Chapter I — Sri Nathamuni and the Recovery of the Divya Prabandham

A long time passed between the Alvars (the Tamil saint-poets of Sri Vaishnavism) and the appearance of the Acharya (spiritual teacher) Sri Ranga Nathamuni — or Sri Nathamuni, as he is more commonly known. His father was Isvarabhatt, and his son was Isvaramuni. All three lived together in Viranarayanapuram, the home of the holy shrine known as Mannar Koil.

The resident deity of Mannar Koil is called Mannanar — Lord Krishna, also known as Raja Gopala. The temple stands about fifteen miles from Chidambaram (Chitrakutam), near the famous tank at Viranarayanapuram.

Mannanar was the household deity of Nathamuni's family. One day the sage went with his father and son to the shrine and prayed to Mannanar for permission to make a pilgrimage to the holy places of the North — Mathura, Gokula, Brindavana, the holy banks of the Yamuna (Jumna), Govardhana, Dvaraka, Ayodhya, Salagrama, Badarikasrama, Naimisaranya, Nrisimhagiri, and other sites where God had appeared in various forms to accomplish His threefold mission:

Lord Mannanar granted permission. They set out with their families and reached Govardhanapura on the banks of the holy Yamuna. There they offered prayers to Lord Krishna. They were so enchanted by the Lord and His surroundings that they decided to spend the rest of their days in Govardhanapura. But one night, Lord Mannanar appeared in Nathamuni's dream and commanded His devotee to return to Viranarayanapuram.

Moved by this vision, Nathamuni took leave of Lord Krishna and began his journey home. Along the way the family stopped at Puri, the temple of Lord Jagannatha — also known as Purushottama Kshetra. After paying their respects, they went on to Simhadri and Ahobilam, the abodes of Lord Nrisimha. They then arrived at the sacred hill of Tirupati, celebrated as the abode of Lord Srinivasa, whom God chose as the center of mankind's salvation on this earth.

Enchanted by Tirupati's beauty, Nathamuni wished to settle there permanently. But Mannanar's command to return home would not let him rest, and so he reluctantly left the holy hill. On the way he visited Ghatikachala (Lord Nrisimha), Hastigiri — or Kanchi (Lord Varadaraja), Tiruvahindrapura near Cuddalore (Lord Devanayaka), Tirukkovalur (Lord Trivikrama), Srirangam (Lord Ranganatha), and Tirukudandai — or Kumbhakonam (Lord Aravamudu or Sarangapani). At last Nathamuni reached his native Viranarayanapuram.

The holy residents welcomed him with an ovation and conducted him in procession to Mannanar. The Lord was greatly pleased and made His wishes known to the gathered community: they were to look upon the sage as His specially blessed devotee, to provide him with suitable lodgings and all the necessities of life, and to take good care of him. They did all this gladly. Nathamuni made a flower garden for the Lord and spent his days serving Him with garlands, incense, and lamps, while remaining in the company of wise and holy men and cultivating divine knowledge and its propagation.

One day a party of devotees came from the north of Trichi to visit Mannanar. They were singing the sacred hymn known as Aravamudu — decad V.8 of Saint Nammazhvar's Tiruvaymozhi — and ending with the eleventh verse, which declares: "This Ten out of the Thousand, Sung by Kurugur Sathagopar."

Hearing this, Nathamuni begged the visitors to recite the full one thousand verses. But they said they knew only this fragment of ten. When asked whether anyone else might know the rest, they admitted they knew nothing more. The sage sent them away with the usual holy tirtha and prasada from Mannanar.

Nathamuni was anxious to trace the rest of the Prabandham (the Tamil devotional hymns of the Alvars). He guessed they might be recovered in the Kurugu land — that is, at Azhvar Tirunagari near Tirunelveli. He travelled south, paid his respects to Saint Nammazhvar and to Lord Polindu-ninra-Piran (Adinatha), and began inquiring after the missing Prabandham.

