1953 · TTD Press
Tirumalai Olugu
The chronicle of the Tirumala–Tirupati temples. First printed in 1953. A book — not the menu of this shrine.
The chronicle
A history of the two temples
Tirumalai Olugu is a Tamil chronicle of Tirumala and Tirupati. The editor says it is as necessary as the Koil Olugu, and that no one had printed it before. The Tamil title-page calls it the itihya-mālai of the two temples — a garland of their traditions.
The edition read here is the first: Sri Vaishnava Sampradaya Granthamala No. 4, edited by K. Balasundara Nayakar, Reader in Tamil at the Sri Venkatesvara Oriental Institute. Prof. P. V. Ramanujaswami edited the series. It was printed in 1953 at the Tirumala-Tirupati Devasthanams Press, by order of C. Anna Rao, Executive Officer. The rights are the Devasthanams’. The scan is not kept on this shrine.
Two manuscripts stand behind the print. U.Ve. Kanchikadamba Yamunacharya gave a paper copy, in two parts, without the Sanskrit quotations. A palm-leaf, with those ślokas in grantha letters, had come to him from Perumbuthur Koil Kandadai Raghavachariar. T.A. Krishnamacharya, of the Nalayira Divya Prabandham class, helped write the ślokas out. Collation with the paper copy in the Madras Government Oriental Manuscripts Library showed that the library copy was taken from the same palm-leaf. Page 103, missing on the leaf, was supplied from the library. The editor says one sentence on page 101 does not fit, and that words seem to have dropped out.
The manuscript says the chronicle was written after an old book in the house of Mallikuniy Ninrar Arayar had been seen. The editor cannot date him: arayars have not served at Tirumala or Tirupati for many years, and no other record of them was at hand. The author’s name is not in the book. Nothing after Sadashivaraya is entered — not the later mandapas and gopuras, not the kalyanotsavam, not the front gopura and gali gopura of Govindaraja, which the editor places in the early seventeenth century. Page 85 names the eight teachers who took refuge at Sri Manavala Mamuni, among them Tiruvenkata Ramanuja Jeeyar (1544). Jeeyars after him are not named. From that silence the editor places the Olugu in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Sri U.Ve. T.K.V.N. Sudarsanacharya corrected the Sanskrit, and was preparing a Telugu edition. T. R. Nallimachariar saw the book through the press.
The print
- Book
- Tirumalai Olugu
- Series
- Sri Vaishnava Sampradaya Granthamala, No. 4
- Editor
- K. Balasundara Nayakar
- Series editor
- Prof. P. V. Ramanujaswami
- Press
- TTD Press, Tirupati, 1953
- Chronicle
- Latter sixteenth century, by the editor’s reading. Author unnamed.
The same early matter
Where the Olugu meets the Itihāsamālā
The editor writes that the Pūrva Veṅkaṭācala Itihāsamālā is an old Sanskrit work still in use. Its matter stands in the Olugu only up to the heading திருவேங்கடமுடையான் அருளிச்செயல்கள் கேட்டருளும் பிரகாரம் — the manner in which the Lord hears the arulicheyals. After that heading the Olugu goes on. The Itihāsamālā stops. He names the author of the Itihāsamālā as Andazhvan (Anantarya), and says the Olugu agrees with that book. Andazhvan is the Ananthalvan of this shrine.
Here the seven stabakas are the 1937 edition. The Olugu is the temple chronicle that carries the same early matter, and then the worship and the centuries after him. It does not take the place of the 1882 life.
Printed pages 79–85
Anandazhvan in the chronicle
These are the Olugu’s own sentences, not the editor’s introduction.
- 01
When the arayar climbs the Hill, Anandazhvan comes to meet him. Nambi and Anandazhvan ask him to sing the Azhvars’ prabandham in the devaganam, from the next day through the Adhyayanotsavam.
- 02
Ramanuja, hearing it, names an arayar of Nathamuni’s line Mallikuniy Ninrar Arayar. He orders the Divya Prabandham in the devaganam every day: before the festival, the first three Azhvars and the Iyarpa; then Tiruppallandu and the rest; from Ekadasi, the Tiruvaymoli; the next day, Kanninun Siruttambu in the assembly — Madhurakavi’s name, and the end of the purushartha. He sends a thirumugam to Anandazhvan, and sends the arayar to live on the Hill.
- 03
The arayar brings the order to Anandazhvan’s tirumaligai. Anandazhvan sets it on his head. With Nambi they place it before the Lord. The Lord says he will keep Ramanuja’s ordinance.
- 04
A Srivaishnava brings word that Emberumanar has departed. Anandazhvan is shaken. For one year he leaves the kainkaryam of the nandavanam, and stands estranged from the Lord. The footnote to that word is piṇangi — at odds with him.
- 05
The Lord calls him. Come. It is we who have lost our Ramanuja. It is we who are bound to you. You have no lack. He gives the flower garlands, the Satakopa, and the other honours, and says that he himself will grant what Anandazhvan desires.
- 06
Anandazhvan asks that the Ramanuja Nurrantati be heard on a day of its own in the Adhyayanotsavam, the day after Kanninun Siruttambu; that Nambi’s kainkaryam of the holy water go on; and that Ramanuja’s image be consecrated before the Lord, so the Azhvars’ not having climbed the Hill is made good, and so the bahya and kusrishti teachings fail.
- 07
It is so ordered. The Nurrantati is fixed for the assembly on the day after Kanninun Siruttambu. Nambi’s water-service stands. By the Lord’s command the image of Emberumanar is consecrated before him. Anandazhvan sets his own name on the Lord’s feet. The footnote to tan tirunāmam sātti names him — Andazhvan — as the one who does it. He sets many Srivaishnava dharmas in motion, so the wealth of the Hill grows by Ramanuja’s ordinance.
Held apart
What these pages do not say
The editor’s introduction cites page 84 for a further sentence: that the Tirumala image of Ramanuja was made in his fortieth year, that he looked on it, embraced it, and gave it to Andazhvan, who later set it up with Yadavaraya’s help. On page 84 of this print the words are the petition after the Acharya’s passing, the consecration, and the name on the satari. The fortieth year and the embrace are not read there. They are not given here as the Olugu’s own words.
In the same introduction the editor writes that Kattiyam Yadavaraya, as Anandazhvan had said, built a mandapa for stringing garlands, named Yamunatturai, and that garlands are still strung there. He cites page 96 for Selvan, a cowherd, as the first to lay the steps, and he says the Olugu has Tondaiman entering by a cave past the Narasimha shrine. Those are his citations. They are not told here as episodes read off those leaves.
The life on this shrine remains the 1882 biography and the 1937 Itihāsamālā. These pages of the Olugu stand beside them. They are not written over them.