Who am I ?

Tension aaga vendam! I am not going to run a philosophical grinder here. Nor am I attempting to establish an identity for myself.

In the last few years, I have been very interested in tracing my lineage and knowing more about my ancestors, especially on what they were around 4200 kali. First time when I came across my family name was in my upanayana pathrikai, where my thatha's name was written as Konerirajapuram Asuri Srinivasa Iyengar. When I asked him what the "Asuri" tag was all about, he told me that it was just a family title that we carry for quite a number of generations now, and unfortunately he did not know any further details.

Next reference to that name was on the subasweekaram day after his demise, when the Vathiyar who was giving the mangalabashanam on the day mentioned about the greatness of Asuri family and someone up in the lineage was a celebrated acharyan; I did not pay good attention to the details, and nor did my parents or anyone in their generation. One of my classmates was a Nallan Chakravarthy and from what he had to tell about the significance of his name, I assumed that Asuri could be one such continuity of a title.

Three years later, in the US as a grad student; having a lot of vetti time during semester breaks to research about wierd stuff, one day I ended up searching for Asuri. Surprisingly I found a research page belonging to an European researcher on Indian Philosophy, and it was mentioned that Asuri was the primary disciple of Kapila (Kapila was the son of Vrishabadevar and regarded as the father of Sakhya Yoga, which formed the basis of Jainism at a much later time). Brahma passed the Yoga sastra to Kapila, who in turn to Asuri. Also, so typical of western rhetoric, the name Asuri was synonymned with 'demonic' as it is one of the ways the name could be constructed as. But according to Vishnu puranam Kapila was an Avesha avatar of Sriman Naryanan, and samkya was only ment to be a science of reasoning, which later was took to extreme limits and ended up defying existance of Brahmam (Hawking's theory of "God is not necessary" was perhaps original but definitely not new! :P).

Adding to this information was a bigger surprise that Emperumanar in his poorvashramam belonged to Asuri Vamsam. His father was Asuri Kesava Somayaji, and he was Asuri Ramanuja till his grihastashramam days. Interestingly fate so had the first Asuri to preach samkhya which was tailored to become an atheistic philosophy and later had one of his descendants break it apart. From that point, I tired tracing his parental cousins, for I could possibly be their descendant. It was then I got to know that one of my school seniors' was also an Asuri and had done some research on that accidentally while trying to read about architecture.

Her hand on this threw a wider door open on the distribution of Asuris to many parts of the world, where in a small section of nature worshippers migrated to Persia and a large population came to South and got settled in Thodai and Chozha kingdoms and established Ghatikas. Inscriptions are available about two schools, one in Kanchi and another in Vizhuppuram were run by Asuris. Kanchi Ghatika is the one which is popular as The authority to approve any vedic scholar in the world. With the philosophical revolutions between 3500-4500 Kali, people got divided and realigned into different groups, which might account for the fact that she was Ashtasahasram Smartha, and the only Smartha family associated with the Asuri tag known to her in her search. Nevertheless, our attempt to collect some common information of Asuris available on orkut was that all of us belonged to Harita Gotram.

On my part, I tried asking a few elders in my family, and got very little input. Also Swami U.Ve. Velukkudi Krishnan said that there are a few asuriars in Sriperumbudur and Srirangam who can throw some light on the matter. Also I got to know that 4 generations back, our dhayadhis were associated in Mutts; one of them was a nominee to pattam at Sri Ahobila Mutt and another became a Srikaryam at Periyashramam. Perhaps the old records of the Holy Peetams could give some lead to this search.

Offlate, I came across the list of 74Simhasanadhipadhis from Sri U.Ve. Puttur Krishnaswamy Iyengar's Acharya Vaibava Manjari, whci mentions that the 42nd Mudhali was called Aasoori Perumal. And also, I happend to see an old book "Sriman Nigamanta Desikan Vijayam" in Adisesh Iyengar's mediafire folder.

"Yaaro oru mahanubavar ennoda signature'a potturukaarupa!" :)