The life history of the twelve azhwars

Dear Vaisnavas,

       Nityananda! Gauranga! Hare Krishna! Please accept my humble obeisances!

       I found this article on the life history of the twelve alwars of the Sri Sampradaya and I have tried to make an audio out of it. It was extremely patchy and required a lot of editing by Hadai Prabhu. Owing to the difficulties of transliteration of Tamil words in English script (Some letters have no equivalent), I have tried to convert the article into an audio to maintain the pronunciation as far as possible. For e.g The very word alwar is mispronounced in English. The actual pronunciation of the 'L' is a very thick form of the consonant 'y' made by making the tongue touch the back part of the upper (soft) palate. Try pronouncing 'ya' in that manner to get the right sound.

       Having said all that, Tamil is extremely tongue twisitng in several places especially the older version can put all the speech organs into knots. I am not a very good speaker and my pronunciation in English slips at times as braces make it difficult to pronounce some words. The quality of the audio is also not very high. So please excuse me for all my mistakes and limitations. One has to hear the devotional poetry, known as pasurams, of the alwars explained by bonafide vaisnavas from the Sri Sampradaya and one can see their extraordinarily deep and pure devotion. It is beyond words. If I could get hold of some of them I'll try to put up the translations. It is very beautiful. The azhwars were actually devotees from Vaikunta Dham, so naturally their glorification of the Lord is such. However not all the alwars were in dasya rasa. Andal, who was actually Bhu-sakti worshipped him in a mood of a consort, while Periya alwar worshipped him in vatsalya bhava. Nammazwhar is the most well known of all Azhwars and Lord Krishna's pastimes were his favourite, which most of his glorification on Krishna lila. Nammazhwar would be lost in ecstasy for months simply by remembering Krishna lila or the qualities of Lord Krishna.  All glories to the alwars who were pure devotees of the Lord!

        The audio files are on blip.tv over here in order :

http://blip.tv/file/1806221
http://blip.tv/file/1806246
http://blip.tv/file/1806273
http://blip.tv/file/1806288
http://blip.tv/file/1806295
http://blip.tv/file/1806307
http://blip.tv/file/1806311

Sincerely in your service,

Srinath

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