Ancient Indians – Satya Samhita

At Melkote, the chief deity is Sriman Narayana himself., not one of his 22 avatars.

The Trip :

My cousin called up one morning at my Yoga Practice time and declared his intention to take me to see nArAyaNa at mElkOTE. All I had to do was get ready, he took care of everything else as a son would.

My Veda Guru tells me that when the dEvAs give us a blessing it is like this, we have no trouble at all from the boon.

We alternated my practice of Veda chanting in the car  and his practice of some Tamil Vaishnava prayers (it has pallandu pallandu in it.. so you may know the name. It sounded very good). He was completely done up in the Sri Vaishnava attire and I learned to mu great surprise and delight that he was training himself to be a temple archaka and that he had exams to take in a few years.

(This is his ‘second career’. Many software engineers in India plan for a second career to start around 40 years of age and they systematically gear up for this transition, but this was the first person I know personally who picked this career.)

With our slippers left in the car we half-ran across the hot tar road to the temple. What it is with Vishnu and the poor soles of my feet, I don’t know. This was not the first time. (See Papanasanam). My cousin felt no pain for himself but was worried about this grey haired old lady whimpering every time her foot touched the road.

The Temple :

Varaha Pillar Sculpture at Melkote : Photo Credit : Satya Sarada Kandula : All Rights Reserved

The temple is simply awesome. I was allowed a special close-up dars’anam of the Devi to my great astonishment and my cousin slowly let it known to me that his guru was the chief priest of the temple!

He then explained that it was Sri Ramanujacharya who had completely rescued the temple and its vigrahas in his days. He pointed out the utsava vigrahas (the ones that are taken in procession), that had been brought by Brahma from the DevaLoka.

It was the Tamil New Year day, so there was a special pUja to Sri Ramanujacharya.

I prayed for his help in understanding his work, the vEdanta sangraha.

s’rIman nArAyaNa ..,  s’ama :

Wonderful and unusual as this trip was, the absolute pinnacle was the dars’anam of Sriman Narayana (Vishnu) himself. It was the most beautiful vigraha I have seen. My cousin told me that he and the priests had seen the vigraha move and blink on occasion.

What I did experience was an extraordinary stillness of mind. Absolute stillness, like I have experienced very, very rarely in my life. My cousin told me that this was also the most peaceful of all dars’ans for him.

So obviously, when I next met my veda guru I questioned her about s’ama and dama. Both mean peace.

But dama is a stillness of the indriyas or the sense organs. s’ama is a peace of the antahkaraNas or the inner sense organs. s’iva is called s’ankara (s’am + kara) , because of the s’ama that he can cause in others. The word s’Anti is derived from s’ama. My Veda Guru told me that the entire purpose of a temple is to create this feeling of s’ama in the devotees.

Singing Sriman Narayana in Narayana Sannidhi :

I was sitting on the side somewhere singing the Annamacharya kirthana Sriman Narayana, which my cousin overheard. He talked to the priests and had me sing in a little square in front of Narayana behind the devotees lined up for dars’anam. I sang softly so as to not disturb the prayers of others around me, but with all the love in my heart. Then a gentleman introduced himself as s’ankara nArAyaNa, he said that he has been sitting behind me, he had heard me sing and that it was a wonderful experience for him!! My cousin too said that my rendering had been very good, so I was very pleased with my self. At that instant, I paid no attention to the man’s name but today I am very glad that it was Sankara Narayana.

An Advaitin in Sri Vaishnava Company :

Now, my cousin’s guru invited us both for lunch and my cousin accepted. When he told me, I was alarmed. I am an advaitin by birth, by marriage and by inclination. Traditional Sri Vaishnavas do not eat food in the company of advaitins. Not to tell them would be a lie and to tell them would be to put them on the spot. Finally my cousin worked it out that I would eat at the maTam, while he ate in his guru’s house and his guru was left with the feeling that I did not want to trouble them. I very much regret missing the super awesome Sri Vaishnava repast..

The Sanskrit Scholar :

At the end of the day, I saw an elderly distinguished looking gentleman talking sanskrit to the temple priest. My veda guru had told me that her professor, a swayamAcarya was at the head of sanskrit research at melkote and to look him up  as well as the sanskrit library.

The college and library were closed, but I did introduce myself to this scholar in my slow and halting spoken sanskrit. He said that his name was Apte and he too was a scholar and editor of books who worked with my guru’s guru in writing a big book all about melkote. (It costs Rs 1000 or so… )

It was my cousin’s turn to be impressed. He said, “I had no idea you could talk sanskrit like Telugu!”  This was an exaggeration, but a welcome one.

The trip home :

With the huge downpours, gales, lightening and fallen trees, we drove home safely in time for dinner, both scared and exhilerated by this grand display of nature and our wonderful visit to Melkote!

• Dhanushkoti at Melkote : Where Sri Rama and Sita Devi rested.
• Vedartha Sangraha by Sri Ramanujacharya
• Sanskrit, Languages, Resources, Translations… Resources

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Authorship and Copyright Notice : All Rights Reserved : Satya Sarada Kandula