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X24 TIBUPATI. CH. XVIII.
lowers expressed wonder, and humbly accepting the honors
that had been brought, proceeded to the stone-fencing, where
all the monks, recluses, acolytes, the elders and all tlie establishment
attached to the Holy Fane, met him in a great body,
and escorted him. RamAnuja now came in sight of the Fane
itself, and prostrating himself before the Vaikuniha-gSite, bathed
in the Konilri (a tank), decked himself with the Twelve
Holy Marks, went i-onnd the four streets, drinking in with his
eyes the handsome dwellings of the Faithful,—the ramparts,
cloisters, coUonnades,—then saw the flower-garden tended by
Ananta-suri ' who had gone to live there, upon his direction ;
there, from sheer delight, he embraced his faithful disciple,
saying :
" having nursed thee, I now reap the fruit." He
enjoyed the surrounding scene of gardens thick with Vakula,
Pdtala, Punndga and other trees, fragi-ant and flowing with
honey, affording eternal shade to weai-y travellers, and delighting
their vision with bunches of flowers hanging from their
branches, and entertaining their ears with sti-ains of music
poured forth by bees and all kinds of beautiful-plumaged
birds. Here and there embosomed in the gardens, were cool
ponds, covered with white and violet lotuses, in the midst of
which swam and danced cranes and storks and all sorts of
water-birds, in all the voluptuousness of nature's bounty.
Passing on from these bewitching scenes and songs, he went to
Varftha's Shi-ine, before which he bowed and then to the gate
of Avdr-ara-cchuzhnddn and the Atldni Tamarind Tree, and
then the BaZj-pillar, and then the pavilion called Yamunaittuvaivar.
He then sipped the holy water of Svdmi.Pushkarini,
1 Some inscriptional infornia- was a disciple of the reformer Bation
may be useful to our readers : raanujacbarya, and the only one
[P. 24, VuJ.III, Eplgraphin Carna- amonghisdisciples who volunteered
taca,hy li. L. Rice]:—"It records to accept the duty of daily preparthe
grant of Mandya, otherwise ing the garlands for the 6< d Vencalled
Krishnarayapnra,to Govinda- fcatefa of Tirnpati. This he did
'
Kaja, a descendant of Anant^ch&r- solely from bhaktt or devotion to
ya,onwbom(thegod) Venkatesa(of his sriirit." His memorial verse is
Tirnpati) had placed the garland, as follows :
Auantioh&rya (or Sflri) it appears,
" ?ri'-ti'Hqi-qi*)iH'i'H^?TT 'i?I^N^^^'^7^I^?r|fv^T^T i