Villiyambakkam Rangarajan Bhattar

Villiyambakkam K Rangarajan Bhattar has for a large part lived an independent and fulfilling life as a temple priest. Once upon a time, he was the all dominating priest at the Eri Kaatha Rama Temple in Madurantakam with his devotional aradhanam capturing the attention of the visiting devotees. Belonging to the Swayam Acharya clan, his forefathers performed Samasrayanam for sishyas. However, into the 2nd half of the 20th century, when things turned for the worse, financially, his appa Krishnamachariar left Madurantakam to perform archaka service in Pushkaram where he performed service for over 15years from 1961.

Rangarajan did his early schooling in the late 1960s in Kanchipuram before completing his Class X exam in Madurantakam. He then went to Srirangam for Shakai Veda Adyayanam at the Thiru Kudanthai Andavan Patshala and later also underwent Sammidhas initiation at the Patshala in Madurantakam. 

By the time he was 22, he began his first temple Kainkaryam at the Srinivasa Perumal temple in Valparai. It was 7 glorious years for Rangarajan Bhattar, financially for the emergence of Valparai as a tourist hot spot led to big crowd at the temple.

It was likely that his life would continue at Valparai for long but when his appa returned to Madurantakam to take charge of the Eri Kaatha Rama Temple, he asked for his son to return to the temple town to support him in his daily kainkaryam. And thus Rangarajan Bhattar quit a high paying service in Valparai to join the Madurantakam temple at a monthly salary of Rs. 60 as a paricharakar, assisting his appa. 

It was a troublesome phase for him for in the mid 90s there was a theft in the temple and Rangarajan Bhattar was accused of being part of it. He recalls the challenges he went through “I was clear that I had not done anything wrong and I stood my ground through the entire enquiry. There were many devotees who began prayers for me and my well being. I had the fullest faith in the service I had performed and it was Lord Rama who protected me helping me come out clean and unscathed.”

In 2002, when his appa retired from archaka service, Rangarajan Bhattar was elevated as the priest. “The pre condition at the temple was that the priest would not be paid a salary and that I would have to manage my living with the ‘Thattu Kaasu’ that came my way.”

The Thai Parivettai Utsavam was revived during his stint as the archaka and the Pancha Samskara Vaibhavam was restored to its glorious past with Bhagavatha Thathiyaarathanai topping 100. He created the interest in the Villagers and got them to make the Parivettai utsavam an integral part of their annual calendar where the Lord visits the villages in Thai.

For close to a decade, he managed the Eri Kaatha Rama temple in quite a dominating way as has been his style everywhere. His knowledge of the agamas and the aradhana krama was so high that he could not be touched. 

Also, during the two decade period from the mid 1990s, he began performing social service in the villages around Madurantakam “When I was a young boy, one of the pre conditions that my amma laid was to listen to Upanyasam every week. On those days, I would be fed only if I listened to the Upanyasam, especially on Ramanuja and his service and narrated the gist of the story. It was a great early initiation that led me to my interest in community service.”

In the 1990s, he created Hari Saranam, a service organization to lead people in the path of Ramanuja’s teachings. He joined as a member of the Society for Integrated Village Animation (SIVA) and became its Secretary. Through a Government programme, he helped create 350 women self help groups in the villages. To those that did not have even basic education, he led them to read and write. To the school drop outs he motivated them to return to school and revived their educational life. He himself became a trainer and helped women set up vegetable, fruit and flower stalls in the villages around Madurantakam. 

During the afternoon break at the temple, he would visit the villages and return in time for the evening aradhanam at the Rama temple. For years, this had become his daily process. He had made such a significant contribution in educating them that one of the groups won the best SHG award from the TN Govt in 2007. His social contribution also extended to running the Srihari Nursery school in Madurantakam for over 15years as its correspondent.

By the turn of the last decade, his two girls were growing up and the income from the Eri Kaatha Rama Temple was not enough to run his family and to take care of the education expense “That is when I decided to move out of the temple town and took up the offer at the Srinivasa Perumal in RK Puram, Delhi.”

It was a phase when he used the free time to refresh his knowledge of the Prabhandham, Vedas and Agamas. Once again it was a financially rewarding phase for Rangarajan Bhattar and like in Valparai could have continued his life at the Delhi Temple. But he had a vision for the future and was keen to set up a Vedic Patshala to create the next generation of students.

However, when he returned to Madras, both his home town temple in Madurantakam and the Vedantha Desikar Srinivasa Perumal Temple in Mylapore were keen to have his archaka service. With the Mylapore temple taking a quick call, he chose to opt for the city temple. He then took a short break from the temple and spent two years in presenting Upanyasam and writing short books. He is also working on a book on Pancharatra Agamas. He has also been refreshing his knowledge on Sri Bashyam and other literary works.  During the Pandemic, he then rejoined the Vedantha Desikar Temple in Mylapore in 2020 and has been at the temple since. 

57 year old Rangarajan Bhattar was last month honoured with a Doctorate from the Global Human Peace University in recognition for his social work over two decades in villages around Madurantakam.

In the 1990s, Rangarajan Bhattar began creating Self Help Groups that focused on helping school dropouts get back to academics. He also focused on improving the medical facilities in these villages. Later he helped agri labourers with farming support and secured funding for them from NABARD and nationalized banks. During the Pandemic, he was involved in organizing food as well as rice, dhal and veggies for people in 12 villages.