If the process of transfer of the control and administration of the Tirumala Temple by the East India Company-appointed Collector to the traditional custodians in the Sri Vaishnava community was messy and complex, that of the Kanchipuram Sri Varadarajaswamy Temple was bitterly rancorous and disputatious.
The Tenkalai-s for long since the time of Sri Azhagiya Manavaala Jeeyar (Sri Manavaala Mahaamuni’s grand-disciple at Kanchipuram) in the 15th century CE had been continually, vigorously challenging the legitimacy of the Thaathacharya family’s hereditary rights that were granted to them by the Vijayanagar Dynasts for ownership and control of the temple and its other subsidiary shrines both within and outside the precincts. Sensing that at a time when the East India Company was itself facing political headwinds blowing in from London, and an imminent winding-up Order too by the British Crown, the Tenkalai group decided it was the most opportune time for them to mount a fresh and very aggressive bid to disenfranchise and disempower the Thathaacharya’s and the Vadakalai’s community’s hold over the Kanchipuram Temple.
The long and bitter story of the British process of transfer of the great Vishnu temple at Kanchipuram in c. 1850s CE and the rivalry between the Tenkalai and Vadakalai groups has been very meticulously recorded and narrated in R. Varada Tatacharya‘s book (already cited earlier). It is worth reproducing below in full the exact and relevant extracts from several passages in the book which provides a gripping account of the sectarian strife at Kanchipuram:
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THE HISTORY OF THE HEREDITARY TRUSTEESHIP OF THE THATHACHARYA FAMILY
In 1842, the Government, in pursuance of their policy to deliver over the temples to the “original mirasdars” called for applications from the parties who had such claims. Rayaguru Kotikannikadanam Kumara Tatacharya, a descendant of Lakshmi Kumara Tatadesika claimed the hereditary right to trusteeship. Tenkalais and others also claimed likewise.
The Collector Mr. Freeze after enquiry, made a proposal for appointing a committee, consisting of the representative; of all the four claimants for entrusting the management in its hands. Sri Kumara Tatacharya objected to this and preferred a petition to the Board of Revenue against the proposal of the Collector. Sri Tatacharya in his petition dated 15th February 1842 to the Board of Revenue stated as follows : “
The humble petition of Royaguroo Koti Kannikadanam Coomara Thathachariar, proprietor and first priest of the pagoda of Sri Devarajaswami at Kancheepuram on behalf of himself and the other members of his family— , That the original member, of your petitioner’s family who was universally known in this country as “Code (sic) Kannikadanam Tatachariar” and who was a priest of great sanctity and affluence formerly constructed at the expense of many lacs of rupees, the inner temples, mantapams and outer walls of the pagoda of Devarajaswami and adorned the towers of the Swamiji’s and Goddesse’s seat by a golden cover of immense value. He procured from the Karnatic and Muhammadan Governments, valuable endowments of land and merahs for the support of the pagoda and contributed to its prosperity in different other ways. He was in a word the proprietor and head of the church and enjoyed the first “Theertham Maulay (sic)” and several other valuable privileges.
In consideration of these important services and of his established right and high character as a priest, an image of his person was, on his demise established in the pagoda and at its expense daily pujas and Annual feasts are performed to that Image in honour of the deceased.
To prove this assertion your petitioner begs to submit for your board’s perusal an endorsement of Mr. Cotton, former Collector of the Jaghir. Your petitioner himself recently procured contributions to the pagoda from the Rajahs of Mysore etc., to the extent of several thousand rupees and holds the same rights and privileges in the pagoda which his forefathers enjoyed. The said priest of respected memory and his descendants had for many years the management of the pagoda and its funds and latterly carried on the affairs through their “goomasthas” , Rama Row and Kondungy Srinivasa Ragavachar, but always under the general control of the ruling authorities.
The former was dismissed for having disobeyed the commands of our family and from the latter the management was taken by Mr. Place former Collector of the Jaghir…”
Your petitioner begs also to submit the enclosed correspondence between the Collector and Revenue Board of that time and the ISTEYARNAMAH by Mr. Place which will clearly show that his family had for a length of time, the Superintendent (Superintendence ?) of this large pagoda and that they were latterly permitted to appoint an agent of their own for the management in spite of the unjust opposition of their enemies the Tengalai Brahmins.
