The traditional account of Nathamuni’s life. – Cir. 824-924 4. p.

 

Nathamuni or Ranganathamuni, son of Ishwara Bhatta was a native of Viranarayanapuram, Situated in the dominions Of the Chola rulers of the day. 6

Accompanied by his son, Ishwara Muni and his daughter-in-law, he went on a Pilgrimage to the holy Places in the North in the course of which he happened Of stay and Worship at Govardhanapura on the banks of the Jumna’ for a time and then returned to Viranarayanapuram. Then occurred the most important event in his life namely, his quest for and the discovery of the four thousand sacred hymns of the Alvars by Yogic contact with Shathakopa. The circumstances leading to the discovery have been detailed elsewhere and need not be repeated here. The main interest, from the point of view of chronology in the above narrative, is that Nathamuni was able to secure the Divya Prabandhams from Sathakopa not by direct contact with him but by Yoga Sakshatkara, i.e., by the saint appearing before him as a result of his Yoga. It is obviously an attempt to bridge the long interval of time which is supposed to have elapsed between the age of the Alvar and the Acharya.

5. Das Gupta uses the word (Aragiyas) to denote these Acharyas. It is not possible to ascertain either the source or the Meaning of this term to denote the Acharyas.

- History of Indian Philosophy ~ Vol. Ill – Chap. XVIII – p. 94.

6. It is said that the ancestors of Nathamuni may have been Bhagavatas who, in the Carly centuries of the Christian era had migrated from the North and settled down in the Southern country, 7. It was in commemoration of his pilgrimage that his grandson was named Yamuna.

The other point of interest in the story which has so far been missed is the import of the specific statement that along with the Divya Prabandhams, the three rahasyas (Rahasya Trayam), the meaning of all the Darshanas (Akhila Darshana tatparyangal) and the secret of Ashtangayoga (Ashtangayoga Rahasyam) were imparted to Nathamuni by Sathakopa 8. The suggestion is clear that Nathamuni thereby became the repository of the full knowledge of the true Vishishtadvaita tradition and was connected to Sathakopa in the regular line of succession of Acharyas beginning from Shriman Narayana.

8. Ar. Guruparampara Prabhavam Ed. by S. Krishnamachari, Prabhava Karthikai p. 78.

The traditional story regarding the type of music to which the hymns of the Alvars were set by Nathamuni also deserves notice. The story goes that the Cola king of the day heard a dancing girl sing in the Devagana or celestial tune set for them by Nathamuni and failed to appreciate it. Thereupon, She sang the hymns before the God of that place and won the appreciation of Nathamuni who heard her sing in the shrine. On coming to know of this, the king went to the shrine and meeting Nathamuni there asked to know the reason for his appreciation of the unfamiliar tune. Nathamuni gave such convincing demonstration of his powers of discerning even the sublest notes in music that the king felt satisfied about the superiority of the celestial tune to which the hymns of the Alvars had been set by Nathamuni.

The significance of this story lies in the fact that it reveals the underlying idea that the Divya Prabandhams were the Tamil Vedas and were therefore to be recited, like the Vedas, with all the Subtle nuisances of Udatta, Anudatta, etc., swaras. They have come to be regarded as one of the cardinal texts of Vaishnavism as important as the Vedas and the Pancharatra. By giving due recognition to the Divya Prabandhams, Nathamuni had sown the seed for the unique system of Ramanuja’s Philosophy as being based on Ubhaya Vedanta or the two-fold sources namely, the Vedas and the Upanishads on the one hand and the Alvars works on the other.

There are no more Striking particulars in the traditional accounts of his life except those relating to his end at Gangaikonda Cholapuram. It is said that On one Occasion, a Party of hunters headed by the king hurried past his house at Viranarayanapuram disturbing him in his meditation, that, believing (doubtless under the influence of his deep meditation on Rama) that they must be no other than Rama and his followers, he followed in vain their track in eager search to meet them till finally he was overcome by exhaustion and fell down dead at the palace gates of Gangaikonda Colapurara. The circumstances and the manner of his death would show the extreme devotion of Nathamuni to Shri Rama and also to his deep Yogic experience.

