Thirukoshtiyur Nambi: The Secret That Was Shouted

The accounts differ about which mantra it was, so here are all three.

The rahasya traya, the three secrets

Srivaishnavism has three formulae that are given at initiation and that the whole theology is built on, and there is an enormous commentarial literature on them.

One. The Tirumantra, also the Ashtakshara, the eight syllables.

Om Namo Narayanaya.

What it says: I bow to Narayana, and the theology reads every syllable. Na mah, not mine, the negation of ownership of the self. Narayanaya, in the dative, to Narayana, so the self that is not one's own belongs to somebody.

The whole doctrine of sheshatva, the condition of belonging, is read out of that grammar.

Two. The Dvaya mantra, the two part one.

Its content: taking refuge at the feet of Narayana with Sri, and the statement of that refuge as accomplished.

What it adds is Sri, Lakshmi, as the one through whom the approach happens. The Srivaishnava position is that she is the mediator, that the approach to Narayana is through her, and that her function is purushakara, intercession.

Which is why the tradition is called Sri Vaishnavism and not simply Vaishnavism.

Three. The Charama Shloka, the final verse.

Bhagavad Gita 18.66: abandon all dharmas and take refuge in me alone; I will free you from all sins; do not grieve.

Which is the verse the whole doctrine of prapatti, surrender, rests on, and the disagreement about how to read it is the disagreement that eventually split the tradition in two.

Most accounts of the Thirukoshtiyur episode name the Tirumantra, some the Charama Shloka, and the difference does not change the story.

Why they were secret at all

Two reasons, and one is better than the other.

The good reason: a formula that is handed out casually is received casually. The difficulty of getting something is part of how it is valued, and a tradition that gives everything to everybody immediately produces people who have received a great deal and hold none of it.

And there is real content behind this. The mantras are short and the theology behind them is not, and being given the words without the years of instruction that make them mean anything is a poor gift.

The bad reason: qualification by birth.

The restriction, in practice and for long stretches of history, was not about preparation. It was about caste, and about who was permitted to receive religious instruction at all.

And Ramanuja's action goes directly at the bad reason. He did not shout the mantra to a gathering of trained students. He shouted it to a town, from a tower, deliberately including the people the rule existed to exclude.

The honest note about what followed

The Srivaishnava tradition did not become an open tradition after that afternoon.

Initiation continued to be regulated. Temple entry continued to be restricted, in Srirangam and elsewhere, for centuries after Ramanuja, and the restrictions were not lifted by this story or by any story. They were lifted, where they have been lifted, by law and by long political struggle, including the Temple Entry legislation of the twentieth century.

So what is the story worth

Exactly what a founding precedent is worth, which is not nothing.

The tradition's own central narrative, told to every Srivaishnava child, is about its greatest teacher deciding that a rule of exclusion was worth going to hell to break.

And that is available to argue from, permanently, and it has been argued from, and it is being argued from now.

A tradition that tells this story about itself has already lost the argument for exclusion. It just takes it a very long time to notice.

Two things in this story get misused, and they should be named.

One. Paid secret mantras.

There is an industry, in India and abroad, selling secret mantras, guru diksha packages, special initiations, powerful mantras for wealth, and initiations available only to those who make a donation.

And it uses exactly this vocabulary: rahasya, secret, only for the qualified, not to be revealed, given only to the deserving.

Consider what the tradition's own founding story is.

The greatest teacher in the lineage received the secret, walked out of the house, climbed a tower and gave it away to everybody in the town, for free, on the same afternoon, and his teacher embraced him for it and renamed him our lord.

A tradition whose central narrative is that ought to be immune to the mantra business, and it is not, and neither is any other.

The plain position of this app:

• A mantra is not a product. Nobody's price makes it work
• The great mantras are all published. Om Namo Narayanaya is in every prayer book on the subcontinent. Om Namah Shivaya, the Gayatri, the Mahamantra, the Panchakshara: all of them are freely available, printed, recorded and sung in public
• A teacher who charges for initiation is selling something they did not make
• A teacher who tells you that a mantra will harm you if you say it wrong is describing a system in which they are necessary

And the warning signs, once more: money for blessings, isolation from family, secrecy, control of your decisions, sexual conduct, and instructions that are dangerous. Police 112, women's helpline 181, Childline 1098, Tele MANAS 14416.

Two. The eighteen refusals.

This is the part that gets used to justify treating students badly.

A teacher made a man walk a hundred and fifty kilometres seventeen times and sent him away each time, and it is presented as a model.

It is not a model, and the story does not say it is.

What the story says is that this particular teacher was testing this particular student for a specific quality, that he found it, and that when he found it he immediately reversed himself, embraced the man, apologised in effect, and gave him the tradition's highest title.

What it does not say is that making people suffer is how teaching works.

And the modern version of this is a real problem. Guru figures who humiliate students, who make them wait, who withhold attention as leverage, who set arbitrary tests, and who point at stories like this one when challenged.

The test that distinguishes them: what happens at the end.

Nambi's test ended with an embrace and a title. It was aimed at finding out whether Ramanuja would give the thing away, and when the answer came the testing stopped permanently.

A teacher whose tests never end, and who never concedes anything, is not testing you.

