Several centuries back, Chinniah, a Harijan Cobbler lived in a village near Tirupati. He was doing his profession of stitching the slippers and shoes for his customers and maintained his family through that income. Due to his past birth karma, he has suffered from severe paralysis.
One day while he was doing his profession, he saw a group of devotees who were on the way to the holy Tirumala, in order to worship the great Lord Sri Venkateswara. And he learned from them, that the Lord Venkateswara would remove the sins of his sincere devotees, and relieve them from their diseases, and would give great prosperities in their life. After hearing the pleasant words, from them, Chinnaiah prayed to the Lord, to cure his disease in order to maintain his family without any difficulties.
Due to his sincere prayers, gradually he has got relieved from his disease, and has become a healthier person. And he decided to stitch a nice pair of slippers for the Lord Venkateswara. Due to his prayers, The Lord appeared at his house, and made footprints on the flour spread in his house and disappeared. The next day, Chinnaiah saw this, and got very happy, and started doing his work, and very soon he has stitched a new pair of costly slippers to the Lord. And he took it to Tirumala. But the temple authorities didn’t permit him inside the temple, and they hit him hardly.
Due to that Chinnaiah fell down on the ground and got fainted. That night the Lord gave his divine darshan and relieved him from his wounds by touching his lotus hands on to his body, and accepted his slippers. On seeing this incident, the temple guards have asked him to apologise them, and took him to the temple. And the slippers were placed at the entrance of the hills and puja is performing daily. His statue is located at Alipiri, and the pilgrims are worshipping the great selfless devotee, Sri Chinniah. After his death, he has reached the holy abode of Lord Vishnu, the Vaikunda.
From this incident, we can know that god is not seeing a devotee’s caste or community, and he is seeing only his faith and bhakti on him. Lord Venkateswara is dwelling in the Tirumala, and showering his grace on the devotees, and removing all their problems, diseases and difficulties from their life. Lord Vishnu, who took the form of Sri Venkateswara is residing at Tirumala, only for our sake, in order to do goodness and to give peace and prosperity and all sorts of benefits to us.
Let us worship the great saint and the great Lord and be blessed.
“OM SRI BHAKTA CHINNIAH NAMAHA”
“OM SRI VENKATESWARAYA NAMAHA”
“OM SRI ALUMELU MANGAMMAVE NAMAHA”
WRITTEN BY
R.HARISHANKAR