Periya Alwar and Goda Devi

Jai Sreemannarayana!!
Wish you all a happy and prosperous Sankranti festival. Let us
understand the importance Goda Kalyanam before proceeding with
the actual vedic procedure.
Slide 1:
In Sri Bhagawad Gita, Bhagawan explained us different methods of
reaching him. One through Karma yoga, one through Jnaana Yoga,
other through Bhakti yoga. These are all different stages in the
devotion to reach the ultimate.
Alwars, the great devotees,
experienced all these three yogas and made them to a ripen stage
as Prapatti, the complete surrenderance to Srimannarayana, as
the easiest way. There are 12 Azhvars who took their birth during
the end of Dwapara Yuga till 7 Century AD. Azhvar in tamil means
One who is immersed in GOD and His divine qualities. Todays
importance lies with two of such Alwars, one is Sri Vishnuchitta,
called Periyalwar and other is Sri Andal, i.e., Godai.
Slide 2:
Periazhvar was born in a town in South India called srI-villi-puththUr.
The name given to him by his parents was VishNuchitta. He at
early age started doing service at the temple of the Lord of Sri
Villipputhur. He spent all of his time in doing service to the Lord in
the temple by growing flowering plants, making garlands of these
flowers and offering them to the Lord with extreme devotion.
Everyone in the area respected him as the most loving devotee of
the Lord. One day, the Lord appeared in Vishnuchittas dreams and
said Oh Vishnuchitta, the king of this land is convening a great
assembly of learned people to determine the truth. You should go to
the palace at Madurai, and establish the Truth that I am the way
and the means of salvation for all living beings.
Vishnuchitta was shocked. He asked the Lord Oh Lord! I am not a
very learned person! How can I go and debate with all the great
scholars and establish the Truth?, to which the Lord replied Do not
worry my loving devotee! I will give you the unblemished
knowledge. When VishNuchitta woke up in the morning, he
reflected on the dream and decided to go to the city of Madurai to
take part in the debate. First, he went to the temple, worshipped
the Lord telling Him Oh Lord! I am undertaking your command. I do
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not know anything, but I am sure that You will show the way.
Lord, as promised, had given Vishnuchitta all the knowledge in the
world, which Vishnuchitta used in the debate. Vishnuchitta defeated
all arguments, and established the truth.
The King and all the scholars were very happy to know the truth,
and wanted to celebrate the occasion. In their joy, they conducted a
grand procession with Vishnuchitta on an elephant going through
the city with great fanfare and joy. The Lord was so pleased to see
His Devotee being given such honors and immediately mounted His
Divine vehicle Garuda and came in the skies above Madurai.
Vishnuchitta saw the Lord approaching Him, and immediately
became extremely concerned. He thought to himself, What is the
Lord doing here? This earth is so full of bad things and people. All
the scriptures say that the Lord is completely pure and extremely
beautiful and soft. Some danger may befall on Him here.
Vishnuchitta immediately broke out with the chant pallANdu!
pallANdu! (May You live long! May you live long!), in an effort to
ward off any evil that should befall the Lord. The Lord on seeing this
smiled and showed His powerful shoulders to the Vishnuchitta. He
shown that he has got Conch, Discus and Lakshmi as Consort.
Now, Vishnuchitta became really concerned! VishNuchitta
exclaimed May You live long! May our eternal relationship be
forever! May Your consort live long! May your divine conch live long!
May your divine discus live long!. Such was his concern for the
Lord. Infact, if somebody experiences such situation, other than
Vishnuchittar, they might have asked for any boons from the God.
But Vishnuchitta was always concern about Gods protection and his
wellbeing. He started singing the glory of God in 10 songs. These
verses, known as Thiru-ppallANdu - are recited at the beginning of
the daily benedictory praises to the Lord in all Sri Vaishnava
Shrines. Vishnuchitta became to be known as periyAzhvAr because
of his concern for the Lord. Periyameans, reverend. He composed
and gave us more than 400 divine songs, laden with great love for
Sriman Narayana, particularly in His avatara as Sri Krishna. Such
great Periyazhvars daughter is Andal.
Slide 3:
Around 5000 years back, in 98th Year of kali yuga, in Nala nama
year, in Karkataka masa, Poorva phalguni nakshatram, when
Periyalwar was plucking flowers and tulasi leaves in his beautiful
nandhavanam, he heard a faint cry of a baby, which appeared as an
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incarnation from Bhoomi. He was pleasantly surprised to find a little

