Education under Yādava Prakashar

When Swami Rāmānujar was very young, he had his upanayanam done. His father, Keshava Dikshitar, attained paramapadam; thus, Swami Rāmānujar had to perform his last rites at a very young age. He had not received any formal education and wanted to understand the meaning of the mantras that were being recited. After all the ceremonies were completed, Swami Rāmānujar started to receive education from Yādava Prakashar, who was the foremost Advaita guru at the time.

Yādava Prakashar's gurukulam was situated in Tirupputkuḻi, which lies outside Kanchipuram.

Swami Rāmānujar used to walk 40 km every day from Sri Perembudur to Kanchipuram to receive an education. One day, in one of the lectures on the Upanishads, the Upanishad Vaakyam stating " Satyam, Jnānam, Anantham Brahmā" is said to have been uttered by Yādava Prakashar. It was at this point that one of Swami Rāmānujar's classmates asked Yadav Prakashar to give further clarity on the Upanishad Vaakyam.

Thus, Yādava Prakashar tells the class that "Satyatvam, Jnanatvam, Ananthatvam are individual characteristics similar to that of the horns of a cow. The horns of a cow can be categorized as Khandatva, Mundatva, and Poornashringatvam.

According to Advaita philosophy, a man can see that a cow has no horns, half a horn, or has a complete horn. But all three conditions cannot exist at the same time. Similarly, the Lord cannot possess all three qualities at the same time. Thus, the Lord is termed as Nirguna Brahmā." It is then that Swami Rāmānujar poses a question to Yādava Prakashar, saying if I, a student, can sit, can breathe, can listen and question you all at once, why cannot the Lord possess Satyatvam, Jnanatvam, and Anathatvam all at once?

Yādava Prakashar was silenced by the question and felt very insulted. Thus, he called off the rest of the lesson for the day.

The following day, Swami Rāmānujar did not attend classes as his mother was not keeping well. The following day, when Swami Rāmānujar went to the gurukulam, the students were talking amongst themselves that they had to perform kainkaryam to their Āchārya in the form of massaging their Āchārya's head. Swami Rāmānujar volunteered to apply oil and massage his Āchārya's head. As Swami Rāmānujar was massaging his Āchārya's head, a student asked the Āchārya a question.

The student asked the Āchārya to repeat the previous day's lesson, which was another Upanishad Vaakyam from the Chandogya Upanishad that says " tasya yatha kapyasam pundarikam evam akshini. " This verse describes how the Lord's divine eyes appear.

Yādava Prakashar begins his explanation by giving an exact translation of the verse by saying His eyes are like those of a monkey's posterior. Swami Rāmānujar felt so insulted that he started weeping when he heard this type of comparison being made. Swami Rāmānujar then said that this comparison being made is very wrong.

The word kapyasam in Sanskrit grammar has many meanings. One can be interpreted as the posterior of a monkey. Another interpretation is that of the thin disk of light that envelopes the sun during sunrise. Another interpretation is something that is blown up and out of proportion. When Swami Rāmānujar gives these three explanations, he says none of these explanations can be used to describe the eyes of the Lord.

Yādava Prakashar gets furious and tells Rāmānujar to come to the point and give a so-called befitting explanation that would be better than Adi Shankaracharya's commentary, which says the Lord's eyes look like the posterior of a monkey.

Swami Rāmānujar describes that the word kapi, in Sanskrit, refers to the sun. The word kapyasam refers to kapya: aayasam, which can be described in the following scenario. Imagine a pond with still freshwater, which has lotus flowers blooming in it. When the rays of the sun fall on the surface of the pond, the water evaporates, causing the lotus to bloom with all its resplendence. Thus, the eyes of the Lord can be described as equivalent to those of the sun and possess a gaze that is as soft as the petals of the lotus.

All the students started to praise Swami Rāmānujar, and this insulted Yādava Prakashar for the second time. Yādava Prakashar felt so insulted that he decided to kill Swami Rāmānujar as he realized that he would become an outstanding personality in the future if nothing were done.

Thus, Yādava Prakashar planned a field trip to Kāshī. On the way somewhere in the vicinity of the Vindya Hills, he told the rest of the students that the next morning, when they would bathe in the river, one student should push Rāmānujar's head, and one must push Rāmānujar's back so that he would drown. Among the students who were present was Swami Rāmānujar's cousin, Govindan. Govindan could not bear to let his cousin die. Thus, in the middle of the night, he woke Rāmānujar from his sleep and told him Yādava Prakashar's plans.

He then asked him to run away, or he would lose his life.

Thus, Rāmānujar is said to have started running and reached some forests in modern-day Maharashtra. Swami Rāmānujar began to look around and realized he was lost beyond any possible help. It was then that he thought that he had to reach Kanchipuram somehow, as he knew the way home from there.

Then a hunter-huntress couple is said to have come and told Swami Rāmānujar that they were coming from Sidhashramam, which is situated in Uttar Pradesh, and said they were traveling towards South India. They decided to travel together in the morning and then sleep. In the morning, when Swami Rāmānujar awoke from his sleep, he saw the couple had fled and a group of Vaishṇavas, and asked them how he could get to Kanchipuram.

The Vaishṇavas laughed at him and asked him to look ahead, and he would see the gopuram of Varadaraja Perumāl Kōvil. Swami Rāmānujar went to the temple and had darshanam of Sri Varadaraja Perumāl and Sri Perundevi Tāyār. When Swami Rāmānujar saw Varadaraja Perumāl, he saw a close resemblance to the hunter, and when he saw Perundevi Tāyār, he saw a close resemblance to the huntress.

Thus, he concluded that the hunter and huntress were none other than Varadaraja Perumāl and Perundevi Tāyār, who had come to rescue him from the forest during the night.