Report from Sri Narasimhan Chakravarthi on his trip to Azhvar thirunagari bhavisyadhAcharyan sannadhi in Jan 2007

Visit Photos at

http://picasaweb.google.com/iramanusan

We call Sri satakopan Svami Nammazvar's thiruvadi nilai as "ramanusan". we chant "muthal thai satakopan and ithathai iramanusan". we put Svami emperumanaar as gnana putran of Svami Nammazvar. How many of us know that there is no Ramanuja Sannidhi in Azvar Thirunagari. Well many of you would say i got the nuts and bolts in my head are a bit loose. not true.

The Truth is that there is no ramanuja sannidhi in Azvar Thirunagari. Not only that, we dont have svami koorathazvan sannidhi and nor Svami Periyanambikal sannidhi in Azvar thirunagari. The last sannidhi in Azvar thirunagari is Svami Manavalamamunikal's sannidhi. wierd but true. The above sannidhis are located in Ramanuja chaturvedi mangalam, a short distance from azvar thirunagari, well a street apart.

Azvar thirunagari is the capital of Srivaishnavam. the AUM of the srivaishnavam took avatara here. A- Azvar, U- Udayavar and M - Manavalamamunikal. munnavar and pinnavar are ok how did naduchonnavar took avatara here??. Famous history tagged by Svami Pinbazagiyaram Perumal jeeyar tells us why Svami Udayavar's Avatara Stalam is Azvar Thirunagari. Thus this Ramanuja who is here in Ramanuja chaturvedi mangalam is in fact elder brother of svami Nammazvar, since he came out "first" when Sri Madhurakavikal and company were boiling Tamirabarani and Azvar came second. Importance of this dhivyakshetram is countless for a SriVaishnava.

when Aadi Sesha is having perumal in his belly in Sri vaikundam he hisses and breathes hot air, when he hears Saama Gaanam thinking an asura has come. Heard Sri Velukkudi Krishnan Svami's upanyasam once and he said, it is not that aadi seshan doesnt know who he has in his belly and hisses. It is because he truely knows that the vasthu he is protecting and its value. and to that Aadi seshan periyazvar says dont doze of you aadi sesha, chakra, sanka sword keep awake and
protect the lord. Height of mangalasasanam??

now to reality, Infact if there is dhivya khestram a Srivaishnava has to protect, it is this. and yet all
of us have collectively let this happen to Svami Ramanuja's sannidhi here in RCM. well what happened?? adiyen was there first hand, for the first time and what did i see. BREAK DOWN thats what i saw.

prakrutham Jeeyar HH Sri paramahamsetyathi Devaraja Ramanuja Jeeyar along with his Srikaryam Sri M.R.Ramanujam svamin welcomed us (adiyen, father and mother) the next day morning when we went to Ramanuja Sannidhi. It is called Bhavishyadacharyan sannidhi here. True enough, we have had and witnessed vigraha prathistai for Mahacharyas when they were there, immediatly after they left this mannadu for melai idanaadu and even today long long after they left. However Svami Ramanuja is the only Acharya to have vigraham for him even before he came in to this world.

lets continue our journey into Acharya Emperumanaar sannidhi in Ramanuja Chaturvedi mangalam, near Azvar Thirunagari :-).

Sri Paramahamsetyathi HH Devaraja Jeeyar svami and Sri M.R.Ramanujam  svami welcomed us. something about Sri Jeeyar svami, in his poorvasramam he was in Thiruvallikeni serving Bala Ramanujacharya,  currently he is serving Bagavad Ramanujacharya. coincidence?? may be. adiyen said i will take fotos of the sannidhi and upload it in the website. He said i was more than welcome to do.

he said he will take me in order around the sannidhi and also give documents which better explains the kainkaryams being done. Ok all lets take a tour around sri Bavishyadacharya sannidhi in Ramanuja chaturvedi mangalam built by our priya acharya Manavalamamunikal. There is a three tier rajagopuram which we will come to last.

There are three mandapams in the main sannidhi. Moolastanam, artha mandapam and mahamandapam. and there is the utsava mandapam where thirumanjanams with azvar etc takes place.  The Moolavar is varna berar with aadi seshan behind him. Utsavar is svayam vyaktar
from river Tamira Bharani(Tamira bharani in tamil means Copper vessel). Thus Tamira bharani river
becomes mother status to both Azvar And Ramanuja.

first stop for us is the utsava mandapam. There are fissures in the ceiling. due to the thalam(ceiling)
being in old style elephant back structure along with lime mortar, what happens is that when it rains the water seeps into the inner mandapam. Temporarily there is some cement mortar pressed in to stop the seepage. this wont last long. main thing is the outer top ceiling has to be taken down and new thalam must be laid along with the Thala Odu. ( Note:: if you had been there in triplicane you can see the thala odu in mottai maadi floor). This above paragraph will make a lot of sense once we come to the top floor.