bundle of joy with beautiful pretty limbs and a divine golden face
with great amount of tejas. He immediately picked up the female
child with both the arms lovingly and melted with vAtsalyam for the
kid. He was getting tremendous amount of joy by bringing up this
blessed pretty girl, whom he named Kodai, Kodai means a
beautiful garland. Later the name became "Godai".
Godai grew up with the stories of Sri Bhagawata of Sri Krishna and
got attracted to his divine qualities. She used to pluck flowers and
prepare garlands along with her father. Her speech and thoughts
were always on kannan, Sri Krishan, and she used to accompany
her father to VadapathrasAyee temple to have the Lord's darshan.
Years rolled by and Godai grew up; Along with that, her bhakti for
Sri Krishna too grew exponentially and she longed to see Him and
be blessed by Him. She took a vow to marry Him only and could not
think of getting married to any other person. She even dreamt of
him coming to her like a male elephant adorned with pattu and
peethAmbharam, and marrying her. She sung 143 songs to show
her love towards sri Krishna, which is called Naachiyaar Tirumozhi.
Slide 4:
One day, PeriyAzhwAr as usual prepared garlands of flowers and
tulasi and kept them in a safe, clean place and came out. Godai,
seeing such beautiful garlands, thought for a while, "When I marry
my Sri Krishna, He will put a beautiful garland around my neck like
this one..." She put on the garlands and admired her beauty by
looking at the mirror, and then replaced them. Later that day, when
PeriyAzhwAr adorned the Lord with those garlands, the Lord looked
exquisitely beautiful and there was even a smile on his lips. The
garlands were spreading a divine fragrance throughout the temple
and every one was talking about how beautiful the Lord was
looking. This continued every day. Godai wore the garlands
secretly and looked at herself in the mirror, and the Lord enjoyed
wearing them with great amount of happiness and satisfaction.
Then on one day, PeriyAzhwAr saw Godai wearing the garland and
he got terribly angry and depressed. He felt very sad and hurt and
asked her "Godaiye, my child, why did you do such a great sin,
mahaa paapam? The garlands are meant for the Lord Sriman
nArAyaNan! How can you impurify by your wearing them, my child?"
Kodhai replied with regret. Her eyes welled up with tears and a
feeling of guilt and PeriyAzhwAr's heart melted seeing his darling
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child crying. He hugged her and consoled her saying "Not that,
Godai, This is meant for the God, our Lord, Will it not become
impure by our wearing it, Okay. Do not worry. Do not do this again.
Today I will make another garland. Don't cry." He made another set
of garlands and adorned the Lord with them. But that day there was
no divine fragrance, no special beauty and no brightness on Lords
face; nor there was any smile on Gods lips. The bhattars (archakAs)
were also confused. What might gone wrong with their aradhana?
PEriyAzhwAr felt sad that he became angry with his sweet child that
day for the first time and the Lord also did not look well with the
second set of garlands. He had a restless sleep and just before
dawn, Govindhan appeared in his dream. He opened His red
beautiful coral lips and said "My dearest vishNuchittarE!
PeriyAzhwArE! BhattarpirAn! For singing paamaalai (verses) about
me and wearing me poomaalai (garlands) only, Godai appeared as
your daughter and I love to wear the garlands worn by her. She has
ruled over me with her paamaalai and poomaalai and hence, shall
be called "Andal" hereafter. Do not try to stop her from wearing the
garlands. She should continue wearing them." PeriyAzhwAr woke up
and realised Godai's greatness. He became excited and thrilled to
know that she is the one who ruled the Lord and called her
"Andale!". He explained everything to her and Andal's face became
red with shy. She became widely known as "Soodikkoduttha sudar
kodi". In the telugu poetry, Sri Krishna Devaraya also worte a
poetry on this story with the name Aamukta Maalyadaa.
Andal was thinking of Sri Krishna and remembered that during
Dwapara Yuga, Gopikas did a vratam to get the Blessings of Sri
Krishna. She also felt to do that vratam. She thought herself as a
Gopika of Brindavan and Sri Krishna is Sri Ranganatha. All her
friends are fellow gopikas. When she started this vratam, it was
Dhanurmasam, the Dhanus rasi with Sun, Margasira maasam, Andal
sung daily one song in praising Lord. Ppavai means Songs and
Tiru is Good. She did for 30 days singing daily one song. All these
songs are inbuilt with the meaning of Vedas and Upanishads. She
did this Tiruppaavai vratam, as a nomu to perform prapatti, the
surrenderance to the Lord and seek refuge at His Lotus feet. She
not only enjoyed doing this vratam, but made others also to do this
as she always felt that a good godly thing should not be
experienced alone. When PeriyAzhwAr brought up the topic of
marriage to Godai, she mentioned only Govindhan's name as Her
groom. He was rightfully worried as to how it is possible to get her
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married to the Almighty. His worry and burden increased day by day
as much as Sri AndAL's love for the Lord increased.
As the vratam is going on, the Lord appeared in PeriyAzhwAr's
dream again and asked him to come to Sri Rangam the next day
with Godai. He also appeared in the king Pandyan Vallabhan's
dream and asked him to arrange to bring Andal and PeriyAzhwAr to
Sri Rangam with full honours. The next day the King along with his
parivArangal, Srirangam koil archakas, the chief officers, ministers,
and all the people of Sri villiputthoor, thronged at PeriyAzhwAr's
house. Palanquin, umbrella, temple elephant and Royal elephant
were all brought to bring the blessed father and the daughter.
The ladies beautified the already beautiful looking Andal with pattu
vastras and ornaments. PeriyAzhwAr brought Godai slowly, lovingly
and affectionately to the palanquin. Andal boarded and sat in the
palanquin. Throughout the way there were arches of flowers and
decorations and festive looks. People thronged to see the blessed
Beauty of Villiputthoor.
They reached Sri Rangam and the temple. They were guided
straight to the Sanctum sanctorum, the sannidhi of Thiruvarangan.
Our Godai stepped into garbha griham, looked at Him and His face
and immediately merged and united with the Lord in a flash of
light. Vishnuchitta, being father of Andal, felt very sorrow, though
he know Andal is an eternal soul.
Sri Ranganatha blessed
Vishunchitta and he agreed to stay in his place in Sri Villiputtur with
Andal and Garuda. As promised, by the time Vishnuchitta reached
back to Villiputtur, he could able to see them in the form of Archa
Avatara (like deities). Vishnuchitta felt very happy. With the help of
the king, he consecrated temple there and till last day of his life he
did his service of Malai to Andal and Ranganathar.
The government of Tamilnadu made the biggest gopuram of
Srivilliputtur as their State symbol.
Andal shown us a path to get the blessings of God. Not just saying,
but she practiced it and shown us to have faith in the Archa
moorti, the small idol in our pooja mandir or in the temple that he
is the Protector. Our faith will definitely makes us to get blessed
with the blessings of God.
In view of this importance, Tiruppavai is being sung everyday in all
the devotees houses during morning prayers.
Especially at
Tirumala, morning Suprabhatam is replaced with this Tiruppavai
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Songs for these 30 days of Dhanurmasam. During Brahmotsavams,

