Search:
Bhakti List Archives

svami manavala mamuni's vaibhavam - part 5

From the Bhakti List Archives

tavaradhan • October 22, 2001 


rImathE saTakOpAya namah
srImathE rAmAnujAya namah
srImathE anantArya mahAguravE namah
srImathE vara vara munayE namah


dear bhagavathas,

The last post on svami's vaibhavam had information on
his life till erumbiappa became his shishya.

After that, more scholars became shishyas of svami 
maNavALA mAmuni. appiLLai, appiLLAr were the chief 
among them. This appiLLai is the acharya that has 
written the vazhi thirunamams for all the azhvars
and acharyas. Further revelations were made by the 
Lord to some srivaishnavas about svami manavala 
mamuni being adisesha and ramanuja himself (uttama 
nambi, for example).

At this time, svami fulfilled one of the commands 
of his acharya - he wrote commentaries on the works 
of pillai lokacharya, svami azhagiya manavalap perumal

nayanar, wrote the nitya grantham of ramanuja in  
tamil, wrote a summary of thiruvaymozhi in the
form of thiruvaymozhi noorrandhaadhi and the great 
songs givin details about azvharacharyas lives - 
upadesa rattinamalai. The main rahasya commentaries 
that svami wrote were on thattva trayam,
mumukshuppadi,
srivacana bhooshanam and acharya hrdayam. He also 
wrote commentaries on the works of svami arulaalap 
perumal emperumanar - gnyaana saaram and prameya 
saram. It is further said that svami wrote a 
commentary on  sri bhagavadgita called tAtparya
deepam. 

Our elders, when they refer to the commentaries and 
works written by svami manavala mamunigal always point

out to the anustanam of svami as a true srivaishnava. 
svAmi did not write any work on his own (other than a 
mangala slOkam for varadaraja and a sthuti for
ramanuja - all others are summaries/commentaries on 
azhvar acharya works)- he only made the works of our 
acharyas available and more accessible through his 
commentaries. This shows svami's strong belief and 
bhakti in the teachings of his acharya and acharyas 
before their time period.

There are further details abot svamis vaibhavam that 
I will skip for the moment - vaibhavams that include 
prativadi bayankaram aNNan becoming a sishya of svami,

svami establishing the  chinna jeeyar matam at 
thirumalai, the avataram of the venkatesa suprabhatham

due to svami's command, and svami's establishment
of acharyas at kanchipuram and other divyadesams.

Now comes perhaps the most important gesture of Lord 
Ranganatha towards all the souls - It is very obvious 
that all the souls need to have the knowledge about 
the 5 things (nature of soul, nature of the Lord, 
nature of the means to the goal, nature of the goal
and the nature of the obstacles to achieve the goal) 
to attain nitya kainkarya to the lord in srIvaikuNtam.

And for the vast  majority of us, this happens due 
to contact with an AchArya. Obviously, the better the
a
charya, the better the learning for us and the more 
chances we have of surrendering to the Lord due to our

conviction. The Lord had been searching for eons
to show the universe the perfect AchArya. Even while 
the Lord came to the Universe in the form of rama and 
krishna, he had ample amount of teachers that he could

have shown to us as the epitome of an AchArya. But, 
the Lord waited for the most perfect Acharya to be 
present on this earth so that He can show the world
who the jagadAcharya was. svAmi manavala mamunigal was

that acharya.

The way in which the perfect acharya was shown to the 
world is of course through the Lord composing the 
srIsailEsa daya patram thaniyan. The events leading 
to the avataram of that great thaniyan has been 
described numerous times by many people on this list -

I will skip those details for the sake of brevity.

In this mail, I would like to paraphrasea commentary 
on the thaniyan, written by jagadacharya 
simhasanadhipathi, vaikunTa vasi, svami PB 
aNNangarAchAriAr svAmi.

srIsailEsa dayA pAtram:
The Lord feels that, in rama avatara, he surredered to

a  person that was a sailEsa dayA pAtran, and that
that  surrender was not perfect. sailam refers to the 
rishyamooka parvata, the lord of that mountain was 
mathanga maharishi - the person that was the
receptacle of mathang's grace was sugreeva - so, 
sailesa daya paatra here refers to sugreeva. rama 
("sugrivam saranam gathah","sugreevam naadham 
ichchathi") surrendered to sugreeva for various 
purposes, but had to threaten him with destruction as 
sugreeva forgot to repay the debt to rama, before 
sugreeva came to help the Lord. To overcome that 
("kurai") dissatisfaction, that the 
He surrendered to an imperfect being in that avatara, 
the Lord chooses to become the sishya of the epitome 
of an AchArya, the one that is the receptacle of the 
grace of srisailesar (thiruvay mozhip piLLai).


dheebhaktyaadhi guNa aarNavam:

in rama avatara, the Lord surrendered to an ocean
(ArNAvam)- an ocean of salt - lavaNArNavam - Even 
here, the samudra  raja refused to obey the Lord and 
the Lord had to threaten destruction before he agreed
to help the Lord. In the case of maNavALa mAmuni, the 
Lord surrenders to an ocean of knowledge, wisdom and 
bhakti. This again addresses His own concern for 
having surrendered to an imperfect person earlier.

yatIndra pravaNam:

After listening to ramanuja noorrandhaadhi (97th song)
-thannai uRRaatcheyyum thanmayinOr, that talks 
about the greatness of the devotees of ramanuja, the 
Lord felt that it is even more special to be the 
sishya of the greatest devotee of ramanuja than 
ramanuja himself. (There are various instances quoted 
by our acharyas as to the acharyathvam of ramanuja vis

a vis the Lord - thiru-k-kurungudi, the incident in 
thirumalai etc..).

vandhE ramya jaamaatharam munim:

In rama avatara, the Lord's teacher was viawamithra.
We all know about the imperfections of sage 
viswamithra. In krishna avatara, the Lord's teacher 
was sandeepani maharishi. When Lord KrishNa asked him 
what he would like as guru dakshiNa (even though he 
knew that his sishya was the Lord Himself), the rishi 
asked for reviving the life of his dead son rather 
than srIvaikuNta.  The Lord was dissatisfied with the 
completeness of these teachers,and hence chose the 
epitome of a sanyasi - ramya jaamaatru muni.

Thus, this thaniyan expressed by the Lord Himself is
not only an instance of the Lord showing the universe 
who a great AchArya is, but also an expression of His 
infinite causeless (nirhEthuka) compassion towards the

souls in this universe - 

Other AchAryas have written commentaries on this word
of the Lord too. I will attempt to paraphrase those 
later.

Today, Monday 22nd OCtober is the thirunakshattiram of
this great AchArya. Let us all chant his glory and 
surrender to this acharya on this day -

srIsailEsa dayApAtram dheebhaktyAdi guNArNAvam,
yatiNdra pravaNam vandhE ramya jaamaataram munim.


AzhvAr emperumAnAr jIyar thiruvadigaLE saraNam,
adiyEn madhurakavi dAsan,
varadhan


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals.
http://personals.yahoo.com


--------------------------------------------------------------
           - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH -
To Post a message, send it to:   bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com
Archives: http://ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/
 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/