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Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00015 Mar 2004

 
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Dear Sri Tirumanjanam SundaraRajan swAmi. Thank You for your mail. Your mail 
reminds me of, the timkering by the same person -persona non-grata- at 
thiruchanur temple some years back. Fortunately, that did not take off. Now, he 
he is trying his pranks at thirumala temple. 

It clearly points out to one thing. They are blatantly and shamelessly 
displaying their jealousy insofar as the crowd, wealth and powers are 
concerned.--> Can they match our Lord Almighty with any other deity? 
'ethanai seyyinum en magan mugam nEAr ovvAi" 
"kandavARRAl thanadhEA vulagena ninRAn'
The tenor of the rejoinder distinctly reflects not only your frame of mind, not 
only your bent of thinking , not only your forceful writing, not only the 
transmission of the message but vividly rings in my ears your voice, thorugh 
this mail. Thank you.
Can you please provide me with the mail ids of ttd and Chief Minister of Andhra 
Pradhesh for us to send mails?
Thank You for including me in your esteemed list.
ramanuja dhasan
vanamamalai padmanabhan
----- Original Message ----- 
From: SundaraRajan Tirumanjanam 
To: SriVaishnavaSri ; LakshmitatacharMA ; Ramanuja internet ; RangarajanSujata 
; AzhvarMA-Melkote ; PadmanabhanNS ; Rajappa ; VelukkudiKrishnanSvami 
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 9:13 PM
Subject: [ramanuja] Kanchi Kamakoti on Tirumalai.


Reproduced below is the rejoinder from the Divya-desa Paramparya Padu-kappu 
Peravai, Srirangam, 

to the loud Terminological Inexactitudes attributed to the Kanchi Kamakoti 
Sankaracharya

in the matter of Tirumalai Sri Venkatesvara Temple, our Holy-of-Holies.

The rejoinder merits the widest publicity in the press that you can possibly 
arrange, and in other media and manner.

A mail from you to the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh would also be 
appropriate, 

so as to highlight the Kanchi Kamakoti's unwarranted attempts at trivialising 
the Srivaishnava religion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Divya-desa Paramparya Padukappu Peravai
214, East Uttara Street,
SRIRANGAM-620006 
(District Trichy, Tamil Nadu). 

To 
The Editor,


Subject: Unwarranted falsehoods of Kanchi Kamakoti Sankaracharya, regarding the 
Tirumalai Sri Venkatesvara Temple.

Sir,

On his recent visit to Hyderabad, the Kanchi Kamakoti Sankaracharya had made 
unwarranted public statements regarding the time-honoured and established 
Vaishnava character and administration of the Tirumalai Sri Venkatesvara Temple.

We have the privilege of seeking your cooperation in discharging your valued 
role as responsible Press, in contradicting the falsehoods contained in the 
Kanchi Acharya's statements.

The Press Note prepared by us is attached for your ready reference and use.

Regards from

(A.Krishnamachari) 
SECRETARY 
Phone: 0431-2434398
kicha19@xxxx

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
Sri:

Certain unwarranted statements on the administration and worship mode in the 
ancient and world-famous Tirumalai Sri Venkatesvara-Srinivasa Temple have been 
carried in the Deccan Chronicle (February 29 2004) and the New Indian Express 
(February 28 2004). These statements have been attributed to the Kanchi 
Kamakoti Sankaracharya when on his visit to Hyderabad.


The Kamakoti personage's statements primarily betray his upstart bid to capture 
power and property in the Tirumalai Srinivasa Temple which is amongst the most 
venerated and historically well-documented centres of Srivaishnava worship in 
India. The statements constitute a paranoid ranting which underline the rabble 
doctrine, "The more loud, the more true" and "The more brazen, the more 
broadcast". They also betray a compulsive emotional need of this speaker to 
keep drawing attention to himself, and to stay centre-stage in the mass media, 
however reckless his enunciations or dubious his so-called initiatives for 
public peace or plainly moth-eaten his erudition. This manner of peremptory 
noise-making is hardly fair or edifying to the common sense and intelligence of 
the large number of followers he claims to have.


Some of the Kanchi personality's discoveries are as sensational as they are 
simply crass, as when he says that "Ramanuja had nothing whatever to do with 
Tirumalai". His another profundity is that "the Vaikhanasa mode of worship is 
not in anyway related to the philosophical doctrine of Vishishtaadvaita". 


Two other of his statements are carping on Sri Tridandi Sriman Narayana 
Ramanuja Chinna Jeeyar, and expose his neurotic jealousy of the venerated 
Jeeyar Svami. "Sri Tridandi Jeeyar should not interfere", says the Kanchi 
personality, "with Tirumalai temple administration matters. The Jeeyar is not a 
mathaadhipati at all but only a Vishishtaadvait preacher, and barely a wayfarer 
in Tirumalai !" In targeting the Tridandi Jeeyar svami for his crude attack, 
the Kanchi personality has forgotten to produce his own credentials which would 
empower him to declare a Srivaishnava institutional head as persona non-grata 
in Tirumalai.


The Kanchi personality seems to be the only individual who is ignorant of the 
fact that he has no locus standi whatsoever to declaim and decide matters in 
respect of the holy Sri Venkatesvara Temple in Tirumalai-Tirupati. Thanks to 
the media hype sponsored by his admirers in public life, this neo-Sankaracharya 
has come to be just tolerated, but not legitimised, in the four-seat 
Convocation of the Sankaracharya-s (Badarinath, Dvarakanath, and 
Puri-Jagannath, and Sringeri). None of the pontiffs of these four 
Sankara-peethas (which are regarded as having been founded by the venerated 
Sankara bhagavat-paada himself) has come out with the hilarious kind of 
statements as the Kanchi personality has presently made.