He met Parankusa Dasa, a disciple of Madhurakavi, and asked him for information. Parankusa Dasa replied:

Nathamuni was overjoyed. He fell at Parankusa Dasa's feet and begged to be taught the mantra. Finding Nathamuni a fit soul to receive it, Parankusa Dasa taught him the ten verses. With due preparation and austerity, Nathamuni sat down in meditation and invoked Nammazhvar by reciting the mantra twelve thousand times.

Nathamuni was qualified to receive this revelation because he possessed the qualities of a true devotee: faith, virtue, devotion to God, serenity, wisdom, and courage. Sri Maha Lakshmi, the Universal Mother, showed her mercy and commanded Saint Nammazhvar to appear to him. As if a voice came from heaven, the holy image of the saint opened its mouth and asked Nathamuni the object of his invocation. Nathamuni submitted his prayer: to recover the lost Prabandham.

Saint Nammazhvar, just as Lord Krishna revealed the Gita to Arjuna, was pleased to reveal:

Nathamuni felt himself blessed. He remained at Tirunagari absorbed in the service of the Alvar and of Adinatha. But Lord Mannanar again appeared in his dream and commanded him to chant the revelation before Him. Nathamuni communicated the dream to Lord Adinatha and to the Alvar, and was given permission to return home and to share the teaching with deserving devotees of good spiritual character — those endowed with Sama and Dama (control of senses and mind).

Nathamuni headed back to Viranarayanapuram, visiting many holy shrines on the way and learning much of the traditional lore connected with them. At home, he went to Lord Mannanar and, as commanded in the dream, recited all the Prabandhas he had now received.

After hearing them, the Lord thought to Himself: "We provided souls with bodies and senses; We gave them the Sastras to guide them rightly; We ourselves have often incarnated. Yet Our purpose — the salvation of all — remains incomplete. The Prabandhas of the Alvars are a valuable means of bringing this salvation about." He therefore commanded Nathamuni to set them to music and thereby spread this holy knowledge.

Obeying, Nathamuni set the holy Prabandhas to music — celestial music, it is written — with the help of his nephews Kizhaiakatt Azhvan and Melaiakatt Azhvan. Now, like the Vedas themselves, the Prabandhas were associated with the threefold intonation of Udatta, Anudatta, and Svarita, and from that time onward they spread far and wide throughout the land.

In those days King Chola ruled at a place called Gangaikonda Chozhapuram. Two courtesans came to him. One could sing in the deva-gana (celestial) mode; the other sang in the manushya-gana (human) mode. Each believed herself the superior, and they came before the king to settle the dispute. The king convened a council. When they performed, the ruling went in favor of the manushya-gana singer, who was richly rewarded. The singer of the deva-gana was judged to have failed.

The deva-gana singer thought to herself: "My method cannot be appreciated by humans; I shall consecrate it therefore to the Devas." So she went from one holy shrine to another, displaying her art before each deity. In time she reached Viranarayanapuram and went, as was her custom, to the shrine of Mannanar, where she sang before our sage Nathamuni.

Nathamuni heard and understood her mode. Greatly pleased, he gave her the tirtha and prasada of Lord Mannanar. She then returned to King Chola and told him: "There is one soul at least, O King, who can understand the beauties of my deva-gana. His name is Nathamuni, blessed devotee of Lord Mannanar at Viranarayanapuram."

The king's curiosity was roused, and he sent messengers begging Nathamuni to visit his court. On receiving the invitation, the sage thought: "We have set the blessed Prabandhas to exquisite music. Let us visit the king's court and take this opportunity of making them known to the world."

When he arrived, the king rose, welcomed the sage with every mark of honor, and offered him a seat. The sage blessed the king and asked the purpose of the invitation. The king asked whether he could distinguish between deva-gana and manushya-gana. The sage asked for the performance to be given. When it was done, he addressed the king:

"But," the king respectfully asked, "how can we be made to hear it?" The sage then directed that the four hundred kinds of tala (rhythm) be marked out, and explained the rate of each to the king.

