And so he fades into the twilight. Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Swamigal will be missed for he had a knack of being forever in the news. His death triggered in me memories of the intense Sringeri vs Kanchi wars that were fought in my family during the 1970s and 1980s. The matter faded out thereafter, at least in chez Ramaiya but it did occupy centerstage for a decade and more.
We came from a strongly Sringeri tradition. My paternal grandfather, V Ramaiya, was an amazingly talented civil engineer who rose to very senior levels in the South Indian Railway Company and later became a Sanskrit scholar. His talent in that area was liked by both HH Abhinava Vidyateertha of Sringeri and HH Chandrashekharendra Saraswathi of Kanchi but for all practical purposes he was a Sringeri man.
He never made his inclination public and if you had to see fanatics then you needed to meet my imperious grandmother and my equally imperious aunt. They were both devoted to (aunt was in particular obsessed with) the Sringeri Sarada Peetham (in our house we could never refer to it as the Mutt/Matham) and therefore took no cognisance of the Kanchi Mutt (in our house you never referred to it as the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham).
By some quirk of fate, my dad and the majority of his siblings married into Kanchi following families and that gave rise to many peculiar situations. Take for instance the obligatory green-and-yellow-on-the-inside-and-pink-and-blue-outside invitation cards. Which Jagadguru were you to hold responsible for the forthcoming wedding/sacred thread ceremony/seemantham, etc? Many acrimonious debates would take place. One cousin thought he had solved it all by simply stating that the event was with the blessings of the Sankaracharya. But this pleased nobody, because each camp thought he was favouring the other. This battle was such a recurring feature that even today when I get those traditional invites I always look to see who is the Sankaracharya getting all the credit. Not that it matters, but my mind got conditioned that way.
A related matter was the ushering in of the blessings of the Peetham (whichever it was) at the culmination of a happy event. The mutt representative would come in carrying a tray laden with prasadam and this had to be greeted with everyone standing up, while a long and sonorous recitation of the pontiff’s honours and titles (a lovely set of lines in Sanskrit) would be recited. An eagle eye would be kept on the audience to ensure everyone stood up. In case someone did not you knew where his or her allegiance lay. Grandmother would burn holes into them via her thick glasses.
Grandmother was very keen that a cousin married a girl she had identified for him. In earlier years this would have been a bagatelle-a pronouncement by grandmother to this effect meant it was all over. But the 1970s were a rebellious time, as grandmother would say – too much of communist influence. So she organised for the traditional girl viewing ceremony. We all went. Grandmother was graciousness personified. The obligatory sojji and bajji was gone through and then the girl, having fallen at everyone’s feet, was asked to sing (we were a very musical family). I can still recall that air of expectancy. The girl sat down, pulled out a Sruti box, cleared her throat and began:
Sreeeeeeeee Jayendra Saraswatheeeeeeee eeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeee
Thus went the refrain, or given what happened thereafter, the burden. None of us heard the rest of the song for we were all looking at grandmother. She had become a sculpture of ice. My mother, a great giggler, was stuffing her pallu into her mouth. The song wound to a close and my grandmother came back to life like Galatea. She rose, and we followed. The journey home was made in silence except for mom who had hiccups. She had to be calmed with water etc later. The only one who was pleased was cousin. “I never liked the girl,”he said. “God bless old JS.”
My mother’s aunt, who lived up to a 100 was a staunch follower of the Maha Periyava of Kanchi. She carried around his picture wherever she went and was known therefore as Pada Patti. The atmosphere would be tense each time she came to visit my paternal grandmother. Time and again she would refer to the Sringeri Swamigal (oops sorry Jagadguru of Dakshinamnaya Sarada Peetham) as Mysore Swamiyar. This was too much for my grandmother. She would bring on the matter of how the Sringeri Mutt (sorry Sarada Peetham) was so spic and span while the Kumbhakonam Mutt (yes, we were rather cruel about it all) was not very clean.That enraged my mother’s aunt who retorted that the Kamakoti Peetham was all about Bhakti and acharam, not like the Mysore Mutt which was run on the organised lines of a hospital.
There came a day when the Kapaliswarar Temple (which as we all knew was in the Kanchi pocket) put up a series of uniformly ugly calendar prints of goddesses from famous temples of India all along the Karpagambal shrine. Conceive the Sringeri camp’s horror when it discovered that the Sarada picture showed the goddess with two hands only. My aunt roundly ticked off a poor temple priest for this insult and hinted darkly that she knew who was behind this rank conspiracy. It was Kamakshi vs Sarada now.
The Kanchi group would routinely hurl insinuations at Sringeri – the latter’s pontiff wore dark glasses, he went around in a Cadillac while the Maha Periyava walked. To counter this the Sringeri group raked up the forever burning issue of whether Sankara really established the Kanchi Mutt. Each group would roundly berate the other and so it went on.
