Swami Emperumanar Vellai Sarruppadi - Kuthirai vahanam 2025

"தஸ்மை ராமானுஜார்யாய நம: பரமயோகினே" ~ we fall at the feet of the Greatest of Acharyas who is hailed as the King of all Sages.   On day 6 of the Thiruvavathara  Uthsavam of Emperumanar (Udayavar / Ramanujar] – it is  kuthirai vahanam. On this uthsavam, every year I have been posting  photos of Swami Ramanujar astride a horse wearing ‘white silken robes’ with melancholy – for it was an event in the life of Emperumanar which made us sad.   This year the post is slightly different !!

 

Can you identify or make out what this picture is about ?  Horses have a great role !  Kallazhagar entering Vaigai on horse is famous, Arangan kuthirai vahana kona oyyali is adorable, Kaliyan adalma entering Thirumanankollai is a great sight but not Swami Emperumanar on a horse – that is more of a melancholic story !!

 

Horses have a preeminent placein mythology, movies and .. .. In Greek mythology, several heroes are closely associated with horses, often depicted as skilled riders and horse-tamers. Achilles, the hero of the Trojan War, is known as the "tamer of horses" and was gifted immortal horses by the Gods; Bellerophon tamed the winged horse Pegasus and used it to defeat the Chimera. Other notable examples include Heracles and his immortal horse Arion, and Poseidon, the god of the sea, horses, and earthquakes. 

Bellerophon ["slayer of Belleros") or Hipponous   was a divine Corinthian hero of Greek mythology, the son of Poseidon and Eurynome, and the foster son of Glaukos. He was "the greatest hero and slayer of monsters, alongside Cadmus and Perseus, before the days of Heracles". Among his greatest feats was killing the Chimera of the Iliad, a monster that Homer depicted with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail: "her breath came out in terrible blasts of burning flame." Bellerophon was also known for capturing and taming the winged horse Pegasus with the help of Athena's charmed bridle, and earning the disfavour of the gods after attempting to ride Pegasus to Mount Olympus.

 

 

War Horse is a  famous  war drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, from a screenplay written by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis that hit the screens in 2011. It is based on Michael Morpurgo's 1982 novel of the same name and its 2007 stage adaptation. Set before and during World War I, its plot follows Joey, a bay Irish Hunter horse raised by English teenager Albert as he is bought by the British Army, leading him to encounter various people throughout Europe, in the midst of the war and its tragedies.

Most likely that you have visited our Rajdhani, the National Capital, New Delhi.  You may be surprised to read that for the better part of the 19th century, the main railway route from Madras to Calcutta and Delhi was through Bombay!  The Madras-Bombay mail train carried through carriages between Madras and Manmad which were detached at Daund. Passengers would then be  transferred to the Great Indian Peninsular Railway's Calcutta mail at Manmad to proceed to the northern and the eastern parts of the country.  Then came the Grand Trunk Express .. .. GT Express  ran from 1st Apr 1929   after the construction of the Kazipet-Balharshah section.  As a prestigious train, it was one of the few to have the early methods of air cooling by ice blocks. It also carried a parcel van for urgent consignments.  'Grand Trunk' express commenced operating as two through carriages running between Peshawar in the North Western Railway (British India) and Mangalore in the South Indian Railway. 

Indraprastha ("Plain of Indra" or "City of Indra")  was a flourishing  city of the Kuru Kingdom. It was the capital of the kingdom led by the Pandavas ~ compares to the present day  New Delhi, particularly the Old Fort (Purana Qila) Unlike the Southern parts of India, Delhi has seen much of occupation and wars.  By some accounts Delhi is  known to have been continuously inhabited since 6th  century BC ~ and in most of its history, it has been the capital of many kingdoms, starting from the days of Pandavas when it was Indraprastha.   

Chakrāvarti Yashwant Rao Holkar (1776–1811) also known as Jaswantrao Holkar belonged to the Holkar dynasty of the Maratha Confederacy was the Maharaja of the Indore. He was a gifted military leader and educated in accountancy as well as literate in Persian and Marathi and Urdu. In January 1799, Yashwant Rao Holkar ascended the Holkar throne.  At that time, in  Delhi, the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II had become puppet monarch of his new masters, the British who successfully replaced Marathas after defeating Sindhia. On 8 October 1804, to gain control over the emperor, Holkar marched towards Delhi and attacked the army of Colonel Ochterlony and Berne. The Siege of Delhi (1804) lasted for more than a week. In that siege, the  important gates - Ajmeri Gate, Kashmiri Gate, and Lahori Gate - saw stiff fighting."

