Vedantha Desikar Temple New Gen Prabhandham Members

It is the first week of June and devotees are trickling into the Vedantha Desikar Srinivasa Perumal temple (https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2021/01/vedantha-desikar-srinivasa-perumal.html) just after 6am for the street procession in the morning. While the priests are giving the final touches to the alankaram, IT staffer Aravind arrives on a two wheeler with his 11 year old son Raghava Simhan all the way from T Nagar to be part of the Prabhandham Ghosti. A class VI student of PSBB T. Nagar, Raghava Simhan is focused on academics. But his appa is keen on his son to take the devotional path in life and has begun initiating into the sacred verses of the Vaishnavite Saint Poets. While he prepares every day for the periodic tests that are part of the school calendar, Raghava Simhan has already learned around 2000 verses from the Nalayira Divya Prabhandham. He provides almost equal attention to learning these verses as much as he does with his school lessons. For the Vaikasi Brahmotsavam at the Mylapore temple, he was up at 5am every morning to get himself ready for the procession. On most days he was back in the evening as well for the street procession.

Rama Priyan (Sreekar) is the youngest of the lot of a bunch of kids who were present at the Brahmotsavam earlier this month. He is all of 5 years and has just made his way into class 1 at Vidya Mandir this month. Between software development (Main Frame) at TCS and being part of the regular Prabhandham Ghosti round the year at the temple, his appa Sudarshan, a software engineer, has been making time to initiate Sreekar into the stotras of acharya Vedantha Desikar over the last many months. During Margazhi, Sudarshan has also been presenting upanyasams at the temple in the evenings.

Sriram, a Chartered Accountant who runs his own audit firm in Venkatesa Agraharam, is well versed in the Nalayira Divya Prabhandham and has been a regular at the ten day annual Brahmotsavam and Desikar Utsavams. He too has been initiating his 8 year old son Haardhan into the ‘Mudhalayiram’ verses over the last year or so.  Haardhan has also been learning Desikar Stotras and has already completed a number of these as well.

Contrasted with the above and away from the corporate world is Murali Krishnan who has been in Vaideeha activities for the last 15years. His son Raghavanujan, now 8, began his initiation very early when he was just about 4 years. He has already completed half of the verses from the Nalayira Divya Prabhandham as part of the class organised inside the Desikar Temple by Acharya Srihari. He has also learned over 10 stotras of Acharya Vedantha Desikar. In addition to the sacred verses of the Vaishnavite Saint Poets and Acharya, Raghavanujan, a class III student of PS Sr. Sec School, has also been initiated into Vedic learning.

Several decades ago, as seen in a story in January last year, Vedic recital was prominent at the Desikar temple. Over the last two decades, with the initiative of Prabhandham Acharya Srihari(https://prtraveller.blogspot.com/2015/11/srihari-parthasarathy-prabhandham.html), the recital of the sacred verses of the Saint Poets has gained dominance at the temple. And that has rubbed off on the parents who are passing on their knowledge to their sons. 

It has been refreshing to see the bunch of young kids being part of the vibrant Divya Prabhandham Ghosti during the street processions at the Vaikasi Brahmotsavam earlier this month From CAs to Engineers, From IT professionals to the traditional Vaideekas, fathers for whom the Vedantha Desikar temple has been an integral part of their lives over the last three decades are ensuring that their sons are initiated early on into the Nalayira Divya Prabhandham. And that augurs well for the Prabhandham Ghosti. While the Vedic recital is not anything like it was in the past, Prabhandham Ghosti is vibrant with the members gathering in good numbers at all the utsavams at the Desikar Temple. These young kids have been a welcome addition and their rendering of the Prabhandham is bringing a special devotional flavour to the utsavams.