Sevelimedu, a village near Kanchipuram is home to a temple for Sri Vaishnavism’s most famous preceptor (Acharya), Ramanujacharya. According to tradition, Ramanujacharya’s teacher, Yadavaprakasa, following differences with him, planned to murder him while on a pilgrimage to the Ganga. Ramanujacharya escaped and entered a forest inside which he fell unconscious. When he awoke, he found a kindly hunter couple near him. Finding out that Ramanujacharya wanted to go to Kanchipuram, they promised to guide him the next day. Next morning they took him to a well from which he drank water and also carried some water for the hunter couple. To his astonishment, they had disappeared. He then realised that they were God Vishnu and and Goddess Lakshmi, and found out that he was in Kanchipuram.
Ramanujacharya’s shrine is located exactly where Varadaraja Perumal and Lakshmi gave darshan to him. His image enshrined here is in anjali hasta with his sacred staff (danda) and directly faces the temple of Varadaraja Perumal in Kanchi.
A Vijayanagara era mandapa is attached to this shrine and the temple tank called Anushtana kulam is in front. The royal emblem of the imperial house of Vijayanagara, depicting a boar with the sun and moon, is chiseled on the outer wall of the sanctum indicating that this shrine was constructed or rebuilt during the Vijayanagara time.
Close to this temple is the well to which Ramanuja was directed by the divine couple. Subsequently, when Ramanuja became the disciple of Tirukkachi Nambi in Kanchi, the latter requested him to start his services to Narayana by bringing water from this well for the tirumanjanam (abhisekam) of Varadaraja Perumal of Kanchi.
A unique celebration called Anushtanakulam festival is in held here in Margazhi (December-January) to commemorate this important episode in the life of Ramanujacharya when the divine couple helped him. The processional images of Varadaraja Perumal and Perundevi Thayar from Kanchipuram dressed as a hunter couple visit Ramanuja’s shrine in Sevelimedu.
Chithra Madhavan
cityexpresschn@gmail.com
The writer is a historian who focuses on temple architecture