Arthi Prabhandham-12 (Part-1)

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Srimathe Ramanujaya Namaha!

Sri Vara Vara MunayE Namaha!!

 

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After taking the tonic, the divine work of nammAzhvar what should we do?

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We have to act as per the words of madurakavigal. What did madurakavigal say?

 

Madurakavi is the only alwar who never sung about any of the Gods in divya

desam. He has only one prabandham to his credit, the kanninun siruthAmbhu. But

our acharyas consider this prabandham, consisting of 11 paasurams as the

supreme. In these 11 paasurams nowhere does madurakavigal sings about bhagavan,

he considers his acharya, Sri SaTakOpa as the only god to him.

 

Though the prabandham was sung on nammAzhvar still it has been included into the

nAlAyira divya prabandham. Why? That is because these are the 11 paasurams,

which actually got us back the other 4000 paasurams with us today. Nathamuni

under the instruction of parankusa dAsa recited this prabandham, kanninun

siruthAmbhu 12000 times and obtained all the other paasurams via nammAzhvar. So

without these 11 paasurams we would have been left without the 4000 paasurams.

 

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What is the so great about these paasurams and why is it regarded more important

than even thiruvAimozhi and other prabandhams?

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For devotees the panchamObhaya nishta (charamObhAya nishta) is very important.

What is panchamObhaya nishta? Bhagavan in geetha says the ways to attain moksha

as, karma yoga, jnana yoga, bhakthi yoga and finally prapatti. But in our

sampradayam there is one another important upaya that is the panchamObhayam

(fifth way), Acharya nishta. The first person who showed this in practice is

madurakavi and hence Acharya nishta is more frequently referred as madurakavi

bhAvam. All the acharyas in our guruparampara followed madurakavigal and

remained with great prathipaththi towards their acharyas and mainly Sri

EthirAja. So Sri maNava:La maha:muni says, we have to act according to the

words of Swami Madurakavi and remain with acharya bhakthi, very essential for a

devotee.

 

Our PoorvAcharyas consider ThiruppallAndu to be equal to the pranavam since any

vedam starts only with pranavam and dravida vedam starts with thiruppallAndu.

Whenever any prabhanda ghosti starts it is always with the thiruppallAndu.

Madurakavi Alwar’s kanninun siruthAmbhu is regarded as equal to the “nama:”

padham in thirumanthram. Even while looking at the order of the prabandhams we

find that the kanninun siruthAmbhu has been given the central position by our

poorvAchAryas.

 

(To Be Continued)

Jai Sriman Narayana!

Adiyen Ramanuja Dasee, Sumithra Varadarajan