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About Melpathur Narayana Bhattapada

The devotional epic, Narayaneeyam, was composed by Melpathur Narayana Bhattapada (Bhattthiri) in the ninth decade of the 16th century A.D. , and is reckoned by scholars (with the aid of internal evidence) to have been completed on the 28th day of Vrischigam (November-December) of the Malayalam (Kollam) Era 763 (spanning the 12 months, mid-April 1587 to mid-April 1588 A.D.).

Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri

Bhattathiri was born circa 1560 A.D. in a Namboothiri Brahmin family of Kerala, at a place close to the famous temple at Tirunavayi, on the banks of river Bharatpuzha (reference to which is found in Dasakam 92, verse 7). Being of a precocious, pious and religious disposition, he is said to have mastered the ancient Hindu scriptures, Vedas, Vedangas, etc and studied Mimamsa, Vyakarana (grammar), Tarka (logic), and other subjects, all by the age of sixteen years. His primary guru was his own father, Mathrudutta, himself a great scholar and devotee of Lord Mahavishnu, besides Madhavacharya, Tirukandiyur Achyuta Pisharoty and his own elder brother, Damodara. He composed Narayaneeyam at the age of 27. He has authored works on Sanskrit grammar and other subjects besides.

According to legend, Bhattathiri acquired the disease of paralysis voluntarily, by praying to the Lord for trasnferring the disease to him from his teacher of Sanskrit grammar, Achyuta Pisharoty, who had been suffering from it, thereby relieving his Guru from the ailment. He, then, had himself carried to the temple of Lord Krishna at Guruvayur, and lying prostrate before the Lord, he sought shelter and relief at the Lord's lotus-feet. He sent his emissaries to Thunchathu Ramanujan Ethuthacchan, renowned Malayalam scholar and composer of the Ramayana Epic in that language (which ranks at par with Valmiki Ramayanam, Kamba Ramayanam, Tulsi Ramayan, etc) for advice on ways and means of getting a cure for his illness. The advice he received (by word of mouth) through his emissaries was "to serve (the Lord) starting with Fish". Bhattathiri understood the message in the correct sense and straightaway entered upon the monumental task of composing a highly condensed version of Srimad Bhagavatam, the great epic composed by the eminent Sage Veda Vyasa, which sets out in great detail, a magnificent account of the origin of the universe and Lord Mahavishnu's several incarnations for the establishment and sustenance of "Dharma" ( acomplex multi-faceted concept, inadequately indicated by the term 'righteousness'), the evolution of creation, the rules of conduct, the different paths available for the attainment of Moksha or Nirvana (salvation), and many other matters. Bhattathiri composed daily one Dasakam (group of ten 'shlokams', or stanzas or verses, in general, with a few variations in number, here and there. On the 100th day, he is believed to have had a dazzling Darshan (vision) of the Lord himself in concrete (Saakara) form, which he then proceeded to set out in ten verses, and was cured of his ailments. In these ten verses, Bhattathiri has given a graphic head-to-foot description (in picturesque language) of the Lord's form as Venugopala, and of his wonderful, soul-stirring and ecstatic experience.

Bhattathiri is believed to have shed his mortal coils at the ripe old age of 105 years, but his magnificent mini-epic endures forever.

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