Srirangam Memories !

 

About 1988 or so we went on consecutive study tours to Srirangam and other places. Srirangam the headquarters of theology was our favourite visiting place, where each was thrilled in his own way. Sri Ramanuja was becoming our obsession. On the right below, you see the Math, Emberumanar Math. Myself, Mahendran and Ramesh from left to right are seen before the gate. Our official fotographer was Raghuraaman, my brother, seen in the picture left with the red shirt, myself, Ramesh, Mahendran on the backs of an excavated piece of elephantine architecture, may be symbolic of our happy understanding of Sri Vaishnavism. In the first large picture myself, Raghu and Ramesh are seen with the committed couple of SriVaishnavism Sri U.Ve.Krishnaswami Iyengar, Sri Vaishnava Sudharsanar.

The first photo is the Thai Car festival in Srirangam. I have one of my Tamil poems on the Temple Car. The poem visualizes the Car or ThEr, as it is called in Tamil, as the symbolic form of the social communion with its own values. It exhorts all and sundry to participate not only now but always in order to make their lives meaningful. 

இடம் பிடிக்க வேண்டுமெனில்
வடம்பிடிக்க வாருங்கள்
அரங்கன் தேர் அசைகிறது
ஒப்பனையாய் வைத்தபரி ஒய்யாரப் பாய்ச்சலில்
ஊரெல்லாம் கூடிவந்த ஒத்துழைப்பில்
ஊமையின் உதடசையும்
ஊன்றுவிழி இமையசையும்
ஊர்க்கோடி முக்கினிலே முட்டடித்து
மூங்கில் கழி கெட்டித்து
மூலப்பெரும் பாழை முக்காலக் கோலடித்து
மூண்ட படைப்பின் மூலச்சுருதி வாங்கி
மூச்சடங்கி பேச்சடங்கி மூளும் உயிரடங்கி
மேல் வார்த்த தோலின் ஆர்ப்படங்கா
கார்வைதொனி தானசையும்
அடிவயிற்றில் மூச்செடுத்து
அண்டத்தின் வேரை
ஆதிமுதல் அடிபோட்டு
அந்தத்தை முடிபோடும் அழியாத விதியை
ஆர்த்துவரும் தாம்பிழுத்துக்
குலநீர்மை ஒன்றாகிக் கூடியெழும்
கோவிந்தா குரல்முழக்கில்
கொட்டும் வேர்வையினில்
குடமுழுக்கு ஆன குலமொன்றாய்
அரங்கன் தேர் அசைகிறது
அவன் கிடந்த மண்ணில்
ஆற்றின் இடைக்குறையில்
ஆய்ச்சிக்கை தாம்பிற்கு அஞ்சி அச்சுதனார்
ஆயிரவாய் அரவணைப்பில் 

அறிதுயிலும் அரங்கத்தில்.......
இடம் பிடிக்க.....

The second photo is a rare pic of the Shakespearean play Merchant of Venice staged by my father and Prof C.S.Kamalapathi in aid of The Boys High School, Srirangam in 1980s or so. 

Prof C S Kamalapathy played Shylock. My father was the director. Two sons of Sri Krishnamurthy Rao playing the roles of Bassanio and Portia. Sri Kasturi, son of Sri NRN, Headmaster of the School playing the role of Antonio. Staging Shakespeare in 1980s was a bold move, even though my father and Prof C S K have staged more than dozen plays across the Tamil land for some three decades from 1940. But those days were getting over in 1970. But still this happened. Stage is very tempting to thespians.

And again another drama, 'Dilli sendra Namperumal' was staged by my father in the School grounds. It was written by Smt Kumudini in a popular Tamil magazine with name 'Sulja'.. She wanted to stage it somehow or other. I remember when she approached my father, suggested by Prof C S Kamalapathy, my father firmly refused to take it up for staging, for the reason, that she wanted to stage it as it was written by her. My father, a veteran amateur playwright and stager of many dramas, English and Tamil, tried to explain to her in so many ways why it was not possible to stage the written copy as it was. But being the author, she was piqued and went away disappointed. 

