Lord venkateshwara and the poor potter.kummara dAsuDaina kuru varati nambi emmanna varamulella nichchina vADu

King Thondaman Chakravarthy  was a great devotee  of Lord Venkateshwara .He was  ruling the region of Tamil Nadu including Tirumala   several  hundred years ago . The King   used to speak to Lord  and by the  mercy of LORD  he was ruling the kingdom  to the satisfaction of the people by all means   .

 During this period   an Asura Simhada started torturing the people which made the king upset .No amount of resistance could drive out this  Asura .The unusual happenings  in the kingdom  was causing fear  among the people . The King was annoyed  and hence surrendered to   Lord Venkateswara  to save the people from the   calamity .  

The Lord  out of compassion to the King  appeared  to him  and lent his  ThiruSankha and  Sri Chakra and  commanded  the King to vanquish the enemy with the divine weapons .  The King  obediently followed the Lord’s commands  and  won the battle . After the  victory, He kept the sankha and chakra in his palace and worshiped them daily  as they were the  representation of the Lord on the Hills!

Later , Jagathacharyar’s  Swamy Ramanuja’s  contribution earned him the title  ” Appanukku Sangaazhi Alittha Perumaal”   in Tirumala .

Poet Arunagiri  also sung in his poem  “Ulageenra Pachai umaiyanan, Vada Venkadathil Uraibhavan, Uyar Sanga Chakra kara Thalan” .

 During this period there lived   another  great devotee  by the name Kurumbarutha Nambi  near the foot of the holy hills  .He   was a potter by profession .  A sincere devotee of the Lord , he  made a deity  of  Lord Venkateshwara  and  worshipped   daily with flowers made of  ‘left over clay’ .

 Kurumbarathu Nambi was worshiping with the mud flowers ,  King  Thondaman chakravarthy  was worshipping   Lord  with golden flowers.   The King   was surprised to observe  every time  he entered the sannithee   of   Lord   he used to see the mud flowers  crafted wonderfully  lying   , instead of the golden flowers that he was offering .

He was  keen to find out  the reason for the unusual happening . No amount of vigilance worked for him to get an answer . He hence  decided to plead LORD to help him in revealing the identity of that intruder  .

The King prayed LORD for helping him to reveal  his identity    . Lord out of abundant mercy spoke to the King about the poor potter ,  his dear devotee  service to him in offering the  mud flowers . The LORD said the  mud flowers offered by Nambi contained  rich fragrance of love than the golden flowers he was offering .

Elders say that generally a person develops EGO   if he is good looking ,well educated, has  administrative power and enormous wealth.

A  person birth in upper caste etc  also contributes  to  his ego and Kurumbarutha Nambi  was not attached to all the above which placed him above everything .  The divine pastime shows that the Lord attaches no importance to our wealth or position.

The devotee’s love for the Lord was like the maternal love of Periazhvar, who worried over the Lord, when he sang his glorious  Pallandu pasuram , to ward off evil eyes from the Lord.

 

It is bhakti that the Lord values; it is often the humblest of us who gets the grace of Lord. While men may value wealth and bow before the rich, why would the Master of the Universe even care for such impermanent things? 

The great saint Annamaya sings a wonderful kirtana in which he mentions the devotees pastime …

kummara dAsuDaina kuru varati nambi emmanna varamulella nichchina vADu ………….dommulu sEsina yeTTi tonDamAn chakkura varti rammanna chOTiki vachchi nammina vADu ||

Adiyen Ramanuja dasan

Pics : Google images

videos : Courtesy  T series Bhaktisagar  , vssn rao’s channel