Tradition assigns an unusually long life of three hundred to five hundred years for Nathamuni. As was observed already, this is a fanciful attempt to connect Nathamuni with Nammalvar who is supposed to have lived centuries before him.

 

THE AGE OF NATHAMUNI

 

This brings us to the problem of the date of Nathamuni. The Anbil plates of Paranthaka II (Cir. 956-973

A.D.) 9 records the grant of land made by the king to his Minister, Aniruddha, a native of Anbil. The author of a Sanskrit verse in the inscription refers to himself as Madhava Bhatta, son of Bhatta Datta, who, among other things, was ‘a moon in the family of Parashara’ and was a ‘bee at the lotus namely the feet of Shrinatha’.

If, as suggested by the late T. A. Gopinatha Rao 10.

‘Shrinatha’ in the above verse can be identified with Nathamuni, his age could well be assigned to the latter half of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth centuries A.D. 11

9. Ep. Indica Vol. XV – p 54.

10. T. A. Gopinatha Rao, The History of Shri Vaishnavas p. 30

11. On the basis of the Anbil plates showing ‘the part played by Vaishnavism in the social and religious life of the time’, Prof, K. A. Nilakanta Shastri appears to think that the probable age of Nathamuni would be the end of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth century A.D. – The Colas p. 638.

Prof. R. Ramanujacharya is inclined to think that «Sri.

natha’ may refer to the ‘Lord of Lakshmi’ rather than to Nathamuni. (Nathamuni – His life and Times —

Journal of the Annamalai University Vol. x p. 272.

Another way of looking at the Problem is by trying to trace Nathamuni’s date backwards from the accepted date for Ramanuja (1017-1137), Allowing a reasonable average span of 30 years for each of the three generations of Acharyas between Nathamuni and Ramanuja (i. e., Pundarikaksha, Ramamishra, Yamuna), we arrive at about 927 A. D. for the age of Nathamuni. Ag the traditional date of Yamuna’s birth is Said to be Cir. 918 A. D., we may take it that Cir. 927 A. D. falls in the Closing years of his life. We may therefore, conclude that there is nothing improbable in the generally accepted date for Nathamuni i.e., the latter half of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth century.

Nathamuni’s works: — Nathamuni is said to have written two works» Nyaya Tattva and Yoga-Rahasya, both of which are not now extent. There are, however, references to the former in the works of Sri Vedanta Deshika and Ramanuja’s Shri Bhashya, Showing that it was “an authoritative work on Nyaya entirely jin harmony with the Vedanta”. Yamuna’s Atmasiddhi is said to be based on Nyayatatva. Besides these, a few invocatory verses in Tamil for the works of Sathakopa, Vishnuchitta, and Madhura Kavi are attributed to him.

 

Estimate of Nathamuni's work:—

Nathamuni came at a critical period in the history of the development of Hindu thought and found himself faced with the difficult task of freeing it from the shacklesness of Nayavada on the one hand and the baneful influences of heretical systems which rejected altogether the authority of the Vedas on the other.

More positively, his task was one of synthesizing “The Upanishadic view of Reality with the intensely religious conception of the world characteristic of the Bhakti cult”.

The result was a happy reconstruction of Vaishnava philosophy and religion, which were henceforward to draw sustenance from two sources, namely, the Vedas including the Upanishads and the Divya Prabandhams of the Alvars.

The Doctrine of the Prapatti (absolute surrender), fully reflected in the songs of the Alvars constituted an important feature of the new system. The promise of the Prapatti Marga or the Path of Surrender as a means of salvation to all including women and the members of the lower castes together with the popularisation of the Tamil hymns contributed a great deal to the development of Vaishnavism as a universal religion 12.

12. For a fuller estimate of Nathamuni’s work, see R. Ramanujachari – Nathamuni, his life and times Journal of Annamalai University Vol. IX pp. 268-271.