Seshamani Bhattar Erettai Tirupathi passes away

The priest, who withstood personal threats to his life in the 1970s and 80s and performed service of the most devotional kind at Erettai Tirupathi passed away recently at his home in Thiru Kolur aged 69.

Well over 40 years ago, G Seshamani Bhattar then in his 20s, took charge of the archaka service at the twin temples of Erettai Tirupathi Divya Desam, the Lords of which Nam Azhvaar saw as his father and mother. While he had been serving, on and off at the temple even as a teenager, it was his father in law, Venkatakrishnan, who had been performing pooja at Erettai Tirupathi since the 1940s at a low two digit salary, who roped him in for a life time service. Like his father in law earlier, Seshamani Bhattar too performed archaka service in the twin temples of Tholai Villi Mangalam at a miniscule salary that never crossed Rs. 70 per month for much of his first two decades.  In those decades, with no income at the temple, even this salary would be handed to him at infrequent intervals.

சிந்தையாலும் சொல்லாலும் செய்கையினாலும் 

தேவ பிரானையே 

தந்தை தாய் என் று அடைந்த 

வன் குருகூர் அவர் சடகோபன் சொல் 

முந்தை ஆயிரத்துள் இவை 

தொலை வில்லி மங்கலத்தை சொன்ன

செந்தமிழ் பத்தும் வல்லார் 

அடிமை செய்வார் திருமாலுக்கே 

A Dark Era

Through that dark period (literally) in the 70s and 80s, there was no electricity in the entire Erettai Tirupathi region. While historically many Divya Desams and ancient temples have been described as being in the middle of a forest or being surrounded by huge forest like groves, Seshamani Bhattar was an actual witness to it. The Erettai Tirupathi region was a dense forest inhabited by poisonous snakes. Also, the dark Sannidhi inside the temple proved a perfect abode for hundreds of bats. Seshamani Bhattar would enter the temple every morning to the fizzing noise of the serpents and the flapping of the wings of the bats.

In the early part of the 20th century, there had been a few Brahmin families in the agraharam but they too had to be evacuated following several floods the most severe of which struck in the first quarter.

There was not even a mud road to the twin temple from any of the Nava tirupathi temples. And there were no bridges as well to reach the temple crossing the Tamaraibarani River. The only option to reach the temple was to wade through the chest high water at the river, and then through the dense thicket to the temple.

After he managed to reach the temple, the plight of Seshamani Bhattar was quite miserable. With no power facilities, it was largely pitch dark in and around the sannidhis. The temple complex itself was in a dilapidated state. There was hardly the required quantity of ghee to light the lamp on a regular basis. Worse still, his wait for that odd devotee almost always proved a futile one. 25 paise thattu kaasu per week was a luxury in that first decade of his service.

For two decades from the 1970s, Seshamani Bhattar arrived at the twin temples every morning at 11am after performing pooja at Thiru Kolur Divya Desam. He would perform aradhana here at the twin temples and leave by 4pm so as to be in time at Thiru Kolur for the evening pooja there. This was a daily routine for him. Decades earlier, his father in law used to engage bullock cart once in a while to move around but once Seshamani Bhattar joined Erettai Tirupathi his only mode of transport was the long 6 km walk across the Tamaraibarani from Thiru Kolur. 

In those decades, no one dared to perform service at these two temples. It was the devotional mindset of Seshamani Bhattar that alone ensured that pooja was not stopped anytime at the twin Divya Desams.

வைத்த  மா நிதியாம் மதுசூதனையே அலற்றி

கொத்தலர்  பொழில் சூழ்.... 

அவன் சேர்  திரு கோலூற்கே 

சித்தம் வைத்துரைபார் நிகழ் பொன் உலகாழ்வாரே

His son the 40 year old Balaji Bhattar, who is now in charge of Thiru Kolur Vaitha Maa Nidhi Divya Desam, recounts the financial challenges from his childhood days in the 1980s “There was no money to pay my school fees. The income from the temple was no sufficient for us to buy new clothes even for Deepavali. With no salary and thattu kaasu, even daily sustenance was a challenge. But it did not deter him from selfless service at three Divya Desams for two decades. To him, serving at these three temples came above everything else.”

True devotion to the Lord kept him going and he considered it a great blessing to perform every day service at three Divya Desams. During that dark phase of life, while priests from many ancient temples sought other financial opportunities such as Samprokshanams and other vedic events, Seshamani Bhattar rarely went outside of these temples in search of additional sources of income. He was completely committed to the Lords of Erettai Tirupathi and Thiru Kolur.

