One day, during the recitation of the Srimad Ramayana by the Royal guru, King Kulasekhara heard the following passage:
There twice seven thousand giants stand
with impious heart and cruel hand.
Here Rama stands, by virtue known;
how can the hero fight alone?
On hearing the lines “How can the hero fight alone?” King Kulasekhara rose in a frenzy of devotion for Lord Rama and commanded his army to march with him to where Lord Rama was fighting alone and helpless.
To relieve Kulasekhara’s distress, the ministers silently arranged for a battalion of soldiers to meet him as he was going out and tell him that Lord Rama had been victorious thus avoiding the King’s confusion. In spiritual delirium, Kulasekhara believed their tale and returned home
The daily recital of Srimad Ramayana went on as usual andevery important event which was read, was celebrated with great pomp and rejoicings, and taking Lord Sri Rama’s deity along with all the family members in huge procession throughthe streets of his city with royal endeavours ending with the sumptuous feedings to devotees and donations to sages and with distribution of charities and whatever a King could offer in celebration of the Emperors of the celestial world .That was the great Kulashekara Alwar a great devotee of Lord Rama
Knowing the peculiar temperament of the king, and his keen spiritual susceptibility which carried him to the stigmata-stage, the reader (to the king) of Ramayana exercised utmost caution during the daily recitation of Srimad Ramayana
However, one day, the reader Royal Guru was obliged to be absent himself, as other business called him elsewhere. He deputed his son to do the recital in his place.
The son was unaware of the king’s abnormal religious fervour; and so he read and expatiated on all passages of the Srimad Ramayana alike. And the incident of Sita’s abduction by the demon Ravana, came to be read.
Instantly, it lit fire to the King’s imagination, his wrath roused, and his enthusiasm burst forth.
Come on … “Immediately, he roared
Yes !!! I must take charge and ,”across the ocean,” he raved, ‘”reduce Lanka to ashes, slay its ruler, Ravana, with all his crew of brothers, friends and relations, rescue my weeping mother Sita and join her with my Father Sri Rama.”
As he raved, he rose, armed himself, bid his army. He rushed immediately along with his armies forth to the sea-shore, looking towards Lanka, plunged into it without a thought of the dire consequences which must follow from such rash and reasonless act.
The ministers and others were shocked in anxiety and dread, and wonder staring in their faces, eagerly watched the King’s procedure. They were so staggered as not to be able even to think how to advise him against his head strong impulses, nor dare to move to prevent him from giving action to his impulses.
As they could not think anything at this critical juncture, they simply stared.
As they stared, the King had already plunged into the sea, and was neck-deep in water, resolved to swim the vast stretch of the ocean beyond, to reach the shores of Lanka.That was the deep devotion he had for the Lordships
All compassionate Lord SriRama who was being worshipped in our Saint’s Home-Shrine, was watching throughout, the course of events.
Now matters had assumed a critical aspect. There was noalternative.
I must appear now to my child said HE and lo! as the King was about to swim forward in the delirium of his frenzy, he saw before him the most enchanting sight of our Lord Sri Rama approaching him, with his dear consort sita, clinging to His powerfularm.
Addressing his devout servant, our King-Saint Kulasekhara-
Lord Sri Rama spoke, O my dear Kulasekhara ! My child
We are returning victorious from the battlefield. Our foe-men have all perished. Our illustrious Partner we have rescued. Your .venture for our aid has been forestalled, and your wish has been fulfilled.
Pray let us all return to thy city. Let me lift and carry you to the shore, even as souls are lifted and carried by us from the larger and deeper sea of Samsara, to the shores of Heaven beyond.
“So saying, Sri Rama caught hold of His king-servant, brought him safe to the shore, and accompanying him as far as the city, vanished out of sight.
The ministers and the crowd surrounding him whispered ..
“God-sick is our king; what is the remedy for this disease?
Let us diagnose. Ah, we find the cause row.
It is the association with the Godly and the Saintly -the Vaishwavas—that has brought the king to this pass
.Let us wean him then from such associations.” Such were the cogitations of the poor ministers who surrounded the king.
The king who, on the other hand,was daily sighing to go to Sri Rangam and live there forever, was now in earnest.He ordered preparations to be made for his bidding adieu to his kingdom and join the Kingdom of God.
The ministers thought: —”When the king goes there, he will never return. The association with the Godly there, is even of a worse (!) type than here.