every year a garland will be sent to Tirumala from Godai temple.
Sri Venkateswara Swamy wears it and will have a vahana seva to
show the importance of Godai.
Tiruppavai vratam removes all our sins and shows the feet of The
Lord. This Tiruppavai is the essence of Vedas, as it called as
vedamanaittukkum vittagum. Its a form of a small seed of all
Vedas; Goda recommends to all in this world to make it a point to
recite these excellent 30 verses every morning and be
blessed by the God. By doing this vratam, everybody experiences
the bliss of god and makes our life to enter into right path of
sankranti. Good light, good path. The real Sankranti Celebrations
what we are going to experience this evening.
On the day, Bhogi, Godai merged (bhogi) with Sri Ranganathar. In
remembering this great history, Tiruppavai songs are being chanted
everyday morning in all the houses during this Dhanurmasam and
to conclude this vratam, Goda Kalyanam will be performed all over
the world. In her 30 songs, Goda asks that, we need nothing but
the relationship with the god should be forever.eezzeez
piravikkum undannodu... Whoever does this vratam and chanting
they will gain the blessings of Srimannarayana. Those who cant
recite, can at least remember this great history of Godai, will also
be blessed equally.
ANDAL showed the people of Kali yugam that Hari Naama
SankIrthanam is the prime upAyam leading up to the the
surrenderance, the Prapatthi at Lord's feet to gain Moksham. She
encourages all of us to sing the great names of Srimannarayana.
Some of the names Andal used in her 30 songs are stressing on the
importance of Nama sankeertana, We can observe the word PAADI,
in all these pasurams,,,
Paasuram
Paasuram
Paasuram
Paasuram
Paasuram
Paasuram
Paasuram
Paasuram
Paasuram
Paasuram

2 -- Paiyyat-thuyinRa Paramandi PAADI

3 -- Ongi Ulahalantha Utthaman pEr PAADI
5 -- ThUmalar thoovi Thozhuthu, VaayinAl PAADI
7 -- Kesavanaip PAADAVUM
11 -- Mugil VaNNan pEr PAADA
13 -- KiLLIk KiLainthAnai Keerthimai PAADI
15 -- maaRRazhikka VallAnai, Maayanaip PAADA
16 -- ThUyOmAi VanthOm, Thuyilezahap PAADUVAAN
25 -- Thirutthaka selvamum Sevakamum Yaam PAADI
25 -- Unthannaip PAADI PaRaikoNDu
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Let us chant the divine name of Srimannarayana

Hari narayana govinda....bhaja naarayana govinda...hari narayana
bhaja narayana srimannarayana govidna....