Sri Srirangam Chakravarthy,
Already many messagaes have been posted in group regarding Kanchi
Acharya's unwarrented comments on TTD activities in general and his
H.H. Sri Tridandi Sriman Narayana Ramanuja Chinna Jeeyar in personal.
Please go through them in the archives section of the messages, here
is one of the mail for your info.
From: nsp <aazhwar@xxxx>
Date: Fri Mar 5, 2004 8:25 pm
Subject: Re: [ramanuja] Kanchi Kamakoti on Tirumalai.
ADVERTISEMENT
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"
azhwAr emberumAnAr jeeyAr thiruvadigalE saranam
--- In ramanuja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Srirangam Chakravarthy
<srirangam_chakravarthy@xxxx> wrote:
> What was the remark made by Kanchi Acharya?
> We can do business with Kanchi Acharya and Shaivates.
> If it is a valid remark we can discuss about it.
> It is important to have good relationship with Kanchi Acharya as he
is the
> school of thought and a good peedam for a few centuries.
>
>
> Srirangam Chakravarthy
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> shantha kumar <kmshantha_kumar@xxxx> wrote:
> SriMathe RamAnujAya Namaha:
> SriMadh Vara Vara Munaye Namaha:
>
> Dear Members,
>
> Here is more update on TTD published in The Hindu
> dated March 16.
>
> Link:
> http://www.hindu.com/2004/03/17/stories/2004031705910500.htm
>
> Vaishnavite seers criticise remarks by Kanchi Acharya
>
> By Our Special Correspondent
>
> CHENNAI, MARCH 16. Vaishnavite seers and mutt heads
> today strongly criticised the reported remarks by Sri
> Jayendra Saraswati of Kanchi in Hyderabad on the
> internal affairs of the Venkateswara temple at
> Tirumala.
>
> In a strongly-worded statement released at a press
> conference here, Sriperumbudur Embar Jeer, Melkote
> Yatiraja Jeer, Vanamamalai Kaliyan Ramanuja Jeer,
> Sriperumbudur Varada Yatiraja Jeer and Kanchi Azhagia
> Manavala Jeer said the Sankaracharya was in no way
> connected with the internal affairs of the
> Tirumala-Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD). They said Sri
> Tridandi Sriman Narayana Jeer made suggestions to the
> TTD for restoring `aagama' modalities and traditional
> customs and practices as reestablished by Sri Ramanuja
> and his disciple, Sri Anantaazhvaan, in the 11-12th
> centuries AD. As the Jeer's suggestions were given to
> preserve and enhance the temple's sanctity, the Andhra
> Pradesh Chief Minister and the TTD received the
> suggestions in the spirit with which they were made
> and agreed to implement them.
>
> Rituals at Tirumala were being guided by Vykhanasa
> Agama, with which the Kanchi Acharya had no
> connection. He had no locus standi on the affairs of
> the Vaishnavite temple, they said.
>
> The Kanchi Mutt head would agree that no Vaishnavite
> seer would be given any role in the affairs of Siva
> temples. Legally too, as confirmed by a Privy Council
> judgment, one had no right to interfere in the affairs
> of temples belonging to other sects. The Jeers said
> they would not encourage or be party to any derogatory
> comment, which would disrupt harmony amongst Hindus.
> The common people were not interested in divisions
> between Vaishnavism and Saivism that would lead to
> confusion, they said.
>
> ================
> (End of Article)
>
> Shantha Kumar Kazhiyur Mannar
> http://www15.brinkster.com/mudaliandan
>
>
> __________________________________
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>
> azhwAr emberumAnAr jeeyAr thiruvadigalE saranam
>
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