Dear Bhagavathas, I am placing this appeal received from the Sri Vilakkoli Thoopul Vedantha Desikan Sravanam Trust. This trust was formed in the year 1960 by Late Srirama Dasarathy Swamy affectionetly called as Dasarathy Mama Who is well to all Asthikas in Thondai Mandalam and to all over Sri Vaishnavas throughout the world. His selfless service to our community is a fact which needs no publicity. The various activities of the trust are listed below. 1. All the Uthsavams for Swami Desikan at Thoopul are performed by the Trust only, 2. Swami Desikan Sravana Purapadu, Thirumanjanam for Vilakoli Perumal and Acharyan, Veda. Prabanda Parayanam and Sathumari and prasada deistribution were done by the trust. 3.Puratasi Swami Desika Bramhotsavam for 10 days including vahana purapadu both moring and eveing, Thirumanjam, Veda-prabanda Sathumurai, Thadiyarathanai both morning and eveing. 4. Mangalasasana Uthsavam on Puratasi Sravanam in a grand scale at Vilakoli Perumal temple as well as Lord Devathiraja Temple. 5. Monthly Sravanam and ten days festival at Desikan sannadi at Lord Varadaraja Temple. 6. Presenting Veshti (10X6) to about Vedic Scholars at Thoopul on the day of GARUDA SEVA OF LORD VARADARAJA. 7. Grand Purappadu of Swami Deikan on Vaikasi Sravanam Day in the "MANGALAGIRI OF LORD VARADARAJA'. 8. Punniyakoti Uthsavam of Lord Varadaraja is performed by the trust. 9. Anustanakulam Uthsavam Madapapodi at Thoopul of Lord Varadaraja along with Bashyakar 10. Nithyaradhanam for Lord Varadarajan on Puratasi Sravanam. The Trust has got 20Lakhs as Corpus Fund. The expedinture per annum will be Rs.5 Lakhs. The interest accrued is not suffient to meet the expenditure. The Annual Bramhotsavam of Swami Desikan will be celeberated from 3rd to 12th October 2005. All the Bhakthas are invited to participate and get the blessings of Swami Desikan The trust makes an appeal to all philanthropists all over the world to come forwad and donate liberally for making Swami Thirunakshthiram Celeberations as a grand suceess. The contribution may be sent by way of Cash/cheque/demand draft in favour of "Sri Vilakoli Thoopul Vedantha Desikan Sravanam Trust" C. R. VASUDEVAN, MANAGING TRUSTEE ADDRESS; Old No.6/New No.15 Anaikati Street, Kanchipuram-631 503. Tamil Nadu, India. Tel No: 04112-267082, 044-2475014 Dear Sri. Balaji, Yes Hebbar Iyengars were not originally Srivaishnavas as you said and also it is true that even Sri. Ramanujacharya was not a Srivaishnava when he was born. He was born to an advaitin! So when Ramanuja preached Vishistadvaita, Srivaishnavism became popular in Tamilnadu and as you said, when Sri.Ramanjua fled from TN and settled in Karnataka for 12 long years it spread to Southern Parts of Karnataka. The details of Hebbar Srivaishnava origin was published long back in the Hebbar Srivaishnava magazine called "Hebbar Kshema" and I remember reading this. Also a historical novel written by Smt. Neeladevi about the life of Ramanjuja in Karnataka named "Dhanya" gives similar answers to the orgin of Hebbar Srivaishnavas During the time when ramanjuja was in Tondanur(Tonnur) near Melukote, a group of elderly Kannada Brahmins came to Ramanjua and offered to convert to Srivaishnava Religion impressed by Ramanujas philosophy of Vishistadvaita. Ramanjua affectionately called the group of Hiriya Haruva(Elderly Brahmin Kannadigas) as Hebbar and thus originated the sect called Hebbar Sivaishnava(Iyengars). So Hebbar Srivaishnavas are originally Kannada Brahimins(Advaitins) who got converted to Srivaishnavas impressed by the teachings of Sri. Ramanuja and not of backward Caste as you said. Ramanuja asked them to settle in different places of the Hoysala Kingdom(Current South Karnataka) and thus you can find many Hebbar Srivaishnavas mainly in the souther districts of Karnatka especially, Bangalore, Mysore, Mandya, Tumkur, Hassan, Kolar and Chamarajanagar districts. They have their kuladaivams or Haath perumal in different places of these districts. for more info. Please visit www.karnatkavaishanavatemples.net Since their mother tongue was Kannada they still have the affliction towards kannada. Gradually they learnt to speak Tamil mainlyu to learn the Divya Prabhandams. But still Hebbar Srivaishnavas cannot read and write in Tamil. They read the Ramanujas philosophical works and Alwars divya prabhandams translated to Kannada or English. But they recite Nalayara divyaprabhandams in Temples in Karnataka forming Gostis. They are called Melnatu Iyengars as they are residing in the High plateau of Karnataka. Another sect called Keelnatu Iyengars are those who migrated to Karnataka from Tamilnadu, which is lower than the Plateau of Karnataka. I request any one in the groups who can give more info on a unique sect called Hebbar Srivaishnavas of Karnataka. Om namO nArAyanAya Sampige Srinivasa Iyengar Bengalooru _____ From: k.s.Balaji [mailto:kadababalaji@xxxxxxxxx] Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2005 1:18 PM To: sampiges@xxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Origin of Hebbar iyengars While i was recently surfing the net, i came across a message to Bhakti list, in which a very pertinent question of Origin of Hebbar Iyengars, had been raised by, one Ranganath Sudarshan some where in march 2000. This aspect had been engaging my mind, for quite some time and no credible answers have comeforth from anybody. Even the Hebbar Shrivaishnava Sabha At Bangalore doesn't seem to have made any attempt to find out the roots of Hebbar iyengars. My introspection tells me that we must have been, most probably, belonging to Backward class community of that period. The reason is simple.. When Saint Ramanuja was about to be persecuted in Tamil Nadu, he escaped the persecution, and came away to a place called Melukote, which is in Karnataka.I am certain he could not have come with a huge number of followers, except may be a few hundreds. Its well known fact that vaishnavism spread in Karnataka, after Ramanujas coming,as he found that Temple entry was denied to back ward communities. In order to ensure entry to back ward class people, he could have converted a very large number of backward class people to vaishnavism, thro his disciples, who came along with him to Melukote. It is likely, that these disciples of Ramanuja were asked to spread out to various places of the then Mysore state, to spread his Philosophy of Vishistaadvaita and also to ensure temple entry to one and all including backward class, thro conversion to Vaishnavism, thus bringing them to forward fold... As these disciples of Ramanuja were mostly male members, it is most likely, they might have got married to these backward women who were inducted into the Vaishnava fold and our forefathers could be the off springs of such marriages. If u think aloud, u can see that while Hebbar iyengars, can speak Tamil interspersed with kannada words, they cannot read and write tamil. . As they say the first syllables/words learnt by a kid is always thro its mother tongue, and the mother while having learnt spoken/broken tamil thro marriage, to a pure vaishnavite, knows only Kannada from her child hood for writing and reading, which had been her langauge before marriage.. Hence she would have found it a lot more easier to teach her off springs this language than Tamil, which is not her mother tongue. Really i do not know how many takers are there for my introspection.. and the Hebbar iyengars may frown at my own findings.. Its better to accept the realities , if such be the case, than masquerading oneself as pure Brahmins. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] shriimate laksmiihayagriiva lakshmiinaaraayanaabhyaaM namaH Visit the Sri Parakala Matham Home Page at http://www.parakalamatham.org Yahoo! Groups Links --------------------------------- To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! 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