about periyava

Do not deride the planets.  –from a Child in the guava fruit- copyright-Sujatha Vijayraghavan

An astrologer came to Periyava for darsan. “I have a large family. My earnings hardly make ends meet. I earn very little from my job as an astrologer. .. It is so difficult”

Periyava asked him, “you live in your father’s ancestral house,don’t you?”

“no. My elder brother lives there. I live in a rented house, west of that one.”

‘You need not live there. Put up a thatched hut where the old cow shed stands in your ancestral house and live there.”

The family worshiped Ambal ritualiastically for generations. So Periyava instructed the gentleman to live in the cow shed.( for it is the place where the Divine Mother herself dwells, as Periyava himself has said many a time. )

“you have the habit of deriding all the plants. “Guru is malevolent in your horoscope” Sani is harmful. Budha is perverted. and so on. You must not say such things. Guru is a gracious planet.You must not deride the embodiment of Dakshinamurti as malevolent,evil and perverted. Sani is the son of the sun-god. He holds the honorific of Isvara. You call him a sinner. It is enough that you say that the planets are not positioned favourably and that the times are not favourable. When horoscopes are brought to be matched why reject them harshly, without a concern for how the parents feel? Why not say that it will take time for the girl’s wedding to be held or that the young man’s prospects of becoming a father are discouraging. Some girls are still single even at the age of thirty. When horoscopes of prospective grooms are brought for such persons you must avoid rejecting the match as far as possible. 

(As far as marriages are concerned, Periyava did not give a great deal of importance to horoscopes. The gotra and the background of the family alone had to be checked,apart from compatability of hearts. Elders saya that matching horoscopes was not in practice in the olden days). The astrologer was happy.

“I shall do as Periyava says from non on.’ “ he said and received the prasada. 

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