Tarigonda is a village near Tirupati, 4 Km from Vayalpad. A couple living in that village, Krishnaiah and Mangamma had five sons. They undertook a pilgrimage to Tirumala to pray the Lord for a daughter. The benevolent Lord blessed them with daughter. They named her Venkamma after Lord Venkateshwara. As she grew up that girl immersed herself in the worship of the Lord. Seeing this, her parents grew apprehensive that she might become a sanyasin and got her married against her wish. Even before she moved to her husband’s house to live with him, he died in an accident. Undeterred, she resumed her worship of the Lord. TARIGONDA VENGAMAMBA SAMADHI Tarigonda Vengamamba Samadhi She would recite hymns and poems praising Lord Venkateshwara all the day. The people started calling her Vengamamba. Even after the death of her husband, she never considered herself as a widow and carried on her daily routine of worship and prayers. Since this was against the norms of the society at that time, some of the elders of the village boycotted her family from the village. Not content with this, they took her to Sankaracharya of the Pushpagiri peeth to teach her a lesson. She offered him flowers, fruits, and coconut on a platter and stood aside silently without saluting him. Annoyed, he asked her, “Why don’t you salute me? You seem to be against the tradition.” She answered him calmly, “Sir, I will salute your seat. Please get down from it and stand aside.” He got down and stood aside. Then she folded her hands and bowed at the seat. To the utter astonishment of all people gathered around, the chair on which he was sitting till few moments ago exploded with a loud and thunderous blast and burnt down to ashes. The acharya panicked on seeing this. To the entire village, he declared that Vengamamba was born with the blessings of the Lord to serve Him. He told them that none should distract her from that activity and all should follow and obey her. Even then, some men used to criticize her. Unfazed, she would carry on with her prayers and worship of the Lord. One day, while she was offering her prayers in the temple, the priests dragged her out holding her hair and shouted, “you shameful lady, why do you keep on bothering us? Why don’t you go somewhere else leaving us with peace?” She grew angry at the disturbance and her infuriated looks sent shivers down the spines of the priests. Terrified, they fell at her feet seeking forgiveness. Fed up with the attitude of the villagers, the 20 years old Vengamamba shifted to Tirumala hills. Though that was her first trip to the sacred hills, her reputation had preceded her. Atmaram Das, the then Mahant (1745-50) provided her with accommodation in a hut. This was 100 years before the start of the reign of the Mahants on the hills. Even then, because of the service rendered to the pilgrims by the Mahants many of the temple authorities used to oblige them. Using his connections, Atmaram Das provided regular supply of food to Vengamamba. Since the needs of shelter and food were met. She dedicated herself entirely to the worship of the Lord. She would stay at the temple all the day and would return to her hut only after the closure of the temple, to cook food, which she would offer to the Lord before eating herself. She would always be thinking about the Lord. She wanted to offer garlands to the Lord early in the morning and offer burning camphor in the night just before the closure of the temple. She planted tulasi and other flower plants around her hut for this purpose. Every morning she would prepare a beautiful garland with the flowers grown in that garden interspersed with tulasi leaves and offer it to the Lord. Every night she would worship the Lord just before closure of the temple. With this, her name and fame reached the Tallapaka descendents. At that time, the descendents of Tallapaka Annamacharya were playing a key role in the affairs of the temple. They invited her to live with them vacating her hut and offered a part of their living quarters for her to stay. Even after that, she continued to serve the Lord as usual. Next to her new house, there was Akkaram Deekshitulu, the chief priest of the temple, which meant huge fortune and following. Naturally, this made him proud and arrogant. He became jealous of Vengamamba’s glory. He did not take kindly to her sending of garlands to the Lord and wearing flowers and kumkum despite being a widow. The respect of the temple authorities towards her and the hospitality extended to her by the Tallapaka dynasty only doubled his anger. He used to scold her loudly in her presence. But she did not care. She was always in a state of meditation. Her negligent attitude towards him further added to his anger. He arranged men to throw used and dirty leaf platters into her garden. In spite of this, she tried to reason with him, but to no avail. One day when she was meditating in her garden after finishing harati in the temple, one leaf platter thrown by the archaka’s man fell on her. She could not tolerate the interruption to her prayer. Her eyes became red and she gave a curse to Deekshitulu, “All members in your clan will die”. At that moment, the members of his family started falling down vomiting blood and died. Deekshitulu’s son managed to crawl to Vengamamba’s feet and begged her to pardon his family. Vengamamba’s anger had softened and she said to him, “from now only one in each generation will survive in your family.” From that day only one person in a generation survived in Deekshitulu’s family. From that day, people began to think highly of her. Her prayers in the sanctorum were an interruption to other devotees. Though the temple officials did not mind much about this, the priests did not like it. They did not take lightly her offering flowers and camphor to God being a widow. They would torture her with their words. One day, when she could not take it any longer, she stopped going to the temple. This made the priests happy. Lord Venkateshwara did not take this lightly. He wanted to teach a lesson to the priests. The next day in the Brahmotsavam possession, when the Malayappa Swami was riding along with his consorts, the chariot stopped in front of Vengamamba’s house and did not move forwards. The men tried to pull the chariot with all their strength. But the chariot did not move an inch forward. Then the priests realized their mistake. They went to Vengamamba and