After some days again she contacted Prof C S K and again she was back to my father. My father assured her that he will take care of her points and always appraise her about the necessary changes and after initial one or two scenes, when she understands the difference of stage and paper, the project can go on with her concurrence. Ultimately she came around to see the nuances of staging and she was happy afterwards. 

The drama was a hit in the surroundings. Embar Vijayaraghavachariyar playing Ranga Dasar, the Araiyar and the whole episode telling the story of retrieving the idol from the Delhi Sultan and with the assistance of Gopanna Raya, the Murti was brought back to the town. This historical episode was the theme of Smt Kumuduni's play in Kalaimagal, by name, Sulja. Of course I was my father's assistant as a scribe, as an assistant director asking the grown up men in dhotis to recite and tell the dialogues. Imagine a small boy doing the tutor's job. The actors were very generous hearted, they should have been! 

Towards the last when the play was moving on the stage, just before the scene when the soldier from Gopanna Raya should come and give the King's message to the Ranga Dasa (Embar), we found out that an actor for the soldier's role was not provided or the actor has not turned up. What to do? My father was not bothering at all. He tied around my head one turban, put one soldier's pull over on me, gave me one spear in hand and asked me to go and deliver the dialogue as the soldier. Totally unplanned. But no problem. It was I who wrote the script as he was dictating from the start, trained many side characters in correctly pronouncing the dialogues and so nearly all the dialogues of all the actors were known by heart to me. 

I went and delivered the message. Ranga Dasa must acknowledge the King's message and say something to the effect. But Embar said just 'haang..' and was looking at me. Continuity was about to be broken. I told him that the King believed that he will receive the message in all happiness and do the necessary things. Immediately he remembered his part of the dialogue by my cue and delivered it. So the break was patched up. That is how you learn staging by experience. In the end function after the play was over, when Embar was telling, 'this Venu, this dictator, sorry, director, was just making us dance to his tunes all these days and also we were so many frogs in a pack, one jumping this way, another there and still another going away. How he managed all these he alone knows!' And so, the Srirangam of memories! 

See the lively action arrested in some ancient architect's work of an elephant being tamed! Last one is fundamental to the mythology of the Temple Town, Srirangam. Srirangam temple is called in tradition as the Ikshvaaku Kuladhanam. The story dates itself from the times of Sri Rama, who on his coronation finals gave away important gifts to his friends and associates in the hard times and the war. Vibhishana, the brother of Ravana of Sri Lanka, was given a special gift of the family tutelary deity of Ikshvaaku kula, viz., Sri Ranganatha. Vibhishana chose this place to consecrate the Deity and built the temple around. The local story is that Vibhishana comes even now in the mid of night, unseen, to worship the Lord of the Lords, Periya Perumal . In the snap shot of a statue on a pillar of Sesharayar Mandapam, Vibhishana is portrayed as carrying the Divine Casket, perhaps towards Srirangam. 

Our study tour to Srirangam was not only across spaces but also across time. I had to take the troupe to travel towards that past ethos with all that I had learned till then. People who were perched in the present cares had to feel the past having total bearing to the future. I was not only explicating the past by way of study but also enlisting the future by way of interpretation. Actually, all these happening thru creative imagination in the present. I taught my troupe, learned with them, and knew from them. What I taught to them was philosophical, what I learned with them was cultural and what I knew from them was reactional, in the sense, how the text is received by the current batch of active listeners, no matter if they know about it already or not. 

I feel even now vividly, my friend, Mr. T. Ramesh, one day announcing to me that the whole set of Bhagavat Vishayam, the 5- fold commentaries with ancient notes was available as a free gift to me from his paternal aunt, who is the daughter-in-law of Mr. Ethirajulu Chettiar. 