Your Board’s attention is solicited to the Moochilikas taken by the Board of Revenue from the said Srinivasa Raghavachari and which at once proves your petitioner’s family as the lawful proprietors of the said pagoda.
It is now unfortunately proposed by the Collector of Chingleput under your Board’s order to give up the management of the said pagoda and your petitioner’s family have been called upon to propose an arrangement for its future superintendence. But they stated their particular desire that it should be retained under “circaar” management as no private individual can properly undertake the same. Your petitioner therefore most humbly begs leave to inform your Board that he could not co-operate with those recommended by the Collector as Joint-Trustees and earnestly prays that your Board will not approve of that arrangement because it was proposed by the Collector to satisfy his opponents. But that you will be pleased to consider the superior claims and unquestionable right of your petitioner’s family and order him alone to be placed in charge of the pagoda and its funds in the event of the Government being determined to give up the management.
If your Board considers it necessary to appoint more than one man for the management, you may nominate three or five members of our numerous family who are in respectable circumstances and worthy of all trust etc., etc.”
The Board after considering the above petition by Sri Kumara Tatacharya and in pursuance of it, recognized the claims of the Tatachaarya-family to the right of hereditary trusteeship of the Temple and passed the following order on 24—10—1842:— “Petitioner is informed that his claim to the church- wardenship of Devarajaswamy pagoda at Kancheevaram is recognized and the Collector has been furnished with instructions accordingly”.
Further the Board in its proceedings No.466 dated 24-10-1842 fully accepted the representations by Sri Kumara Tatacharya regarding “the ill-assorted materials having within it Tengalais and Vadagalais the High Priest and the subordinate servants of the Pagoda” and agreed with him that the Temple’s affairs cannot be run with peace and order if entrusted with such a committee as recommended by the Collector. They therefore thought that the best arrangement for the pagoda would be to constitute “Sri Coomara Tatachariar, to be the sole Dharmakhartha, the dignity to be hereditary”. The Collector was asked to carry this into effect. It may be observed that none of the other claimants objected to the proposal of the Collector to form a committee to run the administration. This situation reminds us of an old story wherein two females both claiming a baby as her own went to the court. When the shrewd judge made a proposal that the baby may be cut into two and shared by them one of them agreed but the real mother of the baby withdrew from the dispute praying that the baby might be handed over to her opponent so that the child may at least live. This proved the genuine claim of the latter and the baby was handed over to her. This parallel exactly fits in with the story of the handing over of the Temple to the Tatacharyas as the sole managers.
The spurious claimants were prepared for the division of the trusteeship right, whereas the Tatacharya objected to its division. At the time of the Board’s order recognizing the Tatacharyas as the churchwardens of the Temple from a long time past and instructing the Collector to hand over the Temple to Sri Kumara Tatacharya, he (the Tatacharya) was absent and at Mysore where he had to attend to his duties as the royal preceptor. Previously, he came to Kanchi on hearing that the Government was asking for applications from the original mirasdars of the temples for restoring back to them the temples. But on finding that the Collector had proposed an arrangement which could not be accepted by him, he preferred a petition to the Board as aforesaid and returned to Mysore. The Tashildar under instructions from the Collector therefore had to write to Sri Tatacharya, to Mysore to return, for taking possession of the Temple. The letter dated 10—11—1842 runs as follows :
“To Sreemath Upa Tirumalai Latchmikumara Kanchi Koti Kannikadanam Roya Durgam Kumara Tatachariar Avergal. From K. Sreenivasa Row, Tashildar of Conjeeveram Taluq offers many prostrations. Doing well here and hope to hear the same from you. It is settled that Dharmakarthas should be appointed and that all Devasthanams that were under the Government management should be delivered over to them. Accordingly I have received this day from the Collector order No. 28, issued in my name to the effect that ornaments and all other properties belonging to Sree Devarajaswami Devasthanam as well as the management appertaining to it should be placed in your possession and that a receipt should be obtained and forwarded. Therefore, I have written this letter. The Devasthanam is a big one where there are many ornaments and other properties. Further, in as much as you yourself should have all management and in as much as you yourself should personally obtain possession and give receipt, whatever other business you may have there you should postpone it and come to Conjeeveram as early as possible as soon as you see this letter. Nothing need be written in extenso regarding other matters”. (Signed) S. Sreenivasa Row Tashildar Conjeeveram, Conjeeveram Taluq 25th Arpisi of Subakrith (about 10—11—42).
