prativAdi bayankaram ananthAchAr svAmi travelled
extensively in North India, and spread the rAmAnuja
sampradAya there. To this day, there are tens of
thousands of followers of the vAnamAmalai matam, and
srI PB svAmis of kAnchipuram in North India. 

The famous rangAji mandir in ayOdhya was built by a
scion of the PB family, and is still being run by a
descendant of the family. In the earlier parts of this
century, there was a jIyar that adorned the pattam of
srIranga nArAyaNa rAmAnuja pItam called ayOdhyA
rAmAnuja jIyar. One of the scions of this family
translated thiruvAymozhi verse for verse, as well as
some of the commentaries into sanskrit, and
contributed to the spread of the divine wisdom of the
AzhvArs in North India.  The famous panasvAdi temple
in bombay was built largely through the influence of
srI. PB anantAchAr svAmi. Similarly in Ajmer, pushkar,
and various parts of rAjasthAn, there are a large
number of followers of the rAmAnuja sampradAya thanks
largely to srI. PB anantAchAr svAmi.

In parts of uttarAnchal,  parts of UP, as well as
parts of bihar, there are a large number of rAmAnuja
sampradAya followers, who in fact run a lot of vEda
pAtasAlAs and are administrators of various temples.

There is a large following, in gujarat (ahmedabad and
surroundings), for thirumalai anandAnpiLLai
akkArakkani svAmi (vaikuntavAsi), and currently his
illustrious son, who is quite young, and very learned.
We are fortunate enough in that this svAmi has
recently joined the bhakti list.

In orissa, near the pUri jagahhAdh temple, there is a
uttara rAmAnuja mutt, that is quite large and has a
large number of sAdhus that follow the rAmAnuja
sampradAya. Recently, there was a book published,
about the jagannath temple, and it has beautiful
photos of the mutts surrounding the temple. The
rAmAnuja matam has beautiful, full-wall paintings of
srI rAmAnuja and his immediate shisyAs that are quite
absorbing to see. To my knowledge, those are the
largest paintings of emperumAnAr that are present.

in nepal, there is a large following for the
vAnamAmalai mutt. To this day, hundreds of people from
nEpAl travel all the way to vAnamAmalai, at the
southern tip of the subcontinent, to gain initiation
into the sampradAyam and to worship the divya dEsams
in that part of the world.

AzhvAr emperumAnAr jIyar thiruvadigaLE saraNam,
adiyEn madhurakavi dAsan,
Varadhan




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