MoondrAm thiruvandhAdhi-Introduction

Sri Parthasarathi thunai

Srimathe ramanujaya Namaha

Srimad Vara Vara MunayE Namaha

Sri vAnAchala mahA munayE Namaha

One person asked, "A Christian's holy book is Bible, for a muslim it is The Quran and what is it for the Hindus?"  Immediately, as a response to this question our thought dvelves around the Vedas, Upanishads and Bhagavad geetha.  The said three are categorized as "prastAnastrayam" by the elderly scholars.  Having said that, the immediate question follows: What about for the humans in the common masses?  Our acharyas got everyone into a common group called as thondar kulam – servants of the supreme lord.  One who realizes the supremacy of Sriman Narayana is called a Srivaishnava and the holy books for Srivaishnavas are dual in nature ("ubhayavedantham") namely  'prastAnatrayam' (restricted to scholarly people, with knowledge of Sanskrit and also born with the eligibility to learn and propagate them) and 'nAlAyira divya prabhandam'(divine works of azhvars in sweet and easy tamil language which is easy to learn even for smaller children with the same depth in meanings).  Anyone can read, enjoy and practice this holy text.  To make it clear that it is common to all, emperuman gave these divine texts from the divine mouth of the divya sooris (the azhvars) born in different caste and creed.  Nammazhvar, the prapanna jana koodastar (head of prapannas, Srivaishnavas who have surrendered to the divine feet of Sriman Narayana) was not born in the so called high caste!

 The first among the azhvars are called as mudal azhvars and they were not born from a womb of a mother but they appeared from a flower.  Though the first paasurams to touch this world were done by these 3 first azhvars still while ordering the works of azhvars the mudal, erandhAm and moondrAm thiruvandhAdhi’s find place only in the 3^rd thousand-Iyarpa.   

Thirumayilai pEyAzhvar

Due to the divine grace of Godha sametha Sri Parthasarathi emperuman we will try to dwell in the divine anubhavams of the third among the mudal azhvar, peyAzhvar’s moondrAm thiruvandhAdhi.  We will go through the meanings of each and every paasuram in this prabhandam as given by the great commentators Sri Periyavachan pillai and Sri Appillai and with the help of the vivaram by Sri Puttur krishnaswamy Iyengar and divyarthadeepikai of Sri Kanchi prathivAdhibayankaram mahAmahimOpAdhyAya annangarAchAryar swamy.

Though whatever written will be from the words of our poorvacharyas the level of understanding and reproduction in English will of course be restricted to adiyen’s ignorance.  Hence adiyen in advance begs the pardon of all bhagavatas for any knowingly or unknowingly committed mistakes.  If there is some good outcome due to this adiyen’s daring effort, all the credits are due, to the divine feet of adiyen’s acharya HH Sri Kaliyan vanamamalai Ramanuja Jeeyer swamy who has made  even a mud clay like adiyen to get involved in such a divine kainkaryam “poruallAla ennai porulAkki adimai kondai”

                      Azhvar emperumAnAr Jeeyer thiruvadigalE sharaNam
                                           Jeeyer thiruvadigalE sharaNam