Sri Tatacharya accordingly on receipt of the above letter hastened back to Conjeeveram and took charge of the Temple. But Sri Kumara Tatacharya did not stay long at Kanchi after assuming the office. He authorized Sri Sudarsana Tatacharya, his eldest son and four other members of the family to conduct the affairs of the pagoda during his absence and returned to Mysore where his presence, at the palace was urgently required.
A few months later in April, 1843, he passed away at Mysore. The Temple’s affairs were managed according to his arrangement by his son and others of his family subsequent to his demise. The Government recognized this arrangement also. The Collector in his letter to the Board of Revenue dated 25-4-1843 had stated “that he had no difficulty in recognizing the subsequent trustees appointed by the first trustees from among themselves since the Board had decided that the dignity to be hereditary is in the family of Tatacharyas who are accordingly prepared to make their own arrangements”. The Board’s proceedings recognizing the claim of Sri Kumara Tatacharya to the “ church-wardenship ” of Devarajaswamy pagoda and ordering the Collector to give effect to the same, was further approved and confirmed by the Government in its minutes of consultation dated 16-12-1842. The Government by the same proceedings rejected the petition of the Tenkalais saying that “their prayer cannot be complied with”.
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“Baffled in the attempts to get the trusteeship of the Temple, one of the Tenkalai claimants, belonging to the Attan Jiyar’s line by name Appoo Row instituted a suit before the Zilla Civil Judge, Chingleput in original suit No. 5 of 1844, to recover from the defendants (Tatacharyas) the office of Dharmakarthaship of the Pagoda. The other claimants did not pursue the matter further, at this stage.
The Civil Judge who heard the suit dismissed it as groundless. A large number of documents about 66 and a long correspondence extending over a period of more than 50 years were filed on both sides as well as the public correspondence, during the course of the hearing. He-upheld the case of the Defendants as based on facts and as per the ancient documents procured. Further appeals to the higher courts were also similarly dismissed with costs.
Frustrated in their attempts to get the trusteeship the Tenkalais rushed to the courts, civil and criminal, disputing several services and rituals in the Temple just for the sake of giving headache to the Tatacharya trustees. They laid claim to more than 1300 naamams as Tenkalai in the Temple including the Mulavar (Chief Diety). Some 20 or 24 were alone decreed to them as they were proved to have existed earlier. These…… were those that had been surreptitiously introduced by the scions of the Attan Jiyar’s family when they were running the administration of the Temple during the 18th Century and which were not noticed by the Tatacharya Dharmakartas, since they were all lurking in some insignificant corners of the Temple.
They attempted again in 1880 to change the administration, before the District Judge. The Judge refused to give permission to the scheme suit, observing it to be frivolous and baseless and such attempts should not be encouraged.
Some of the services of the Tatacharyas, like Mantra Pushpa and Stotrapaada were challenged directly and through others.
The Tatacharyas were driven from pillar to post and had to establish their rights after hard fights up to the High Court. The customary and other honours to Sri Desika and Tatadesika and Ammangaar in all the perambulations of the God and Goddess had to be established only after the Tenkalais were fined and convicted twice, for their illegal acts of preventing them, in the criminal courts.
“As a well organized sect, and with the backing of charities created by the Tenkalai Vaisya community, the Tenkalais could always give trouble to the Vadakalai Tatacharya trustees and their community, by various methods, and dispute each and every act done in the normal course.
The Alwars’ and Acharyas’ idols (worshipped in different shrines or sannidhis inside the temple precincts) were also the subject-matter of dispute in the beginning of this century. Claiming them to be Tenkalai and accusing the Vadakalai Trustees of having stolen them from their custody, they first tried in the criminal courts. The complainant was fined and asked to pay compensation for having preferred a false complaint. The appellate court confirmed the fine with the expression of a regret that the complainant had not been “mulcted with heavier fine” for his audacity in preferring such a false complaint against the Trustees.
