Sri Sripadarajaru the composer of this beautiful devuru nama is known as the grandfather of the haridasa tradition. He made it a part of his daily prayer routine to sing songs as a seva to the Lord. He has a fondness for Ranganatha of Srirangam and has composed many songs with Lord Ranganatha as the main theme depicting the leelas of the Lord in His various avataras.

In this devuru nama Dasaru speaks of the importance of faith/consistence and devotion in the Lord. He states facts about the limitations of a jiva and asserts the necessaity to have faith and devotion in the Lord. He describes the outcome of such devotion and goes on to praise the Lord with the attributes which have been shown by Sri Madhvacharya to be the most important of all in the upasana of the Lord.

nArayaNa ninna nambide lakshmi nArayana ninna nambide

nArayaNa ninna horetu poreva daiva vellide

Sri Sripadarajaru has shown the devotees what acceptance of one's follies and complete surrender to the Lord can do. In the pallavi and anupallavi he pleads with the Lord saying,” Oh Lord NarayaNa , the storehouse of infinite aupiscious attributes ,I take shelter in You, I reassert complete faith in You, Oh Lord Lakshmi nArayaNa , I believe You. I understand that there exists no entity other than You, who can remove my distress and save me.”

Here Dasaru says ,”nArayaNa” one of the meanings being nArAh + ayaNa = the shelter for all good qualities/attributes. From this one address of the Lord we can understand why we should surrender ourselves to His will, to His direction. Firstly when a person surrenders he should be provided bodily safety even by the enemy and if it is not the enemy then he should be given good care and direction. Now the question of keeping up the ethics depends on the entity to whom one has surrendered. Dasaru says that he does not have to worry about this question of whether the Lord will keep His word about taking care of His devotee. One of His infinite gunas is SharaNagathavatsaLa meaning one who lovingly protects those who surrender to Him. Another of His infinite attributes is akshobyA meaning one who never sways from His majestic qualities and ways.

Eg : In the Ramayana when Vibeeshana approches to surrender to Lord Rama, there was a doubt in Lakshamana's mind about accepting Vibheeshana but not so in Hanuman's mind or the Lord's.

In the anupallavi , he says that there is none who can protect and uplift him other that the Lord. There are many reasons for this.

1 In order to offer complete protection the protecter must have the power to grant refuge. The Lord is the only independent entity ,so there is no better person to surrender to. AchArya Madhva has said , “There are only two types of entities -one dependent and the other independent. Of these the Lord Vishnu /Lord Narayana is independent and all others are dependent on Him.” swatantrO bhagavAn Vishnu”

2.The entity must exist at all times from time immemorial because the soul exists from time immemorial. Jagannatha Dasaru in one of his devuru namas says “dAsOham tava dAsoham” and continues to ellaborate on the Lord whose dasa he declares himself to be. He says that the Lord is kAla niyAmaka - controller of Time, kAla pravarthaka - one who controls how the jivas percieve time ,kAlAtheetha- transcends Time, trikAlagNa – who is the knower of past, present and future.

3.Being the Supreme being, He is the inner motivator for all actions and if He wills it none can obstruct His devotees from following the path of surrender. Neither can anyone obstruct Him from granting shelter to such a devotee. The Lord exists as Vishwambara in Vigneshwara who is presiding deity of space and removes obstacles by creating space. It is relevant to note that the special quality of space is that where space is there, there only anything else can be whereas no other element or thing has this capacity. All of us remember saying at one time or the other,”Can you please move and give me space?”

4.The Protector should be able to comprehend the need of each devotee . The Lord is all knowing and does the needful at the right time, right place. So one should seek His protection rather than anyone else's.

5. He should be there in the place where His devotee is calling out.The Lord is omnipresent . When His great devotee Prahlada called out to Him as the only saviour with complete faith, the Lord manifested Himself as Narasimha from a pillar.

6.The one to whom we surrender to must be benovelent enough to forgive our faults and accept us . The Lord is called as dayAnidhe – He is the personification of compassion and benovelence.

7.The one to whom we surrender should have the quality of impartiality. Rayaru refers to Him as sarVa karma kartA sarVa karma karayathritva sarVa karma sAkshi – So whatever we have done the Lord is aware of every single thing and is fully capable of disbursing justly according to one's eligibility.It is because of this that He is known as nirVaishamya meaning impartial.

Many many more reasons are there for this approach of Sripadarajaru who was an aparOxa jNAni (one who has had the Lord's darshan) and had experienced whatever he had studied in the satshAstras. It is no wonder he says ,' ninna horetu enna poreva daiva vellide?”.

Consider this mundane crude example to bring out the meaning of vellide/ellide in this context?

