The trigger for me to write the book, 'Ramanuja Itihasam' was the claim by a twitter handle by name @TrueIndology that the Moolavar Vigraha of Lord Govindaraja of Thiru Chithrakutam, known as Chidambaram, was not thrown into the sea by the then ruler of the Chola country. Citing the incident shown in the movie "Dasavatara", that person tweeted that it was a concocted story created by Vaishnavites to create an aura around Ramanuja that he safe-guarded the Utsava murti from damage. The person went on to cast aspersions on none other than Ramanujacharya in varied ways which I addressed in my book.
In both the English and the Tamil version of my book, I have given a detailed rebuttal of this claim by the tweeple, besides providing the details of the regrettable event which was recorded at the behest of the same ruler by his court poet, Oddakootthar. Some devotees somehow managed to protect the Utsava Murti and secretly left for Tirupati where Ramanujacharya was camping. Ramanuja received the Murti and established Him within the premises of the Parthasarathy temple in Tirupati - in the foothills of Tirumala. I proved in my book that consecration of Sri. Govindaraja in Tirupati was done on 3rd March, 1130.
In the Tamil edition of my book, I just made a mention that the Murti was re-consecrated in Chidambaram in the 16th century by one Achyuta Raya. In this blog I am producing the inscriptional evidence for the re-installation of the Utsava Murti, got back from Tirupati and also the installation of a new Moolavar.
Two dates appear for the consecration. Let me produce the second date first as it contains more information. The source is Mackenzie manuscript. The name Chidambaram is not found in these records. It was Chithrakootam, the abode of Rama in the works of Azhwars who praised this God. In records, it appears by the names, Thillai, Vyagrapuram, Puliyur, Perumberra Puliyur, Chithrakootam etc. From the name of the sage Vyagrapada which is derivative of one having the feet of the tiger, this place got the name Puliyur. In the inscription produced below, Chidambaram is mentioned as Perumberra Puliyur in Rajaraja Valanaadu.
(Click the above images to enlarge)
It says that in the year 1539, corresponding to Vikari (wrongly given as Vikriti), when the Sun was in Mithuna rasi and Moon in Anusha nakshatra at the time of Shukla Chaturdasi and Saadhya Yoga, the king Achyuta Deva Maharaya established Lord Govindaraja in the temple of Chidambaram.
The date features given in the inscription remarkably match with the Yoga of the day.
The king Achyuta Raya also made arrangements for the daily worship of the deity by assigning the proceeds from four villages. To conduct Puja on all the 30 days of the month, he assigned different persons from different Gotras.
For 8 days, a person by name Kuppaiyar of Kashyapa Gotra belonging to Thiruveethi, for the next 8 days, a person by name Nalla Perumal of Bharadwaja Gotra of Dindivanam, for the next 8 days, a person by name Deva Nayaka Bhattar of Kaushika Gotra from Thiruvaheendhipuram, for the next 2 days, a person by name Srinivasa Bhattar of Gautama Gotra from Taadalan Koil and for the remaining 4 days, a person by name Narasimha Iyengar of Bharadwaja Gotra of Taadalan Koil were assigned the duty of conducting the Puja for Lord Govindaraja.
The names of the persons and their locations look odd because the persons seemed to be from both Iyer and Iyengar sects and their locations were far away from Chidambaram. The Taadalan Koil should refer to Seerkazhi Trivikrama temple where the Utsava murti is known as Taadalan. The nearest was Seerkazhi which would take 4 hours by walk. The farthest was Dindivanam, which was approximately 100 km from Chidambaram. Why different persons were chosen from different locations to serve the deity?
Thinking of this question, the only probable answer seems to lie with a conjecture that these people must have helped in retrieving the deity for consecration in the 16th century or their ancestors were instrumental in safe-guarding the deity in the 12th century when Kulottunga-II demolished the shrine of Govindaraja. Somehow these five persons came to possess some right to serve the Lord.
Yet another inscription found in the Govindaraja shrine gives a slightly different date, and it is also from the reign of Achyuta Raya.
This gives the year name as Vilambi and the month name, Panguni. Vilambi was the preceding year of Vikari found in the previous inscription. Both refer to reconsecration by a gap of three months but the previous one with a latter date has details on who should conduct the puja and how to procure the earnings to run the temple. From these two records, we understand that this inscription on the north of the central shrine of Govindaraja marks the beginning of the work. The previous inscription was perhaps about the completion of the work or the actual date of consecration.
The week day (Monday) matched only for Purva Phalguni and Shukla Chaturdasi. Some discrepancy is here in the recorded date features. But the overall date clearly shows that Achyuta Raya started the work in Panguni (March 1539) and ended the work in the following Mithuna (June 1539).
Differences with literary accounts
These two inscriptions attributed to Achyuta Raya giving the details of the re-consecration of Lord Govindaraja run contrary to literary records. There is a Guru Parampara record stating that the deity was reinstated by Sri Vedanta Desika, taking advantage of the internal commotion in Chidambaram to make Gopannaraya of Gingee to re-consecrate the deity in Chidambaram. His date coming in 13th / 14th century doesn't match with the dates of these inscriptions. The ruler also was different. Perhaps there was an attempt to re-install the deity in Vedanta Desika's time and it failed.
The text Prapannamrutham attributes the efforts to Mahacharya or Doddacharya of Sholingar and the king was one Rama Raya of Chandragiri, a successor of Krishnadeva Raya. This record seems closer to the inscriptional evidence, but Achyuta Raya might have been mistakenly mentioned as Rama Raya.
The common thread in both the accounts is that a Vaishnavite Acharya had taken efforts to re-consecrate the deity and sought the help of rulers. However there is no word on whether any efforts were made to retrieve the Moolavar from the sea. The Moolavar continues to be residing on the floor of the sea somewhere in the northern part of the Kaveri estuary. Will anyone try to locate Him using the modern techniques?
