Unlocking the Values-1

July 2, 2008

Excellent swaminit is high time now that we learn, why do we need to follow a commentary and if at all we follow a commentary of arulicheyal, whose commentary we have to follow. adiyenSreekanth--- On Wed, 7/2/08, Padmanabhan <aazhwar wrote:Padmanabhan <aazhwar Unlocking the Values-1"vanamamalai" <vanamamalai >, "Sri Ramanuja" <ramanuja >, "oppiliappan" <oppiliappan >, "" , "divya desam" , "parichaya" <parichaya >Wednesday, July 2, 2008, 8:55 AM

VyAkyanam-s -Commentaries-

Unlocking the Values

'ilam enRu asiyE iruppAnai-k kANil-nilam ennum nallAL nagum' This is one of the ThirukkuRaL- s, by Saint Poet, ThiruvaLLUvar. A perosn was always lamenting that he was not having welath, while he was possessing agricultural land. The land wil mock at him. He has not realised the latent welath in his hand.

The message is, the value in the land is abundant but the vlaue has to be unearthed.This is humanly possible with efforts.

Similarly, AzvAr-s verses are outpours of their anubhavam. These verses emanated out of divine experience blessed by EmperumAn Himself.

These hymns are not just isolated stand alone ones but have coherent, cogent links being part of their lifeline.

These are not just a piece of litereature but embedded with philosophy, devotion and real happenings.

Unlike literature, just deciphering the meanings of the words in these pAsuram-s will not be sufficient.

The unravelling of the feelings of AzvAr-s, the discovery of the wonderful coherent links between pathigam-s and pAsuram-s, the hihglighting of auspicious qualities of emperumAn and last but not least the underlying philosophy in each of these is madnatory to understand and unravel these pAsuram-s.

One may wonder whether, it would be possible to fathom the mindset of the greatest apostles?

This is where our pUrvAcharyas come into play. Their knowledge level overshadows their other aspects (gnAnAdhikyathAlEA AchAryargaL- Sri Vachana BHUshaNam)

Sri MamunikaL in the upadEsa RethinamAlai lists out the importance of vyAkyanam-s, the five major vyAkyanam-s for the magnum-opus 'TiruvAimozhi' their emergence, the greatness of Sri PeriyavAchAn PiLLai and the lineage of EDu.

The word 'aruLich cheyal' crudely transalted would mean 'Work of blessing or Blessed Work'

Fathoming the mindset and excavating the true import with rasam and anubhavam-s leads to unlocking the values and make us realise that these are indeed blessed and divne outpourings.

'PeriyavAchAn PiLLia pin puLLavaikkum theirya,

ariya aruLich cheyal poruLai,

vyakyaigaL seivAL, AriyargatgipOdhu,

aruLich cheyal Aith tharinthu.' upadEsa Rethinamalai 46.

The wonderful commentaries of Sri PeriyavAchAn PiLLai, threw open the doors to meanings of the pAsuram-s,resulting in the value being unleashed and facilitated further dissemination.

Thus , the lack of these vyAkyAnam-s or commentaries, would have made us naught and we would have been gnawing with the pAsuram-s like several blind men around the elephant.

So great are the VyAkyAnam-s that it is at par with the original text themselves and no doubt that these great AchAryas were also blessed by EmperumAn Himself. These are the unique treasures, hallmark to our Sri vaishNavism and the greatness is second to none.

Let us dwell further on the characteristics of these vyAkyanam-s -Commeantaries

dasan

vanamamalai padmanabhan