sarvottarā bhavati Devi tavāvatārāt |
yatraiva raṅga-patinā bahumāna-pūrvaṃ
nidrāḷunā ’pi niyataṃ nihitāḥ kaṭākṣāḥ || 11 ||
Lady,
The southern direction has become the best of all,
after Your descent,
obtainable by fully ripened merit
for hither
are glances bestowed
constantly
with great regard
by the Lord of Śrīraṅgam,
though he be asleep!
Notes
The Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition holds that Godā was born in the town of Srivilliputtur, roughly 200 km to the southwest of the great temple of Śrīraṅgam, which is where the mūrti of Lord Raṅganātha rests on the Infinite Serpent Ananta, His glances looking southwards. (This is a reference not just to the physical form of the icon but to another famous verse, sung by the saint Toṇṭaraṭippoṭi Ālvār, who describes Lord Raṅganātha in Tirumālai 19 as ten ticai (y)ilaṅkai nōkki, "looking south towards Lanka".)
Wikipedia also tells us that before the twentieth-century, the tallest gopuram (temple gateway) in Tamil Nadu was at the Āṇṭāḷ temple in Srivilliputtur—until the completion of the main gopuram of the Śrīraṅgam temple.
(A picture of the Srivilliputtur Āṇṭāḷ temple's main gopuram, taken from Wikimedia)
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