A pilgrim’s jottings on a 3-day whirlwind pilgrimage, May 4th, 2024 (Tirunelveli/Tuticorin) of Nava Tirupati temples
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After I had had Darshan at Sri Vaikuntam, Rajah, my car-rental driver from Tirunelveli, reminded me that the temple there was also regarded as a temple for the first and foremost of the “navagraha devatas”…. Surya bhagavan in the Vedic pantheon of the nine planets of the universe.
“Yes, I am aware of it”, I said, and mentally revisited the list below :
- Srivaikumtam Sir Vaikuntanathan Perumal
Temple – Surya (Sun) - Thiru VaragunaMangai Vijayaasana Perumal
Temple, Natham – Chandra (Moon) - Thiru Puliyangudi Bhoomipalagar Perumal
Temple – Budha (Mercury) - Rettai Tirupathi – North Temple – Sri AravindalochanarTemple, Tholaivilimangalam – Rahu
5. Rettai Tirupathi – South Temple – Sri Devapiran
Temple, Tholaivilimangalam – Ketu
6. Perungulam Swamy Mayakoothar Temple, Thirukkulanthai – Shani (Saturn)
7. Then Thirupperai Thiru Makara Nedunkulai Kaather Perumal Temple – Shukra (Venus)
8. Thirukolur Sri Vaithamanidhi Perumal Temple – Mangala (Mars)
9. Alwarthirunagari Perumal Temple –
Thirukkurugoor – Guru (Jupiter)
“But Rajah, inside the Vaikuntanatha temple , I saw no Sannidhi for either Surya Bhagavan or Navagrahas! Why then this association of Nava Tirupati temples with the Navagrahas?”
Rajah had no answer and kept driving sullenly. After a moment he murmured:
“I really don’t know Sir …. Only Shiva temples have Sannidhis for Navagraham… Vaishnava sthalams do not have separate shrines for the 9 planets. I don’t know the reason … Someone told me that for you Sri Vaishnavas it is totally forbidden to worship any deity other than Perumal. But all I know is that it’s been the customary belief of generations of peoples for hundreds of years that the Nava Tirupati Perumal kshetras represent the Navagrahas also …”
Throughout the rest of my car journey to Azhwar Tirunagari, my mind kept pondering over the question Rajah had stirred up.
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The temple of Sri Adhinatha Perumal at Azhwar Tirunagari is one of the most ancient and great ones in the country.
1. It is famed for being the birthplace of Sri Nammazhwar, the foremost Acharya and Guru for all Sri Vaishnavas irrespective of their sect or denomination.
2. The temple is celebrated because it was the legendary and historic meeting spot of two mystic saints of the Vedantic tradition and belonging to Tamizh nativity — Madhurakavi the poet who sang the beautiful hymn “kanninun siruthaambu” in praise of Nammazhwar and Nammazhwar the yogi who then revealed to him his 1000-versed Tamizh Veda , the “tiruvoimozhi”. The former was the key that unlocked the treasures of the latter.
3. Azhwar Tirunagari is also where centuries later another Sri Vaishnava Yogi, Sri Nathamuni came and recited the “kanninun siruthaambu” hymn 12000 times out of sheer and intense bhakthi for Nammazhwar . By the power of the mantra embedded in that potent Tamizh hymn, Nathamuni was able to have a direct mystical experience of Nammazhwar in the spirit. In the epiphany that later followed the extraordinary experience, the entire body of Tamizh hymns known as Divya Prabhandhams (4000 in number), the mystical and bhakthi-laden outpourings of all 12 Azhwars were revealed to Nathamuni the Yogi.
4. A couple of centuries later, Sri Ramanujacharya also visited Azhwar Tirunagari and sanctified the temple by his exalted presence while performing mangaLAsAsanam to “polindhu ninRa pirAn emperumAn” and “nammAzhwAr”.
5. A few centuries later was born in Azhwar Tirunagari the Sri Vaishnavite Acharya and great scholar of the 15th century , Sri Manavala Maamuni.
6. A century later, Sri Adivan Satagopan , the very first Jeeyar of the Ahobila Mutt — who had been ordained into the sanyaasa order by none other than Lord Malolan himself— also visited Azhwar Tirunagari to worship at the Nammazhwar Sannidhi. Legendary account has it that having reached Alwarthirunagari, he found to his dismay that the temple of Nammalwar was completely gone. It had been replaced to one wherein eleven images of siva (linga) had been installed and had come to be called Ekadasa Rudra Kshetra. The idol of Nammalwar was not to be found anywhere. Satakopa Jeeyar was greatly distressed at the loss of Nammalwar and his shrine. He then began living in Azhwar Tirunagsri and spent years constantly reciting and meditating upon Madurakavi’s “kanninun siruthaambu” stanzas when at last one day Nammalwar in spirit appeared before him in a vision, told him that his idol lay on the sand-bed of a rivulet of the Tambraparani flowing adjacent to a ravine and that the Jeeyar should go recover and restore it.
