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swami manavala mamuni spent his time, after becoming a sanyasi, in srirangam, teaching his sishyas, living a life that is considered to be the epitome and the highest example of a life that a servant of god can lead. He further ensured that the services to lord ranganatha were happening as per the norms set by svami ramanuja.
Several srivaishnavas, many of whom belonged to some acharya purusha lineage, became sishyas of svami manavala mamuni - thirumanjanam appa, bhattarpiran jiyar, kandadai annan, singarayar are a few key names.
svami manavala mamuni undertook the permission of the lord of srirangam, and proceeded to azhvar thirunagari to do mangalasasanams to svami nammazhvar. on the way, svami went to kuntee nagaram (the birthplace of svami thiruvaymozhip pillai) and other divya desams. in azhvar thirunagari, he stayed for sometime, giving upadesa to sishyas in that area of the Lord's land.
At this time, there was one sutra of a work called acharya hrdayam, which svami manavala mamuni wanted to understand deeper. acharya hrdayam is a work by svami azhagiya manavalap perumal nayanar, the brother of svami pillai lokachariar. This work contains the concepts that were expressed by nammazhvar in thiruvaymozhi, and is entirely composed in manipravalam, with words that are part of thiruvaymozhi. this is a standard rahasya grantha for srivaishnavas, as it elucidates the inner meanings of thiruvaymozhi in a concise format. svami manavala mamunigal was looking for an acharya that could elucidate on the meaning of that paricular sutra which he wanted to understand deeper. many elders gave a suggestion that people in thirunarayanapuram (melkote) will be able to give him that meaning, and he started towards thirunarayanapuram.
Meanwhile, in thirunarayanapuram, an acharya called aay jananyachar had heard about the prabhavam of the avatara of adisesha, and wanting to see him, had already started from thirunarayanapuram to azhvar thirunagari. svami janayachar was an expert in acharya hrdayam, and had further written a commentary on thiruppaavai (3000ppadi).
Both the acharyas met halfway, and after mutual exchanging of respect and affection, returned to azhvar thiruganari, where svami manavala mamuni learnt the meanings of acharya hrdaya from aay jananyachariar svami. here yatindra pravana prabhavam narrates an incident that shows us the greatness of aay janayachar svami -
When svami was in azhvar thirunagari, some jealous people in thirunarayanapuram spread a rumour saying that he had attained paramapadam, and all of his belongings should be given to the temple. the local people did so. after some time aay jananyachar svami returned to thirunarayanapuram. on hearing the happenings there, svami became esctatic that the owner of all the universe had taken his belongings back, and that selvapillai takes the material wealth of someone that He wishes to Grace. He requested selvapillai to give him the vigraha of gnyanap piran alone, and left all of his remaining wealth with the temple.
In azhvar thirunagari, where svami manavala mamuni was staying, some jealous people laid fire to the matam where svami was staying. all the sishyas and the local people were enveloped in sorrow that svami might be hurt, and it is said that svami took his sesha form, shielding the fire from harming him, left the matam and came among his sishyas. the perpetrators were found. svami, with his infinite grace, requested the king not to punish the perpetrators, and gracefully allowed them to perform service to srivaishnavas and took them as his sishyas.
svami performed numerous renovations, and built several additions to the temples at azhvar thirunagari and thiruk kurungudi. all these were accomplished on svamis commande by the local chieftain of that area. then, svami returned back to srirangam and continued the administration of the ramanuja sampradaya.
In a village called erumbi, near sholingar, there was a great learned person called appa svami. he had heard about svami manavala mamuni's pravhavam from many people, and wanted to see svami. his (erumbiappa's) father also gave him permission to go to srirangam and see svami. he reached srirangam. svami manavala mamuni, knowing about the scholarship of erumbiappa, gave him the due respect. erumbiappa was staying at koil kandadai annan's residence.
One day, svami manavala mamuni gave to erumbiappa, an upanyasam on the first pasuram of thiruvaymozhi- uyarvu ara uyar nalam - it is recorded that erumbiappa was surprised and remarked about his hearing only about svamis's knowledge of tamizh, and having heard this upanyasam, he felt the svami was a complete ubhaya vedanta scholar. svami manavala mamuni further invited erumbiappa to have food at the matam.
erumbiappa, at that time was a samanya sastra scholar - as per the samanya sastra, he did not eat at the matam, and left for erumbi. [there is a sastra vakya that states that one who eats the food of a sanyasi, or the food sent by a sanyasi, or the food that is in a vessel of a sanyasi, should undergo penance in the form of chaandrayana vratham].