As we come out of the utsavam mandapam, to our right there we can see the main madaipalli (kitchen) of the sannidhi in a dilaphiladed state though. That madaipalli is not in use now. it needs a lot of repair before it can be used. in the website you can see the state of the madipalli to some extent. I could not enter the madaipalli to take pictures because of the amount of bat droppings. however adiyen went as far as i can go and streched my hand along with the camera and clicked the foto. Sri Jeeyar svami said the next one after Rajagopuram to get corrected is this madaipalli.

There are 74 or so bats in the sannidhi main madaipalli and that has  nothing to do with the simhasanathipathis whom svami installed to spread this sampradayam. and that is a big nuisance. once the madaipalli is cleaned up and corrected and starts functioning these creatures can retun to caves of their natural habitat.

Lets continue our pradakshinam of our dear acharya sannidhi led by jeeyar svami himself.  There is
another room which is not used now after the madaipalli. it was so dark inside so coulndt make out
what the room is used for. probably to put in the thirusivikai in which bavishyadacharyan travels.
and the thirusivigai(kedayam in thondai nadu) was in a condition unbearable. dusty and many places rusty. it needs a over haul. this brings us to the praharam. The praharam itself is fantastic long one in which ramanuja can have a pathi ulathal during his varusha utsavam. it is moist for some reason. recent rain hasnt dried up completely?? it is well ventilated on the right side via the frills. needs new windows but it is well ventilated. if there was a nandhavanam bringing frangrance, with yathiraaja vimsathi and prarthana panchakam gosti all baagavatas around him doing upachaaramas, thiruvanbhandam etc it will be a fantastic scene.

that brings us to the back of the main shrine. this is the heart cracker. yes it is the deep crack in the
stone wall which cracks the toughest of hearts. the stone wall of the back of the sannidhi is of two
layers. one stone later which holds up the vimaanam. and other brick and lime plaster layer which gives protection to svami from temperature fluctuations. both are malfunctioning. if you see the photos i have uploaded you can see deep crack in the center along the boundaries of the stone layer.

that leaves us with one problem a big big one, the stone wall can buckle to the pressure by the top
vimaanam anytime now. all it needs is a tough rain season, when the vimaanam will be with full weight along with the water weight. and i for sometime in azvar thirunagari pray for no rain till the kainkaryam is complete. One possibility is to take apart stone by stone and then stick them together with lime mortar again, just like they did the spinx of Gaza. that will give the main garbha gruham new lease of life.

as we go around in circumbulation behind the precarious moolastanam standing on a wrecked wall due to aging, we come across a fantastic well which has plenty of water. Sri Ramanujam svamin's vision was to use this well to water the plants in the garden of thulasi which is going to come around the sannidhi. when we move along we can clearly notice the back side wall which has one back to the steet and one side inside the temple. this wall is in serious trouble as well. due to loose sand  down below in the asthivaram tis wall is listing towards the street. It is the leaning wall of Ramanuja chathurvedi mangalam. (after the thirumadaipalli this portion of the surrounding wall is to eb taken care)

There is another problem. when we look into the left praharam(praharam to the left hand side of svami emperumanaar). this is the most beautiful of the praharams. silpams all over it. i had to take around 50 pics to completely cover all the silpams. The problem is one of the pillars has sunk well over a half feet inside which made the supporting uthram made of stone to sink with it aswell. closely look at the pics and you will note the problem.

once we cross this praharam we come to the madaipalli. This is upari(reserve) madaipalli which  is in use now. This madaipalli is working as the main madaipalli now. the water outlet in this madaipalli is the problem. the outside street is higher level than the madaipalli so the water movement outside is difficult. water sort of stagnates inside which isnt good at all. also one can notice they have a seperate well for this upari madaipalli. We can draw water from the well and directly transfer the water inside through a gomuki(old days stone pipe)

Behind that well is steps to climb up the temple to the vimaanam.  and when we turn around there is a board stating the kainkaryam being done by VEDICS USA.

next week we will climbup the temple, see the real problem of the mottai maadi, Rajagopuram, vimaanam along with Sri Jeeyar svami, Ramanujam svamin and adiyens father...........

