Tondaman Chakravarthy, a powerful king, was a devotee of Lord Srinivasa of Tirumala.
He made golden flowers for the Lord and worshipped Him with them. Around the same time lived a potter, also a devotee of the Lord.
The potter, faced with need to eke out a living, could not visit the temple as the king did. But he made a clay idol of the Lord, kept it in his hut and worshipped it. The flowers he offered to the Lord were made of the clay left over after he had made pots and pans for sale.
The king did not know of the potter's existence and he was puzzled to find that though he had placed golden flowers at the Lord's feet the previous day, the next day, all that were found at the Lord's feet were clay flowers.
One day, the Lord appeared in his dream and told him about the potter, whose name was Kurumbarutha Nambi.
The king then realised what a great bhakta the potter was, for the Lord to think of his clay flowers as more significant than the king's offerings.
The story shows that the Lord attaches no importance to our wealth or position, said M.V. Anantapadmanabhachariar in a discourse.
The story of a man in Mathura, who strung flowers to make garlands for the Lord, is yet another example of a bhakta of humble origins, who was honoured by the Lord Himself.
When Lord Krishna entered Mathura at the behest of Kamsa, the first place He visited was this devotee's hut.
Such was this devotee's bhakti that he would not even look at the flowers he was stringing together, owing to fear that he might cast his eyes on flowers intended for the Lord.
The devotee's love for the Lord was like the maternal love of Periazhvar, who worried over the Lord, when he sang his Pallandu, to ward off evil eyes from the Lord.
It is bhakti that the Lord values; it is often the humblest of us who gets the grace of God.
While men may value wealth and bow before the rich, why would the Master of the Universe even care for such impermanent things?
