The very thought of
traveling to the temple town of Tirumala on the Venkatadri hills brings along
an unknown excitement and at the same time a wee bit of fear too. What if we do
not get a chance to make it to his abode! While we are self-invited guests to
his home, isn’t it strange that we see nothing wrong in expecting the best form
of treatment and wait for those fleeting few seconds when we finally get to
make an eye contact with him – the over powering sense of relief makes one feel
weightless and as if we are floating freely in space!
Transcending all the known barriers,
it feels that we are one with him. The sense of satisfaction that we have told
him all that we wanted to and that he has patiently heard you out is a private
dialogue that can happen only between you and him! But surprisingly, the long
list of wants that you entered his home with now seems so trivial and soon forgotten.
The sheer ecstasy drives away the agony of the long wait!
You are soon jolted out of
the trance by the professional pushers who seem to be saying – okay, you had
your chance and now let the next one get his! The Japanese Pushers, whose work
is to push people into the railway cars during peak hour pale in comparison to
the home grown pilgrim pushers in TTD.
Situated in Chittoor district
of Andhra Pradesh, Tirupathi is the most ancient pilgrimage center in India.
The town owes its existence to the sacred temple of Lord Sri Venkateswara
situated on the Tirumala Hill adjoining it. With a history of its present
structure dating back to over twelve centuries, the temple is considered as the
jewel in the crown of ancient places of worship in southern India.
The Tirumala Hill is 3200 ft
above sea level, and is about 27 square KM’s in area. It comprises seven peaks,
representing the seven hoods of Adisesha, thus earning the name, Seshachalam.
The seven peaks are called Seshadri, Neeladri, Garudadri, Anjanadri,
Vrishabhadri, Narayanadri and Venkatadri. The sacred temple of Sri Venkateswara is
located on the seventh peak, Venkatadri, and lies on the southern banks of Sri
Swami Pushkarini.
It is the 2nd richest temple
after Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple at Tiruvanthapuram, but the most visited holy
place in the world today.
Significantly, the temple
was maintained and upgraded by various kingdoms namely The Pallavas
of Kanchipuram
(9th century AD), the Cholas of Tanjore (10th century), and Vijayanagara
pradhans
(14th and 15th centuries), who were committed devotees of Lord Venkateswara.
The temple gained most of its current wealth and size with donations of diamond
and gold by the Vijayanagar emperors. Gold for the inner shrine roofing to be
gilded was provided by Sri Krishna Deva Raya the then ruler of Vijayanagar
empire. Interestingly, it was Sri Ramanujacharya, the reformer and Vaishnavite
saint who in the 12th century laid down
a comprehensive system of organization and management of worship. The principles
and the method of worship to be followed have survived to this day in Tirumala.
We, as a family have always
preferred APTDC’s package trip to the temple town as the service is prompt and
each section or part of the journey happens like clockwork. This time though,
we had some surprise in store! The start from home was pretty auspicious with
nothing untoward happening and so was the bus journey from Bangalore APTDC’s
Race Course pick-up point. The bus itself was a beauty – a swanky new Mercedes
Benz rear engine air conditioned bus. With 15 seats going abegging, we hoped it
would be similar at Tirumala’s notorious Q’s at the temple gates. The first
hint about how things would shape up came our way just as the elevator doors
shut to take us to the 4th floor in the Transit accommodation provided by TTD.
The Lord may have taken pity and forgiven us poor souls, but not this elevator.
With 2 persons too many, it groaned to an abrupt halt midway between the 2nd
and 3rd floor causing some kind of panic. We had to remain locked in its
confines for a good 15 minutes before help finally arrived. From his
instructions that were faintly audible to us, we realized he was a novice – a
green horn, to be more apt. Lucky for us, he had apparently worked on MS
Windows and ended up doing what all of us do. Yes, re-Boot!! He switched off
the power supply, gave it some time for the memory in the elevator control
circuit to erase and then switched on. The elevator descended to the ground
floor like a charm – we heaved a sigh of relief from the temporary set back,
climbed all the way up to the 4th floor and hurried to our respective rooms to
freshen up to embark on the next leg of the journey.
