74. The siddhas of Tirupati🔗

This is a story about the great enlightened Vaishnava saint, Sri Ramanuja.

Once Ramanuja and his disciples undertake a pilgrimage to the holy town of Tirupati on the hills of Tirumala. After staying in Tirupati for some days, they get ready to travel to the next destination. They pack their bags and carry some food for the journey and start walking down the hill. It is evening when they reach the foot of the hill, and they decide to have their evening meal. But when they open the food packets, they find that they are full of ants.

The disciples start removing the ants from the food. Suddenly Ramanuja notices what they are doing. He immediately stops them and starts placing all the ants safely back in the food, not leaving out a single ant! The disciples are puzzled; what is the master doing?

Then, carrying the food packets, Ramanuja starts walking back to Tirupati, all the way up the hill in the night. His disciples follow him, of course, but they are hungry and tired. They are thinking, ‘We know he is a little crazy, but has he gone completely crazy now?’ But nothing can be done. In those days, the disciples never questioned the master!

After reaching the top of the hill, Ramanuja says, ‘Now open the food packets and leave the ants back here, because we don’t know how many lifetimes they meditated and accumulated punya (merit) to take birth in Tirumala, the energy field of Venkateshwara! We have no right to disturb them by taking them out of this energy field.’