Naalayira Divya Prabhandam - List of Alwars and their birth place - Chapter - 5

Naalayira Divya Prabhandam - List of Alwars and their birth place - Chapter - 5

Here we will see the list of 12 Alwars and their birth place. Without them we will not have got this 4000 Pasurams in Tamil

In next chapter we will see the star sign and month of each of Alwars

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Naalaiyira divya prabhandam - Its Uniqueness Chapter - 2

Naalaiyira divya prabhandam - Its Uniqueness Chapter - 2

Naalaiyira ivya prabhamdam is unique in many ways; first  hymns that were written way back in Tamil, the 3 Alzwars are believed to be part of Dwapara Yuga and it also proves that Tamil has been in existence since then.


Above all, there is a famous verse which says " Perumal follows Tamizh" this is because in any vaisnava temple events, during thiruveethi ula, first the elephants will go, followed by musical instruments, then Divya prabhandam and then Perumal comes, which means Tamizh comes first followed by Perumal, this the importance of the hymns;

Brings back my Vishnu kanchi days where this event will happen for 10 - 11 days in a year across temples and each day there will be a vahana (carrier) on which Lord Perumal appears and comes through the major streets of the city and the ritual is same day after day with just the Vahana changes, the major event would be on Garuda vahana and the last one is Theru; this will be so tall that the city power lines will be switched off and the main prasadam would be brown sugar

coming back, the word Azhwar means 'the one who immerses himself in pure bakthi' and all of them are beleived to be coming from some part of Lord Vishnu; like Poigai Azhwar comes from counch ( Sangu );



List of Azhwars and the belief of their incarnation from Vishnu



Poigai Azhwar is from Sangu;

Bhoothath Azhwar is from Vishnu's gada;

Pei Azhwar is from Vishnu's sword;

Thirumalisai Azhwar is from Sudarshanam;

Nammazhwar is from Vishnu's commander;

Madhurakavi Azhwar is from Garuda;

Kulasekhara Azhwar is from Lord's necklace;

Periyazhwar is from Garuda;

Andal of Bhoodevi is from Lakshmi in her form as Bhudevi;

Thondaradippodi Azhwar is from Vishnu's garland;

Thiruppaan Azhwar is from the mark on Vishnu's chest;

Thirumangai Azhwar is from Rama's bow;



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Naalaiyira Divya Prabhandam - Recollection of lost verses - Chapter - 4

Recollection of lost 4000 verses - Chapter - 4

There had been a phase after 700 odd AD most of this sacred hymns / pasurams had been forgotten or lost for generations.

There is place called Veeranarayana puram in Kattu Mannar Koil town which is some 15 kms away from Gangai Konda Cholapuram, this was the home town of a vaishnavate Nathamuni adigal or Nathamuniyar during 950 AD, he was born in Annuradha Natchathiram during Jyestha month. It is believed that he lived during either Rajaraja or Rajendra chola period.This place has a perumal temple Veeranarayana perumal. 

Nathamuniyar has been a servant of lord in this temple and use to do seva every day thinking of lord. One day while he was performing his daily pooja, a group of devotees came Thirunarayanapuram in  Melkote. They were singing the pasuram of Aravamuthey, a pasuram from Nammazhwar thirumozhi which was praising the lord Perumal from Kumbakonam. 


The devotees ended this with these pasurams as these are " 10 out of 1000". These pasurams were so great that made Nathamuniyar happy and asked them to sing remaining 990, unfortunately none of them were aware of that. 

This made Nathamuniyar not able to concentrate on anything and he started to Kumbakonam in search of remaining 990 pasuram along with his 2 disciples Melaiyagattazhwar and Kilaiyagattazhwar. From there he was asked to go to Thirukarugur, however he was not able to find anything, he again went 5 km east to Thirukolur. There he got the verses of Madura kavi Azhwar who wrote verses in praise of Nammazhwar starring with 
Kannin Siruthambinaal ( கண்ணிநுண் சிறுத்தாம்பு ).  He was able to get the 12 verses of this and he went straight to a tree and sat down and sung these 12 hymns 12000 times after which NammAzhwar appeared before him and handed over all the 4000 verses which we are reading today as Naalayira Divya Prabhandam.

After this he went back to his native Kattu mannar koil and started to spread this to all vaishnavaite temple and made a vaishnava sampradayam from then on

He also had couple of disciples with whom the spread of divya prabhandam started. 


There is also an interesting aspect , Nathamuniyar's 'son name is Ishwaramuni and Nathamuniyar's grandson name is Yamunai Thuraivan, who is fondly called as Alavanthan, he continued to take the responsibility of spreading Vaishnavate sampradayam. His diciples include Periya Nambi, Thirukoshtiyur Nambi, Thirukachi Nambi. Alavanthar is the one who made Sri Ramanujar as Acharya after him;

The current vaishnavism is started with Nathamuniyar and with his direction Alavanthar and Sri Ramanujar started to spread and standardised it; He is the first guru of current Vaishnavaite Sampradayam;

In next chapter we will see little more details of 12 Azhwar , their birth place etc

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