Irresistible associations abound there; let us devise a plan to foil the king’s designs. He is so attached to Godly men—the vaishnavas that he looks upon them as God’s•own ; and being so, worthy of first worship, or worthy of worship even before God Himself.” So, whenever the king essayed to go to SrlRaniga Shrine, the ministers had a batch of Srl-Vaishnavas ready as hailing from one Holy Shrine or the other. The king would postpone his journey on their account. In course of time, the ministers found that their plan proved but a case of ‘out of the frying pan into the fire,’ for the king’s court, hispalace, his private apartments as well as public places all became swarmed with vaishnavas who came and went regularly.
The Vaishnavas were allowed free access and familiarity, and the king literally venerated and adored them according to the procedures as Sastric injunction say that ‘ a Srt vaishmiva even once worshipped’ carried the merit of worshipping the Supreme Lord himself The ministers found these Godly folks a nuisance and were in a fix as to what to do.
They felt worried as any move will upset the King . If they tried to wean the king from his Srt-Ranga journey, they had to suffer the Godly people assembling in huge numbers and to assemble and accumulate-but their crowd was becoming unmanageable-
but if they tried to eradicate this root of the king’s divine ailment,— asthey thought always by bringing about their evacuation from the country, the king would say farewell to his dominions and depart.
“Supposing we could by some means calumniate these people , in the king’s eye, “they thought, “then he would certainly awake from his delusion of believing: these are godly men.
If the godly,-as he thinks-were proved ungodly, there is a good chance of re claiming the king from his odd ways.
” They thus hit upon a method:–Out of the box ‘ containing the valuable jewellery of the king’s darling deity Lord Sri-Rama, they secreted a precious necklace, unknown to anyone. It would be missed, and reported to the king of course.
He would hold an inquiry. And who should be the culprit ?
Surely these seeming vaishnavas , who arc the warders and guarders of the jewellery, the appointed priests as they were for fulfilling the function of daily worshipping Sita Rama and therefore directly concerned in constantly using the jewellery. So, the necklace was missed and a report was made to the king that the Sri Vaishnavas who had the management in their hands of the worship-department, were culpable; and were to be subjected to trial and punishment.
The king heard it all but at last exclaimed in a loud tone
“Hear hey … ministers,
True Lovers of God are incapable of stealing.
It is impossible that even a notion of vice can enter into their thought, motto say of act. Be hold ! I can swear to what I say. To prove this truth of my conviction and prove the falsity of your accusation against my Innocents, let a vessel, with a live venomous cobra imprisoned in it, be brought to me. I shall thrust my hand into it.” As soon said as done. And the King, before his Court in solemnconclave assembled, said : “If my Innocents are straight In thought, word and deed, I cannot be bit by thiscobra ; but if they are crooked, let it bite me and kill.”
So saying, he fearlessly plunged his arm into the vessel of death, but drew it forth as clean as when he thrust in . The ministers were put to shame they hung
their heads.
It was useless, they thought, to dodge and trifle with the king, who was to’o much for them ;fell at his feet, confessed their trick, brought the necklace and placed it before him in fear and respect.
The king pardoned them even as Kama pardoned the vile culprit Kakusura, the crow,—and the King was Lord Rama’sdiscipl and bid them from that away forward to be the slaves of his Innocents.
” No more will I dwell with these vile and scheming ministers “, the king thought within himself, “l am disgusted with all of them.
Why them ? well the whole worlds weary to me.
With the world and with the worldliness feel as if I would rather allow myself to be placed in the midst of flaming fire than keep company with them.
Brutes are those who are turned away from God
” So determined, our Saint would no longer bear to remaining his kingly estate, but called his son named Dridhavrata(so called after his grand-father), and entrusted him with the charge of his government, and accompanied by his daughter,—who, it is recorded, was a divine daughter of the Amsa of devi went to the Shrine of Ranga, — his heart’s Eternal Hunger. And there he gave his daughter in marriage to Lord Ranganatha Himself and remained there for a length of time engaged in conducting manifold services to the
Majestic Lordships and his devout servants
At intervals he undertook pilgrimages to Holy Shrines as Tiruvewgadam( Tirupati ,Ayodhya, Chitrakutam, and all divine places and as an embodiment of the divine emotions and enjoyments which came to him on all these occasions, is penned to us as the Dravida Prabandha, called Perumal Tirumozhi, consistingof one hundred and five stanzas .
He undertook a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Swamy .Nammnzhvar, (Tirunagari near Tirunalvelli),
It was this Royal Saint who sang the gem of strotas MUKUNDA MALA
Adiyen Ramanuja dasan
Pics : Courtesy Google images and Pics shared by devotees from social media
kazhiyur varadan's blog 