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Pujyasri Mahaswami Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi Swamigal- Episode 35

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    Sankaranarayan becoming the 70th peetathipathi as Sri Sankara Vijayendra Saraswathi

    Episode 35

    On 21st May Swamigal left Sathara and proceeded towards Pandarpur. The devotees at Sathara told him that the onward journey would be quite difficult due to severe summer and added to that there was water scarcity as rain failed for some years. Yet Swamigal continued his yatra unmindful of the heat and uneven road. After a week when he was camping at Mahimanghat the rain lashed out all the places enroute to Pandarpur. The people at the villages were very glad and were all in praise of Swamigal.


    Swamigal reached Pandarpur on 13th of June and he camped at Thrayambakeswar temple for three days. The icons of Adhi Sankara and his disciples had been concecrated on Sankara Jayanthi day. Then he reached the other side of the river Chandrabhaga and stayed at Madhava Veda Sastra Patasala. The patasala was in a dilapidated state and the yuvaraja of Sandur got it repaired and made arrangements for Acharya’s stay.

    Swamigal performed Vyasa puja and also observed chathur masya vrath at Pandarpur and stayed there for more than five months. He used to have Panduranga Vittala’s darshan daily.

    On 23rd November he left Panderpur and on the third week of December he reached Sholapur. He camped there for a month and then at the end of January 1982 he reached Tuljapur. After staying at Mudgaleswar temple he departed to Gulbarga in Karnataka. He visited the Nirguna Paduka temple of Sri Narasimha Swami, an avatar of Dattatreya at Gangapur.

    From Gulbarga he went to Mahagaon where he observed chathur masya vrath. He stayed at Mahagaon for 256 days and during his stay there Rajiv Ghandi accompanied by Gundu Rao, the Karnataka chief minister had his darshan. While he was staying at Shahabad in March 1983, Andhra chief minister N.T.Rama Rao had his darshan and invited him to Andhra Pradesh.

    On the evening of 20th April Acharya reached Kasturpalli at the western border of Andhra where he was welcomed by N.T.Rama Rao and lots of devotees.

    In the mean while, at Kanchi Sri Jayendra Swamigal was making arrangements to initiate Sankaranarayan a teenager as his successor.

    Sankaranarayan a Telugu Brahmin boy who was studying Rig Veda at Polur Veda Patasala was noticed by Jayendra Saraswathi Swamigal.The boy’s family was staying at Thandalam village when the boy was born and later moved to Polur where Krishnamurthi, the boy’s father was teaching Vedas. Sankaran also was studying Vedas under his father. The boy used to visit Kanchi mutt often and was noticed by Jayendra Saraswathi Swamigal.

    Sri Jayendra was impressed with his brilliance and pious nature. He thought that he would be an able successor to decorate the Kamakoti peetam after him. He had mentioned about him to his Acharya. When Paramacharya was at Andhra he had sent for Krishnamurthi and told him about Jayendra’s wish and that he also endorsed his wish.

    Sankaran met Paramacharya when he was at Sathara. Again he met him after one year and Paramacharya conversed with him for a long time. In the year 1983 Jayendra Swamigal decided to initiate Sankaran into sanyasashram and he fixed May 29th for the same. He sent word to Krishnamurthi and all arrangements were made at the Kamakshi Amman temple tank for the initiation ceremony. As the auspicious time for the initiation ceremony was fixed between 5 and 6 a.m. devotees had assembled near the temple the previous night to witness the ceremony.

    Sankaran took bath early in the morning and discarded his sacred thread to receive the kashaya vasthram and the dhandam from Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Swamigal. Amid “Jaya Jaya Sankara Hara Hara Sankara” ghosham chanted by the devotees Sankara was initiated into sanyashasram by Sri Jayendra Swamigal at the age of fourteen. He was also given the name Sri Sankara Vijayendra Saraswathi by his Acharya. It was a rare incident in the history of mutts to have three peetathipathis at the same time. Sri Vijayendra was introduced as Bala Periyava to the devotees.

    As soon as Vijayendra was initiated into sanyasashram, he departed to Andhra accompanied by devotees to seek the blessings of Paramacharya. He met him at Kallore near Kurnool on July 1983. After a fortnight Jayendra Swamigal also departed to Andhra to join Paramacharya. On 24th July Paramacharya performed Vyasa puja at Kallore. More than ten thousand devotees were delighted to witness the puja and also the three Acharyas together. They completed the Chathur masya vrath also at Kallore.

    As for the wishes of the devotees and the two younger acharyas, Paramacharya had decided to return to Kanchi. On 25th October the three acharyas left Kallore and reached Naraharipetta, near the border of Tamilnadu on 5th February 1984. A grand reception was accorded to the three acharyas by Moopanar (Congress leader), R.M.Veerappan and Soundararajan ministers of the state government. Jayendra and Vijayendra had returned to Kanchi and Paramacharya had continued his padyara. Again when Paramacharya reached the village Panattur near Vellore both of them joined him there.

    When the three Acharyas reached Vellore Minister Veerapan and Vedic Brahmins with lots of devotees, accompanied by nadhaswaram welcomed the three Acharyas with Poorna kumbam. The people of Tamilnadu had darshan of three Acharyas together for the first time after Vijayendra Swamigal was inititiated into sanyasashram.

    Paramacharya had stayed at Kalavai for some time and performed aradhana to his Guru and Parama Guru and then he returned to Kanchi on 13th April after covering a distance of 3860 kms on foot in four states. It was really a great feat at his age with restricted food and also braving all type of weather during the long yatra.

    In the year 1985 on the jayanthi day of Paramacharya, he had darshan of Kanchi Devaraja perumal at Gangaikondan mandapam. Lot of devotees had come to have Paramacharya’s darshan on his jayanthi day. Justice Sri Ranganatha Misra and his family, T.V. swminathan, chairman of Kerala Rubber Board were all sitting in front of Acharya and he was talking to them. A devotee came to have darshan of paramacharya and he offered him a bunch of Konrai flowers.

    Paramacharya turned to Justice Misra and asked, “Do you have these flowers at Delhi?”

    He replied, “yes, we have this tree at Delhi. They call it Marygold.”

    Then Paramacharya said, “But that belongs to the family of crysanthamum. But this is different from that.”

    Mr Misra said, “Yes. That is guomohur.”

    Paramacharya took the bunch of flowers in his hand and started singing the song, “ ponnar Meniyane” in his sweet voice.

    Mr Swminathan had narrated this in his book, “Kanchima munivarin dharisana anubavangal.”

    Devotees felt close to Swamigal with his easy accessibility and simple talk.

    Jaya Jaya Sankara Hara Hara Sankara!
    To be continued









     
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