[Advaita-l] Saint Thyagaraja's view of Sri Rama

[V Subrahmanian]

There is an incident that marks the composition of this Evarani song by
Thyagaraja, as reported in that blog:

https://thyagaraja-vaibhavam.blogspot.com/2007/07/thyagaraja-kriti-evarani-nirnayinchiri.html

//It is stated that Gopalakrishna Bharati (Tamil composer) – a contemporary
of ThyAgarAja visited the latter and sang a song (sabhApathikku) eulogising
Lord Siva – that there is no God equal to Lord Siva. It is stated that then
and there, SrI ThyAgarAja extempore composed this song. If this is true,
then ‘nara varulu evarani’ would be the correct rendering.    //

regards
subbu

On Sun, Oct 13, 2024 at 10:16 PM V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
wrote:

> In many compositions of Sri Thyagaraja we see that he held Sri Rama to be
> Para Brahman and did not restrict Rama to a god distinct from other gods.
> One example is the song 'Rama nannu bhrovaraa' where he says 'cheemalo
> brahma shiva keshavaadulalo' meaning You are the one inherent in all beings
> from the ant to Brahma and Shiva and Keshava, etc. Thereby he is holding
> Sri Rama as the Para Brahman whose forms are the gods and Trimurtis and
> other jivas.
>
> Here is another such kriti 'evara ni...' where Thyagaraja wonders 'How did
> the eminent persons view You - as Brahma or as Shiva or as Vishnu?'
>
>
> https://thyagaraja-vaibhavam.blogspot.com/2007/07/thyagaraja-kriti-evarani-nirnayinchiri.html
>
> SivuD(a)nO mAdhavuD(a)nO 2kamala
>
> bhavuD(a)nO para-brahmam(a)nO ninn(evarani)
>
> (What did the most Eminent people determine as to who You are, and how
> did they worship You? – whether Lord Siva or Lord vishNu or brahmA or the
> Supreme Lord?) He further says that the Shiva mantra 'namah shivaaya' has
> ma as the seminal syllable and the Narayana mantra has 'ra' and that makes
> Rama.
>
> mAdhava mantramunaku rA jIvamu(y)I
>
> vivaramu telisina ghanulaku mrokkeda
>
> vitaraNa guNa 4tyAgarAja vinuta (evarani)
>
> (For the Siva mantra (OM namaSSivAya), ‘ma’ is the soul; for the vishNu
> mantra (OM namO nArAyanAya), ‘rA’ is the soul; I salute the great
> personages who understand this detail.)
>
>
> We have seen Annamacharya too holding the Lord of Tirupati as Para Brahman
> who is looked upon by various sects as their god:
>
>
>
>