திருந்து  வேதமும் வேள்வியும்

திரு மா மகளிரும் தாம் மலிந்து 

இருந்து வாழ் பொருநல் வடகரை 

வண் தொலை வில்லி மங்கலம் 

And then things turned for the worse in the early 1990s. Ravaged by floods in Tamaraibarani, the temple had reached a state of total dilapidation. Water levels reached Knee deep inside the Moolavar Sannidhi. It seemed to be a helpless state for the Bhattar with nowhere to turn to. 

While on one side there was very little financial security with a low two digit monthly salary, on the other there was always the threat of physical attack by animals including the real possibility of snake bites. Encountering Snakes inside the temple was a regular feature for both Venkatakrishnan Bhattar as well as Seshamani Bhattar. His wife stood by him all through his life and was a pillar of strength during the decades of the financial stress. Soon after he passed away, she too followed him to Vaikuntam. 

Large shrubs had come up on the Vimana and the inner walls. The prakara was covered with huge bushes and no devotee could go around the sannidhi in either of the temples. The only time the temple really lit up was on Maasi Anusham when Nam Azhvaar made his way across the Tamarai Barani for a day long stay here. That brought in groups of devotees from Azhvaar Tirunagari and around.

Following the floods in the early 1990s, the twin temples seemed to be on the verge of collapse. Unmindful of the risk to his health, he waded through the water to light lamp at the twin temples.  Decades long resident of Azhvaar Tirunagari, Octogenarian Appu Sadagopachari had told this writer a few years ago on the state of the temple in the decades prior to Venu Srinivasan taking up the restoration work “The roof could have fallen off any time at Erettai Tirupathi. There were pillars hanging around. Water had seeped in right to the sanctum.”

Seshamani Bhattar had tears rolling down his cheeks when he narrated a few years ago to this writer the struggles in that phase of life “The temple structure itself seemed to be going down as a result of the floods and there was a real threat of one of the Divya Desams being lost to the Vaishnavite world.  The entire temple complex was stuck with dirty water and filth.’

When floods struck Tamaraibarani, Seshamani Bhattar would take the long over 10 kms route through the Sri Vaikuntam bridge. Balaji Bhattar recalls one of such trips from his childhood days “Cine Personality YG Mahendra’s amma was on a trip to Nava Tirupathi Divya Desams. When she saw my appa walking all the way from Thiru Kolur to Erettai Tirupathi, she came home to meet him at Thiru Kolur. She was shocked  on seeing the house in a dilapidated condition. Immediately, she helped with the construction of a brick house from the ‘Koorai’ that it was. She also purchased a cycle so my appa could ride to the Divya Desam. We still live in that same house and my appa used that cycle till the very end, over three decades after it was presented to him.”

On such days, Balaji Bhattar recalls his father taking food from home to for neivedyam for the two Lords in Erettai Tirupathi. 

It was after TVS Motor’s Venu Srinivasan’s transformational restoration exercise in the mid 1990s that the annual Brahmotsavam including all the Vahana processions was revived at the twin temples of Aravinda Losana and Devapiran.

Seshamani Bhattar who performed daily pooja in these three temples for over two decades at a salary of less than Rs. 100 per month was assigned the Devapiran Sannidhi as an exclusive temple with a monthly Sambhavanai from Venu Srinivasan that was several multiples of what he had received over the previous two decades. The Bhattar’s monthly income touched four digits for the first time in 1998.            

Seshamani Bhattar continued to serve at the Devapiran temple almost till the very end including during the COVID period in 2020. He told this writer in a conversation before his death that he was pleased to have both his sons ( Raghu and Balaji Bhattar) sticking to temple kainkaryam despite the financial plight of his father and grandfather over the 2nd half of the 20th century. The monthly Sambavanai presented by Venu Srinivasan and the increased ‘Thattu Kasu’ had provided great financial security to the sons of Seshamani Bhattar.

For the devoted Seshamani Bhattar, it was finally happy times to be seeing human faces around him through the day from the previously lonely life at the temple spent alongside reptiles and mammals!!

While he had to encounter decades of financial challenges, his life was largely fulfilling serving at the feet of three Divya Desam Lords, an opportunity unlikely to have been available to many priests in the country. And he lived all his life in the memory of that service to these Lords. Never once did he complain about the financial challenges and his mind was always focused on his duty of serving the Lord at Erettai Tirupathi and Thiru Kolur.

Truly an exceptional Divya Desam Bhattar.

(Seshamani Bhattar passed away on January 2, 2021 of Kidney failure and wheezing related ailment at the age of 69. Shortly after, his wife too passed away)