Naalaiyira Divya Prabhandam - 4000 Divya Verses on Lord Vishnu - Chapter - 1
We are getting nearer to the month of Marghazi ( Tamil month), which is unique month for Hindu followers where it is believed that this is the early morning for all Devas and GOD ( approx 1 year is 1 day and Marghazi forms early morning ); hence during this month Viswa Roopa Darisanam is very famous in all ancient temples as people will long to see the god as first thing the moment temple is opened which is Viswa roopa darisanam;
The memories of me of Marghazi goes back to my childhood days in Kanchipuram; Usually marghazi is a cold month and people tend to have good sleep specially in early morning which i am doing today, however in my early days, as a child used to get up early during this month and sit at the outside of the house in a small stone and watch all the cows which were tied in line by their owners to draw milk for the society; ( in villages people do it and buy milk from that society, the so called organic today )
There was a small space ( still active ) in my street where near by street people will also come and join us to sing hymns in front of GOD pictures ( still remember a 7 feet Tanjore painting of lord Krishna), usually referred in local Tamizh as Bajanai koil at 5.30 AM and most of the kids and teen age students ( that's right , you are reading it right, kids and teen age folks mostly those days , a very rare / non existent sight these days ) get into the Bajanai koil and pick each instrument like drums, flute, nadaswaram and a small instrument that makes ringing sound ( called Jing Chuck ); usually I pick that up and sit next to a person who does drum ( after all these years I had a chance to meet him in my brother's marriage in 2013) and very first hymn starts "Pallandu Pallandu Palayirathandu Pala Kodi Noorayiram" and goes into Andal Thirupavai Pasurams for 45 mins;
while I sing and do this jing chuck sound in rhyming as anthathi ( ending phrase will be a starting phrase in next verse) multi-tasking activity which was done unknowingly and it continues till date and key aspect of management that was taught to me in my masters , my eyes will be looking outside the temple every 5 mins to make sure the pongal / sundal / sakarai pongal ( one of it ) is reaching the location of Bajanai temple for distribution at the end of singing hymns and this goes for all 30 days;
Infact it was one of the nicest ideas by elders to distribute food to get more kids and teens and involve them in hymns and bakthi; my very first memory of Marghazi goes like this and still brings me smile, happiness and the taste of ven pongal; without knowing in my age of 4 itself I started to get introduced to this divya prabandam of Lord Vishnu;
Naalaiyira divya prabhandam is all hymns on Lord Vishnu who is the savior of humanity and all hymns are about his kindness,love, beauty , grace and his blessings, this was all sung ,written workshiped and loved by 12 Azhwars at various centuries; The highlight of this is all written in Tamizh which is a unique feature as most of the hymns that we know were all used to be in sanskrit; These beloved 12 Azhwars were great devotees of Lord Vishnu;
This prabhandam has 4000 verses of covering Lord Vishnu in 108 temples visited and sung by these 12 Azhwars which are called DivyaDesams and majority of it is located specially in southern india with Srirangam Ranganathar temple and Lord Ranganathar being the first of these 108 divya desams where 85 are in Tamilnadu, 11 in Kerala , 2 in Andhra , 4 in UP , 3 in Uttarkand, 1 in Gujarat with the last one Vaikundam where the ultimate Lord Vishnu resides;
It is no wonder that I get introduced to Divya Prabhandam at the tender age of 4 because 15+ Divya desams are in Kanchipuram (Vishnu Kanchi ) which is my birth place and the first of all the Azhwars - "Poigai Azhwar" was born in Kanchipuram and I am blessed to be born in the same town which contains more spiritual history;
Verses to be continued ...
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