And a further note, because it matters

Ramanuja did not pass the test by obeying.

He passed it by breaking the explicit instruction of the guru he had walked eighteen times to reach, on a point of conscience, accepting the stated penalty.

Which is the tradition's own account of what a good disciple is.

Not somebody who does what they are told. Somebody who understands what the instruction was for, and who can tell when following it would defeat it.

One. He was testing what the man would do with it, not whether he deserved it.

The eighteen refusals look like gatekeeping and were not. Nambi wanted to know whether a person given something valuable would hoard it, and the whole apparatus of secrecy existed to find out.

Which reframes what a test is for. Not to establish worthiness, but to discover disposition.

Two. The right answer was to break the rule.

Ramanuja did not pass by obeying. He passed by disobeying, on a point of conscience, having understood what the instruction was actually for, and accepting the stated penalty for it.

Which is the tradition's own account of a good disciple: not somebody who does as told, but somebody who can tell when following the instruction would defeat it.

Three. The bargain he offered.

If I alone go to hell and all of these are saved, it is a good trade.

Notice the arithmetic. He is not claiming the rule is wrong in principle, and he is not arguing. He accepts the penalty as stated and takes it anyway, because the exchange rate is favourable.

Which is a harder position than defiance and considerably harder than being right.

Four. And Nambi changed his mind.

The part that gets forgotten. He came out to confront a man who had broken his most serious instruction, and then embraced him, said he had been wrong about him, and gave him the highest title the tradition has.

A teacher who can be shown he was wrong, in public, by his own student, and who then names the student our lord, is the rarer figure in this story.

Five. On secrets, plainly.

The great mantras are all published. Om Namo Narayanaya is in every prayer book on the subcontinent, and so are the Panchakshara, the Gayatri and the Mahamantra.

Anybody selling you a secret mantra is selling something they did not make, and the founding story of this tradition is about giving the secret away from a rooftop, for free, the same afternoon.

A daily practice from this entry:

• Om Namo Narayanaya, aloud, freely, without having paid anybody
• The Charama Shloka, Gita 18.66, which is a whole practice in one verse
• A verse of the Tiruvaymoli
• And the Thirukoshtiyur question, applied to whatever you know that others could use: am I holding this because it needs protecting, or because holding it makes me somebody

Where to go

• Thirukoshtiyur, Sivaganga district, Tamil Nadu, and the Sowmya Narayana Perumal temple, a Divya Desam, where the gopuram Ramanuja climbed is shown
• Srirangam, for the rest of the story
• Melkote and Tirupati, for the Ramanuja sites

A closing thought

A man walked a hundred and fifty kilometres, was told to come back, walked home, and did that seventeen times.

On the eighteenth he was given eight syllables and told that anybody who repeated them to the unqualified would go to hell, and he agreed, and took them, and walked out of the house.

Then he climbed the temple tower, called the entire town to stand below it, and said the eight syllables out loud so that everybody heard.

And when his teacher came out and told him what he had just done to himself, he said that if the trade was one of him for all of them, he would take it.

And his teacher embraced him and called him our lord.

Who: Thirukoshtiyur Nambi, in Sanskrit Goshthipurna, eleventh century, one of the five acharyas of Ramanuja and the one who gave him the mantra. He lived at Thirukoshtiyur in what is now Sivaganga district, Tamil Nadu, at the temple of Sowmya Narayana Perumal, one of the hundred and eight Divya Desams, roughly a hundred and fifty kilometres from Srirangam.

The story: Ramanuja walked there to ask for the mantra and was refused, seventeen times, walking home each time. On the eighteenth Nambi gave it, with the condition that anyone revealing it improperly goes to hell. Ramanuja agreed, took it, walked out, climbed the temple tower, called the whole town to assemble below without distinction of caste, learning, sex or standing, and shouted the mantra to them.

The exchange: Nambi confronted him, saying he had broken the condition and would go to hell. Ramanuja answered that if he alone went to hell and all those people were saved by hearing it, the bargain was good and he would take it.

What Nambi did: embraced him, said he had been wrong about him, and gave him the name Emperumanar, our lord, which is what Ramanuja is called in the tradition to this day. The eighteen refusals and the secrecy clause were the test, and Ramanuja passed it by breaking the rule. Nambi was not withholding the mantra because Ramanuja was unworthy; he was finding out what the man would do with it.

The three secrets: the Tirumantra or Ashtakshara, Om Namo Narayanaya, from whose grammar the doctrine of sheshatva or belonging is read; the Dvaya mantra, which adds Sri as the mediator through whom the approach happens, which is why the tradition is Sri Vaishnavism; and the Charama Shloka, Gita 18.66, abandon all dharmas and take refuge in me alone, on which the doctrine of prapatti or surrender rests. Most accounts name the Tirumantra.

The honest note: the tradition did not become open after that afternoon. Initiation stayed regulated and temple entry stayed restricted for centuries, and where those restrictions have gone it was law and long political struggle that removed them. What the story is worth is what a founding precedent is worth, and a tradition that tells this story about itself has already lost the argument for exclusion.

The warning: nobody should be selling you a secret mantra. The great mantras are all published, and the founding story of this tradition is about giving the secret away from a rooftop, for free, on the same afternoon.