by Sri TA Varadhan

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.