Music, discourse and awards marked Visankirtali Trust’s 28th Lakshmi Nrusimha Jayanti Utsavam

For the cause of promoting Namasankirtanam

Visankirtali Trust recently organised the 28th Lakshmi Nrusimha Jayanti Utsavam at Kanchi Mahaswamy Mandapam, Adyar. Prominent bhagavatas and pravachana exponents participated. They were also felicitated for their contribution to the propagation of Sanatana Dharma. Any spiritual event is incomplete without sampradaya namasankirtanam. This utsavam too featured soulful devotional music.

For the past 25 years, Visankirtali Trust had been organising Lakshmi Nrusimha Jayanti in Delhi before moving to Chennai three years ago. The Trust was founded by V.P. Shastrigal in 1969. Delhi Shankar Bhagavatar, Shastrigal’s son, is the present managing trustee. He is known for his ability to convey the bhavam in devotional verses.

This year’s utsavam was graced by Ramananda Saraswati Swamigal of Raja Rajeshwari Peetam, Madurai, and Pudukottai Narasimhan Bhagavatar. Other eminent bhagavatas who attended the utsavam included Mumbai Sundararaman, Thanjavur Thiagarajan, Seerkazhi Sattanathan, Govindapuram Gnaneshwar, Mohanur Srikanth Koundinyan, Melarcode Ravi and Erode Rajamani.

The namasankirtanam concluded with Sita kalyanam and Lakshmi Nrusimha kalyanam, which were performed by Shankar Bhagavatar.

During his pravachanam, Dushyant Sridhar, described Nrusimha’s vaibhavam and Prahlada’s bhakti. On the occasion, he was honoured with the Dharma Samrakshana Kainkarya Ratnam title while Bhagavata Brothers Vijaykrishna and Balaji with Namasankirtana Kainkarya Ratnam. The felicitation ceremony was presided by Rajasri Babaji Raje, the titular Head of Thanjavur Samasthanam.

The trust has also published books such as Bhajanmrutam, Seetha Kalyanam, Radha Kalyanam, Rukmini Kalyanam, Siddhi Buddhi Kalyanam, Meenakshi Kalyanam and Valli Devasena Kalyanam. The books in Tamil also have compositions in Samskrutam, Telugu, Hindi, Kannada and Marathi. The trust plans to bring out these publications in Devanagari lipi as well. Care is taken to ensure the originality of lyrics and right pronounciation of words. Visankirtali Trust is working to preserve our ancient literature.