Stances had hardened to such an extent that when my aunt rented the first floor of her house she stipulated that the newly shifted in tenant,a known Kanchi man, could not put up any pictures of swamis 1, 2 or 3. He and his wife meekly obeyed. It was a reflection of the times that no retribution descended on my aunt when this particular tenant went on to become Finance Minister and Defence Minister and then rounded off his political career by becoming Vice President and President of India! But he was routinely blamed for politically manoeuvring in favour of the Kanchi Mutt.MS Subbulakshmi too was always rated second to ML Vasanthakumari. You know why.
There was however one matter – the Sringeri group could do nothing as long as the Maha Periyava was around, such being his image. But it sat back and watched the fun each time his successor made it to the news for all the wrong reasons. It was money for jam for the Sringeri camp. Which is indeed a pity- given that Jayendrar did do his bit for social uplift, medical treatment for the poor and the spread of education. But his penchant for remaining in the limelight and courting the company of some politicians did cause him plenty of trouble. At Sringeri, they did the same but with plenty of panache and elan – the pontiff never lent his name to anything. It was all care of a powerful administrator – the sarvAdhikAri (Sri kAryam in Kanchi parlance). Sringeri realised long ago that it would never do for the religious head to be seen getting involved. The Maha Periyava was well aware of this and achieved monumental things by simply asking someone else to get them done. Sadly for Jayendrar, he did not.
Such matters as Sringeri vs Kanchi have long ceased to hold attention. Grandmother, aunt and mother’s aunt are all dead. The family has since contended with Sri-Sris and Jaggis, not to mention converts, inter-racial marriages, etc. Where is the question of a yellow, green, pink and blue invite with the Jagadguru collaring all the credit?
Nice and hilarious .
The last paragraph has all the punch-lines.
Amusing in the best classical manner. And very credible; I can completely relate to it.
Delightful story! Sri Gurubhyo namaha! 🙂
Good one..coming from a family of Sringeri followers , while am ok with the overall concept etc I don’t understand the fanatic obsessions towards seer/God in general as well..
Anyways my thoughts remain with me..
Sriram, that was hilarious, it made me nostalgic with memories of my grandfather who was a staunch devotee if Sringeri camp and I have witnessed as a school girl heated debates about ‘Kumbakonam’mutt between thatha and his friends ..! 😀
Jai Ma
Pranam
It is very sad that people paint themselves into corners for no reason. Gowrisankar is a big reason, a la Sheldon Pollock [ sp.?] and the disater of the Grevillea trees now planted on the Sri Sarada Peetham grounds post renovation. But let that be for now!
Srimat Nrsimha Bharati deva, and his beloved disciple, Srimat Chandrashekhara Bharati, were both out of this world, in every sense of that cliche. People should delve a little deeper into the many incidents surrounding the lives and times of these two most divine beings, especially as it involved respondents and scholars from Sri Kamakoti Peetham. There are some stories of the adoration of Sri Sri UcchiShTa Ganapati, and the extraordinary role of these two supremely divine souls. Please explore the matter in depth, and a whole new understanding emerges. Including why Srimat Chandrashekhara Swami gave up his phsical body so early.
Sri Sri Mahaswamigal had this to say about the other Chandrashekhara: HIS sadhana was so profound and so powerful that NO SANNYASI need to perform any personal sadhana fro the next 200 years. How extraordinary is such praise, love and reverence? Sri Mahaswamigal was certainly NOT known for loose talk, and most especially to do with sadhana and holy beings!
It is diffcult to fathom the depth of his appreciation for the other Sri Chandrashekhara. There are well-attested stories of his expalining to someone, while the latter was drawing water from a well, about the 2 holy Chandrashekharas.
Sri BhArati, Mahaswamigal said, represented the effulgence, radiance, bhA+ rata tcan have many that sustained the Universe, whilst he, Saraswati, represented that same bhA made lokayata: Saras + vati, meaning She Who is sa-rasa, which and can have a range of nuances that need to be sensitively grasped, by virtue of the blessing of such divine beings.
In the crudest sense, sa – rasa could mean, that knowledge of Brahman that has been uttered by the tongue, i.e. the Indefinable madesomewhat more accessible to the human conceptual mind.
What a beautiful and loving way to speak about the great sadhu! And what profoundly great souls have been gracing this earth in the forms of Srimat Nrsimha and Srimat Chandrashekhara Bharati, to say nothing about the other Sri Chandrashekharendra. What is separate about them? The entire problem of sadhana is the elimination of the asmad-yuShmad pratiiti; is that not so?