From this explanation the king understood the harmony and symphony of the deva-gana, which produced in him a bliss he had never before experienced. It is also said that a pair of cymbals was placed near a consecrated post, and when the deva-gana was sung the post began to melt. When the music stopped, the cymbals stuck to the post; when the music resumed and the cymbals were lifted, they came away. The king went into raptures and, falling at the sage's feet, proposed to reward him abundantly. But the sage — to whom even lordship over worlds was no temptation — politely declined the presents. He blessed the king and returned to Viranarayanapuram.

Nathamuni had eight chief disciples:

The Jaya-Samhita of the Pancharatra Agama describes a true disciple thus:

To such deserving disciples, Nathamuni imparted all the holy mysteries of the religion, taught them the Divya Prabandhas, and left a legacy of works including:

Nathamuni then retired from active life and became absorbed in the contemplation of Mannanar, holding the Lord's resplendent form ever before his mental gaze. Word of his samadhi state reached the outside world and eventually the ears of King Chola. To see the wondrous sage and pay homage to Lord Mannanar, the king left his capital and travelled to Viranarayanapuram with his consorts. There he found Nathamuni absorbed in yoga and, struck with respect and wonder, began quietly to retrace his steps.

But the sage mistook the king and his consorts for Lord Krishna and His holy consorts, come to visit him. In the ecstasy of yoga he ran after them. Uyyakkondar and the other disciples, noticing this divine hallucination, pursued the sage and, meeting him at Gangaikonda Chozhapuram, asked him to explain his apparently strange behavior. He told them that in his eyes they had appeared as Lord Krishna and His consorts, and this vision had thrown him into a frenzy of love. The disciples reminded him that service to God and to the godly is the highest aim, and that while this service demanded his waking life, he ought not to lose himself in such ecstasies to the detriment of that service. He came back to himself and returned to his divine service at Lord Mannanar's shrine.

Matters went on thus for some time, and the sage became more and more absorbed in his illumination. One day he called his disciple Kurugai-k-kaval Appan and taught him the Ashtanga Yoga (the eight-limbed yoga).

Next he called his intimate disciple Uyyakkondar and asked him to practice yoga as well. But Uyyakkondar humbly answered:

"Then," said the sage, "employ yourself in the dissemination of the Sastras and the Prabandhas."

The sage then called his son Isvaramuni and said: "Son, you will have a son. Name him Yamunaitturaivar." He also commanded his disciples Uyyakkondar and Kurugaikkaval Appan to teach this future grandson all the knowledge of the Sastras and the yoga he had imparted. Having left these instructions, he resumed his yoga. Time passed.

King Chola had gone out into the country on a hunting excursion, and happened to pass by Viranarayanapuram on his way home. The sage's young daughter watched the grand procession, with its bows, arrows, female attendants, and monkeys, and ran to her father to describe what seemed to her like a vision: two men with bows, a woman, and a monkey had called at their home, asked for Nathamuni, and gone on their way. The sage at once construed this — in his divine imagination — as Lord Rama Himself, followed by His brother Lakshmana with bow and arrow as His bodyguard and with Queen Sita between them, exactly as described in the Ramayana:

At once he rose from his yoga-seat and went in search of the holy band, asking everyone he met for traces of their journey. They all said, "Go this way, go this way," evidently thinking he was looking for the king and his retinue. He quickened his pace and came to Gangaikondapuram, but when he asked the residents to direct him further, they said they had seen no such band. He looked forward, far out, and to the sides, and seeing nothing of what his heart yearned for, heaved a deep sigh, wept, swooned, fell to the ground, and departed from this world.

The disciples and the son received the tidings of this extraordinary departure and could not bear the pain of separation. But fate must be submitted to. They travelled to where the sage lay in state, prostrated themselves, and cremated him according to the Brahma medha ritual prescribed in the Vedas. Returning home, Isvaramuni duly performed all the remaining ceremonies. Kurugavalappan chose a spot near where his master had sat in yoga and steadily practiced the same. The sage is said to have lived 540 years.