The Twelve Alwars Paige Alvar Bhoothathalvar Peyalvar Thirumalisai Alvar Nammalvar Madhurakavi Alvar Kulashekhara Azhwar Periyalvar Andal Thondaradippodi Alvar Thiruppaan Alvar Thirumangai Alvar In the Sri Vaishnavite tradition in their history of their lineage, they list some outstanding devotees. There were twelve Alvars who appeared in South India. Not all at the same time, but over a period of several centuries. They established the basis of the Krsna bhakti cult in the Kaliyuga. The appearance of such great devotees in the Kaliyuga is predicted in the SrimadBhagavatam. Srimad- Bhagavatam was spoken at the beginning of the Kaliyuga, and when Krsna left this planet then he took with Him dharma. The Vedic dharma at that point disappeared, or became invalid, and spiritual knowledge was also obscured. But it says in the same verse that Lord Krsna left the Srimad Bhagavatam for the people in Kaliyuga to get light out of. Now still, the book Bhagavata was there but they also needed the person Bhagavata, or one who lives the SrimadBhagavatam. In other words, they needed the spiritual master. So in the initial stage of Kaliyuga, the first few centuries, these twelve Alvars appeared in South India, and actually established the basis of what would later on become the four Vaisnava sampradayas. The four sampradayas all had their origin in South India, and the founders of these sampradayas each in their own way drew, to a greater or lesser extent, from this tradition of the Alvars, especially in the Laksmi sampradaya, but it is also there in our sampradaya too, and in the others. The Radha Krsna cult is the further development of the devotional tendency of loving God in close fellowship and in the spirit and relation of a woman to her husband or lover. This tendency is striking in the Prabandham of the Alvars. Goda, the famous woman Alvar, is said to have been married to the Deity Ranganath of the Sri Rangam temple. Tondaredipodi Alvar (Bhaktanghri Renu in Sanskrit) expresses in his Tirup Palliyeducci (Paramatmar Jagarana in Sanskrit) that to serve and love God one's spiritual body is the summom bonum of one's service to. God. One of the Alvars was known as Bhaktisara. So he was living at Sri Rangam, and he was living very very simply, like a babaji. So he would sit at Sri Rangam. Around the temple are 7 walls, and between the walls are some areas like streets where people would walk and live. So Bhaktisara would sit in that street area, or in the courtyard of the temple, and he would sit in the sun and sew his cloth. He wore old old cloth, and he would sew it and maintain it until practically speaking it was unwearable, and only then he would he go and find some new old cloth. And because he was purposely kept himself impoverished, he used to sew it with a broomstraw, this would be his needle. And on the end of it he would tie a thread. Then he would take his old torn garment and sew it. So he used to be seen often, sitting somewhere in the Sri Rangam complex sewing his cloth. One day Lord Siva and Parvati were flying over the sky just above the earth. By flying like this, their shadow was cast upon the ground. So whe rever this shadow would fall, naturally people became very enlivened in their material desires. But when the shadow fell on Bhaktisara, they stopped and observed him. Bhaktisara was sewing, and then he looked around and saw this shadow. He could understand that this shadow is inspiring one to have material desires. So thinking, "This is inauspicious," he moved out of the shadow. Parvati turned to Lord Siva and said, "What is this? Everyone else is so eager tha t we may give benediction, that they rejoi ce if they catch sight of us or if our shadow falls on them. But this person is moving out of the shadow. What does this mean?" Lord Siva replied, "He is a great Visnu bhakta. We have no business with him. He doesn't need anything from us." Parvati said, "No no no. Everyone wants something from us. Everybody has material desires and wants them fulfilled. Let us go down there." So they went down there, Parvati and Siva, and they appeared before Bhaktisara, who was just sewing his cloth. So then Parvati, who was standing behind Lord Siva said, "Offer him heaven." Lord Siva said, "My dear devotee of the Lord, we have come down before you to give you a benediction, so I am offering you the svarga, the heavenly world. You may go there." Bhaktisara didn't even look up, he just kept on sewing and ignored them. So then Parvati