I became impatient of the passing half an hour till we reached her house in Saidapet. She was so joyous to meet me, for the reason that she was thankful that I was able to link back Ramesh to the cherished heritage, kept up so fondly by Mr. Ethirajulu Chettiar, who was a disciple of Sri U. Ve. P.B. Annangarachariyar of Kancheepuram. They perhaps saw the Chettiyar alive again in my friend. To see such occasions of homecoming, psychologically and culturally and maybe ideologically, gives unique bouts of joy, with great flux of currents passing across generation gaps. The picture shows the frontispiece of the sthalapurana of Alwarthirunagari or Thirukkurukoor, in the Thirunelveli Dt, renowned as the birthplace of Nammaalvaar. 

Sri Vaishnavism is the religion worshiping God Vishnu as the Supreme Deity in the method as advocated by Sri, Lakshmi to Vishvaksena. This method is handed down thru Agamas. In Agamas regional languages are given importance and license to be used for worship. In Tamil regions, continuing the Sangam heritage from the later part of the first millenium AD many mystic-devotees called AzhvArs began to sing on SriVishnu in Tamil. Their songs put together came to be called Four Thousand Divine Compositions, 'nAlAyira Divyaprabandham'. 

AzhvArs are 12 in number and NammAzhvAr is the central and primemost. His main work is called 'ThiruvAymozhi', The Blessed Utterances. He was a child genius and right from his birth he was immersed in ecstasy and meditation under a tamarind tree in Alwarthirunagari in Tirunelveli dt. some fifteen centuries ago. The scribe for his occasional outpourings was Madhurakavi and the book was lost in the passing of time. The master who recovered the book back along with a newly set music choreographed to be sung in temples by a lineage of maestros called 'araiyars' was Nathamuni. Later in 11th cent AD Sri Ramanuja brought into focus of Vedantha the significance of Tamil Saint's work and fostered it by expounding at length to the disciples and commissioning a disciple to write a commentary on ThiruvAymozhi in the mixed language of Tamil and Sanskrit. What began with that commentary became a commentorial tradition spanning some 300 years of rich layered age of hermeneutics and involved exposition of engaged exegesis. 

In 1877 ThiruvAymozhi with 5 commentaries and 10 more books subsidiary to the commentaries were published in the Telugu script while the language of the work remained in Tamil. This came to be referred to, for many decades by lineage of masters and disciples, as ' the Bhagavath Vishyam the great book'. It was a 10-volumed set of atlas-size pages. The book layout was unique in that any verse quoted carried its full meaning and the relevant commentary in a separate window in the very same page so that the students at work need not be distracted in searching for relevant text-places and respective books. The Telegu-script edition was begun to be transcripted into Tamil in 1916 with only the first two volumes covering 200 songs having come out so far as far as I have seen. [some say 3 volumes did come out] 

This is the title page of the first volume published in the year 'aananda', i.e., 90 years before. When this mega-project in Tamil got stuck up with the 2nd or 3rd volume, in 1925 a much sized down edition, leaving much of 'arumpathams'[meanings on commentaries], the window layout of extra coverage of the quotes and other subsidiary materials, came out from Triplicane, printed at Noble Press. It is the famous set that ruled the market for nearly three decades usually referred to as ' the edition of S.Krishnamachariar and V.M.Satakoparamanujachariar'. 

In 70s the mega-edition was again taken up by the editor of Sri Vaishnava Sudharsanam, Sri U. Ve. S.Krishnaswamy Iyengar, this time with much editorial vision and critical acumen. But again the project got stranded with 300 songs and the rest was made up by the photo-offset reprint of the sized down 1925 edition for the remaining 700 songs, as a compromise. But the mega project is still live, as I heard and making slow progress. Why can't the Vaishnava community as a whole take inspiration from what have they done and finish the megaproject in Tamil. 

I remember to have heard a piece of information regarding the Telugu edition of 1877. It was proof-corrected by 7 old ladies, steeped in devotion and tradition and the printing errors that have escaped their fervent eyes in the extant 4800 big pages seem to be of only single digit number. Proof-correctors the world over will like to salute them. 

Srirangam Mohanarangan 

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