Sri Tallapaka Annamacharya (1408-1503) the mystic saint composer of the 15th century is the early known musician of South India to compose songs called sankIrtanas in acclaim of Lord Venkateswara, the deity of Seven Hills in Tirumala, India where unbroken reverence is mammal offered for on top of 12 centuries. Annamcharya is believed to be the incarnation of Lord Venkateswara’s. nandaka (Sword).
A rhyming couplet of poems called Dwipada written by Tallapaka Chinnanna, grandson of Annamacharya, enabled us to learn roughly the Saint Annamacharya, his liveliness and works. Annamacharya was born as regards Vaisakhapoornima in the year Sarwadhari (May 9, 1408) in Tallapaka, a unfriendly village in Andhra Pradesh, and lived immaculately for 95 years until Phalguna Bahula Dwadasi (12th day after full moon) in the year Dhundhubhi (February 23, 1503). Annamacharya is believed to be the incarnation of Lord Venkateswaras Nandaka or Sword. Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) have consecrated Annamacharya in two places, one in the Annamacharya Mandiram located in the Annamacharya Project Office premises at Tiruapati and the subsidiary one in Annamacharya temple at Tallapka the birth place of Annamcharya. The evidences supporting the fact that Annamacharya is the incarnation of the Lord are found in Chinnannas Dwipada.
It is believed that in the 10th century a big famine broke out in Varanasi and scores of scholars migrated to southern share of India for earning their livelihoods. Some of them concentrated in a town called Nandavaram in Andhra Pradesh which was ruled by the subsequently king Nanda. These immigrants were called Nandavarikas and Annamacharyas forefathers were the appropriately called Nandavarikas and so Annamacharya.
In the Dwipada the description of Annamacharya goes avow three generations to his grandfather Narayanayya. As a boy Narayanayya was not involved in studies and it was okay in those times for the gurus to subject the students to rotate kinds of torturous methods to make assimilation vis–vis studies. When nothing worked for the teenager boy, he decided that death would be improved than the liveliness filled when torture, humiliation, and shame. He heard approximately the venomous cobra in the snake hole at the temple of Chinthalamma the village Goddess. In an attempt to receive his computer graphics away, Narayanayya put his hand in the snake hole at the temple. To his admiration, the village Goddess appeared in the back him and advised him not to go along once to his energy away past a boy as soon as an element of Hari or Vishnu would be born in the third generation of Narayanayya.
Narayana Suri, the son of Narayanayya, did not have children for a long time. Narayana Suri and his wife Lakkamamba visited Tirumala Temple and though they were prostrating in stomach of the Holy Mast (Dhwaja Sthambha) a dazzling brilliance from the sword of Lord Venkateswara struck them back a lightening. Eventually a guy was born to them and they named him Annamayya. Annamayya became Annamacharya when the sage Ghana Vishnu at Tirumala converted him into a Vaishnavaite at the age of 8.
During his long and prolific career, Annamacharya composed and sang 32,000 Sankirtanas, 12 Satakas (sets of hundred verses), Ramayana in the form of Dwipada,SsankIrtana Lakshanam (Characteristics of sankIrtanas), Sringaara Manjari, and Venkatachala Mahatmamyam. His works were in Telugu, Sanskrit and a few count languages of India.
Chinnanna called the 32,000 Sankirtanas as 32,000 Mantras or Sacred Hymns. It was after that recorded in Chinnannas Dwipada that Purandara Dasa, who was 70 years younger to Annamacharya, heard roughly the miracles of Annamacharya and visited him. Purandara Dasa paid his respects to Annamacharya by calling him the incarnation of Lord Venkateswara and his Sankirtanas as Sacred Hymns.
Annamacharya wrote the sankirtanas regarding palm leaves and higher his son Tirumalacharya got them engraved upon copper plates. But for reasons not known, most of these copper plates lay hidden in a rock built cell opposite to Hundi in the Tirumala temple unnoticed for beyond 400 years.