said, "Offer him the post of Lord Brahma." Bhaktisara ignored this also, and continued sewing his cloth. Parvati was becoming more and more agitated, so she said, "Offer him a form just like yourself." So Lord Siva said, "So will you take a form or a position just like mine?" Then Bhaktisara looked up and said, "You've already got enough trouble." He was referring to the fact that although he was the great Lord Siva, he was still being pushed around by Parvati. So then Parvati said, "He must ask something from us. So just tell him to ask for a benediction." Lord Siva said, "All right, if you don't want any of these things I am o ffering, then you pick something, because you must take a benediction from us." So then Bhaktisara said, "Well, you give me liberation from material existence." Lord Siva said, "That's one thing I can't give." Lord Siva himself says mukti pradata sarvesam visnu eva na samsaya. One who wants mukti has to approach Lord Visnu. So he was caught in an embarrassing situation when Bhaktisara asked for that, something he could not give. "I'm sorry, but this is something that I cannot g ive." Bhaktisara said, "Then what is the use? What is the use of you and your benedictions?" Lord Siva said, "You must take something from us, because we have come to offer you a benediction." "All right," Bhaktisara said. "While I sew, the thread is always coming off the needle, because that is only a broomstraw. So you please make some arrangement that this thread becomes attached to the back of the straw so I can finish sewing my cloth." At this, Parvati became enraged. "He's insulting you! You can give him the universe, and he's asking for such a minuscule thing. This is an insult. You must do something." So then Lord Siva opened his third eye, and a tongue of flame came out towards Bhaktisara. Bhaktisara saw this tongue of flame coming, so he pressed his foot to the ground, and from where he pressed his foot an even greater flame came out, devoured that flame from Lord Siva's eye, and started to pursue Lord Siva. Lord Siva was running around Sri Rangam temple with this fire following him. So he went before the deity of Ranganath and prayed, "My dear Lord, I have made a great mistake today by offending your devotee. Please help me." So the Lord instantly conjured a Vaikuntha cloud, and this was raining a kind of nectar. Because it was a Vaikuntha cloud, within a very short time the whole area of Sri Rangam was totally flooded. In this way the fire of Bhaktisara was extinguished, but the whole temple was covered, like a big lake. Then suddenly Bhaktisara appeared on top of the lake, like a cork. He was just sitting on top of the water still sewing his clot h. Very quickly the water subsided. Lord Siva appeared before Bhaktisara and blessed him. He gave him this name. Bhakti means devotion, and sara means essence. So this name means, "the essence of devotion." Lord Siva said, "Your attitude and devotion to Lord Visnu is the essence of devotion, because even if Lord Siva comes, you do not want anything from him, although all the materialists are desiring." Another time there was a shuktihara, a magician flying through the sky on his tiger. Bhaktisara was again sitting sewing his cloth. And then when he flew over Bhaktisara, his tiger couldn't stay in the sky, it fell to the ground. He came down to earth, and he was wondering, "What is this? Why can't we fly here?" And then he saw Bhaktisara, and he could understand, "Oh, it must be by the influence of this saintly person that my magic is rendered is null and void." The magician became pleased, because he could understand "He is very very advanced. He is so pure that this kind of mystic jugglery I am doing does not function in his presence." So being very pleased with him, he wanted to reward him. He took from his shoulders a very very expensive ornamental cloth that he was wearing. You can just imagine, he's a wizard so he's got to be dressed really far out. It had gold sewn into it and diamonds and rubies and emeralds all over it. So he took it off, and he presented it to Bhaktisara, "You please accept this." As soon as the cloth touched Bhaktisara's hand, it was transformed into an old rag wit h holes, the type which Bhaktisara was accustomed to wear. Something fit for Bhaktisara to wear. And then Bhaktisara took his cloth that he had been wearing, and gave it to this shuktihara, and as soon as the shuktihara took it, the cloth became like molten diamonds, like a diamond jelly.