Indian First war of Independence too centered around Delhi.  The siege of Delhi in 1857 was from 8^th June till 21^st Sept.   The hard-fought recapture of Delhi by the British army was a decisive moment in the suppression of the 1857–58 Indian Mutiny against British rule. It extinguished Indian dreams of recreating the rule of the Mughal Empire. The rebellion lost its cohesion, allowing the British to defeat any remaining isolated pockets of resistance. 

Because of that uprising, the  city once known for its resplendent culture of mushairas and poets was to be reduced to one strewn with bodies of the dead. From a royal capital, its status was relegated to that of a provincial town. The city recovered itself only after 1911 and more so after Independence.

Had posted many times earlier  at length on the significance of day 6 – Kuthirai vahanam – vellai sarruppadi vaibhavam – of Swami Ramanujar astride a horse wearing white robes - a symbolic tradition when our Great Acharyar dons white garment and is seen without trithandam. Symbolic of the travail and travel that Ramanujar had to undertake donning the dress of a ‘grahastha’ instead of his reverred kashaya.  For a detailed post on ‘vellai sarruppadi’ – do read this :Udayavar Vellai Sarruppadi 

Swami Emperumanar travelled along the course of river Kaveri, went out of Cholanadu adorning white dress and went places traversing Kongu nadu,  reached Thondanur, where he constructed a huge lake; thence reached Melukote (Thirunarayanapuram) in Mandya district, where he performed many religious discourses and brought in disciplined ways of temple management.    More was to happen as Udayavar travelled to Delhi to the Court of Delhi sultan where the uthsava vigraham of "Ramapriyan" had been taken by the invading  muslim ruler. The vigraham (Chelva Pillai)  when invited by Udayavar walked on its own and sat on the lap of Udayavar.

It is our fortune that we are in the lineage of such great Acaryas and have the fortune of worshipping them and reciting the holy works of Azhwar, Acharyas.   At Thiruvallikkeni on day 6 – Sri Udayavar  on kuthirai vahanam wearing white silken robes halts (mandagappadi) at Sri Yadugiri Yathiraja Mutt that is connected to Melukote Thirunarayanapuram.  Here – saffron robes (kashaya Uthareevam) and garlands are offered to Swami Ramanuja. As Melukote is known for the thiruman & sirchurnam  that we adorn (Swami Ramanujar found them in abundance in the hills of Thirunarayanapuram), they  are distributed to Srivaishnavas.  

Swami Emperumanar lived for 12 years at Melukote, administered the temple and did many kainkaryam changing the fortunes of people living in that area. Let us fall at the feet of our Acaryarn.   Here are some photos of Udayavar uthsavam day 6 of date.   

ஸ்ரீமந்  யதீந்த்ர! தவ திவ்யபதாப்ஜஸேவாம்  :  என்றுமழியாத செல்வமுடைய யதிராஜரே அடியேனுக்கு தேவரீருடைய திருவடித்தாமரைகளில் பண்ணும் கைங்கர்யத்தை, அருளவேணும் !!     

ஆழ்வார் எம்பெருமானார் திருவடிகளே சரணம் -

நம் இராமானுஜன் திருவடிகளே சரணம்.

 

அடியேன் ஸ்ரீனிவாசதாசன்

Mamandur Veeravalli Srinivasan Sampathkumar

28.4.2025  

PS :   if you still remember that pic at the start and could not decipher what it is ?  -  it is Bellerophon Taming Pegasus,  an outdoor sculpture by Jacques Lipchitz, depicting Bellerophon and Pegasus. It was the final sculpture worked on by Lipchitz, and was completed after his death in 1973.  The work depicts the human figure of Bellerophon, standing on a high plinth, tying a rope around the neck of the thrashing Pegasus, whose tail, legs and wings splay dramatically around the central figures. It has been interpreted as a representing man taming nature. In the words of the artist, "You observe nature, make conclusions, and from these you make rules… and law is born from that".  It takes inspiration from Lipchitz's earlier work, Birth of the Muses, which depicts Pegasus landing on Mount Olympus.  The sculpture was commissioned by architect Max Abramovitz for Columbia Law School in 1964.  It was cast in bronze at Pietrasanta in Italy, shipped in pieces to be constructed in New York City, and dedicated on November 28, 1977.  It is installed above the west entrance of Jerome Greene Hall on Revson Plaza, on the Columbia University campus in Manhattan.  The 23 ton sculpture measures approximately 30 feet (9.1 m) by 28 feet (8.5 m), and stands on a 27-foot (8.2 m) high pedestal, making it, after the Statue of Liberty, the second-largest metal statue in New York City, as of 2022