In erumbi, erumbiapps tried to open the doors of his perumal sannadhi to perform thiru aradhnam, but no matter how he tried, the door would not open. with this, he was very concerned and was worried about why the lord was playing this leela on him. to him, his Lord (rama) then told that the real reason was the He was unhappy that erumbiappa had committed a sin by not eating at svami manavala mamunis matam, and that He did not want thiruaradhanam performed by erumbiappa till the time he becomes a sishya of manavala mamuni and obtains forgiveness for his sin.
erumbiappa, realising his mistake, and the greatness of svami manavala mamuni went to srirangam, and became a sishya of svami. after that, he wrote many many works on svami manavala mamuni, the most importnat of those being purva dinacharya, uttara dinacharya and vara vara muni sathakam.
After that, more scholars became shishyas of svami maNavALA mAmuni. appiLLai, appiLLAr were the chief among them. This appiLLai is the acharya that has written the vazhi thirunamams for all the azhvars and acharyas. Further revelations were made by the Lord to some srivaishnavas about svami manavala mamuni being adisesha and ramanuja himself (uttama nambi, for example).
At this time, svami fulfilled one of the commands of his acharya - he wrote commentaries on the works of pillai lokacharya, svami azhagiya manavalap perumal nayanar, wrote the nitya grantham of ramanuja in tamil, wrote a summary of thiruvaymozhi in the form of thiruvaymozhi noorrandhaadhi and the great songs givin details about azvharacharyas lives - upadesa rattinamalai. The main rahasya commentaries that svami wrote were on thattva trayam, mumukshuppadi, srivacana bhooshanam and acharya hrdayam. He also wrote commentaries on the works of svami arulaalap perumal emperumanar - gnyaana saaram and prameya saram. It is further said that svami wrote a commentary on sri bhagavadgita called tAtparya deepam.
Our elders, when they refer to the commentaries and works written by svami manavala mamunigal always point out to the anustanam of svami as a true srivaishnava. svAmi did not write any work on his own (other than a mangala slOkam for varadaraja and a sthuti for ramanuja - all others are summaries/commentaries on azhvar acharya works)- he only made the works of our acharyas available and more accessible through his commentaries. This shows svami's strong belief and bhakti in the teachings of his acharya and acharyas before their time period.
There are further details about svami's vaibhavam that I will skip for the moment - vaibhavams that include prativadi bayankaram aNNan becoming a sishya of svami, svami establishing the chinna jeeyar matam at thirumalai, the avataram of the venkatesa suprabhatham due to svami's command, and svami's establishment of acharyas at kanchipuram and other divyadesams.
Now comes perhaps the most important gesture of Lord Ranganatha towards all the souls - It is very obvious that all the souls need to have the knowledge about the 5 things (nature of soul, nature of the Lord, nature of the means to the goal, nature of the goal and the nature of the obstacles to achieve the goal) to attain nitya kainkarya to the lord in srIvaikuNtam.
And for the vast majority of us, this happens due to contact with an AchArya. Obviously, the better the acharya, the better the learning for us and the more chances we have of surrendering to the Lord due to our conviction. The Lord had been searching for eons to show the universe the perfect AchArya. Even while the Lord came to the Universe in the form of rama and krishna, he had ample amount of teachers that he could have shown to us as the epitome of an AchArya. But, the Lord waited for the most perfect Acharya to be present on this earth so that He can show the world who the jagadAcharya was. svAmi manavala mamunigal was that acharya.
The way in which the perfect acharya was shown to the world is of course through the Lord composing the srIsailEsa daya patram thaniyan. In this post, I would like to paraphrasea commentary on the thaniyan, written by jagadacharya simhasanadhipathi, vaikunTa vasi, svami PB annangarachariar svAmi.
srIsailEsa dayA pAtram:
The Lord feels that, in rama avatara, he surredered to a person that was a sailEsa dayA pAtran, and that that surrender was not perfect. sailam refers to the rishyamooka parvata, the lord of that mountain was mathanga maharishi - the person that was the receptacle of mathanga's grace was sugreeva - so, sailesa daya paatra here refers to sugreeva. rama ("sugrivam saranam gathah","sugreevam naadham ichchathi") surrendered to sugreeva for various purposes, but had to threaten him with destruction as sugreeva forgot to repay the debt to rama, before sugreeva came to help the Lord. To overcome that ("kurai") dissatisfaction, that the He surrendered to an imperfect being in that avatara, the Lord chooses to become the sishya of the epitome of an AchArya, the one that is the receptacle of the grace of srisailesar (thiruvay mozhip piLLai).