Raju and Kishore were playing hide and seek using a stone as the object to be hidden in Raju's room. Raju had hidden the stone and gave some clues about its location to Kishore. Kishore searches and finds the stone but Raju who wanted to pull Kishore's leg says that, that was not the stone. Then Kishore searches again and being unable to find it finally asks, 'ellide?”

So from the above example it is clear that we use the word ellide at the end of a thorough search. It is clear that Sripadarajaru is declaring the Supremacy of the Lord after a deep study and reflection of the scriptures by saying that “Oh Lord, there is none other than you, who can save and protect me, for I have looked far and near for the Lord described in the Vedas and find only You fit that description ,none else.”

naa meeri dushkarma mADide apAra mahima dayAnidhe

Sri Sripadarajaru says,” Oh Lord, I have voilated the injunctions given by You in the Vedas and done many misdeeds, and because of misdeeds done before, You being the preraka or inspiration for all actions make me do further mideeds. How can I come out of this cycle? Oh Lord , of infinite greatness, Oh Compassionate Lord.”

Dasaru directs that we have to confess to the Lord . We have to offer all our deeds at the feet of the Lord and seek His grace. He is called as “apAra mahima” because there is no limit to His greatness. We call a person great if he has some good qualities which we respect. But when we find that that great person could not forgive a person who confesses his misdeeds then we don't accept his greatness even though he has other good qualities because of the lack of this guna. Greatness lies in being able to forgive and guide. This guna or quality is also called as dayA. The Lord who is achchutha means has no lack in gunas surely has all the gunas. So there is every need to refer to Him as “Oh Lord of limiltess greatness!” By referring to the Lord as 'dayAnidhe' Dasaru is further confirming that He is an ocean of compassion. He is the personification of compassion. We know from the various parables of bhakthi that the Lord has exhibited His compassion many a time. Gajendra moksha, Ajamil charitra, Sudhama charitra and many more.

In the first charanam Sripadarajaru describes the pitiable state of a jiva in bondage which continously undergoes transmigration, suffering agonies. He entreats the Lord to uplift Him . In the second one he describes the Lord by referring to the state of mind of a jiva who has accepted the Lord as his dore and becomes His dasa. He then continues to seek the Lord's grace in cleansing his mind. In the third charanam he talks of Lord Ranganatha of Srirangam as the same Lord Trivikrama who brought the ganges to the earth by the touch of His toes, as the one who rides on the GaruDa and continues with his praise of the Lord .

nana yoNigaliMda baMdEno manatala lArade balu nonndeno

dIna rakshaka yenna gati muMdEnO mAnadiMdali pAlisuvanta dore nInu

Dasaru says ,” I have been born countless times in countless forms and each time I have suffered many agonies. In particular he recollects his birth as Dhruva where he was hurt when his own father refuses to let him sit on his lap. Physical hurt disappears after healing but recovering from harsh words is very difficult. Dasaru is recollecting how he had felt and when he went crying to his mother Suneethi, she informed him that the Lord Narayana was the protector of all . He immediately sets off in search of the Lord. He confesses on our behalf that we are so helpless that we don't know what our future holds, neither do we know from where we came. So Dasaru says ,”Oh Lord please take heed to my prayer and direct me towards you. You are the Lord who cares for His devotees. You are the master who gives the proper environment for the progress of the soul.”

pAlisu – A child is cared for the parents. The parents look at all aspects of the child's progress and make arrangements for such all round development. In a similar way Dasaru describes the Lord as One who shows interest in the allround development of His devotees.

Here Dasaru refers to the Lord as dore and in the next he says dAsara mana ullAsane . A dasa(servant) who has Ranganatha as the dore ( Lord) will be exhilarated with joy always.

dAsara mana ullAsane shrIsha Ashrita janara pOshane

sAsira anaMtha mahimane klesha nAsha mADiso srInivasane

shrISha – the Lord of Sridevi the abhimani of satva guna . The sway of the satva guna on the mind is essential for spiritual progress .It is absolutely necessary for one to experience the Lord's presence in one's heart. And unless one experiences such presence, one cannot experience the exhilaration described by Sripadarajaru. He further says ,Oh Lord ,You , protect those who seek Your shelter, You are the treasurehouse of thousands, nay infinite greatness , please destroy the dirt film which is preventing me from realising you. Again the Lord says ,”srInivAsane”, the abode for Sridevi.

In the BG 16 chapter verse 5 Lord Krishna says, “O brave Arjuna, the three qualities born of Achit prakrithi, Satwas, Rajas and Tamas under the tutelage of Sri, Bhu and Durga respectively fetter the jeeva , the indeweller of the mortal body.” In the next verse He explains the importance of Satwa .

