Ananta-Suri — The Gardener of Lord Srinivasa

Some incidents from the life of Anantarya — another staunch disciple of Ramanuja — are told thus. As recorded earlier, he was the one who had undertaken to settle at Tirupati and perform all the services of Lord Srinivasa. He had also created a flower garden for the Lord's worship, which he tended personally.

He now wished to dig a small reservoir for water. He began the excavation with his own hands. A young Brahmacharin (boy in the student vow) suddenly appeared and said, "Aged sire, the task is too heavy for you. Let me help and lighten it." He stretched out his hand to take off the basket of earth from Anantarya's head.

Anantarya caught the boy's hand. "Son — if I give up my basket, I shall faint. If you take my basket, you will faint."

The boy was stubborn: "No fear of that, sir. Trust me."

Anantarya would not yield. "Son, this service is my life. If you also want life, go fetch your own basket and carry it." The boy disappeared.

Anantarya went on working. He pressed his wife, who was pregnant at the time, into the service — employing her to carry loads of earth and empty them on the bank. Her trips, at first slow, became very rapid. Surprised, he asked how she managed it.

"A Brahmacharin boy meets me halfway," she said innocently. "He carries the load and brings me back the basket. That is why your work goes so fast."

"Who is this impertinent urchin meddling with my work uninvited?" Anantarya fumed. Running after the boy, he struck him a poke under the chin with his crowbar. "Take that for your trouble — and be gone!" The boy fled as if in fright.

But the temple authorities soon found — and later Anantarya himself — that Lord Srinivasa in the sanctum was bleeding profusely under the chin. They stopped the bleeding by applying camphor to the wound. (This is done to this day, and the camphor is distributed to devotees as prasada.)

As Anantarya was pushing ahead with his work, he was one day bitten by a cobra. He simply went to the holy pond Svami-Pushkarani, bathed, and returned to work. People saw this and told him he must take treatment or he would die. He quietly answered, "No treatment is needed."

He then visited Lord Srinivasa. The Lord remarked, "Son — why did you think you need not extract the poison?"

"Lord," said Anantarya, "if the bitten serpent — meaning me — is the stronger, it will simply bathe in Your holy pond and go on serving here below. But if the biting serpent is the stronger, then it will bathe in the Viraja river and serve up above — in Your Vaikuntha. That was my thought when the cobra bit me."

Once Anantarya left Tirupati to visit his native land, the Posala country, carrying food for the journey. After some distance, feeling hungry, he sat down and opened his lunch-box — and found the food swarming with ants.

"Curse me — I have sinned!" he cried. "The greatest saints have wished to live on the Holy Hill of Tirupati even as stocks and stones. And I, a sinner, have deprived these holy ants of their holy abode."

He carefully closed the box, retraced his steps — hungry as he was — released the ants back on the hill, and then went his way.

Yamunai-t-turaivan is a chamber in the Tirupati temple premises named after sage Yamunacharya. Anantarya usually sat there stringing flower garlands for the Lord. Once, while he was still at work, he was called to attend to some other duty in the temple. He refused to move. When he finally brought the finished garland to the Lord, the Lord asked him why he had disobeyed.

"What have I to do with You, Lord," Anantarya said, "when my flowers are just blooming and I must not delay stringing them — lest their fragrance be lost to You?"

"What if We dismiss you from this place?" said the Lord.

"Lord — our saints have sung that You are a temporary resident of this Hill, like myself. You may have come here to stay a little earlier than I did, and that is the only difference between us. This Hill is not Yours — it is our common property. You have no authority to dispossess me."

The Lord was mightily pleased with His curious devotee — such a devotee as Anantarya was.