Subsequent to the criminal proceedings, the Tenkalai Archaka of the Nammalvar Shrine instigated by the Tenkalais filed a suit, before the District Munsif’s Court. Here also he failed. Appeals to the District and High Courts were also dismissed with costs. The observation of the District Judge in this connection is worthwhile noticing, “If at all there had been any change in the naamams of the Alwars and Acharyas, it should have been from Vadakalai to Tenkalai” affirming thereby Vadakalai naamams alone existed on the person of the deities originally and Tenkalais made some inroads with regard to some of them.
In O. S. 11 of 1907, a suit was instituted by the Tatacharyas themselves for framing a scheme for the administration of the Temple.
In the appeal stage in A. S. 212/1909, in the High Court, the Tenkalais got themselves impleaded as parties.
Their Lordships in framing a scheme for the administration of the Temple provided for five trustees from the family of the lineal male descendants of Sri Tatadesika (three from the eastern branch and two from the western branch ). They refused to accommodate the Tenkalais in the Trust-board here also. They have provided for a Supervision Board consisting of one Vadakalai, one Tenkalai and one Smartha or Madwa Brahmin to supervise the administration.
In O. S. 1 of 1928, District Court Chingleput the Tenkalais again filed a scheme suit for amending the scheme framed by the High Court in A. S. 212/1909.
In A. S. 175/1934 High Court, the High Court amended the original scheme and constituted a Trust-board consisting of two Tatacharyas (one from the eastern branch and one from the western branch.) and a third trustee, a Smarta or Madwa Brahmin to be appointed by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Board, to be the executive trustee. The Tatacharya trustees are to be elected as usual by the members of their own family. Here also the Tankalais failed to get themselves included in the Trust-board. This scheme framed by the High Court in 1941 is still in force (1978).
The H. R. C. E. Board has stepped into the shoes of the original Supervision Board. The administration is being run, without any hitch and smoothly. Many major improvements have been witnessed during this period also. But the Tenkalais are, as usual, levelling all sorts of baseless charges and accusations against the Tatacharya trustees, in their frustration.
It has to be borne in mind that the Tenkalai-Vadakalai disputes which mar the atmosphere of the Temple have nothing to do with the administration of the Temple by the trustees. These disputes, are witnessed more during the time when it was under the Government control, and under the Receivers, than when it was under the Tatacharyas. We have to pray our Lord Varadaraja alone to set right things”.
– UNQUOTE –
From the accounts of how the East India Company in the 19th century CE went about transferring thus the custodianship of both the Tirumala and Kanchipuram temples to the Sri Vaishnavas, it is clear that the sectarian divide between the Tenkalai and Vadakalai groups — the so-called “tennaachaarya”-vs-“desika” of the North-South, Sri Rangam-vs. – Kanchipuram and the “Dravida-vs-Sri Bhaashya” “sampradaaya” within the larger community of “ubaya-vedaantins” — only grew wider and ever more cantankerous. It did not abate at all even when later the country came under the direct rule of the British Crown. Both groups kept on dragging each other to the civil courts for resolution of even minor litigation related to obscure religious practices and minor ritualistic proprieties.
By the time India became an independent nation in 1947 CE, and a modern republic too in 1950 CE, the temples of the Sri Vaishnavas of Tamil Nadu still remained the battleground for unresolved parochial conflicts and simmering sectarian frictions with their origins dating back to over 500-600 years ago!
The Sri Vaishnava sects stubbornly refused to reconcile their differences. Their 100-odd temples in South India became hotbeds of ongoing Tenkalai-Vadakalai turf-war that often flared-up in the civil courts as vexatious, litigious suits that exasperated many a sitting judge even who many a time found himself unequal to the task of having to give verdicts after deciding upon matters of obscurant theology and obtuse sacerdotalism rather than legal principles or precedents.
To this day the two groups in the community that once used to proudly call itself as adherents of “ubhaya-vedaanta”, refuse to put behind them their historic baggage of anachronisms and mutual animus.
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(to be continued)
Sudarshan Madabushi