by Sri TA Varadhan

When srI. AM nAyanAr reached srIrangam with his sishyAs, he went straight to the house of an acharya called kOttUril aNNar. This acharya took srI. AM nAyanAr to the then adhipathi of the temple, srI thirumaalai thandha perumaal bhattar, who took srI. AM nAyanAr to the temple escorted by scores of srivaishnavas to perform mangalasasanams to Lord ranganatha. After performing mangalasasanams to the Lord, nayanar went to the houses where the previous acharyas (emperumanar, embar, bhattar, nanjiyar, nampillai etc..) lived and performed obeisances at each place. After that sri nayanar stayed at srirangam, listening from the elders about the previous acharyas. One day, when sri. nayanar went to the temple to perform mangalasasanams to perumal, the Lord commanded him as follows - "You stay here just as our ramanuja did, taking care of my work, and spreading the rahasya granthas till the time you leave your body", which sri. nayanar took as a great gift and accepted the command readily.

After taking permission from Lord ranganatha, for a short period, srI. nayanar undertook a pilgrimage of thirupathi, sriperumbudur, kanchipuram and enroute, went to sholingur and thirukkovalur.

In thirumalai, the following is quoted by our elders as a proof of svami's greatness - it was the first day of the 10 day annual (purattasi) brahmotsavam in thirumalai. The elder jIyar at thirumalai (this maTam was established by ramanuja when he visited thirumalai, with the duty of the jiyar of that maTam being to oversee the affairs of the temple - the name of this pIta in tamizh is "periya kELvi appan rAmAnuja jIyar" - i.e. the jIyar who oversees/ questions the affairs of the temple) had a dream where he saw a glorious, beautiful, resplendent with tEjas srivaishNava in the lying down posture, with his head on the west, legs on the east and facing south. This srivaishnava was the length of the entire mountain and at his feet was a glowing sanyasi. In the dream, further, periya keLvi jIyar asked the people around him as to who those two were, to which they replied that the glorious one who was lying down was sri. azhagia manavala nayanar and the sanyasi at his feet was ramanuja jiyar ( ponnadikkal jiyar, 1st jiyar of vanamamalai mutt).

periya kELvi appan jiyar narrated this dream to thozappangar (descendant of periya thirumalai nambi, one of the heriditary caretakers of the thirupathi temple) just before the nalayira divya prabhandam goshti was about to begin for the day. many other srivaishnavas in the goshti, on listening to this were very pleased and everyone was eagerly hoping that this glorious srivaishnava would come to thirupathi for the utsavam.

sri nayanar then reached thirupathi/thirumalai, and all the srivaishnavas there received him with full respect and took him to all the sannadhis where he performed mangalasasanams. A mention is made of the ramanuja sannadhi inside the temple (along with other sanandhis - varadarajar, azhagiyasingar..), the only sannadhi for someone other than perumAL on the hill. This sannadhi was established by srI. anantAzhvAr immediately after ramanuja left this world, and our elders have consciously avoided building sannadhis for any other azhvar/acharya on the hill, since the belief of our acharyas is that the hills themselves are very holy (peria thirumalai nambi used to crawl on the hills to go to the temple, not wanting his feet to touch the holy hills).

After that, sri nayanar went to kanchipuram where he performed mangalasasanams to Lord varadaraja, and the Lord at the other divya desams in kanchipuram, then he went to sriperumbudur where ramanuja commanded him to go to kanchipuram and learn/preach sribhasya. The first post in the series contained the details about svAmi's greatness with respect to learning/expounding on sribhasya.

After leaving kanchipuram, sri nayanar went back to srirangam, where he felt that the grhastashrama life was an impediment to perform unimpeded kainkarya to the Lord. So, he took permission from Lord ranganatha and took sanyasashramam from srI. satakOpa jIyar, a contemporary of him and a great jiyar of the ramanuja sampradaya who was residing in srirangam then. the Lord had commanded both sri. nayanar as well as sri. satakOpa jiyar about His wish to have sri. nayanar take sanyasashramam.

After receiving sanyasashramam, he went to the sannadhi of the Lord. The Lord gave him His own name - "azhagiya maNavALa mAmuni", and gifted him what used to be the pallavarayan maNtapam. This maNtapam was originally used during ramanuja's time by srI. aatkoNdavilli jIyar as his maTam and his aradhana moorthy was called "ennai theemanam keduththar" {the one who removed my ignorance - this is a very rough paraphrasing of the phrase, I will get a better version from elders here in the next few days - Varadhan}. After him for various reasons, it was in a state of disuse and was used later as a ramanuja kUtam by a srivaishnava called pallavaraya, and then was not used after his time.

The Lord gifted this maTam and commanded the archakas and srivaishnavas to lead srI. maNavALa mAmuni to the maTam, and presented him with all prasadams appropriate for a great sanyAsi. srI. maNavALa mAmuni then repaired this maNtapam with the help of his shisyas, built a discourse room called "thirumalai azhvar" named after thirvaymozhi piLLai. It is further mentioned in the book that srI. maNavALa mAmunigaL made it a point to bring the sand and material from where srI. piLLai lOkAchAriAr used to live and built this maTam with that material - i.e. srI. MM treated this maTam as srI. PL's house and his stay there as gurukulavasam. In the thirumalai AzhvAr maNtapam, svAmi MM performed upanyasams of sastras, the nAlAyira divya prabhandham and rahasya granthas. {To this day, one can see this mutt, and the thirumalai azhvar mantapam in srirangam - in the east corner of south uttara street - this sannadhi and the mutt is maintained by the descendants of srI. MM}