More than a century ago at Bhuvanagiri in Cuddalore district, a boy was beaten severely and sent out of home by his father for having sold a calf kept at the family cattle shed. He had, in fact, sold it for more money than his father had expected. But he did not inform his father.
He took refuge in the house of his uncle (‘periyappa’) and Vaishnavite scholar Srimath Azhagiya Manavala Ramanuja Egangi Swamigal, who was living at Keerapalayam, on the other side of the Vellaru river. No amount of persuasion would make him join his parents. He started learning Tamil and Vaishnavite literature from his uncle. He was B.R. Purushothama Naidu, the eminent scholar of Vaishnavite literature, who translated into Tamil the commentaries on Vaishnavite Acharya Nammalwar’s Thiruvaimozhi (Tiruvaymoli Ittin Tamilakkam), Acharya Hridayam (The Mind of Acharyan, who is Nammalwar) and Srivachana Bhushanam.
