Written by London Swaminathan 

Date: 20 NOVEMBER 2017

Time uploaded in London- 18-49

Post No. 4416

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Alvars are Vaishnava saints of Tamil Nadu. They are 12 in number. They were the famous authors of Nalayira Divya Prabandham, a collection of 4000 divine poems praising Lord Vishnu. They stand on the same footing of sanctity as Tevaram of the three Tamil Saiva saints. Kulasekara was the king of Kerala and one of the 12 Alvars.

Though he discharged his duties as a king regularly he was deeply involved in practising the ancient customs. As part of it he used to listen to Ramayana every day from his Guru. When he was engaged in hearing the story, he came to the stage of Khara Vadha—Killing of demon Kharan by Rama single handily. When he came to know that Rama was fighting single all alone, he ordered his army to march to back up Rama. He also put on his armours and went forth to help Sri Ramachandra. Rama lived several thousand years before Kulasekara, but he travelled back in Time, only mentally.

There was another occasion when his Guru was narrating the portion of Ramayana where Rama began to cross the sea to Sri Lanka. Immediately he armed himself and went into the sea with his retinue of soldiers!

These incidents and his deep emotional involvement made the ministers to devise a plan to keep him away from the Vaishnava devotees. They want to get rid of them so that he would pay more attention to his royal duties. They deliberately removed the costly jewels from the deity he worshipped and attributed the theft to his Vaishnava devotees and the priest. But Kulasekara did not believe it because he had so much faith in them. He offered put his hand in a pot containing cobras. If the cobras did not bite, it was a monumental proof of the innocence of the Vaishnava devotees and the criminal offence of the ministers. The cobras did not harm him. The ministers realised his sincerity and begged for pardon.

Later he crowned his son as the king and retired to lead a life of penance and prayer. He made an extensive pilgrimage to all the Vaishnava temples in South India. When he reached Mannarkoil in Tirunelveli district his soul departed from his body. He is the one who composed the well known Mukundamala in Sanskrit in addition to his Tamil poems ‘Perumal Tirumozi’ in Divya Prabandham.

He was very fond of Tirupati Balaji known as Thiruvenkaathan or the Lord of the Venkata Hills. The Lord of the Seven Hills is known as Venkatachapathi. He made very strange requests to Him in a decad.

“Oh Lord, Make a fish in the stream of Venkata Hills. Change me in to a crane in the Holy Hills. Let me be a servant holding a plate for you. Or at least make me a bush, a pathway, a flower or anything in the hills. It was heart melting poems.

Hindus believe that the dust of devotees has more powers than the Lord himself. He wanted to be a part of the dust of millions of devotees marching to see the Lord up above the seven hills. He wanted to hear the reverberating slogans of ‘Govinda, Govinda’ from the devoted pilgrims. So he wanted to be an animate or inanimate thing on the hills. A novel idea! His intense devotion is expressed in the aptest and most beautiful words in his poems. Very often the Vaishnava singers sing his poems in public platforms and the listeners are visibly moved.

–Subham–