dheebhaktyaadhi guNa aarNavam:
In rama avatara, the Lord surrendered to an ocean (ArNAvam)- an ocean of salt - lavaNArNavam - Even here, the samudra raja refused to obey the Lord and the Lord had to threaten destruction before he agreed to help the Lord. In the case of maNavALa mAmuni, the Lord surrenders to an ocean of knowledge, wisdom and bhakti. This again addresses His own concern for having surrendered to an imperfect person earlier.
yatIndra pravaNam:
After listening to ramanuja noorrandhaadhi (97th song) - thannai uRRaatcheyyum thanmayinOr, that talks about the greatness of the devotees of ramanuja, the Lord felt that it is even more special to be the sishya of the greatest devotee of ramanuja than ramanuja himself. (There are various instances quoted by our acharyas as to the acharyathvam of ramanuja vis a vis the Lord - thiru-k-kurungudi, the incident in thirumalai etc..).
vandhE ramya jaamaatharam munim:
In rama avatara, the Lord's teacher was viswamithra. We all know about the imperfections of sage viswamithra. In krishna avatara, the Lord's teacher was sandeepani maharishi. When Lord KrishNa asked him what he would like as guru dakshiNa (even though he knew that his sishya was the Lord Himself), the rishi asked for reviving the life of his dead son rather than srIvaikuNta. The Lord was dissatisfied with the completeness of these teachers,and hence chose the epitome of a sanyasi - ramya jaamaatru muni.
Thus, this thaniyan expressed by the Lord Himself is not only an instance of the Lord showing the universe who a great AchArya is, but also an expression of His infinite causeless (nirhEthuka) compassion towards the souls in this universe.
There were two srivaishnavas that were known to svami. They were learned in the teachings of azhvar acharyas, but they had not gotten rid of their ego (ahambavam). One day, they were arguing with each other, and their arguments were filled with ego. Svami happened to pass by that way. Two dogs happened to be barking at each other. svami, wanted to point out the mistake of the srivaishnavas, but did not desire to confront them directly and give them the lesson. Instead, he turned towards the dogs, and said "Are you two also learned in srivacanabhooshanam, as these two srivaishnavas, that you are arguing with each other with such ego" - On hearing this, the srivaishnavas understood their mistake, and it is said that they changed their ways. This incident in instructive not just in humility to us, but also instructive of the character and grace of svami - he did not want to hurt even the people that deserve some lessons.
One day, a vaishnava from the north came to svami and requested him thus - "Please teach me the essence of all the sastras and rahasyas, something that i can follow". svami replied thus - "For the person that knows that the ultimate goal is the kainkaryam towards perumal, just surrendering to the Lord is not the goal; following the sastras and performing aradhana to the Lord is not the goal; just being the complete devotee of the acharya is not enough; being respectful towards other devotess is not ehough; what is needed is for the person to be such that all the devotees of the Lord can come to his house without any hesitation, and command him to do whatever service he can do for them, and for this person to be in the state where the devotees of the Lord can even sell him if they desire so" - further, he says "If someone who is so, all the anushtanam and the knowledge of the sastras and the teachings of acharyas and azhvars will come automatically. For someone who allows him to be a tool of service for other devotees, there is no compusion for him to know about the sastras and the deep meanings of them" - He adds "anushtanam and knowledge of the sastras without following the above is like the teaching of pativrata dharma by a prostitute, and will go waste"!
Another incident - There was a srivaishnava called bhattar perumal that had the position of an acharya in those days. But many of his sishyas did not prostrate before him, and he was disturbed by it. Feeling that it was disrepect for him, he went to svami manavala mamunigal and told him about his concern. svami, when he returned to his matam, invited the sishyas of bhattar perumal and asked them why they were doing so. The sishyas replied that they did not have the mind to surrender to bhattar perumal, implying that they were not satisfied with their teacher. svami manavala mamuni told them - "Think that it is perumal and thayar, sitting in the divya simhasanam before you, and you prostrate before bhattar perumal" - We can see the kindness that svami had even for people that had drawbacks.
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