The Kanchi personality's strategy for gaining a foothold in the Sri 
Venkatesvara Temple administration is contained in his rather bland statement, 
"We Sankaracharya-s too have the right of offering worship-rites in Vishnu 
temples." Sri Sankara Bhagavat Paada was self-evidently a Vaishnava saint, but 
later-day distortions depict him as an ash-smeared Saiva. Any of the Sankara 
mathaadhipati-s is therefore received, as indeed any religious head of vaidika 
religion, with temple honours not only in Tirumalai but 




also in other temples in the country. But it is one thing to receive temple 
honours and a respectful preference to have darshan, and an entirely another 
thing (and unwarranted claim) to administer the rites of worship there. The 
Kanchi personality attempts to claim the right to administer the rites of 
worship in Tirumalai temple with general bland remarks, half-statements and by 
confusing the issues.


The totality of available evidence establishes Sri Venkatesvara Temple in 
Tirumalai hills as the Srivaishnava temple par excellence, and of great 
antiquity. The multi-strand evidence is authenticated in history, classical 
literature, inscriptional records, and the unbroken tradition of worship here 
and in other temples of the country. The Temple has been the inspiring theme of 
not only the ancient Tamil Sangham classics and post-Sangham classics like 
Kamban's famed Ramakatha etc, but is also venerated in the rapturous 
compositions of the subsequent daasa-saahitya in Kannada language, the moving 
songs of Kshetrajna, Annamacharya etc, and down to Sri Tyagaraja.


Sri Ramanujacharya (1017-1137 AD) had visited Tirumalai Sri Venkatesvaram hills 
at least three times, and had established the Elder Jeeyar in 1057-58 (with his 
residential Matham) in order to oversee the organisation of worship of Sri 
Venkatesvara. The Junior Jeeyar was established in 1102.


Sri Ramanuja's first-generation disciple Sri Anantaazhvaan (who hailed from 
to-day's Karnataka) was appointed by his mentor to keep the Lord's flower 
gardens and orchards. Anantaazhvaan's crucial Sanskrit work, Sri Venkataachala 
Itihaasa-maalaa, is a very authentic and comprehensive record of the debate 
sponsored by the local ruler Yaadava Naaraayana to put an end to Saiva 
importunate claims. It fell to Sri Ramanuja to establish, in this debate, on 
unambiguous and unassailable evidence that Sri Venkatesvara was the Vishnu of 
the veda-scripture. The streamlined modes of worship identified and 
reintroduced in the Temple by Sri Ramanuja were somewhat affected on account of 
the ravaging raids (1310 circa) of the Temples in the South by Malik Kafur and 
Ulugh Khan. The worship in Tirumalai was eventually restored by Manavaala 
Mahaa-muni who became the pontiff of the Srivaishnava capital of Srirangam.


The worship in Tirumalai Temple is rendered as per the (Vaishnava) Vaikhaanasa 
Aagama, which is the twin of the (Vaishnava) Pancharaatra Agama which is in 
observance in Srirangam Temple. The 108 sanctified Vaishnava Temples of the 
country observe one or the other Aagama, and Sri Vedantaachaarya's work, 
Paancharaatra-rakshaa, establishes that there is no material conflict between 
the two Aagama-s. It is therefore palpably absurd to say, as our Kanchi 
personality now fantastically proposes, that the Vaikhaanasa of Tirumalai is 
exclusive of the Srivaishnava Vishishtaadvaita religion and doctrine. The 
Kanchi research-finding is contradicted by the fact that every Vaikhanasa 
temple in the South (Aandaal in Srivilli-puttoor, for instance) is indisputably 
corroborative of Vishishtaadvaita metaphysics and has a clear and unique 
Srivaishnava in character. 


It is to be deplored that with the ostensible objective of widening the space 
for festive perambulation, the centuries-old large 'thousand-pillar' mandapam- 
pavilion was demolished recently. The demolished mandapam contained stone 
sculpting of as many as 164 time-honoured 'Tenkalai' Srivaishnava 
Oordhva-pundram (sanctified religious marking). This has simultaneously caused 
a triple loss to the Temple traditions, historical evidence, and archaeological 
values.


On behalf of the vast Srivaishnava Community of the country, 

and as especially the ardent devotees of Lord Sri Venkateswara, 


WE APPEAL

to the TT Devasthanam 

urgently to consider the following steps 


in the interests of the un-vitiated continuance of the fragrant and 
time-sanctified worship-modes of Lord Sri Venkatesvara's Temple, which is our 
Holiest of Holies ~~


* Give no quarter whatsoever to the Kanchi Kamakoti Sankaracharya in the 
administration and organisation of worship of Sri Venkatesvara Temple in 
Tirumalai, considering that he has no 'sampradaaya' affiliation to the Temple 
at all, and has therefore no locus standi to dictate to the TTD on the Temple 
affairs.


* Reconstitute the Temple Board to provide primacy for the Elder ('pedda 
keylvi' ) Jeeyar Svami, the Junior ('chinna keylvi') Jeeyar Svami, identified 
descendant of Anantaazhvaan, and Sri Tridandi Sriman Narayana Ramanuja Chinna 
Jeeyar Svami (whose 'sampradaaya' insight and service are unassailable).


* Constitute a seven-member standing committee to ensure the preservation of 
Srivaishnava Vaikhanasa Vishishtaadvaita traditions which had historically 
prevailed since ancient times in the Tirumalai Temple. The committee will 
provide ex officio for Sri Vaana-maa-malai Jeeyar Svami, one Vaikhaanasa 
archaka, three scholars of Veda-Shaastra, and two persons with sound 
administrative experience (one retired from Central Government and another 
retired from State Government).


"Sri Venkateyso jayatu"








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azhwAr emberumAnAr jeeyAr thiruvadigalE saranam



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