Thread by @veejaysai

Historic day you will not find in any history books!

The return of #Namperumal to Srirangam today, the 17th day of Vaikasi month on the Tamil calendar in 1371 CE. After a gap of 45 years! Some accounts say 48 years!

Remembering the sacrifices our ancestors made for Dharma!🙏

We all know about the plunder and destruction of Srirangam, at least in brief. Ulugh Khan and his army destroyed the ancient temple, kiled thousands of Hindus in 1323.

The Utsava Murti of Lord Ranganatha was saved by several devotees who gave up their lives in his service.

The Murti was safeguarded and taken from place to place secretly! On the way many more sacrificed their lives! We should have an entire book about it! In every school it should be taught!

The route taken by devotees over the years then, is marked here.

Sometime in 1916, something extraordinary was discovered by a bunch of Telugu scholars, all of who were great Pundits of Sanskrit.

A poem running into over 500 verses called "Madura Vijayam", authored by Andhra princess Gangadevi.

The manuscript was in a damaged condition.

Six centuries after it was composed and saved away in the private archives of someone, the manuscript revealed a big part of history, hitherto unknown to the world of Sanskrit Kavya literature.

Moreover, it was composed by a woman, a princess, in not so easy Sanskrit!

We will return to this poem and it's equally exciting discovery and history later.

For now back to Srirangam!

The Vijayanagara prince Kumara Kampanna restored a lot of the society in Tamil countryside. They made efforts to bring back the Murti. Gopanna Raya brought it all the way to Ginjee from Tirupathi. Finally Lord Ranganatha returned to Srirangam!

But there was a new problem!

In the absence of the original Murti, a new Murti was consecrated and worshipped for many decades. With the arrival of the original one, there was a lot of confusion about which was new and which was old.

Almost nobody who had seen the old one was alive! Thousands were killed!

Many others fled! There was one old citizen who had survived all that chaos and destruction. He was now blind with age. There are different versions of this episode. Some say he was a washerman, some say he was a Kovil Kainkaryapara. Some others say he was a Paricharaka.

He was summoned and asked to identify. But he was completely blind. He began gently feeling both the Murtis. Through his fading muscle memory, he was going to achieve something unbelievable!

This took a while. Everyone was eagerly waiting for the final verdict!

After several hours of being with each of the Murtis, he prayed hard and began his process again. Time went by! Everyone waited!

At one point he felt the warmth of Lord Ranganatha's feet.

"Ivar dhaan Namperumal!",he exclaimed!!

And since then, the name #Namperumal stayed!

And that is how #Namperumal returned to Srirangam. Both the Murtis continue to receive worship.

#Namperumal, of course, the original Ranga Rajan! Continues to rule!

🤩🙏🤩🙏🤩

Now back to that manuscript! "Madura Vijayam" authored by Andhra princess Gangadevi.

It was considered one of the greatest literary discovery of the century in 1916.

Though found in a damaged condition, it was precious! It revealed something unknown earlier!

Several friends have been asking so I will continue this till what Gangadevi wrote in her epic poem.

Getting into the history of Gangadevi or the discovery of this book would serve less purpose here.

That is a story for another day! 🙂🙏

In the beginning of the 8th canto of her poem, she writes :

अधिरङ्गमवाप्तयोगनिद्रं

हरिमुद्वेजयतीतिजातभीतिः।

पतितंमुहुरिष्टकानिकायं

फणचक्रेणनिवारयत्यहीन्द्रः॥

Will use @shankarrajaram1 ji's translation of the same into English.

In Sriranga,
Sesha, king of snakes,
fearing lest Vishnu his master
be rudely awoken from meditative slumber,
shields him from the broken bricks that keep falling
with his thousandfold hoods.

Sigh!😰🙏

She further writes,

'Earlier, Agraharas were filled
with the scented smoke of continuous sacrifice,
with the sound of Vedic chanting.
Now, they are swamped
with the stink of raw meat,
with the drunker roars of inebriate Turks.'

😰😰😰

'Other temples too -
shutter-doors devoured by woodworm,
festival halls with Druva grass sprouting boldly from each crack,
sacredmost shrines crumbling -
drive me to tears when I see them.'

😰😰😰

If you look at her poem in detail, it is a brilliant social commentary of the times she witnessed.

The onslaught of invaders, the plunder of Srirangam and other ancient temples and how thousands of Hindus sacrificed their lives to save our Dharma!

How can we forget all this?!

Today we are easily getting Darshanam of Namperumal, and we don't realise the long and painful history behind his journey.

Our secular textbooks don't tell us all this. It is time we change that. Our future generations need to know! How long will the State hide this truth?!