A short thread on an incident from a śrīvaişņava āchārya. Indian tradition accords great respect for vyākhyāna kartas- commentators. A commentator brings out additional nuanced meanings than what a poet originally intended, maximizing enjoyment of the poetry.
For e.g, kālidāsa's first śloka in raghuvamśa has "vāgarthāviva sampŕktau... jagatah pitarau vande pārvatïparameśvarau". The poet salutes universal parents pārvati and parameśvara conjoined like a word and its meaning.
The commentator splits pārvatīparameśvarau as pārvatīpa + rameśvarau making the parents pārvatīpati and ramā's īśvara- rudra and vişņu, displaying his creativity and mastery of grammar.
Periyavācchān Pillai is a legendary commentator in śrīvaişņava tradition and lauded as vyākhyānachakravarti. His mastery of the source material is exemplary. He composed a rāmāyaņa by just using the words from Tamil hymns of āzhwars. This short thread is about Pillai's cook.
Varadarāja was an unlearned person who worked in Pillai's kitchen. Once, a few scholars came to visit Pillai and were discussing a philosophical topic. Varadarāja was curious and enquired them about the topic. The scholars played a prank on him -
Saying they're discussing 'musalakisalayam', a made up work. Pillai came to know about this and started instructing the cook on śāstra, tarka, kāvya, alankāra, baraka, mīmāmsa and vedanta. The cook became a scholar himself and gained fame as a great debater and won the title
Vādikesari. He wrote an actual work called musalakisalayam and gave it to the scholars who played the prank. He became an illustrious āchārya himself and is well known as vādikessri azhagiya maņavāla jīyar. /end
Nāțaka nor baraka. Stupid autocorrect.
