Acharya Vamsa Vruksham

gokulkr · 10-15-2007, 01:25 AM

Acharya Vamsa Vruksham

Acharya means Guru or Teacher. Vamsa means Lineage Vriksham means tree. What is the relation between these 3 words. Are we telling that Acharya is a tree? No
Imagine a tree… say Banyan tree… A huge tree… is it not? What are the parts of a tree? Let us start from the root. The tree has root, stem, branches, leaves, and fruits etc.
Our Lineage of spiritual teachers is compared with a tree. Like the root has the connection to stem, stem to branches, branch to leaves and fruits. Our Acharya parampara has connection from the first acharya to our present Acharya.
By the way who is your present acharya? Ask your parents. We call them as Jeeyar or Andavan.Do you know who is your first Acharya? It is Sriman Narayana
So our Acharya Vamsa Vriksham starts from Sriman narayan and ends with our present acharya. Do you remember a Thaniyan,we recite before starting recitation of Pallandu?
Lakshmi naatha samaarambhaam, natha yaamuna madhyamaam.
asmadh aacharya paryanthaam vandhE guru paramparaam
Meaning:
I salute the line of acharyas starting with Lakshminathan i.e.: Sriman Narayana, the others like Nathamuni, Yamuna muni coming in between, and up to my present Acharya
Now let’s us learn briefly about our acharya parampara. First let us see a chart of our acharya lineage (See next page)
In this write up, let us learn about our Acharyas up to Swami Desika. In fact the acharya lineage after Ramanuja branches out in multifold and we have hundreds and hundreds of acharyas upto present day acharya.

Sriman Narayana
|
|
Sri Lakshmi
|
|
Sri Vishwaksenar
|
|
Sri Nammazhvar
|
|
Sri Nathamuni
|
|
Sri Uyyakondar
|
|
Sri Manakkalnambi
|
|
Sri Yamuna Muni
|
|
Sri Perianambi
|
|
Sri Ramanuja
|
|
Sri Desika
|
|
Present Day Acharyas