Introduction
In the srotria village of ArasANipAlai SrI LakshmI nArAyaNa perumaL blesses us with MahA LakshmI seated on His left lap. ArasANipAlai is one of the 18 Vaidika agrahArams situated between the two rivers, PaalARu and SeyyAr. Dusi MaamaNDUr and Nallur are two of such agrahArams besides ArasANipAlai in this region. Many yajn~ams have been conducted at the NallUr and ArasANipAlai agrahArams by the descendants of KiDaambi AcchAn (PraNatArtiharar) who performed MaDappaLLi kaimkaryam for AcArya RaamAnuja (1017-1137 CE). He was one of the greatest AcAryAs with direct links to AcArya RaamAnuja. It is KiDaambi AcchAn, who travelled to SaaradA pITham (SarasvatI pITham) in Kashmir at the request of his AcAryan to present his AcAryan’s commentary on Brahma sUtrams to SaaradA devi. The Goddess was so pleased with the great commentary (BhAshyam) of AcArya RaamAnuja that She named this BhAshyam as “SrI BhAshyam” to show how pleased She was with the authentic and scholarly commentary on BrahmasUtrams.
KiDaambi AcchAn’s vamSam is linked to Atreya gotram; the AcAryan of Swamy Desikan (1268-1369 CE) is SrI AppuLLAr, who arose from that same KiDaambi AcchAn vamSam. After Swamy Desikan’s time, SrI Atreya Kacchi KiDaambi ArasANipAlai VenkaTAdhvari Kavi was born in ArasANipAlai (1590-1660 CE) and is the celebrated author of many poetic works (viz.), SrI LakshmI sahasram, viSvadarSa campu, Raaghava YaadavIyam, etc.
SrI Atreya SrinivAsarAghavAchAr Swamy is a descendant of the ArasANipAlai VenkaTAdhvari vamSam and was a great admirer of the SrI sUktis of Swamy Desikan. Because of his many kaimkaryams/sevAs to propagate Desika darSanam, Swamy was awarded the title of sevA Swamy, which he respected more than any other award. SrI sevA Swamy was a great upAsakar of SrI HayagrIvan. This vimSati on SrI LakshmInArAyaNan, the deity of ArasANipAlai is his tribute to the PerumAL from his village of birth.
The descendants of ArasANipAlai vamSam have launched a noble effort to bring back the glories of this SrI agrahAram and have created a special web site (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arasanipalai/) and hope to use this web site as focus to reach out to the ArasANipAlai vamSattAr to reinforce the ongoing efforts. SrImat Srirangam ANDavan visited this village and performed MangaLASAsanam of SrI LakshmInArAyaNa PerumAL and abhaya hasta SrI LakshmI Narasimhan at the temple.
This stotram contains 21 slokas and a mangala slokam, each of which will be covered in the subsequent posts.
Courtesy: Sri Oppiliappan Koil Sri Varadachari Sadagopan
