The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
Tirunelveli and the Thamirabarani River are intricately linked with Sage Agasthya. This is one of the reasons the river here is considered as sacred as the Kaveri, or even the Ganga. Most temples here are on the river bank, or somewhere near the river, including the Nava Tirupatis, which we visited earlier on this trip. However, the temples most entwined in myth with the river as well as the sage are the Nava Kailasam.