ವೇದಾಂತ ದೇಶಿಕ ಜಯಂತಿ | Vedanta Desika Jayanti

Vedanta Desika Jayanti is the birthday of Vedanta Desika, the Sri Vaishnava teacher, poet and philosopher of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is kept by his birth star: Shravana, called Tiruvonam in Tamil, in the solar month of Purattasi, when the Sun is in Kanya, in September or October. It is kept above all by Sri Vaishnavas of the Vadakalai line, for whom he is the principal acharya after Ramanuja, and at the temples connected with his life in Tamil Nadu.

His life

He was born Venkatanatha, in about 1268, at Tuppul near Kanchipuram, and learned from his maternal uncle Kidambi Appullar, also called Atreya Ramanuja, whose line of teachers goes back to Ramanuja. The Vadakalai tradition holds him to be an incarnation of the bell of Venkateshwara at Tirumala. He lived for long periods at Tiruvahindrapuram, near Cuddalore. The account there says that as a young man he meditated on the Garuda mantra on the hill above the temple, that Garuda appeared and taught him the mantra of Hayagriva, and that his first work was a hymn to Hayagriva. He lived to about 1369.

His titles describe his range: Kavitarkika Simha, the lion among poets and logicians; Sarvatantra Svatantra, master of every branch of learning; and Vedantacharya. He wrote in Sanskrit, Tamil and Manipravalam. Among his works are the Paduka Sahasra, a thousand verses on the sandals of Ranganatha; the Yadavabhyudaya, a poem on the life of Krishna; the Hamsa Sandesha, a messenger poem; the Daya Shataka; the Shatadushani, a work of philosophical debate; and the Rahasya Traya Sara, on the three mantras of the Sri Vaishnava tradition.

How it is kept

At Tuppul the temple of Tiruththanka, held to be his birthplace, has a shrine of Desika whose image is believed to have been installed by his son Nayinar Varadacharya. Its chief festival is the brahmotsavam of Purattasi, during which the festival image of Desika is taken to the Varadaraja Perumal temple at Kanchipuram. At Tiruvahindrapuram the annual festival of his birth is held in Purattasi, and there he is worshipped both as God and as acharya.

Which day Anudina gives

Anudina gives the day on which Shravana is running at sunrise while the Sun is in Kanya, the Tamil month of Purattasi. When Purattasi holds Shravana twice, near its beginning and near its end, Anudina takes the later, as it does for Andal’s star in Aadi; for such years that choice has not yet been checked against a printed list. A star that touches no sunrise is kept on the day it runs.

The row is shown when the Tradition setting is Sri Vaishnava. Because it is a Tamil observance, it also needs the South Indian custom, or “Show festivals of other regions too” turned on; under Smarta or Madhva it does not appear.

Shravana in this season is also the star associated with Vamana’s birth, though Anudina keeps that day by tithi: see Vamana Jayanti. For the acharya whose line Desika carried forward, see Ramanuja Jayanti, and for Andal, see Thiruvadipooram. For the stars, see Nakshatra.