Draft English · Release 3
History of Venkatachalam
A modern English collection. It opens with a few accounts from the Venkatachala Itihasamala, then turns to the Mahatmyam of the puranas. The compiler marks the English as not yet reviewed by scholars. It does not take the place of the 1937 grantha.
What this file is
The title page calls it a history of Venkatachalam: a few historical accounts from the Sri Venkatachala Itihasamala of Sri Tirumalai Ananthacharya, eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the Sri Venkatachala Mahatmyam, from puranas it attributes to Vedavyasa. It is marked Release 3, a draft. The English, it says, is yet to be reviewed.
The Itihasamala half is short. It runs from the grandeur of the Lord of the Hills to the rites, and to one telling of Anantalwan and the chin. A section title then opens the Brahmanda Purana. The purana half is the body of the file. Pada-padi and a second telling of the chin close it.
This shrine already reads the Itihasamala as the 1937 Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams edition. That book stands. What follows is this draft, kept beside it, not written over it.
The Itihasamala opening, as this draft tells it
The draft says that about a thousand years ago the image on the Hill was debated, and that Sri Ramanuja came and set down, from the old scriptures, that the Supreme had taken this form. It calls that writing the Venkatesvara Itihasamala, a garland of his history.
On the form: four hands. The upper right holds the discus, the upper left the conch. The lower right points to the feet. The lower left points to the thigh, that the ocean of samsara is only knee-deep for one who has surrendered. Matted hair, as of a muni. Serpents in the ornaments, for Adisesha. The puranas, it says, tell that Kumara worshipped here to be free of the slaying of Tarakasura, bathing three times a day in Svami Pushkarini.
When some still doubted, the draft says Ramanuja had the weapons of several divinities, among them those of Sriman Narayana, placed at the Lord’s feet. He locked the sanctum, gave the key to an observer, and waited until morning. At sunrise the Lord held the conch and the discus.
Its list of rites is its own. Friday bathing with milk and sacred water. An upward mark of white earth. Collyrium on the eyes, as in the Mohini form. Sayanotsava for Krishna in Dhanurmasa. Srirama-kalyanam the day after Rama Navami. Processions of the utsava image. Mohini alankara for three days from Monday, with a beauty-spot on the cheek. Flowers alone on Thursday. Ornaments and garments from Friday. First aradhana to the weapons. Nacciyar Tirumoli during the abhiseka. The Divya Prabandham, it says, was taken into the daily worship with the agreement of the priests, the Vaikhanasa agama remaining.
Yadava Raja, who had seen the weapons taken up, asked to be a disciple. Ramanuja marked his shoulders with the same signs the Lord now bore, and gave the three mantras. A pendant of Padmavati was made and placed by Ramanuja on a Friday, sukla dvadasi, the star Uttara Phalguni. The draft then has him, with Yadava Raja, build a temple at lower Tirupati for Govindaraja after the Chidambaram shrine, and find a Narasimha cave on the hill and build a temple there.
Where this list agrees with Aiyangar’s 1937 English — Friday ablution, the mark, collyrium, flowers on Thursday, Nacciyar Tirumoli, Yadava Raja — the grantha on this shrine is the one to read. Where the draft adds a rite or a day the 1937 book does not, the draft is not used to correct it.
Where it is not the 1882 life
The draft tells the chin twice, and the two tellings do not match each other, nor the 1882 life.
In the Itihasamala half it says Anantalwan struck the boy by accident, green with jealousy, with a shovel. The boy vanished. Later that morning, while bringing a garland, he saw blood on the same spot, sent word to Ramanuja, and rubbed on cooking camphor. It then says every replica image in the world wears that camphor.
At the close it says he threw a digging rod, saw the blood the next day, and asked the archakas to apply white cooking camphor. It says the Lord asked that the rod hang in the mandapa before the deity, and that it is seen to the right of the gopura door.
The 1882 life is neither telling. He had refused the youth, and then he struck. The blood was found at the evening puja. The Lord spoke. Herbs and camphor were applied. The crowbar hangs at the right of the main entrance. Pacchaikarpuram is given as sripadarenu. The honours were the sesavastra, a diamond ring, and golden earrings. This shrine keeps that life. The draft is recorded here so it is not mistaken for it.
The purana chapters named in the file
From the Brahmanda Purana title onward, the file is not the Itihasamala. It is a draft English of purana chapters on the Hill. The citations printed in it are these. The plots are not retold here. The English is still marked unreviewed.
- Brahmanda Purana, Tirtha Khanda 1–2 — the greatness of Venkatachalam
- Tirtha Khanda 3 — Narayanadri
- Tirtha Khanda 4 — Vrishabhachala
- Tirtha Khanda 5 — Anjanachalam
- Tirtha Khanda 7–8 — Chakravarti, his birth and the dream
- Tirtha Khanda 9–10 — the archa advises the king; Brahmotsavam and the pushpa-yaga
- Tirtha Khanda 11 — the battle with Simhada; the five weapons
- Markandeya Purana 1–2 — Markandeya and Garuda; the visit with Suddha; Varaha after the bath in Svami Pushkarini
- Vamana Purana, Kshetra Khanda 21 — Kumara’s penance; Anjanadri; the name Vrishadri
- Kshetra Khanda 23 — the birth of Vishvaksena; seventeen tirthas, among them Chakra-tirtha
- Kshetra Khanda 24 — the penance of Vayu; Isvara and Parvati south-east of Seshadri
- Kshetra Khanda 25 — Satananda on the incarnation
- Kshetra Khanda 26–29 — Agastya north of Seshadri; Indra; Sankara on the south; Vishvaksena appears
- The divine lakes on Venkatachalam
- Kshetra Khanda 31 — King Sankha; Svami Pushkarini
- Kshetra Khanda 32–34 — Agastya’s penance; Uparichara Vasu; the form of the Lord
- Kshetra Khanda 36–37 — boons to Agastya; the vimana
- Kshetra Khanda 40–44 — Janaka; Devajit; charity on the Hill; thirty million rivers into Svami Pushkarini
A closing section, without a purana chapter named, tells the appearance again: Narayana in the Sveta Varaha kalpa, the Varaha avatara, Garuda bringing down the sporting hill and the lake Airammada, which it calls Svami Pushkarini, and Tondaman, the forgotten household, and the Asthi-sarovara. That closing is this file’s own English.
Pada-padi, and the white spot
The draft says Periya Tirumalai Nambi taught Ramanuja the Ramayana eighteen times, each time another way, at the foot of the Hill. Once, while the teaching went on, they smelt camphor. Ramanuja found the footprints of Srinivasa. The draft names that place Pada-padi, and says the footpath climb begins with a prayer there. The eighteen times are this draft’s number. They are not written into the life.
The file ends as the 1882 life also knows the place: Tirumala is the pushpa-mandapa. Once a week the Lord is dressed in flowers alone, the namam made of ornaments, as Ramanuja ordained. Then the mangala: sriyah kantaya kalyana-nidhaye nidhaye ’rthinam, sri-venkata-nivasaya srinivasaya mangalam.
श्रियः कान्ताय कल्याणनिधये निधयेऽर्थिनाम् । श्रीवेङ्कटनिकेताय श्रीनिवासाय मङ्गलम् ॥
Auspiciousness to Srinivasa, the dwelling of Sri Venkata, beloved of Sri, the treasure of the auspicious, the treasure of those who ask.
Closing mangala of the draft