Adivan Sadagopa Jeeyar prayed to Nammalwar and lo! the latter’s idol slowly emerged as prophesied, from the river bed and floated out to the outstretched arms of the Jeeyar!
The then local Pandya King heard about the miraculous event and immediately became a loyal disciple of the Jeeyar.
Obeying the Jeeyar wishes, the King had the saivite images removed and re-installed the Nammalwar’s idol in the temple of Sri Adinathan as before with due pomp and thus restored the temple’s old Vaishnavite glory.
Azhwar Tirunagari thus, over several past centuries, has had many colourful and legendary associations with many Acharyas and Gurus of the Sri Vaishnavite Paramparai.
And that is why, I for one, have always believed Azhwar Tirunagari Adinatha Temple has for rather unknown and inexplicable reasons come to be associated with the popular astrological notion that is is somehow linked to the planet Jupiter, called Guru!
To the best of my knowledge, no authentic records exist — neither historical, scriptural nor epigraphical — to clearly connect the planet Guru with this temple . No Azhwar has sung about it. And no other Acharya has even made a passing comment about the astrological significance of Azhwar Tirunagari having any relation to the Lord of Jupiter, aka Brihaspathi — the planetary devata who is believed to bestow upon humans not only all-round prosperity and well-being but exalted knowledge and spiritual wisdom too.
So the question remains : Since when did this association with Guru and Azhwar Tirunagari begin, how and why? … To me it all seemed rather strange and mystifying.
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My desire to worship Nammazhar avatara sthalam at Azhwar Tirunagari had remained for long an unfulfilled one all my life until May 4, 2024… And it had remained a matter of deep disappointment, and even nagging guilt, that for over six decades, for any one odd and sundry reason or the other, I had let pass opportunities to visit this temple as and when they had cropped up in the past on a few occasions.
One of the first Divya Prabhandham “paasuram” that I had been taught at home when I was still young was the famous hymn of Madhurakavi Azhwar : “kanninun siruthaambu”. The verses of the hymn are only 10 short ones in number. They are couched in chaste and sweet Tamizh. So easy too, to recite, memorise and constantly meditate upon by anyone who is acquainted with the soul-stirring account of how Madhurakavi met Nammazhwar — sometime in 7th-8th century CE, according to historians.
When the former came searching for the latter across the countryside from the North over a thousand-mile distance and finally reached Azhwar Tirunagari, their meeting took place in a solitary corner behind a temple praakaara and under the deep shade of a tall, 5-trunk tamarind tree sprawling and spreading its branches over a secluded spot. There Madhura Kavi was told the mystic Nammazhwar , a mere lad who was barely out of his teens then, had been sitting in deep and total meditative Yogic trance for years … subsisting on barely nothing more than the breath of life.
It was then that the famous dialogue took place between the two Azhwars:
“செத்ததன் வயிற்றில் சிறியது பிறந்தால் எத்தைத் தின்று எங்கே கிடக்கும்?”
“அத்தைத் தின்று அங்கே கிடக்கும்”
The narrative of that dialogue between the two Azhwars found in Sri Vaishnava religious literature had always fascinated me by its profoundly Vedantic content and significance. Earlier in life as a young man, I had read several illuminating commentaries and insightful exegesis on the dialogue found in the discourss of many devoutly religious Sri Vaishnavite scholars. One particular “upannyaasam” on the dialogue I remember very well had held me enthralled on one occasion. It was delivered, in fact, by my own spiritual mentor (late) U.Ve.Sri Mukkur Lakshminarasimha Chariar. So many Vedantic concepts and doctrines which had been hitherto unclear to me were then unraveled for me simply by merely listening to the explanations Mukkur Swamy gave for that terse and aphoristic dialogue between Nammazhwar and Madhura Kavi. And it was exactly then that I think I got smitten by a deep lifelong desire to visit Azhwar Tirunagari and the avatara stala of Nammazhwar.
The dialogue of the two great Azhwars — Guru and Sishya — by itself had made me, at last, realise how many of my own small, tentative, inept and unsteady baby-steps I had taken towards grasping and understanding Vedantic thought — i.e. on my own little personal journey of spiritual inquiry — had in fact been enabled by the inspiration provided in the “kanninun siruthaambu” hymn, in praise of Nammazhwar. It was out of such realisation that a yearning grew in me to make a pilgrimage-visit to Azhwar Tirunagari. And such a visit would not not just be a a pilgrim’s desire satiated. It would actually be a Sri Vaishnava’s duty that under no excuse whatsoever that I could fail to do . If I did fail and let the duty go unfulfilled in life , then I also knew that as per the Vedic injunction below, I would hold myself guilty of a mortal sin of grave omission :
To Azhwar Tirunagari therefore did I hasten on road by car on that blessed day of Saturday May 4, 2024 — to worship at the very spot where Madhura Kavi and Nammazhwar had met …. a spot described in the “kanninun siruthaambu” hymn as “குயில் நின்றார் பொழில் சூழ் குருகூர்”! … “tirukurughur where the nightingale flocks revel in melting melodies”!
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(To be continued)
Sudarshan Madabushi