Illustrated Slokas
01. NARASIMHA ASHTAKAM
‘Narasimhashtakam’ is one of the unique expressions, stemming out of an incidence relating to what we now know as ‘Social Justice’, but for only about 400 years ago!
When we say, ‘Social Injustice’ we immediately relate to caste – this is because of our mind being corrupted by caste-driven politics. Here, the injustice was in the form of ‘mocking’ an illiterate by intellectuals of the same caste.
author Varadarajar of Vellalar community becomes a sishya of periyavachan piLLai at a young age and starts serving him at his kitchen. Once when he was about 32 years old, he observes a few vidhwans discussing philosophy. Out of curiosity, he goes and asks them what they are discussing about. Those vidhwans, knowing that varadharajar is not knowledgable in basics, sarcastically say that they are discussing musalakisalayam (a non-existing book!). They also chastise him saying that he does not understand any sasthram since he was illiterate.
Varadharajar goes to periyavachan pillai and explain this incident. periyavachan pillai says “since you are illiterate, they chastised you”. Being ashamed of himself, varadharajar prays to periyavachan pillai to teach him sasthram. periyavachan pillai, being most merciful, at once initiates him in to sasthram and starts teaching him kavya, nataka, alankara, shabdha, tharkka, pUrva mimamsa, uththara mImamsa, etc. Within a short time frame, by the mercy of his acharyan, varadharajar becomes a great expert in sasthram and writes a grantham named “musalakisalayam” and gives that back to the vidhwans who chastised him to be illiterate before. He learns Scriptures, etc from nayanarachan pillai. His life is a perfect example of how Guru’s blessings can bring one up to great heights.