Courtesy: Sri.krishnan Muralidharan
Dear All,
Greetings and Namaste. A mail by Shriman V Laxmanan Swamin (of USA) a couple of days ago about the divine quality (anasooya - non-hatred/non-jealous) to be achieved by all with quotes from Bhagavad Gita and his personal experience in Venkateshwara Kalyana Utsava in Detroit (a few days ago) was exemplary.
It reminded me of an incidence (though not exactly in the same context but similar) in Sri Sridhara Ayyaval life which resulted in the attached stotra titled Dosha Pariharashtakam. It is indeed an exemplary illustration of divine nature of Sri Ayyaval - a quality that only seen great sages and not ordinary mortals.
A brief anecdote of this Stotra:
Sri Sridhara Ayyaval (A great Shiva/Krishna Upasaka) and Bodhendra Swamigal (a great Rama Nama Upasaka) were contemporaries in 17th century and Bodhendra Swamigal was a former Acharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham. They were great friends and nearby (Thiruvisanallur near Kumbhakonam. In those days, Thiruvisanallur had lot of Purva Mimamsis (practitioners of Purva Mimamsa - which is said to emphasize Karma Khanda of the Vedas as the Ultimate way to attain salvation and therefore they did not believe in Bhagavan Nama Japa and other Bhakti sadhanas).
Sridhara Ayyaval composed a magnum opus called "Bhagavan Nama Bhushanam" a Shastra Grantha in which he highlighted the relevance of Bhakti Sadhana through Nama Japa with full of anecdotes from Vedas that could not be gainsaid. Sri Bodhendra Swamigal reviewed the text line by line and approved the text and he even quoted this in his works Namamrutha Rasodayam and Namamrutha Rasayanam.
The Purva Mimasis reviewed this work and they could not refute any of Ayyaval's verses. Instead, they got very jealous of him and cast aspersions on Sridhara Ayyaval as stupid, unlearned, etc. etc. He was accompanied by his uncle and a couple of others. When those people exceeded limit, the Purva Mimamsis took the manuscript and burnt it.
Sridhara Ayyaval's uncle started saying something angrily but Sridhara Ayyaval just stopped him, bowed to all and just went out. When they reached home, his uncle was still fuming with ire. He suggested approaching Tanjore king and seek redressal.
Sridhara Ayyaval stopped him and asked him, "Why did they burn the manuscript?".
Uncle replied "That is because you exposed the falsehood of their karma anushtana which are not perfect"
Sridhara Ayyaval said, "I wrote a Shastra Grantha. Why should I point at blemishes of others in that? They are saying that I don't have shraddha in Karmanushatana and that is why I have written like this. Can I really say that I don't have that dosha? It is true that I don't have the same taste as performing Ishvara Nama Japa in Karmanushtana. That's why the Shastra vyavahara has resulted in mutual defamation due to personal imperfections (doshas)".
Then he sung this Dosha Pariharashtakam - instead of blaming the Purva Mimamsis, he highlights his own (perceived) imperfections and prays to Lord to cure those imperfections. What an extreme show of piety and self-effacing nature? Only great sages show such rare breed of divinity!
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