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In celebration of Vedanta Desikar

— Photo: T. Singaravelou

Devotional tribute: Rama Nambinarayanan and party perform at the Sri Varadaraja Perumal Temple recently in Puducherry.

PUDUCHERRY: For the past few days, the devouts in Puducherry have been treated to discourses and music sessions organised by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, Tirupati’s Alwar Divya Prabandha Project and the Vedanta Desika Sabha of Puducherry at the Sri Varadaraja Perumal Temple on M.G. Road.

The celebrations are part of the 739th birth anniversary of Vedanta Desikar, who wrote over 100 books in Tamil, Sanskrit, Prakrit and Manipravalam on Sri Vaishnavite philosophy. The celebrations will go on till September 23.

On the inaugural day, a team of women, led by Rama Nambinarayanan, a lecturer in veena at the Government-run Bharathiar Palkalai Koodam and disciple of Dr. Chitti Babu, rendered songs from Nammalwar’s ‘Thiruvaimozhi’, which consists of a thousand ‘pasurams’.

“The ‘pasurams’ are an outflow of love for the Lord. We sing using the traditional Tamil ‘Pann’ (ragas),” said Ms. Rama. The Divya Prabandha Pann Isai Mandram, which was started in 2004, conducts the classes free of cost. Chitra Sridharan, Mallika Kesavaramanujam, Vaidehi Jayachandran, Usha Srinivasan, Haripriya Jagannathan and Sundara Ramaswami sang along with Ms. Rama.

Dharaneedharan, Reader, Sanskrit Department, Pondicherry University, spoke on Vedanta Desikar’s son, Kumara Varadacharya. “He has written more than 36 texts including a Desika Mangalam, which is about his father, he explained.

Veeraveli Varadadesikacharyar spoke on ‘Navamani Maalai’, in which Vedanta Desikar has written nine slokas on the Dasavataram.

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