Being a Friday, we were told
that a visit to Padmavathy temple would take place first at Tirupathi and later
we would be transported to the hill-top town of Tirumala by TTD operated link
bus, in time for the 8:30 AM darshan. We were assured that the entire duration
would not last more than an hour. And so, off we went to Padmavathy temple in
suburban Tirupathi – Alamelumangapuram. It was 4:30 AM and Aarthi had just then
concluded post the morning panchamrutha seva. A couple of guys were shouting at
the gate for us to hurry up, else the doors would be closed for the ‘Alankara’.
Our guide, incidentally was also ‘Srinivasa’ – not a God send, but it was as if
God had himself descended on earth to take care!! He got us special tickets
which allowed us a fairly good amount of time in front of Goddess Padmavathy.
With time to spare, we for the first time got some time to look around the
temple complex and visit the sub-temples of Sri Krishna Swamy, Sri Sundararaja
Swamy and Sri Suryanarayana Swamy.
The gateway to the 7-Hills
is called Alipiri and somewhere close to this starting point we disembarked
from our luxurious Mercedes Benz and jumped into a waiting Link Bus operated by
TTD. Each time we visit Tirumala, I wonder why the TTD Board has not thought of
getting a complete new fleet of buses. Most of the existing ones seem to have
outlived their extended lives and I am sure if they send a word to the major
engine & chassis manufacturers, they will fall all over each other to
oblige; who knows they may even give the Board a discount with the hope that
they pass on a message to the good Lord and earn a few brownie points for
themselves. Well, jokes apart, the engine condition and the brakes are
maintained immaculately and there is no reason for any doubt about safety of
these buses shipping people up and then down, 24/7.
As we were steadily climbing
our way through the 7-hills I tried recollecting what I had heard and read
about this unique temple. There are innumerable ancient references to the deity
and the purifying hill, in fact even
before the advent of the deity. They date back to the Rig-Veda period. Some
described only the purifying hill, others mentioned the Lord who absolves sins
and presides over the hill, but not any temple. The puranas refer to the
Tirumala hill as Venkatadri or Venkatachala. The longest epic in the world, the
Mahabharata describes the transformation of the departed spirit of Sri Krishna
into a lifeless four armed image which was to descend to earth and be worshiped in Kaliyuga. This is believed to be the Tirumala deity – one of the
eight Swayam Vyakta Sthala. In the hierarchy of structures, Swayam Vyakta
Kshetras stands at the peak amongst the 5 categories. The other 4 in their
descending order are: Deva, Arsha or Sidha, Pauranika and Manusha. The difference
is based on who installed the deity in a given temple. The images installed by
divinities like Brahma, Indra etc are known as Deva sthala. Similarly, images
installed by great sages are known as arsha sthala and ones by sidhas are known as
Sidha sthala. Images installed in the ancient days and as mentioned in the
epics are known as Pauranika sthala. Images installed by devout human beings
are known as Manusha sthala.
The main idol in Tirumala is
believed to be of divine origin – Sri Krishna manifests himself by his own free
will as the Archavatara or the image fit to be worshipped, in Tirumala, the
Swayam Vyakta Sthala. The other 7 Sthalas are Srirangam, Srimushnam,
Totaparvatam, Salagramam in Nepal, Pushkaram, Badrinath and Naimisham. It is
believed that in Kaliyuga, one can attain mukti only by worshiping Sri
Venkateswara. The benefits acquired by pilgrimage to Vankatachala are mentioned
in the Rig Veda too. The following is an interesting connection between the astronomical, the physiological and the spiritual : Kaliyuga as told in our
puranas is a period that will last 432,000 years, with the beginning of this
era suggested as 3012 BC. According to Hindu tradition, the Rigvedic hymns were
collected by Paila
under the guidance of Vyasa who formed the Rigveda Samhita as we know it. According to the Sataptha Brahmana the number
of syllables in the Rigveda is 432,000, equaling the number of muhurtas (1 day
= 30 muhurtas) in forty years. Is this a mere coincidence or was this by design
– The Almighty God can surely throw some light!!
If I stretch my memory, I
must have visited the Tirumala Sri Venkateswara temple just twice before my
marriage. The first was for the twin celebrations: my thread ceremony followed
by my eldest sister’s marriage in the February 1975. This was when we
experienced the Lord indeed to be ‘The Supreme’. My father had decided for
himself that he would get my ‘Thread Ceremony’ done at Tirumala. With the muhurtham falling on 16th
Feb’75 and my sisters marriage the following day, there was little or no scope
for my parents to arrange one event in Tirumala and the next one at Bangalore.
My father took the step of getting both the events organized at Tirumala and it
meant a considerable hike in budget along with logistical woes. All plans were
made for the entire family, friends and relatives to travel from Mysore on 14th
Feb’75. With just 5 days to go, mysteriously, both my sister and me fell sick
with high fever and delirium. No medicine, Allopathic or Ayuvedic was able to
ascertain the problem, let alone cure us from this unknown malady.
It was my maternal
grandfather – Sri S Vittala Shastrigal, who attained Sanyasatva as Sri Sri
Gyanananendra Saraswati Swamigal, accidentally discovered the seemingly moot
cause!! He called my mom aside and asked her a direct question: “Did you harbor
a doubt or a negative feeling about the two events being done at Tirumala?”
When my mother answered in the affirmative, he made her pray for forgiveness
and request the lord for helping her and my father to conduct the two events
without an impediment. It is believed that if the remorse is genuine, the Lord readily
forgives. Miraculously, this paved the way for a dramatic recovery for both of
us and we were able to successfully complete all the rituals unhindered. To
this day we hold this shrine and Lord Venkateswara in awe and always remember
that if we make a promise to him, we had better keep it.
In the last 27 years I have
personally made three promises…the first was to pay my respects to him just before my
marriage. In my own recorded history, this was perhaps the best visit. It had
rained continuously for more than 36 hours before our scheduled arrival at
Tirupathi and very few link buses were plying between Tirupathi and Tirumala.
When we did get one and arrived at the main entrance, we found that the temple
wore a deserted look with not many people around. Fearing the worst, we
presumed that the temple gates would be shut down because of the heavy downpour. We
hesitatingly approached the counter for special tickets and to our dismay found
even that to be shut. Upon approaching a TTD official, we were told that the
doors of the temple were wide open for any devotee willing to walk in. Could we
have asked for anything better? Undoubtedly not!! We, my second brother-in-law and I jumped up with joy and went into the innermost Sanctum
Sanctorum. We were shocked with a pleasant surprise when the purohits asked us
to stay longer as we were turning to retrace our steps!!
The second promise was to
get my elder son’s Tonsuring ceremony done at Tirumala. The most recent one was
the third major promise when my second son had completed his final semester
examinations. We had not made a special trip to Tirumala when my elder son
graduated and I felt it would be nice to make a foursome trip as part of
‘Thanksgiving.’ In between of course we have made many trips and thanks to the
promises of my better half, who is an ardent devotee of Sri Lakshmi
Venkateswara.
By 6:30 AM we were at the
temple gates and a good 2 hours to go before the ‘Q’ would be opened up for the
devotees on the package trip. As we patiently waited at the main entrance, we
could see thousands of people rushing in with special passes and that was when
in my mind, I began to panic…what if, we are denied an entry? The human brain
is amazingly wired to think of ‘n’ number of ‘what if’ situations create a
sense of panic and press the alarm button to make all other organs go on an
overdrive! I tend to develop cold feet very easily when it comes to Lord Venkateswara; I guess it stems from the past experience.
As soon the ‘Q’ opened up
and we all rushed in, we discovered to our dismay that we were led into an
enclosed space known as the ‘cage’. We were all made to live the life of a convict,
albeit for a short while. Luck did play a role and the waiting period was just 15 minutes –
the gates were thrown open and we got into the labyrinth of passages that
finally led us to the sanctum sanctorum. All the anxiety and panic our minds had
conjured simply vanished the moment we got a glimpse of the awe inspiring and
flower bedecked Lord of our world. The relief, the joy, the happiness at having
finally made it was simply overwhelming. The power and sheer positive energy
can only be experienced as one stands in front of the Lord with folded hands. Only
later did I realize that the only two words that I could softly utter to the Lord
was a ‘Thank You’…A Promise made and a Promise kept!!