Tatra satvam nirmalatvAtprakAshakamnAmayam

sukhasaMgEna badhnAni jNAnasaMgEna chAnagha II

“O sinless one, among the three qualities , the Satwas with its Gaurdian goddess - Sridevi , one of the three forms of Mahalakshmi ,being sportless is the source of sound knowledge and sturdy health. “

Human beings are being continously swayed by these three gunas of prakrithi. If we glorfy the Lord as shrIsha ,srInivAsa ,then Sridevi will be pleased and through Her grace we will receive the Lord's grace and thereby receive knowledge and devotion of a high order.

In the BG the Lord says ,”ananyAshchitayaMto mAm ye janah prayupAsathe ......” meaning that I will take care of those devotees who always have thoughts of Me.” Here Sripadarajaru says,”Ashrita janara pOshane “. Let's try to make a connection between the two.

When a person thinks of the Lord continuously, then what happens. The mind begins to like, love the things with which it is associated. When it loves that thing then it wants to find out more about that. Then a quest for the thing which is the Lord in this case , begins. The Lord is truth, the Lord is jNana, Ananda, the Lord is bhakta vatsala, the Lord is.......... When the jiva learns even a little about the Lord, the jiva undersands His magnificience and benevolence and understands that All the workings of the universe are the Lord's doing. As a consequence of this knowing the jiva can willingly surrender himself at the Lord's feet after which what Dasaru says ,'Ashrita janara pOshane”(who cares for the people who seek His shelter) will definitely happen.

In the BG 4.20 the Lord uses a similar word saying

“ veetarAgabhayakrodha manmayA mAmupAshritaH

bahavO jNAna tapasA putA madbhAvagatAH II

“ Many enlightened souls who took shelter in Me, shorn of the duals like love,hate and fear,ire understand that I am the Supreme Lord, sustaining all beings and things and purified by this knowledge and penance have attrained a Sayujya state of mukthi.”

ranganagaravutUMgane gaMga janaka garuDa turaMgane

UtuMgagunagala anaMtha raMgane anagana petta raMga viTTalane

anaga- flawless person, sinless person

The focal point of the town of Srirangam is Lord Ranganatha's temple where He occupies the garba griha in a horizontal postion similar to Lord Narayana . Shesha devuru forms His bed . Dasaru says ,”The town is called by Your name and You are the Supreme. You who are the father of the ganges and ride on the Garuda and have infinite , superior attributes, you are my Lord Ranga vittala, the same Lord who created the sinless Brahma. “ Here Dasaru refers to Brahma as the sinless one. The superior soul among all souls is Brahma and Vayu devuru who is the designated brAhma in the next shrishti . Both Brahma and Vayu devuru are in the same kaksha of Taratamya. Among the jeevas they are the superior most. For worhsip by human beings all offering should be routed through the guru, guru's guru and so on. Since Vayu devuru is the final guru of all mukthi yogya jivas ,we should offer our prayers/action and thoughts to the Lord through Bharathi ramana mukya prAna devuru.

By taking this route to address the Lord, Dasaru is reaffirming his faith in the siddhanta of Srimad AchArya. The prime adhistAna or abode for the Lord is Vayu devuru . So all our actions and deeds must be offered to the Lord through this adhishtAna.

The same charanam can also mean,” Oh Ranga Vittala, the father of the sinless one ,Vayu devuru who propounded the true philosophy . You are the focal point of all those who consider their bodies as the temple of Srirangam and whose heart is the sanctom sanctorium of this temple. Such devotees are always aware of your infinite glories and your leelas of creation . You are the origin of the spring of devotion in their hearts and like the ganges this devotion flows continuously with You as the origin , purifying them and cleansing them. As a result , Oh Lord you will be pleased and come to them at utmost speed using Your special vehicle,Garuda.”

An important tennet of the philosophy of Sri Madhva who is Vayu's avatara is Lord Hari 's kalyAna guNa pUrnatva and nirdoshatvA . Here Dasaru says Uthunga gunagala and then anantha raMgane meaning never ending aupicious qualities can be found in the Lord Ranganatha. One can easily understand that where there is a lack of a good/auspicious guna ,there there is inaupisciousness.So by saying infinite good gunas Dasaru affirms that inaupiscious qualitites cannot be found in the Lord. It is relevant to note that in most of Srimad Acyarya's granthas the mangalacharana sloka is a praise of the Lord stating these two – kalyAna guNa pUrnatva and nirdoshatvA of the Lord.

Let us follow the footsteps of Sri Sripadarajaru and make a start by having firm faith in the Lord and try to understand a few of the countless auspicious qualities of the Lord using Dasa sahitya as the guiding light.