cut copy paste material from shri venkatesan ramadurai MY FIRST DARSHAN BY HH SHRI JAYENDRA SARASWATHI SWAMIGAL When I was studying in school at Villupuram, Acharya SwamigaL was proceeding for the kumbhAbhiSekam of Kanchipuram Sri Kamakshi Amman temple. It was then that I had my first darshan of him. He said, At least one boy from each family should study the Vedas. Accordingly, my parents prayed to him, It is time for my son to wear the sacred thread; (Periyavaa) should arrange for the ceremony and prepare him for the Vedic studies. Acharya Swamigal said, The kumbhabhisekam of Sri Kamakshi Amman at Kanchipuram is about to take place. You bring him there after getting him to wear the sacred thread. We shall start the Vedic lessons for this boy there. Thus he gave us his merciful blessings. This was the first meeting. VEDIC LESSONS Sri Kamakshi Amman temple kumbhAbhiSekam took place. At the next auspicious time, Sri Mahaswamigal started the shiksa of Vedic lessons in the Amman sannidhi itself--where pujas are performed--through his purvashrama youngest brother Sri Krishnamurthy SastrigaL. TIRUVIDAIMARUDUR Then he sent me to Tiruvidaimarudur. I reached Tiruvidaimarudur accompanied by my teacher Sri Krishnamurthy Sastrigal, after having darshan of Sri Nataraja Peruman at Chidambaram on the way. My parents stayed back at Villupuram. THIRTEENTH YEAR I studied Vedas at Tiruvidaimarudur until my thirteenth year. Acharya SwamigaL came back to Tiruvidaimarudur after completing his Kanchipuram yatra. He stayed there for nearly a year. I was about to complete my Vedic studies. At those times, he used to inquire me about my name and place, and what I had studied until then. One day, Swamigal had gone to Govindapuram, a place near Tiruvidaimarudur. The samadhi of Sri Bodhendra Saraswati, a renowned saint, is established there. It was the samadhi of a great man who adorned the Kanchi peetham. Acharya Swamigal used to go there often. I would also accompany SwamigaL. On one such occasion, Acharya Swamigal suddenly asked me one day, Would you come to SriMatham? I said, I am already coming with you! He said, Not that way... Would you become--like me? Only then I understood the thought Swamigal had in his mind. I told him, I need to ask my parents. He had my parents brought from their place right away and asked their consent. My parents informed him, Swamigal wanted my son to be left for pursuit of Vedic studies. We complied. Now you have the wish to admit him to SriMatham as a Swamigal. Your cittam is our bhagyam. So I understood that the moment Acharya Swamigal saw me at Villupuram was the time the thought of making me a successor of this peetham first rose in his mind. FOURTEENTH YEAR SwamigaL decided that I should enter SriMatham on my fourteenth year of age. So he arranged at SriMatham for the lessons and studies I was to take up there. ALL INDIA YATRA I took the lessons (at SriMatham) until my seventeenth year. Thereafter, Swamigal called me one day and directed, Go on an all India yatra and come back. I travelled to all the places and ksetras in India with my parents through railroad. When I completed my eighteenth year, he said, Be with me here for sometime and kept me at Kanchipuram. A year passed by in this manner. NINETEENTH YEAR When my nineteenth year started, Periyvaa ordained me to become a SwamigaL at Kanchipuram itself--that is, on the 22nd of March, 1954--after finishing the initial vaidika ceremonies at the Mukti Mandapam on the bank of Sarva Theertham, by giving me sannyasa dIksa around ten in the morning, keeping me in a standing position in the waters of the pond, and then with the mahavakya upadesham at Sri Viswesvarar Sannidhi. This is how the connection I had with the elder Acharya SwamigaL brought me to SriMaTham and made me also a Swamigal. DENOMINATING ME On the previous day of my taking sannyasa Ashramam, Acharya Swamigal called the poets and pundits and consulted them, keeping me beside him, for a suitable name for me. For the last five or six generations, the names Chandrasekharendra and Mahadeva were denominated in this Pitham alternately. The consultation was to determine if the naming should be connected to these names or be a totally different name. I came to SriMatham in the month of panguni. Periyavargals birth day came in the following chitirai, vaikasi months. It was also the year when he completed his sixtieth year of age. The name of the year was jaya. The jaya year comes in the panguni month itself (from the beginning of Sri Ramanavami festival) with the birth of the Telegu new year, according to the lunar calendar. In the solar calendar, it might arrive with the birth of the Tamil new year, or even fifteen, twenty days later. Under this circumstance, the name jaya stuck in the memory. 69th PITHADHIPATIH The jaya year has another distinction. It was the birth year of Sri Maha PeriyavargaL. Therefore with the name jaya as the prefix, denominating me as Jayendra Saraswathi, he made me the 69th PITHADHIPATI of SriMatham. It was the Telegu New Years day in that year. They would celebrate Sri Ramanavami gloriously. With yajanaMs and pujas for ten days, Sri Rama Pattabhisekam would be celebrated eventfully. A special puja was performed in SriMatham also. In the present larger Kanchi Matham I was made to sit on the same place where the abhisekam for Sri Rama on his coronation day was being performed. I was sitting at the place where the waters of ablution flew over. Periya Swamigal ensured that when he performed the abhisekam to Sri Rama with his own hand, the ablution waters fell on my head. CORONATION WITH THE DIVINE HANDS OF SHRI PERIYAVAR The day when Acharya Swamigal with infinite mercy made the waters of ablution fall on my head was also the day when he made me the Pithadhipati of SriMatham. Within ten to fifteen days of my arriving at SriMatham, Periyavargal coronated me immediately after Sri Rama