The passing away of Swami Dayananda Saraswathi recently brought back memories of my visit to the Kodavasal village a few years ago. Kodavasal, 18 km from Kumbakonam, is where the Swami Dayananda Educational Trust (SDET) runs a Veda patasala. The school is an offshoot of the Manjakkudi Veda Patasala, also run by the Trust. Vaikanasa agama, Rig and Yajur Vedas are taught in the school.
The uniqueness of the Kodavasal patasala lies in the fact that rare sakhas are taught here. “Ranayini Sakha and Jaimini Sakha of Sama Veda, Pippalada Sakha of Atharva Veda and Kanva Sakha of Sukla Yajur Veda are some of the rare sakhas supported by the Trust,” said Sheela Balaji, managing trustee. “A teacher was brought from Maharashtra to teach yet another rare sakha - Maitrayani Sakha of Krishna Yajur Veda.”
The Varadaraja temple in the village facilitates practical training. The students of the patasala, who are from different parts of the country, have learnt to perform Kalyana utsavams. I was introduced to 12 students from Visakhapatnam who were studying Rig Veda. There was a student from Srikakulam and another from Anantapur. New entrants are usually between the age group of eight and 13, but occasionally the rule is relaxed, as it was in the case of 23-year-old Pawan Kumar, whose father is a priest at the Tirumala temple. Pawan gave up his job with a software company to study Vaikanasa agama.
The SDET has been offering courses free of cost to the poorer sections of rural society, through its many schools and its college in Manjakkudi. Six thousand students, including the ones at the two Veda patasalas, study in the institutions run by the trust.
And on drawing historical relevance to Kodavasal Varadaraja temple, archaeologist Kudavayil Balasubramaniam says, “Iconographical details indicate that the idols in the temple belong to the early Chola period - 9th century, most probably the time of Aditya Chola.” The Cholas built many brick temples and these fell prey to the ravages of time and to invaders.
The Kodavasal temple too fell into disuse and came to be covered with vegetation. By the time of the Nayak kings, the temple was totally forgotten. Achyutappa Nayak and his son Raghunatha Nayak carved out an estate in Kodavasal consisting of 83 acres of land called Kottiyam Inam estate, as a gift to one of their subjects. This estate included the temple and a pond which must have been a part of the temple complex, but their grant does not mention the temple. The land passed through several hands, and one gets a clear idea about the owners only in the early years of the 20th century. Title deeds show that in 1943, the estate belonged to Rajalakshmi Ammal residing at Sengalipuram. She had mortgaged the property but was unable to redeem it. It was auctioned and bought by Kodavasal K.S. Varadachariar. He knew there was an old brick structure on the property, but didn’t know any other details. But once the shrub was cleared, the idols of Varadaraja, Bhudevi and Neela Devi, and Narasimha (10th century) were found. Soon after Varadachari had a temple built and the first samprokshanam was performed in 1944. And it is here that the students of the Kodavasal Veda Patasala go for their practical training.