prayed her for forgiveness. Only after she came out and offered harati did the chariot move forward. From that day, it was decided that the temple would be closed only after her harati and that no other harati would be offered to the Lord after that. She wanted this harati to be continued even after her, and she adopted her sister’s daughter, Mangamma for this purpose. Even today, her descendents offer karpura harati before the closure of the temple. Vengamamba wrote many books about the Lord. He would come to her cottage after closure of the temple to listen to her poems while eating the dishes prepared by her. By morning, he would return to the temple in time for the suprabhatam. One day, the Lord was listening to her poems when it was the time for the suprabhatam. When the Lord was ready to return to the temple, she pleaded him to stay for some more time. He tried to explain some thing to her and started saying, “You see Vengamamba…” but by then the priests in the temple started chanting,” Kousalya supraja Rama….” All of a sudden, He disappeared from Vengamamba’s presence. She tried to stop Him and held His cloth. It was torn and she remained with the torn piece in her hand. The Lord returned to the temple with the torn clothes. After the suprabhatam, the priests found the Lord’s torn silk robes. They wondered whether it was the work of thieves and checked the temple, but nothing was stolen. Then they realized that it was one of his miracles and set out to discover the other half of the silk robe. Realizing that there was no greater devotee to the Lord than Vengamamba, they went to her and enquired about the torn silk robe. Without showing any interest, she asked them to check in the pooja room. They were amazed to find the torn piece of the Lord’s silk robe there. From that day, her fame had spread far and wide. Many landlords, palegars and jamindars visited her and donated to her liberally. She gave away all that wealth to the temple. In those days, there were no printing presses. She employed people to write copies of her works so that they can reach a wider audience. Many people used to visit her to write down her poems and take them back with them. “Sri Venkatachala Mahatmyam” was one of her famous works. It narrates the story of Lord Venkateshwara in a lucid style. Legend has it that the Lord himself listened to her while she was narrating and writing that story. Even today, this epic is widely acclaimed. All pilgrims who visited Tirumala made it a point to visit her and seek her blessings. This took most her time and interrupted her routine of prayer and meditation. She sought Him relief from the worldly bonds. But the Lord told her that she was yet to finish her job and advised her to go to Tumbura Teertham, 12 km from there, where she would not be disturbed. He told her she could reach Him through a tunnel connecting the teertham to the temple. She would go to the temple in the nights after the closure of the temple and worshipped the Lord keeping fresh flowers at his feet. The priests who opened the temple in the morning were surprised to find fresh flowers at the feet of the Lord and thought that it was not possible for any ordinary mortals and they thought only Vengamamba, who long since disappeared from them was capable of such feat. They set out to find the facts. They left a mahant in the sanctum before closing the temple. The mahant hid in a corner and waited patiently. At midnight, a tunnel appeared at the feet of Lord and Vengamamba climbed out of it glowing brightly. The mahant fainted on seeing this bright light. The next morning, when the priests opened the temple they found the unconscious mahant. When he became conscious, he told them what happened that night. When it was known that Vengamamba was residing in Tirumala, devotees searched everywhere for her but none could find her. At this time, a Brahmin who was suffering from a terrible disease came to Tirumala. He had sores and blisters oozing blood and pus all over his body, which emanated horribly foul smell. His family abandoned him and his villagers too did not let him stay in their village. Unable to bear with that physical and mental trauma, he decided to end his life. Before dying, he wanted to have a darshan of Lord Venkateshwara. But the temple authorities did not let him in after seeing the wretched condition he was in. Wandering aimlessly, he reached the tumbura teertham. He was suffering from both the disease and hunger. He was shouting “O’Lord Venkateshwara! Why you are keeping me alive? Take me to thee. Please put an end to my suffering.” His shouting awakened Vengamamba from her deep meditation. She came out and saw his pitiable state. She invited him into her dwelling and gave some fruits to him. She was the first human being who showed some feeling towards him in many days. He thought she was some Goddess sent by the Lord to alleviate his hunger. He grabbed the fruits from her hand and ate them in a hurry. She said to him,” Don’t tell anybody that you saw me here. If you do that you will die.” Then she told him to close his eyes, which he did as if he was in a trance. The next moment, he was in the Pushkarini, the temple-bathing tank. When he surfaced from the tank, all his sores and blisters were gone. Now, he was clean and healthy. When people who knew him before were amazed for the disease, which afflicted him, was incurable. They wanted to know how he got rid of that. But he was not willing to tell that. They started bribing him with donations and costly gifts. After few days, he threw caution to the wind and told them everything about his chance meeting with Vengamamba and about her compassion towards him and how he got rid of his hideous affliction. The next moment, he fell down and died. As people knew the whereabouts of Vengamamba now, they started queuing to her dwelling to seek her blessings. This interrupted her routine of prayer and meditation. When she prayed the Lord, He instructed her what is to be done. Then she gave one last audience to her visitors and told them it was time for her to enter Samadhi and unite with the Lord forever. She entered her Samadhi alive near the garden where she used to grow tulasi leaves and flowers for her Lord. Today, an English medium is being run in that place.
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 06:19:55 +0000
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