Pattabhisekam, and on the same evening made me walk in a procession through the four raja vithis of Kanchi. (This is known as pattina prevesam). In other words, he gave me the full responsibility of SriMatham within fifteen days of my arrival here. Since Kanchipuram was in an urban area and since it attracted a large crowd, Maha Swamigal arranged for my stay in a village called Orirukkai on the banks of Palar nearby, building a large thatched shed there and renting two houses, where I was to perform my pujas and continue my studies. SASTIAPTA PURTI It was at that time that Periyavargal completed his sixtieth year of age. This event was known as Sastiapta purti. I was fortunate to celebrate this event. Even though he was a sanyasin, we celebrated the completion of his sixty years of age as a holy event with the performance of special yajanams in the presence of Vedic pundits. I am mentioning this because he let the holy waters fall on my hand on the day of Sri Rama Pattabhisekam. And I had the fortune on his Sastiapta purti occasion, to conduct pujas and yajanams with all the water-filled holy pots and then perform abhisekam to him with that holy water. We thus celebrated the completion of his sixtieth year as a festival. From that day he kept me with him and trained me in all the affairs, such as our joint studies, our pujas and the MaTham administration. Up to the year 1970, I was beside him doing everything, till late night hours. From the year 1970, he wanted to remain in solitude and lived in Ashramams erected either inside temples or on the banks of temple ponds. After 1976, until 1980, for four years he undertook a solitary yatra throughout Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. When I met him at Satara in the year 1980, I prayed to him, You are getting old. I request you not to undertake solitary yatras any more. Please come back. Accordingly, he reached Kanchipuram in the year 1983. 70TH PITHADHIPATIH In the meantime, it was difficult for me to take care of the pujas and the administration of the MaTham single-handedly. Therefore, with the permission of Periyavargal, I coronated Bala PeriyavargaL as the 70th Pithadhipatih of Sri Kamakoti Pitham, on Sunday, the 29th of May 1983 at 5:30 hours in the morning, giving him sannyasa dIksa in the holy pond waters of Sri Kamakshi Amman temple. With Bala Periyavar as a shishyah on our side, I went to Kurnool, where all the three of us stayed and conducted the Vyasa Puja for our chaturmasya vrata anustanam. Thereafter, we came back to Kanchipuram, bringing Periyavargal with us. From then on, he stayed at SriMatham and was giving out his grace and blessings to everyone. A large difference is there between the pithadhipatis of other mathams and the position of Periyavargal. In addition to sitting on the pithham as pithadhipatih and giving out blessings, he had the honour of participating in the numerous joys and sorrows of individual mens life, blessing them and elevating them in their life. This is the reason that many are sobbing and worried, feeling his absence, even today. They are grieving for having lost a person in their family. Had he been a general pithadhipatih it would have been an ordinary thing. But then, since he was merged with the life of thousands of individuals, all of them had their mental agony, and his loss is felt all over the country. This is a special honour that is not had by any other pithadhipatih. GUIDE Since I was with him, those habits have also formed in me. I was motivated to mingle with people, feel the sufferings of the oppressed and the downtrodden, and do the good that is required for them. PeriyavargaL is the guide for this work, which I am doing now, remaining and growing in the path shown by him. Whatever he did, he used to say was his samkalpah. Samkalpah, that is, what is thought in mind is known as iccha shakti. He was thus the iccha shakti, the samkalpah murti. I showed myself as the kriya shakti, the power of action. This was the state between the two of us. Thus, without just being created for a pithadhipatih, this pitham was formed for the people - for the general public - for dharma - for Astikam - for Anmeeham, and to foster them. In that respect, the seed he sowed - the plant he grew - I stand as the suport for it, seeing it grow into a tree today, doing all these services. Just at the time when this tree brought forth fruits that started ripening, suddenly his body disappeared. While the effect it had on lakhs of people is on the one side, personally I am doing many services with the thinking that he is still around, and only through his might. I am able to do what he envisioned. Therefore, whatever joys and sufferings arrive at an individuals life, to take efforts to recognize and mitigate them is a speciality that has been obtained in this paramparyam. Countless mahans have taken birth. They were not pithadhipatis. There have been many pithadhipatis. They have not also been mahans. There have been many who were mahans as well as pithadhipatis. But it has been much less the case of wiping out the sorrows by partaking individual lives and elevating them. It is only our Periyavargal who was a mathadhipati, a mahatma and also created a high state in the individual lives. We are also taking the same kinds of efforts to preserve and grow the tradition. GURU ANUGRAHAM Therefore, the general public should be conscious of our tradition and culture and have the feeling that just as there is an eternal God, there is also a traditional pitham where pithadhipatis succeed in a paramparyam. And we all should order our lives through the blessings of the guru. Compiler: Sri T.S. Kothandarama Sarma (in Tamil) Source: Maha PeriyavaL - Darisana AnubhavangaL, Vol. 1, pages 23-34 Publisher: Vanathi Padhippaham Unlike · · Share
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 07:00:19 +0000
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