Cittirai Cittirai
His star. Born this day in Kali 4154. The kattiyam still opens: cittiraiyil cittirainaaL ciRakkavantha perumaaL. Srinivasa visits the garden and honours the magizha.
Tirumala · Tirupati
Walk the garden
South-west of the temple. Gate, tank, magizha, brindāvanam — then the crowbar at the gopura, camphor on the chin, Ramanuja at the sanctum.
How to go
South-west of the Ānanda-nilaya
On Tirumala the nandavanam lies south-west of the Ānanda-nilaya. He laid it and named it Irāmānusan. Vakula, pāṭala, punnāga and śenbaga were the groves.
Walk the garden first. Then the temple: the crowbar hangs to the right of the main gopura; pacchaikarpuram is on the mūlavar’s chin; Ramanuja stands to the left of the garbhagṛha, and that satari is named Ananthalvan. At the foot of the Hill, in Govindarāja’s temple at Tirupati, Madhurakavi and Ananthalvan share one shrine.
When the Lord comes
Days that still honour him
Tiru Āḍi Pūram
Āṇḍāḷ’s star, and the day he joined the Lord. Malayappa with Śrīdevī and Bhūdevī comes clockwise to the nandavanam. Pūjā there. His garland is laid on the magizha, and the śaṭhakopa is set to that tree. Then He returns to the Ānanda-nilaya.
Ther · eighth day
The car day of the Brahmotsavam, not the garden visit. On the seventh day the Lord goes round the town. On the eighth — the ther — Anantārya receives a garland from the God. The 1882 life reads that as the father-in-law’s sambhāvanā: pītāmbara and silk.
Bagh Savāri
The evening after Sālakatla Brahmotsavam, once the Garuḍa flag is lowered. Malayappa with the two consorts is taken anti-clockwise to Puruśaivāri toṭa — the way He fled when caught in the garden — and brought back the same way. The line recites the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham. Pūjā, then the return. The 1882 life places the tying at a champaka. This savāri is that flight.
In the garden
01
The outer gate
The garden
He laid this nandavanam at the south-west of the temple and named it Irāmānusan. Vakula, pāṭala, punnāga and śenbaga were the groves he planted.
02
The tank of Irāmānusan
The tank
He dug a lake and a tank for the nandavanam and named both for Ramanuja, so the flower kainkarya would have water.
The story
03
Where Yamunāchārya kept a cottage
Yamunatturai maṇṭapa
Hearing that Yāmunāchārya had once kept a cottage here for flower service, Anantārya built a maṇṭapa on that spot, set the Acharya’s image, and strung the daily garlands in that pavilion — with his son Ramanuja. The Lord called him mid-garland from this place.
The story
04
In the nandavanam
The magizha tree
Tradition reads the vakula as Ananthalvan remaining on the Hill. On Cittirai Cittirai and every Āḍi Pūram, Srinivasa honours it with His own garland and Śaṭhakopa — under which his body was given to the fire.
The story
05
Where he breathed his last
Brindāvanam
He joined the Lord on Āḍi Pūram, Andal’s day. The brindāvanam stands in this garden. Outside his tirumāḷigai the satari still receives tīrumanjana.
The storyIn the temple
06
Right of the main gopura entrance
The crowbar
The iron he raised at a young brahmachari still hangs on the temple wall.
The story
07
On the chin of the mūlavar
Pacchaikarpuram
Camphor is applied to the chin of Srinivasa to this day and given as śrīpādarēṇu. A thousand years of that mark began in a garden argument.
The story
08
Left of the garbhagṛha
Ramanuja’s image
The vigraha Śrī Rāmānuja placed in his own hands. The sampradāya takes this as the first image of the Acharya. Ananthalvan installed it after 1137, by Vaikhānasa rite, the day after Kaṇṇinuṇ ciṟuttāmpu. The satari of that shrine is named Ananthalvan.
The storyAt the foot of the Hill
09
Govindarāja temple, Tirupati
Madhurakavi and Ananthalvan
At the foot of the Hill they share a single shrine. He had told Srinivasa: Madhurakavi knew no God but Nammāḻvār; consider me his dāsa.
The storyNames
How he is known
Ananthan
The name given at birth, at Siruputtur (Kirangur) on the Kaveri near Mysore, to the son of Kesavacharya of the Yajur Veda, Bhāradvāja gotra. Kali 4154, Tamil year Vijaya, month Cittirai, star Cittirai.
Āḻvān · Ananthalvan · Anantārya
The Śrīvaiṣṇavas called him Āḻvān — one gone deep in bhagavad-bhāgavata-ācārya bhakti. They had given the same word to Śrī Kūrattāḻvān, Kūreśa of Kūram, the disciple who stood beside Śrī Rāmānuja. Sanskrit Anantārya, Tamil Anandazhvar, Telugu Anantalwar: one man, the gardener of the Hill.
Āṇ Piḷḷai · Ananta-puruṣārya
Ramanuja’s title before the Srirangam assembly: the only man who would climb the forested Hill for puṣpa-kainkarya. Aiyangar’s English of the Itihāsamālā records the same title in Sanskrit — Ananta-puruṣārya, puruṣa a manly man. From this, descendants are Anantanpiḷḷai vamsasthar.
Madhurakavidāsa
The name he claimed before Srinivasa, and the name the Lord Himself took when He walked the path as a young brahmachari. The line still signs itself Madhurakavidāsa.
Māmaṉār of Veṅkaṭavaṉ
Father-in-law of the Lord of the Hill, father of Alarmelmanga — sung in the vaḻi-tirunāmam after he tied the princess under a champaka and she asked to be taken as his daughter.
Vaḻi-tirunāmam and tirunāḷ pāṭṭuமலையில் வேங்கடவற்கு மாமனார் வாழியே மணிச்சுடர் கொள் அனந்தனென இங்குதித்தோன் வாழியே உலகுக்கோர் தஞ்சமென உதித்தருள்வோன் வாழியே உலகமுண்ட மால்அடிமை உகந்தருள்வோன் வாழியே இலகு சித்திரையில் சித்திரையோன் வாழியே எந்தை எதிராசர் இணையடியோன் வாழியே அலர்மேல்மங்கை திருவுக்கு அப்பனார் வாழியே அனந்தாழ்வான் திருவடிகள் அனவரதம் வாழியே
Long life to the father-in-law of Veṅkaṭavaṉ of the Hill. Long life to him who took birth here as Anantha, taking the jewel-light. Long life to him who arose as a refuge for the world. Long life to him who rejoiced in the service of the Lord who swallowed the worlds. Long life to him of bright Chithirai, born in Chithirai. Long life to him at the pair of feet of my father Yatiraja. Long life to the father of Alarmelmanga Thiru. May the sacred feet of Ananthazhwan live without end.
Vaḻi-tirunāmam · acharya.org/sloka/vtn