Why all this nonsense about who is great, which Sri Matham is “real”, and so forth? There are branches of Sringeri Matham, e.g. the one at Sri Sri Karaveera Peetham, that are holy beyond words. What difference does it make, this bheda buddhi sustained by the most satanic of samskaras? ” I am a devotee” is itself a wicked idea unless substantiated by deep love and devotion to all.
Many of us have had a share of this fun. But your grandma isn’t alone – it is astounding and hilarious to see this conversation carry forward in Facebook and online groups.
On a more serious note, a historian worth his salt will delve into the origins of the blue/pink, yellow/green design of the standard invite. I am sure this story will be vastly more interesting than that of the Mona Lisa 🙂
Yes; only when we receive such an invitation we get the feeling that it is a ‘Namma veettu kalyaanam’ !
You can imagine my plight! Husband’s family Sringeri, Appa’s Kanchi mutt… although I have no problems with either…. I see & hear ‘ avaa Kanchi kkara… namba Sringeri’….a lot… in fact never during the 70s & early 80s when my in laws where around… it’s very much on the rise after late 80s ….& now.. much more..such that…one of the main requisites other than horoscope matching in marriage proposals is… namba Mutt thane’??
I know many loyalty-changers (can also describe them as converts) during the turbulent period of Sri Jeyandarar.
Sringeri or Kanchi, Peetham or Mattam, Green / Yellow or Pink / Blue – our cultural heritage, wisdom / knowledge from the ages- which has thrived all these years, should be treasured, revered, respected and persevered for the future generations to benefit. All too often, there is self-deprecation and lowering the overall greatness by pointing to some anomalies or issues that may have crept in over the years which were not even part of the original distilled knowledge and wisdom or the wonderful inherited heritage. There is also a tendency to “hair split” ourselves into microscopic pockets without realizing that the differences are minor and insignificant. Looked at holistically, we can be proud of greatness of our legacy even when compared to other legacies.
There is however, a real threat to this heritage, knowledge and wisdom will be lost especially for a faith which always believed in universal good, bereft of any aggression or malice and looking to add to its knowledge and wisdom from all quarters. Our heritage, legacy and culture has survived without any forced / induced conversions, threats or violence, plundering or looting, marketing or foreign funded money for conversions & disguised religious activities, grave threats from the so called secularists / rationalists / Dravidian clans and diversion of temple funds / donations for promotion of other activities not remotely connected with the faith and even to promote other faiths.
While we respect other faiths or belief or practices, it should not be at the cost of our own conviction or by sacrificing our rich cultural heritage, wisdom, learning and knowledge from our legacy. Let us bury our internal differences or self-deprecation and stand united by respecting the treasures of our legacy. and practicing it in true spirit. Only if we respect ourselves will others respect us.
Pranam
Well said, sadhu sadhu.
Hare Srinivasa
True indeed…
Came across this purely by accident,but nevertheless I remember this squabble raging through mylapore in the 80’s.It was not just Sringeri vs Kanchi but also Tirunelveli Kara vs Thanjavur Kara and I remember the arguments from that period,supporters of the Kanchi periyava would say that the Sringeri periyava used cars to commute and the Sringeri devotees would respond by calling the Kanchi periyava the Kumbakonam Swamigal and how Adi Shankara never established the Kanchi mutt,Jayendrars period as the mutt head was a field day for the sringeri followers and most Kanchi followers never had the same enthusiasm in defending him as they defended maha periyava,but today who is bothered about Kanchi vs sringeri,that is certainly a thing of the past
Found this article by chance. Absolutely loved it.
பாரபக்ஷமற்ற மிக நல்ல பதிவு. நன்றி
ஸ்ரீ சங்கர பகவத்பாதர் ஸ்லோகங்களை சொல்லி, கொஞ்சமாவது ஆத்ம சிந்தனை செய்து, பிறவிப்பயன் அடைவது முக்கியம்.
நாம் என்ன செய்ய வேண்டும்,என்பதை விட , மற்றவர்கள் என்ன செய்யக்கூடாது என்பதில்தான் ,நாம் கவனம் செலுத்தி வருகிறோம்.
மஹான்கள் அனுக்ரஹம் வேண்டும், த்வேஷம் அகலவேண்டும் .
ஜன்மா நல்லதாக வேண்டும்
ஸ்ரீ சிவன் சார் அடி போற்றி .
ஸ்ரீ மஹா பெரியவா அனுக்ரஹிக்க வேண்டுகிறேன்.
சிவராமன் ஜி.
Amazing and amusing. I wonder what the respective Sankaracharyas themselves said about each other or about the other establishments. Of course, if one but reads the works of Adi Sankaracharya at least once, these differences will easily fade away like a mirage in a desert (typical example used by Sankaracharya many times in his works)
What a delightful portrait of the elders in the family! The ‘peNN paarthal ‘ scene is absolutely Wodehouse stuff. You are great.