Kurukapuresa samarambham kurukapuresa madhyamam!
kurukapuresa paryanthaam vadhe guruparamparaam!!

first kurukapuresan = Azvar, second is Bavishyadacharyan and third is Sri Manavalamamunikal
whose birthplace is all in Azvar Thirunagari. Akara Makara and Ukaara are all there in Azvar Thirunagari, Aazvar, Udayavar and Manavalamamunikal.

Please visit to join this noble kainkaryam
http://www.vedics.net/appeals/azhvartn/

and visit to look at the fotos.
http://picasaweb.google.com/iramanusan/

...lets climb upstairs on the ceiling mottai maadi of our priya aacharyan sannidhi. The first thing i saw
was a fantastic engineering brain of the one who constructed this ceiling. They had constructed sloping roofs. This is for a good reason. The area is rainy area of tropical region. So when it rains it is commonsense to construct a sloping roof so that water runs off as fast as they come. Now the problem is the sloping roofs called "yaanai muthugu"(elephants' back) cause of the resemblence to the elephants back which slides off on both sides, were constrcted at different times. hence they are at difference levels. So the water drainage is a problem. If you remember I have written about the water seeping inside the utsava madapam earlier in this article. this is the reason for that. if this is
not corrected, whatever work we do inside the utsava mandapam is waste. The mottai maadi is made of lime mortar and is heavy. Engineers idea is to take out the lime mortar elephant back construction entirely and make a flat sliding surface with proper drainage which leads water outside the temple to the ramanuja chaturvedi mangalam streets. I beg to differ here, If we can accumulate water using water storage facility inside the temple that will feed the wells inside the temple it will be very useful for the summer months when the water is scarce. The water storage/ collections system is a big hit in Chennai city.

After they do the madaipalli and the main sannidhi they will have to take this up and my guess is they
will take this up last. The view from this place is fantastic, you can see many many shrines around Svami emperumaanars sannidhi. and i have provided a couple of them (Svami periya Nambi's sannidhi and Svami Koorathazvan koodam). Then we see the replenishing work for the RajaGopuram. and we climb on the rajagopuram. One wonders why is there a fantastic woodwork inside the rajagopuram which is seen rarely by anyone.

when I was there the work was going on and workers had a leave or something(Thai Sankaranthi leave). There are beautiful artwork inside the rajagopuram. The art is made as wood carvings and are inside. adiyen had the baagyam of climbing into all three tiers through steps which adiyen had to hold adiyens stomach tight to scrape through. It is not for fairly built persons. They call othai adi paathai (path where only one could walk ata given time) i literally saw it. In the first tier may be four or five can stand at a given time and Sri Ramanujam svamin accompanied adiyen. but he couldnt climb the second and third tiers (due to age and the air is tight up there, and one can feel stuffy
easily)

Also adiyen climbed on a rickety ladder up the rajagopurams Lions/dragons on the either sides and
took a couple of snaps to show all of us what works has been going on.have a look at the Moolasthana vimaanam snap adiyen took from second tier. Then adiyen climbed down and went into the preparation area where they make the lion face etc using cement and achchu(dont know what is english for that). also took a couple of snaps of the electric bills paid by the temple.

Then came the talk of sand blasting the temple. Look at the one foto how many coats of lime has been applied so that the lion face inside is smudged beyond recognition. adiyen conclude with a group foto with HH Devaraja Ramanuja Jeeyar svami, Srikaryam Ramanuja Svami, madaipalli aththaan who accompanies jeeyar svami to temple and the madaipalli kainkaryam along with adiyens father Sri N.C.Rangarajan Svami. The last snap is of Azvar who was doing upadesam to Ramanuja on the pillar.

Adiyen wishes to thank Emperumaan, Naachiyaars, Azvar Emperumanaar, Jeeyar, HH Devaraja Ramanuja Jeeyar svami, Srikaryam Ramanujam svami, temple authorities, all the baagavathaas, all of you to give me strength to complete this report on Bavishyadacharyan sannidhi. Thank VEDICS who are doing this noble kainkaryam, thalai allal kaimaru ilein.  Thanks all to Sri Pattangi Mukundan Svamin who inspired adiyen to go there and have darsan thus involving adiyen in this noble kainkaryam.salamila aNilum polein. as usual comments and concerns are always welcome, but what is more welcome is your participation in this kainkaryam.

adiyens kind request is please involve yourself in this kainkaryam of Jagadaacharyan, who has done more than enough for us to attain paramapadham.

sriman maha bhoothapure srimath kesava yajvana:|
kaanthimathyaam prasoothaaya yathiraajaya mangalam||