Kanchi Shankaracharyas not great anymore? Really?

 

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Kanchi mutt has lost its past glory. Mahaperiyava was great. Shankaracharyas who came after him could not match him in terms of how he could touch people's lives.

Have these become the usual rant you hear from your close family circles even though your family had always been loyal to the mutt and the had always sought Paramacharya's blessings for all the important happenings in the family? If yes, then this blog post is for you.

You have a busy office life. After an exhaustive work week, you want to take rest in the weekend to get ready for the next work week. Many times you even login to work during weekends because you have a big financial responsibility from home loans, car loans, medical expenses, kids' education, etc. and want to do something extra to get a better recognition and remuneration. Even if you don't connect to work, you want to pay bills, buy groceries, do house cleaning, teach your kids, etc in the weekend that you hardly have time to go even to the nearby temple. Is this your story?

Your story has the answer to why the Kanchi mutt has lost its past glory (that it has not). Let's see how, through my case which will most likely be yours as well to a large degree.

My grandfather did trikala sandhyavandhanam. He came back home by 5:30 pm max from the school he worked. He knew by memory, Vishnu Sahasranamam, Lalita Sahasranamam, Soundarya Lahari, and other scriptures. He went to temple daily. He was closely associated with the Sankara matam in our ancestral town.

Temple in my ancestral town taught Vishnu Sahasranamam, Rudram, Chamakam, etc. Every Friday 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm bhajans happened without fail. An elderly mami taught Navavarnam, Jayadevar ashtapatis, bhakti folk songs like ohoho thayikudame udaindhuponadhe, maadu meikkum kanne, other krithis, etc to the womenfolks in the locality and everyone sang them during Pongal, Thiruvaadhirai, Sita Kalyanam, Radha Kalyanam, Navaratri, when bhaktas went behind the temple car / chariot, etc. We never lost touch with our culture. The temple committee organized many speeches (Pravachanams) from various mutts. Probably, this way, we kept hearing all the news from mutts we believed in.

Can you connect the dots now - retrospect?

Rooted in our culture with bhakti - constant touch with mutts - Paramacharyas were great.

Busy life and distanced from culture - no time for mutts - Paramacharyas seem to be not so great.

Our ancestors made themselves available to be taken over by the Paramacharya's divinity. We? Now?

Today we aren't spared from having to listen to how casteist our society is? How discriminating it is? How other faiths are secular? How mutts can be caste violence inciting? How anti Tamil Mahaperiyava was? all from the Dravidianist gangs and the ones influenced by them through channels including SM. On the other side, how often do we hear from the mutt? Have we made any effort to understand mutt's version of all the accusations against it in the society and SM? With such one sided news bombarded at us from all directions, at one point we fall.

Mahaperiyava would not have chosen His successor any less than Himself. So, before we conclude on the glory of the mutt, we have to ask ourselves whether (1) we are informed enough in facts from the mutt (2) have we the bhakti to mutts we believe in that's comparable to our ancestors? I am confident that we will too be touched by the divine grace of the acharyas if we are like our ancestors.