Guest guest Report post Posted October 4, 1994 Thengalai/Vadagalai: about some settings related to the concepts as heard from elders. This is rather going to be a lengthy one and I prefer to do it in instalments. May be most of what I am about to say may have appeared in print and it is equally possible that it may not have. My exposure to the current literature on the subject is practically nil and yet I dare to write this as I had heard by word of mouth from people who had deep experience of the presence of Ramanucharya in Srirangam, being located in the field that still exists and electrifies me every time I am there. I hope the field will prevail; the vanishing breeds have vanished or about to vanish. I have been following with keen interest the debate on the two sects. This debate triggered me to recall some of the conversations I had some forty and odd years back with an elderly Prapanna in Srirangam, who hailed from a family directly in the line of one of the 74 disciples of Ramanujacharya. He was a scholar both in the Granthas of the Acharya and his followeres and also in the historical developments since that time, with a keen understanding of the link between the prevailing social conditions at various stages and the events that propelled the changes and defined the states in SriVaishnavism. I had also verified most of what follows with a relative of mine who was equally a great scholar and publisher in the script Grantha (otherwise known as Manipravala). For generations his family resided in Srirangam and participated in the affairs of SriVaishnavism making the Granthas written since then available to the general public by inventing Manipravala, a hybrid script partly tamil and partly Sanskritized representations easy to compose for printing and harmonizing with the outlines of the Tamizh script. This invention greatly influenzed the spread of SriVainavism among the Tamizh speaking population and also the spread of Sanskrit literature in Malabar after the Malayalam script was reformed on the anlogy of Manipravala. In fact, the kings in the then Malayalam speaking states had a joint effort made towards the reformation of that script and sent delegations to Srirangam to study Manipravala. My father used to tell me very interesting stories of that time and the very many efforts that were made with great dedication. Now let me branch off to the subject in point in a rather round-about way. To be continued... venkat v.rao, Oct.4,1994 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites