The seventy-four, the women and the ekāṅgis

When Uḍaiyavar came south from Kāñcī with the Araiyar, he travelled by stages toward Tiruvaraṅgam. At the northern river, the Vaḍavāṟu, he bathed and put on the twelve upright marks of the Lord's names, and stayed there.

The news ran ahead of him. The mudalis heard it, the foremost of the disciples, with Mahāpūrṇa, Periya Nambi, at their head. The jīyars heard it, the ascetics. The ekāṅgis heard it, the detached ones who wandered from place to place. And the Śrīvaiṣṇavas heard it, all of them.

That is the first time the account names them together, the companies that would gather round him for the rest of his life. This chapter is about them: the many who took refuge at his feet and are remembered by a name, a duty, a seat, or a single scene.

Periya Perumāḷ gave him the wealth of both worlds and the charge of all the affairs of his house. He sat in the great hall with everyone and went through the treasuries, the food offerings, the adornments, the garlands and the lamps. He looked into the standing of every group of temple servants. He saw to the walls and to the flower gardens. And while he was doing all this, he made Akaḷaṅka Nāṭṭāzhvāṉ his disciple and set him as overseer of the temple.

Another account, kept at Śrīraṅgam about the temple, tells it a little differently. There the temple's own servants turned against Uḍaiyavar's strict ordering, even to poisoning, and he went away to Tiruveḷḷaṟai for two years. They repented, and sent Tiruvaraṅga Perumāḷ Araiyar to bring him back. When he was home again and looking after the temple's affairs, Akaḷaṅka Nāṭṭāzhvāṉ came and took refuge at his feet, and because he was capable Uḍaiyavar gave him the oversight of the temple estates.

Later, when the household's work was shared out, Akaḷaṅka Nāṭṭāzhvāṉ was given one task of his own: to answer the men who came to argue against the teaching. And a woman in a village on his road west, telling how she first saw Uḍaiyavar, remembered him in the street at Kōyil, as the Tamil calls Śrīraṅgam, with the mudalis bowing at his feet as he passed, and Akaḷaṅka Nāṭṭāzhvāṉ among them. Her story comes in its place.

They came one after another. After Aruḷāḷa Perumāḷ Emperumāṉār had been won, four more came wanting to take refuge with Uḍaiyavar himself, Anantāzhvāṉ, Eccāṉ, Toṇḍaṉūr Nambi and Marudūr Nambi, and he sent them to Aruḷāḷa Perumāḷ Emperumāṉār instead; and their new teacher, afraid, as his own life tells, told them that Emperumāṉār's feet alone were their refuge.

That saying runs all through the account of these people, from mouth to mouth. Emperumāṉār's feet alone are the refuge. The account gathers a string of such sayings, each one a small scene with two people in it.

Kaṇiyaṉūr Ciṟiyāccāṉ bathed with his clothes on, came in anguish, swore a sacred oath and said there was no refuge but Emperumāṉār's feet. Some copies add that he said it in Periya Perumāḷ's own assembly, with the Śrī Śaṭhakōpaṉ set on his head:

ஸத்யம்ஸத்யம்புந

ஸ் ஸத்யம் யதிராஜோஜமத்குருः - ஸஏவஸர்வலோகாநா முத்தர்த்தாநாத்ர

ஸம்ஶயः

satyamsatyampuna

s satyam yatirājōjamatkuruः - saēvasarvalōkānā muttarttānātra

samśayaः

Truth, truth, and again truth: Yatirāja is the teacher of the world; he alone lifts up all the worlds; of this there is no doubt.

Miḷakāzhvāṉ challenged Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ to a debate. "If you lose, what will you do?" Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ asked. "I will carry you on my shoulder," said Miḷakāzhvāṉ. He lost, and carried him a little way, and asked for mercy. Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ brought him to Uḍaiyavar's feet and had him take refuge there, and told him the same thing: Emperumāṉār's feet alone.

When Piḷḷaippiḷḷaiyāzhvāṉ took refuge with Kūreśa, Kūrattāzhvāṉ, his new teacher asked of him as his teacher's fee that he give up wrongdoing in mind, word and body, and live only to do good to the Lord's servants. Piḷḷaippiḷḷaiyāzhvāṉ was frightened and said he could not. So Kūreśa made it smaller. Do no harm with the body, for that brings blows back and the king's punishment. Give up speaking ill of others. And what the mind still thinks, repent of, so that it does not touch the Lord's heart, and hold Emperumāṉār's feet alone as your refuge.

The account says Uḍaiyavar cast his glance on everyone this way, so that women and simple folk, all of them, might cross over. Once he took a mute man into a room, shut the door, touched his own feet and showed them to him by a sign. The mute took that to heart as his refuge. Kūreśa saw it through a crack in the door and fainted, crying that all his learning had ruined him, and that had he been born mute Uḍaiyavar would have had mercy on him too.

When the Cōzha king's men came for Uḍaiyavar, Kūreśa put on his master's robes and went in his place, and Uḍaiyavar left Kōyil in Kūreśa's white cloth with the mudalis about him and went west. That flight belongs to his own life. Here it is told from the side of the people who took him in on the way, of whom the account knows almost nothing but what they did.

At the foot of a hill there was a field belonging to some hunters. They were disciples of Tirumalai Nallāṉ, and the account calls them the hunter-mudalis, giving them the same title of honour it gives Uḍaiyavar's own companions.

A Śrīvaiṣṇava came by, searching for Emperumāṉār. The hunters knew him for a Śrīvaiṣṇava by the mark on his forehead, and asked where he came from.

"From Kōyil," he said.

"Is Emperumāṉār well? Does Periya Perumāḷ's holy wealth lack nothing?"

"What Periya Perumāḷ! What holy wealth!" he said. "Because of the Cōzha, Emperumāṉār has put on a white cloth and gone away. No one knows where he is."

When they heard that, the hunters were stricken. From that day they lay fasting. They fasted six days.

On the sixth night, at the foot of that same hill, Emperumāṉār and the mudalis were soaked with rain and caught by the cold, and they saw the glow of a fire in a field.

"Take us up there," Uḍaiyavar said.

The mudalis brought him up to it and called out, "Where is the way in? Children!"

Inside, the hunters said, "That was a brahmin's voice. That is the voice of someone worn right out." They ran and pulled the fence apart and said, "Come in here," and brought them in. They gave them dry cloths to put on and spread their wet ones out to dry, and warmed them and rubbed the cold out of them.

Then they asked, "Where have you come from?"

"From Kōyil."

"What is Emperumāṉār doing?"

"How do you know Emperumāṉār?" the mudalis asked.

"We are Nallāṉ's servants," they said. "When he taught us what was good for us, he said, 'For all of us the highest ācārya is Emperumāṉār. So hold that Emperumāṉār's feet are your refuge.'"

"Then this is Uḍaiyavar," said the mudalis, and showed him.

The hunters took hold of his feet and wept, and fell at his feet. Then they brought honey and millet. "Roast these ears," they said, "and pound them, and mix them with honey, and eat."

The mudalis did so, and they ate, and slept there that night. The other account, the Mūvāyirappaḍi, says Uḍaiyavar first offered that food to Pēraruḷāḷar, the image he carried for his own worship, and gave it to the hunters as prasāda, the Lord's leavings, and was so pleased with them that he said: "The dark rain-cloud called Nallāṉ has rained in the middle of the forest."

At dawn he sent one of the hunters and one of his own men back to Kōyil, and the forty-five others went on with him. The hunters led them six kādam over the hill and left them at the house of another hunter. That man had been out hunting all day. When he came home and sat down to eat, he said, "We must not eat while the brahmins go hungry." He sent them on to a brahmin called Kaṭṭaḷaivāri in a village nearby, with word to have everything made ready and to feed them at once.

The men did as they were told and went back.

The brahmin's wife came and prostrated and asked, "Will you not eat?"

"We will not," said the mudalis.

"You need have no doubt," she said. "I too belong to Emperumāṉār's feet."

"How did you come to take refuge at Emperumāṉār's feet?"

The account does not give her name. It gives her story in her own words.

"There was no rain here once, so we went and stayed at Kōyil, my husband and I, in an upper room. In those days Emperumāṉār took his alms at seven houses and lived on that. When he went along the holy street, all the mudalis, Akaḷaṅka Nāṭṭāzhvāṉ among them, did homage at his feet. One day he came to the house where we were for alms. I came down from the upper room and stood in the passage, in his way.

"'What is this, woman?' he asked.

"'You go about begging alms,' I said, 'and kings and the great men of the town fall at your feet. Why is that?'

"'It is because we tell them some good words about the Lord,' he said.

"'Will you not give that good word to me too?'

"And he taught me what is good and went on.

"Then the rain came back to our country, and we were to go home, and I had forgotten the good word he taught me. I was grieving that I could not see Uḍaiyavar, and that same day he came by again. I came down from the upper room and prostrated and said, 'We are going back to our country, and I have forgotten the good word you taught me.' Then he taught me the dvaya, the two-line prayer of refuge, with the line of teachers before it, so that it would stay in my heart. As he turned to go I said, 'Give me something to guard my soul.' And he gave me the sandals he was wearing. We left that same day. We have not been able to see him since."

Uḍaiyavar thought about it. He told her to cook the holy food, and he set a Śrīvaiṣṇava to watch what she did.

When she came out she washed the mudalis' feet and said, "Please come and eat."

Uḍaiyavar called the watcher. "What did she do?"

"She cooked the food in due order. She took off the cloth she had been wearing and put on a clean one. She carried the food inside and shut the door and sat in meditation and offered it. What she fed was dark and long. It was not an image of the Lord."

He called her. "What did you do inside?"

"It has been my way," she said, "to wash the sandals he gave me as my refuge, and offer them food, and wear what is left as prasāda. I did the same now."

"Then bring them here and show them."

She brought them. They were the measure of the feet of Irāmānucaṉ, lord of ascetics, who sat there.

"Then is Emperumāṉār in this company?" he said. "Look and see."

She lit a lamp and brought it and looked along them one by one. She came to Emperumāṉār's feet and stood bewildered. "These are like Emperumāṉār's feet," she said. "But there is no ochre robe, so I cannot tell."

"It is I," he said.

She took hold of his feet and began to weep. Emperumāṉār wiped her eyes.

"If the word he taught you does not match," he said, "the mudalis will not eat. Say it in my ear."

She said it in his ear, and that matched too.

"Then it is like the food the verse speaks of, 'He ate Vidura's food, clean and full of goodness,'" he said. "Now nothing stands in the way of the mudalis eating."

Some copies add that he said it would not do for him alone, since a form of the Lord had not been fed, and she brought milk and fruit and sugar and offered them, and he fed his own Lord and then ate.

The mudalis ate and lay down to sleep.

Then the woman took the mudalis' leavings and mixed them together, and went up to the upper room where her husband was, woke him, and served him that prasāda. She did not eat herself.

"What is this?" he asked.

She told him that Emperumāṉār and the mudalis had come from Kōyil.

"What must I do about that?"

"Can you take refuge with Emperumāṉār?"

He agreed, and gave her his word. Then she ate, glad, and slept.

In the morning they came together and prostrated at Uḍaiyavar's feet, and she said, "Today you must stay here and show grace to him." Emperumāṉār stayed. For her sake he taught her husband what was good for him, and cast his glance on him, and stayed there four or five days. There he got the triple staff and the ochre robe again, laid them before Pēraruḷāḷar, prostrated, and put them on as before.

The Mūvāyirappaḍi tells this stay in a single line: the hunters left him at a brahmin's house in a village, some came there and took refuge, and there he took up the staff and the robe again. It does not tell the woman's story.

Far to the west, on the hill the account calls Yādavādri, Uḍaiyavar brought Selvappiḷḷai home, the festival image of the Lord he had carried back from the north, and set him beside Tirunārāyaṇaṉ. He called the town Tirunārāyaṇapuram.

He gave the Fifty-two the humble and loving service of that temple, and gave them together the name the Fifty-two Śrīvaiṣṇavas, and each of them a servant's name of their own. Their name stands in the roll of those who took refuge at his feet: the Fifty-two, the Aimbattiruvar.

One day he held a great assembly there. The ācāryas of his circle were with him, and the jīyars, and the Fifty-two, the companies of mudalis, the women the account calls the koṟṟi ammaimār, and the guards who kept his person. In that assembly he named the town, and declared that those who lived there always would have the highest heaven and the service of the ācārya that belonged to the elders and to himself.

The Mūvāyirappaḍi remembers another company there. When Selvappiḷḷai was brought away, some people of the place asked Uḍaiyavar for a reward. He gave the name Tirukkulattār, the holy clan, to the caṇḍālas, the outcastes, who had helped him, and made it the custom that from the car festival to the last bathing day they might bathe in the Kalyāṇa tank, go round before the Lord, and receive the holy water.

Meanwhile, at Kōyil, the Cōzha had blinded Kūreśa, and Periya Nambi had died of the same wounds on the road, as his own story tells. The news came west, and Uḍaiyavar, grieving, did the rites for Periya Nambi, and, still troubled for Kūreśa's eyes, sent Māruti Ciṟiyāṇḍāṉ to Kōyil.

"Look after Āzhvāṉ too, find out the news there, and come back."

The account gives Ciṟiyāṇḍāṉ a name of praise almost every time it speaks of him: Māṟoṉṟillā, the one who has no equal.

He went by stages to Kōyil and stood bowing before Kūreśa, who was as glad of him as if he had seen Uḍaiyavar himself, and who sent him back with a message of rejoicing. Kūreśa's own life gives his words.

While Ciṟiyāṇḍāṉ was there, word came that the Cōzha had a sore on his neck, that it had festered with worms, and that he had rolled over and died. Ciṟiyāṇḍāṉ did not carry it on hearsay. He went himself to Gaṅgaikoṇḍacōzhapuram, the king's city, and made certain of it. Then he set out west in haste, and on the way he met Ammaṅgiyammāḷ and took Ammaṅgiyammāḷ with him.

Uḍaiyavar was at the bank of the Tirukkalyāṇi, the holy tank, for his daily rites, with his disciples about him. The two of them came, and washed his feet with tears of joy, and prostrated.

"The Cōzha who wronged Āzhvāṉ and Periya Nambi got a sore on his neck, and it festered with worms, and he has perished."

Uḍaiyavar's chest and shoulders swelled. In the fullness of his joy he lifted them up and held them, and his tears of joy fell on them. He thought: for these two who have come so far with this news, there is nothing rich enough to give but the dvaya. So he gave them the dvaya once again, as their reward.

Then he turned to the disciples. "We have seen that this tank is rightly called Kalyāṇa-saras," the pool of good tidings. "It is so," they said.

Then he went up the hill of Azhagiyaciṅgar, Narasiṃha, who had once destroyed Hiraṇya for Prahlāda's sake, and said to him that as he had once destroyed Hiraṇya, so now he had made this one a man with a worm-eaten neck and brought him to his end, this one who had said no to the Lord and wronged Kūreśa and Periya Nambi.

The Mūvāyirappaḍi tells it shorter. Siriyāṇḍāṉ, as it spells him, consoled Āzhvāṉ and told him of Uḍaiyavar's journeys, made sure of the Cōzha's death, and came with Ammaṅgi Ammāḷ to Tirunārāyaṇapuram; Uḍaiyavar was glad, and gladdened them, and said the tank had proved true to its name. It does not speak of the dvaya.

Then Uḍaiyavar took leave of Tirunārāyaṇaṉ to go home to Kōyil, and turned to the Fifty-two.

"Go on serving Tirunāraṇaṉ and Selvappiḷḷai always, and keep up the holy works and the worship at their proper times."

The Fifty-two fell at his feet. "If we are parted from your feet, we cannot bear it," they said, and stood with their heads bowed.

Uḍaiyavar had an image of himself brought out, like a copy taken of his own body, and laid his own divine power in it, and called them. "We stay here for your sake," he said, and gave it to them to worship. He told them that Selvappiḷḷai was like a child at the edge of a well, and put him into their keeping, and made them touch his feet and charged them: to do all the services well, never to think treachery, to be of one heart with one another, and not to forget the lowliest work. Then he went, turning back again and again to look.

The Mūvāyirappaḍi says the same of a stone image he left with those who could not bear his going, and that he told them, "Take this and live."

At Tirunārāyaṇapuram, too, in Emperumāṉār's presence, Śrī Vedavyāsa Bhaṭṭar once held a gathering and expounded the Śrī Bhāṣya, Uḍaiyavar's great commentary, and fifty-two persons said to him, "This is like the flood of the Gaṅgā. We cannot plunge into it."

"Then be saved," said Bhaṭṭar, "holding that the feet of Emperumāṉār, your family's own god, alone are your refuge." The account does not say whether those fifty-two were the Fifty-two.

In the same town Naḍuvilāzhvāṉ had the Śrī Bhāṣya read, and two who heard it, Vaṅgippurattāycci and Coṭṭai Ammāḷ, and others with them, said, "This is hard." "Then rest in this," he said, "that the feet of Emperumāṉār, who wrote it, alone are the refuge."

Māruti Ciṟiyāṇḍāṉ's own end is kept in a few words he said in his last days.

"If Tiruvēṅkaṭamuḍaiyāṉ forgot what he is and thought of what I am, he would need to make some new hells just for me, beyond the old ones. And if he forgot what I am and remembered what he is, the old heaven would not be enough. He would have to make another heaven just for me."

The account explains it: to remember one's own faults gives endless sorrow; to remember the Lord's love gives endless wonder and joy.

His taṉiyaṉ, the verse by which he is saluted, keeps the errand that made him.

ஜ்ஞாதுங்கூரகுலாதிபங்க்ரிமிமளாத்ப்ராப்தாபதம்

ப்ரேஷிதஃ ஸ்ரீராமாவரஜேநகோஸலபதிர் த்ருஷ்ட்வா ததீயாம்ஸ்திதிம்-ஸம்ப்ரா

ப்தஸ்த்வரயாபுராந்தகபுராத்கல்யாணவாபீதடே யோஉஸௌமாருதிரித்யஶம்

ஸதவயந்தஸ்மைநமஸ்குர்மஹே.

jñātuṅkūrakulātipaṅkrimimaḷātprāptāpatam

prēṣitaḵ srīrāmāvarajēnakōsalapatir truṣṭvā tatīyāmstitim-samprā

ptastvarayāpurāntakapurātkalyāṇavāpītaṭē yōusaumārutirityaśam

satavayantasmainamaskurmahē.

To learn how it was with the lord of the house of Kūram, who had come to harm from the worm-necked king, he was sent by the younger brother of Śrī Rāma, the lord of Kosala; and having seen how things stood with him, he came in haste from Purāntakapura to the bank of the Kalyāṇa tank: he who was hailed as ‘this is Māruti’, to him we bow.

Of Ammaṅgiyammāḷ the account tells nothing more in that time. There are several of the name Ammaṅgi in its lists, and it does not say which are one person and which are others.

When Uḍaiyavar was home at Kōyil again, the account stops to look at the company around him.

It quotes a Sanskrit verse:

ஸம்ஸேவிதஸ்ஸம்யமிஸப்தஶத்யா பீடைஶ்சதுஸ்ஸப்ததிபிஸ்ஸ

மேதை: - அந்யைரநந்தைரபிவிஷ்ணுபக்தை ராஸ்தேஉ-திரங்கம்யதிஸார்வ

பௌம:

samsēvitassamyamisaptaśatyā pīṭaiścatussaptatipissa

mētaiḥ - anyairanantairapiviṣṇupaktai rāstēu-tiraṅkamyatisārva

paumaḥ

Waited on by seven hundred ascetics, with the seventy-four seats about him, and with others past counting, devotees of Viṣṇu, lives in Raṅgam the emperor of ascetics.

Then it opens the verse out. He was served by seven hundred ascetics of the highest order; by the seventy-four ācāryas, the teacher-men seated on lion-thrones, the siṃhāsanas; by mudalis without number, of both kinds, the sāṟṟiṉa and the sāṟṟuda; by twelve thousand ekāṅgis, though some copies leave them out; by three hundred koṟṟi ammaimār, the women; and by kings past counting. In that splendour he sang the blessing to Namperumāḷ, "May Śrī Raṅganātha be victorious, and may the glory of Śrīraṅgam grow," and stayed there serving.

Then it tells who did what for him every day.

Kūreśa, Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ, Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ and the Bhaṭṭars were his companions in the study of the Śrī Bhāṣya. Aruḷāḷa Perumāḷ Emperumāṉār did the worship. Kiḍāmbi Perumāḷ and Kiḍāmbi Āccāṉ had the kitchen. Vaḍuga Nambi put on the oil for the bath. Kōmaḍattu Ciṟiyāzhvāṉ carried the water-pot and the sandals. Piḷḷai Uṟaṅgāvilli Dāsar kept the treasury. Ammaṅgi boiled the milk. Ukkalāzhvāṉ took up the dish of prasāda, and Ukkalammāḷ plied the fan. Māruti Periyāṇḍāṉ held the little water-vessel for his hands. Māruti Ciṟiyāṇḍāṉ, the one without equal, kept the maṭha supplied with rice, vegetables, milk, ghee and the rest. Tūyamuṉivēzham carried the water for the holy bath. Tiruvaraṅgamāḷigaiyār looked after the store of treasure. Vaṇḍar and Cuṇḍar served at the king's court for a thousand gold pieces a hand and made it over to the maṭha as a standing gift. The Rāmānuja Vēḷakkārar guarded his person. And Akaḷaṅka Nāṭṭāzhvāṉ answered the opponents.

Kōmaḍattu Ciṟiyāzhvāṉ, who carried the sandals, is seen once more, on the last day, walking beside Vaḍuga Nambi in the procession and reciting the Uḍaiyavar-prapatti, the prayer of surrender that bears his name.

The account keeps two lists of the people at his feet.

The first is a roll of all who took refuge with him while he lived at Kōyil, sorted by their titles, the way a gathering sorts itself. The Āzhvāṉs come first, Kūreśa at their head, then Māḍapūci Āzhvāṉ, Cēṭṭalūr Ciṟiyāzhvāṉ, Anantāzhvāṉ, Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ, Eṅgaḷāzhvāṉ, and on to Tirumōkūr Āzhvāṉ. Then the Āṇḍāṉs, with Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ first; then the Āccāṉs, with Kiḍāmbi Āccāṉ first; then Aruḷāḷa Perumāḷ Emperumāṉār alone; then the Nambis, Toṇḍaṉūr Nambi and Marudūr Nambi and Vaḍuga Nambi among them; the Bhaṭṭars, with Śrī Parāśara Bhaṭṭar first; the jīyars, from Caṭṭampaḷḷi Cīyar to Tiruniṉṟavūr Cīyar; and the Araiyars, the singers, from Tirunārāyaṇapuram, Kāñcī, Tirukkuṟuṅguḍi, Tirumāliruñcōlai and Tiruvanantapuram. Then the Ammāḷs and the Perumāḷs; Tirumalai Nallāṉ and Embār; the Piḷḷāṉs; the two Amudaṉārs; the Fifty-two; Emperumāṉār Selvappiḷḷai. Then the sāṟṟuda mudalis, Piḷḷai Uṟaṅgāvilli Dāsar among them, and Vaṇḍar and Cuṇḍar. Then little groups of three from Nattam, from Koṅgu, from Mazhalaikkūr Nattam and from the Pāṇḍya country, each named as a servant, a Dāsar: Tiruvaraṅga Dāsar, Yatirāja Dāsar, Piḷḷai Tiruvāymozhi Dāsar. Then the temple's own officers, with Tūyamuṉivēzham who brought the bath water and Tiruvaraṅgattu Māḷigaiyār who guarded the treasure. And last, the women.

The second list is the seventy-four, the ezhupattunālu ācāryar of the Tamil, the catuḥsaptati pīṭhas, the seventy-four seats, of the Sanskrit verse: the teachers who took refuge at Emperumāṉār's feet. It is counted as it goes, and some of its places hold more than one name.

It begins with the sons of the men who had taught Uḍaiyavar. Āḷavandār's son Coṭṭai Nambi, his son Eṉṉāccāṉ, and his son Piḷḷaiyappaṉ stand together in the first place. Periya Nambi's son Puṇḍarīkar has the second. Tirukkōṭṭiyūr Nambi's son Teṟkāzhvāṉ, Tirumālai Āṇḍāṉ's son Sundarattōḷuḍaiyār, and Periya Tirumalai Nambi's sons Rāmānujaṉ and Piḷḷai Tirumalai Nambi follow. Kūreśa's sons, Bhaṭṭar and Śrīrāmappiḷḷai, come next, sharing a place; and Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ with his son Kandāḍai Āṇḍāṉ.

Then the Āzhvāṉs: Naḍuvilāzhvāṉ, Kōmaḍattāzhvāṉ, Tirukkōvalūr Āzhvāṉ, Piḷḷaippiḷḷaiyāzhvāṉ, Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ, Eṅgaḷāzhvāṉ, Anantāzhvāṉ and the rest. Then Embār, and Kiḍāmbi Āccāṉ and the Āccāṉs, and some jīyars, and Tirumalai Nallāṉ, whose hunters had lit the fire in the field. Tirukkurukaippirāṉ Piḷḷāṉ, Periyakōyil Vaḷḷalār, the Perumāḷs, Ammaṅgi Perumāḷ among them. Māruti Periyāṇḍāṉ and Māruti Ciṟiyāṇḍāṉ, Sōmāsiyāṇḍāṉ, Ammaṅgiyāṇḍāṉ and the other Āṇḍāṉs. Aruḷāḷa Perumāḷ Emperumāṉār. The Nambis, Toṇḍaṉūr, Marudūr, Vaḍuga, Vaṅgipurattu and Śrī Parāṅkuśa Nambi among them. Then five Ammāḷs: Ammaṅgiyammāḷ, Paruttikkollaiyammāḷ, Ukkalammāḷ, Coṭṭaiyammāḷ and Muḍumbaiyammāḷ. Then Komāṇḍūr Piḷḷai and Komāṇḍūr Iḷaiyavalli, and Kiḍāmbi Perumāḷ of the kitchen. And the count closes at seventy-four with Ārkkāṭṭu Piḷḷāṉ, of whom the account says nothing else.

The other account, the Mūvāyirappaḍi, tells how the seats were made, which this account does not.

It says that the mudalis who had taken refuge at Uḍaiyavar's feet had become past counting, and he resolved to bring them under some order. He had seventy-four holy discs and conches consecrated. He had four manuscripts of the Śrī Bhāṣya set up, and with them the commentary on the Tamil hymns that Tirukkurukaippirāṉ Piḷḷāṉ had written at his command, and he laid them all before Pēraruḷāḷar, his own image of worship. Then he called the mudalis. To seventy-four he gave the discs and conches. To four of them he gave the manuscripts of the Śrī Bhāṣya. To one of those, Piḷḷāṉ, he gave the commentary. And he told them to give to those who came after them the holy seal, and the teaching of both Vedāntas, the Sanskrit and the Tamil.

So he made seventy-four the heads of seats; four of them heads of the Śrī Bhāṣya seat, Piḷḷāṉ, Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ, Kiḍāmbi Āccāṉ and Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ; and one of those four, Piḷḷāṉ, head of both.

That account says the first disciples, Kūreśa and Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ and Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ and Kiḍāmbi Āccāṉ and Embār, who had taken refuge with him before Piḷḷāṉ, looked on Piḷḷāṉ as above them once Uḍaiyavar had made him his son in knowledge, the way sons adopted early follow a true son born later; and Uḍaiyavar saw it and was glad.

When pilgrims and the people of the holy places asked how Uḍaiyavar was living, the Mūvāyirappaḍi says, the answer came in two verses of its own:

ராமாநுஜஸ்ஸப்தஶதைர் யதீநாம்

பீடைஶ் சதுஸ்ஸப்ததிபிஸ் ஸமேத: |

ஏகாந்திபிர் த்வாதஶபிஸ் ஸஹஸ்ரைஶ்

ஸ்ரீரங்க ஆஸ்தே யதிஸார்வபௌம: ||

rāmānujassaptaśatair yatīnām

pīṭaiś catussaptatipis samētaḥ |

ēkāntipir tvātaśapis sahasraiś

srīraṅka āstē yatisārvapaumaḥ ||

Rāmānuja, with seven hundred ascetics, with the seventy-four seats, and with twelve thousand ekāntins, lives at Śrīraṅgam, the emperor of ascetics.

நாநாவிதே ச கைங்கர்யே நியதைர் பஹூபிர் ஜநை: |

அந்யைரபி யுதோ பாதி யதிராஜோ குருத்தம: ||

nānāvitē ca kaiṅkaryē niyatair pahūpir janaiḥ |

anyairapi yutō pāti yatirājō kuruttamaḥ ||

With the many set to every kind of service, and with others too, Yatirāja, best of teachers, shines.

Its list of the seventy-four is not the same list. It begins with Piḷḷāṉ and puts Kūreśa himself second, where the first account gives his sons. Embār and Aruḷāḷa Perumāḷ Emperumāṉār are not among its seventy-four at all; it puts them at the head of the jīyars. It has names the first does not, Siṟiya Kōvindapperumāḷ, Vīravallipperumāḷ, Madurai Āṇḍāṉ, Adhikārippiḷḷai, and it ends with Ananta Sōmayājiyār and Kāñcī Sōmayājiyār. Alaṅkāra Vēṅkaṭavar and Nambi Karuntēvar, who hold seats in the first account, stand in the second at the head of the twelve thousand ekāntins. The two lists agree on many names and differ on many, and neither says why.

Some of the seventy-four have only their place in the list and a verse. Sōmāsiyāṇḍāṉ has a little more. He read the Śrī Bhāṣya through three times at Piḷḷāṉ's feet, and when Piḷḷāṉ was leaving he followed him and asked him to tell him one thing that was a refuge. Piḷḷāṉ said to him, "Do not go about praising your own greatness, that you can give the sense of both schools of Mīmāṃsā and that you spread the Śrī Bhāṣya. Hold that Emperumāṉār's feet alone are your refuge."

His taṉiyaṉ salutes him so:

நௌமிலக்ஷ்மணயோகீந்த்ர பாத

ஸேவைகதாரகம் - ஸ்ரீராமக்ரதுநாதார்யம் ஸ்ரீபாஷ்யாம்ருதஸாகரம்.

naumilakṣmaṇayōkīntra pāta

sēvaikatārakam - srīrāmakratunātāryam srīpāṣyāmrutasākaram.

I praise him who, at the feet of Lakṣmaṇa, lord of yogis, held to nothing but service: Śrī Rāmakratunāthārya, ocean of the nectar of the Śrī Bhāṣya.

And Naḍuvilāzhvāṉ's:

யேந†ப்ரோத்ஸ்கலதேநித்யங் கார்க்ய

வம்ஶமஹாம்புதிஃ - மந்மஹேதம்ஸதாசித்தே மத்யமார்யகலாநிதிம்.

yēna†prōtskalatēnityaṅ kārkya

vamśamahāmputiḵ - manmahētamsatācittē matyamāryakalānitim.

By whom the great ocean of the Gārgya line ever swells: that moon, Madhyamārya, we hold always in our mind.

And all seventy-four have one taṉiyaṉ together.

ராமா

நுஜார்யாச்ச்ருதிமௌளிபாஷ்யம் அர்த்தம்ரஹஸ்யந்த்ரமிடஶ்ருதீநாம் - ஸம்

ப்ராப்யதேநைவகுரூக்ருதாம்ஸ்தாங் பஜேசதுஸ்ஸப்ததிபீடஸம்ஸ்தாங்.

rāmā

nujāryāccrutimauḷipāṣyam arttamrahasyantramiṭaśrutīnām - sam

prāpyatēnaivakurūkrutāmstāṅ pajēcatussaptatipīṭasamstāṅ.

From Rāmānujārya the commentary on the crown of the Veda, and the secret meaning of the Tamil Vedas, they received, and by that very gift were made teachers: I worship them, established in the seventy-four seats.

The roll of those at Uḍaiyavar's feet ends with the women, the ammaimār, and it names them.

Tiruvanantapurattammai, Tiruvāṭṭāṟṟammai, Tiruvaṇparicārattammai, Maṉṉaṉār Kōvil Pōrēṟṟammai, Tirunaṟaiyūrammai, Tirukkaṇṇapurattammai, each called by a holy town. The Ammai who did the temple's affairs at Tiruppati. Āṇḍāḷammai. Nāyakattēviyār, Tuyyaperuntēviyār, Periyaperuntēviyār, Ciṟiyaperuntēviyār. Śrīperumbudūr Tiruvaraṅgam. Tirukkuḍandai Tuyyavāyiram. Koṅgil Pirāṭṭiyār. Attuzhāyammai. Ammaṅgiyammai. Kūrattāṇḍāḷ. Dēvakippirāṭṭiyār, Yatirājavalliyār, Paṅkayaccelviyār. Poṉṉācciyār. Iṉṉiḷavañciyār. And last, Cūḍikkoḍuttāḷ, whose name means she who gave the garland she had worn, and Tiruppāvaipāḍiṉāḷ, she who sang the Tiruppāvai.

Of most of them the account says nothing more than the name. Some of the names come again in other lives in this book. The rest are only here, at the end of the roll, called by the places they came from and the names they were given.

The verse of his company counted three hundred koṟṟi ammaimār, and they were in the great assembly at Tirunārāyaṇapuram when he named the town. The Mūvāyirappaḍi says the ammaimār, beginning with Tiruvanantapurattammai, had knowledge, devotion and detachment, and were given to their own services at his feet like everyone else. The account does not say what those services were.

There were other women, with no names, in other places. The brahmin's wife in a village on the road west, who kept his sandals. And on the last day, when they carried him through the streets of Śrīraṅgam, the married women of the town walked in front of the bier holding lamps.

The ekāṅgis are a company and not persons. The verse that counts the household gives twelve thousand of them, though in this account some copies leave the number out; the Mūvāyirappaḍi calls them ekāntins, the single-minded, twelve thousand, and names two at their head, Alaṅkāra Vēṅkaṭavar and Nambi Karuntēvar.

The Mūvāyirappaḍi also speaks of the ekāntins of the holy recitation, and of the many given to service, such as the holy bath, each doing his own work by Uḍaiyavar's ordering.

The temple chronicle of Śrīraṅgam, the Kōyil Ozhugu, is where they have work to do.

When Uḍaiyavar divided the service of the temple among ten companies, the kottus, he also set certain services for four ekāṅgis, who were wanderers wholly detached from the world. The chronicle places the ekāṅgis among the temple's offices. Two were counted with the officer of the storehouse. One kept the sanctum gate under the ekāṅgi officer of the inner department. One, given to study, was counted with the managers of the temple grounds. And four, being renunciants, stayed free, under no one.

It tells what they did. At dawn, when the steward who held the sceptre of the temple went his round, he set the ekāṅgis to their tasks, each to his own, and when the perfume box came, his own ekāṅgi opened it. The ekāṅgi gave out the ghee when the sweets were made. The temple servants who laid the wicks for the lamps fetched their ghee from the room of the ekāṅgi called Soṉpaṇḍāri. One ekāṅgi kept the single door shut during worship and barred the gate after the Lord had eaten; stood near the worshippers and took their offerings and let them see; let no one in during the worship but those who had service to do; and at night slept in the hall to guard the Lord's person. Another drew out from the store the cardamom, benzoin, ghee and jaggery, the sandal, camphor, saffron and musk, and laid them carefully by.

And when the Lord's honours had been given out each day, the pure Veda-men called, "Come forward, servants of Rāmānuja!" and the holy water and the Śrī Śaṭhakōpaṉ were given to the jīyars, the Śrīvaiṣṇavas, the ekāṅgis and the Sāttāda Mudalis. Before Uḍaiyavar, the chronicle says, the call was simply "Śrīvaiṣṇavas!"

One scene of ekāṅgis comes after Uḍaiyavar's time. When Parāśara Bhaṭṭar's family were staying at Kūrakulōttamaṉ, some small damage came to the flower garden, and the ekāṅgis who tended it said some words about it. Nañjīyar, Bhaṭṭar's disciple, who kept that garden, called them in. "Do I keep this garden for the flowers in Namperumāḷ's hair?" he said. "I planned it so that, under the name of a garden, it might serve Bhaṭṭar's family as they please." And he rebuked them and sent them away.

Kūreśa had gone ahead to the Lord's world, and Uḍaiyavar resolved to follow him, and to go on the fourth day.

The priests of Periya Perumāḷ came with the Lord's silk and garlands and food on plates, with every instrument sounding, and he took them on his head. He said the dvaya, which is the food for that road. He looked on those about him and gave his last orders.

He commanded that the Śrī Bhāṣya and the Śrīsūkti, the holy word, be set up and kept safe.

He looked at Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ and gave him the Śrī Bhāṣya seat, so that he would spread the Śrī Bhāṣya and carry it on. A verse remembers it:

ஸத்குர்வதா

ஸம்ஸதிஶிஷ்யவர்க்கா நநந்யலப்யைரதிகைஶ்சசிஹ்நை: - ஸ்ரீபாஷ்யஸிம்ஹா

ஸநமாத்மகீயம் யஸ்மைசதத்தம்யதிஶேகரேண

satkurvatā

samsatiśiṣyavarkkā nananyalapyairatikaiścacihnaiḥ - srīpāṣyasimhā

sanamātmakīyam yasmaicatattamyatiśēkarēṇa

Honouring him in the assembly the ranks of disciples, with surpassing marks no one else could have, the Śrī Bhāṣya lion-throne, his own, was given him by the crown of ascetics.

To Periya Bhaṭṭar, Kūreśa's son, he gave in that great assembly the seat of the Śrīsūkti, the holy word that teaches the meaning of prapatti, above the rank of teacher of the Vedānta he had already given him.

He looked at Kandāḍai Āṇḍāṉ, Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ's son, and gave him the service of his own body after death.

He looked at Tirukkurukaippirāṉ Piḷḷāṉ and the other mudalis and said, "Be agreeable to Bhaṭṭar."

He had all the companies of the temple called, and asked their pardon for any offence.

"Is there any offence of yours?" they said. "How shall we bear losing you, who are the one life of all the worlds?" And they stood with tears running from their eyes.

"While the beautiful Raṅgan lies here with love, facing the south, you lack nothing," he said. "In looking after Periya Perumāḷ's affairs, put Bhaṭṭar first. Keep up Namperumāḷ's service without fail, and keep the Śrīvaiṣṇavas close." And he put them into Bhaṭṭar's hand.

He taught the Śrīvaiṣṇavas in the assembly how to live in the days they had left, and he took Bhaṭṭar before Namperumāḷ, had the holy water given to Bhaṭṭar first, and said to the mudalis, "From now on this one carries the darśana." Back at the maṭha he called all his disciples. "If any of you does anything rash at our parting," he said, "you are under our oath." He made each of them touch his feet with their hands and swear. He had them take the holy water and eat.

Then he gave them, by name, into the keeping of the teachers he chose, putting each one's hand into another's.

To Kandāḍai Āṇḍāṉ he gave Piḷḷaippiḷḷaiyāzhvāṉ, Ukkalāzhvāṉ, Kōmaḍattāzhvāṉ, Cēṭṭalūr Ciṟiyāzhvāṉ, Vedāntiyāzhvāṉ and others. To Aruḷāḷa Perumāḷ Emperumāṉār, Eccāṉ, Anantāzhvāṉ, Toṇḍaṉūr Nambi, Marudūr Nambi and others, the four he had once tied to him like a palmyra fruit to a sparrow. To Embār, Bhaṭṭar himself, Kaṇiyaṉūr Ciṟiyāccāṉ, Caṭṭampaḷḷi Cīyar, Periyāṇḍāṉ, Ciṟiyāṇḍāṉ and others. To Tirukkurukaippirāṉ Piḷḷāṉ, Kiḍāmbi Āccāṉ, Kiḍāmbi Perumāḷ, Eṅgaḷāzhvāṉ, Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ and others. To Naḍuvilāzhvāṉ, Māruti Periyāṇḍāṉ, Māruti Ciṟiyāṇḍāṉ, Araṇapurattāzhvāṉ, Āsūrip Perumāḷ, Munip Perumāḷ, Ammaṅgip Perumāḷ and others.

The rest, the account says, he gave to the rest.

He looked at Bhaṭṭar. "As Kūrattāzhvāṉ and Kandāḍai Āṇḍāṉ were," he said, "so you, the ornament of the Kūra family, and Kandāḍai Āṇḍāṉ, the ornament of the Vādhūla family, keep the brotherhood that has come to you through us. Be as the verse says: 'their minds on Me, their lives given to Me, waking one another.'" The account does not say who that first pair were. Kūrattāzhvāṉ was Bhaṭṭar's own father, and the Kandāḍai Āṇḍāṉ beside him may be Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ, whom the account first brought in as Kandāḍai Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ.

Then he told the Śrīvaiṣṇavas the six things a person may do while he lives: read the Śrī Bhāṣya and teach it; or, if he cannot, recite the Tamil hymns and teach them; or provide for the Lord's food and adornments in the places he loves; or build a hut at Tirunārāyaṇapuram and live there; or meditate on the dvaya and its meaning; or live in the care of some great servant of the Lord who calls him his own.

Then he bathed, and did his rites, and took leave of the mudalis, and with his mind on Āḷavandār he lay down with his head in Embār's lap and his feet in Vaḍuga Nambi's lap, and went.

The Mūvāyirappaḍi tells these last days its own way, and in it the disciples go into other hands.

There Uḍaiyavar asked Periya Perumāḷ for leave to go, and the mudalis, beginning with Piḷḷāṉ, were about to give up their own lives. He told them that any of his who died at his going would have no part in Āḷavandār's feet, and taught them the five things to do in the days they had left. When he fell ill he gave three images of himself to Āccāṉ, Piḷḷāṉ and Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ, and at Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ's asking ordered images in every holy place; the lives of Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ and of Kiḍāmbi Āccāṉ and Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ tell that.

Then he called the mudalis and put them into the hands of Tirukkurukaippirāṉ Piḷḷāṉ. He gave them the water from Āḷavandār's sandals, and at their asking his own foot-water and his own sandals. When the temple's servants came and asked what they were to do now, he said, "While Piḷḷāṉ, our son in knowledge, is here, what can you lack?" He told Piḷḷāṉ and Kiḍāmbi Āccāṉ certain special meanings, as Rāma gave Hanumān the ring, and gave Piḷḷāṉ his own image of worship. And he lay down facing Kōyil with his head in Piḷḷāṉ's lap and his feet in Kiḍāmbi Āccāṉ's, while Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ, Embār, Mudaliyāṇḍāṉ, the jīyars and the ekāntins recited the Upaniṣads and the Tiruvāymozhi; and with his mind on the feet of Periya Nambi, he went.

So one account puts the temple into Bhaṭṭar's hand and the disciples into the hands of five teachers, gives the seat of the Śrī Bhāṣya to Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ, and lays his head in Embār's lap as he thinks of Āḷavandār; the other puts the disciples into Piḷḷāṉ's hand, with four holders of the Śrī Bhāṣya seat and Piḷḷāṉ over them, and lays his head in Piḷḷāṉ's lap as he thinks of Periya Nambi.

On this the two agree: when he had gone, the mudalis fell down and wept aloud. The first account says they fell like trees cut at the root.

Then the gathering came together one last time around him. In the first account, the seven hundred jīyars, with Āṭkoṇḍavilli Cīyar and Yativara Cīyar among them, recited the Upaniṣads as he was carried. The mudalis, Bhaṭṭar and Kandāḍai Āṇḍāṉ and Naḍātūr Āzhvāṉ among them, came close around him, each carrying the things of his own service. The other Śrīvaiṣṇavas walked before and behind, nine thousand who wore the thread and twelve thousand who did not. The singers of the Tiruvāymozhi sang it to its tune and beat. Tiruvaraṅgattu Amudaṉār and Poyyilvaḷḷalār, whom many copies call Periyakōyil Vaḷḷalār, recited the hundred verses Amudaṉār had made on Uḍaiyavar; Embār and Piḷḷāṉ recited the Sanskrit hymns of praise and the prose prayers; Vaḍuga Nambi and Kōmaḍattu Ciṟiyāzhvāṉ recited the Uḍaiyavar-prapatti. The married women of the town went in front with their lamps. And the single horn sounded through every street: "In the darśana, Emperumāṉār has gone to the holy land."

Some copies of the account end the telling there. The others go on.

Bhaṭṭar and Kandāḍai Āṇḍāṉ, in their brotherhood, went over together the special meanings of Uḍaiyavar's time, kept his Tiruvātirai in Cittirai as a great festival and his star each month, and lived on consoling one another with Kiḍāmbi Āccāṉ and the others. Anantāzhvāṉ came down from Tiruvēṅkaṭam with his companions, saw the signs by the Kāvēri, and knew, and grieved, and was comforted by Bhaṭṭar and Āṇḍāṉ, and went home. From the east, from Tirukkaṇṇapuram and the holy places of the Cōzha country, came Eccāṉ and others. From the Pāṇḍya country in the south came a Yāmunācārya, Tirukkōṭṭiyūr Nambi's son, and Cokkattēvar, Tirumālai Āṇḍāṉ's son Sundarattōḷuḍaiyār and others; the account does not say whether this Yāmunācārya is the Teṟkāzhvāṉ who holds a seat in its list. From the western country came Sōmāsiyāṇḍāṉ, Marudūr Nambi and Toṇḍaṉūr Nambi, and the Śrīvaiṣṇavas of Tirunārāyaṇapuram, and people from every other land.

They came to Kōyil in a great crowd and grieved for Emperumāṉār. Then they bowed to Bhaṭṭar, and their sorrow ended. They saw Emperumāṉār in him, and asked of him what each of them needed, and made verses for him. Then, with his leave, each of them went home to his own town.