About a couple of decades ago a small number of SriVaishnavites in Bahrain, with the blessings of Divya Dhambathigal of SriRangam, joined together to recite Nalayira Divya Prabhandhams on a weekly basis. Such a small step has now grown into a big stride, thanks to the enthusiasm and devotional urge displayed by the bhagavathas over these years in this part of the world.

At present we can say that on an average 20 families participate in all the activities of our satsangh.

Our almanac includes monthly celebrations on the birth stars of SrI Ramanuja, Sri Nigamantha Maha Desikan and Sri Manavala Maamuni besides weekly recitation of Azhwars’ Prabhandhams. Our annual program is designed to commemorate thirunakshatrams of the above three Achariyars and also the twelve Azhwars. Our satsangh also support Thanjai maamanikkoil divya desam for nitya aradhana and contributions are being sent on monthly basis for the past two years. Various other kaimkaryams are being supported from time to time.

Srivaishnava Scholar and famous Upanyasakar Sri.Velukkudi Krishnan was in Bahrain last year for ten days for giving upanyasams on Divya prabandham, Bhagavad gita etc which was very well received not only by the srivaishnavas but also by the devotees of other sampradayam in this island.

This year Ramanuja Jayanthi is being celebrated in grand manner with active participation of children. Many competitions were conducted to encourage them to know about our sampradayam like fancy dress competion on Dasavatharam/Azhvars, story telling competion based on Ramayana and Maha bharatha, Thiruppavai recitation and a quiz on the life history of Sri Ramanuja. More than 20 children took active part and this program was a great success. Senior members of the goshti are putting in efforts to learn and sing the divya prabandham set to music and young children are taught to sing simple bhjans on Rama and Krishna.

One of our satsangh members, Vangipuram Sri.R.Venkat, has designed and dedicated a web site to spread the sampradhayam electronically. The address of this site is http://srivaishnavam.com

Even a cursory glance would reveal the full gamut of information on our Sampradhayam that have been meticulously stored and updated in this site on a regular basis.

With pardonable pride, we can say that this site holds a wide range of topics and information on our Sampradhayam. Special mention has to be made on the audio gallery that contains recitation of all the 4000 pasurams of Azhwars and a number of prabhandams of Sri Desikan by two of our Satsngh members Srimans Navalpakkam Ananth and Natteri Narayanan in a traditional manner. Srimad Azhagiya singar and Sri Velukkudi Krishnan has blessed this humble attempt and has given srimukams.

This site also contains numerous stotras of srivaishnava acharyas, Bhagavad Gita, Divya prabandham of Azhavars in multiple lanuages like Tamil, Sanskrit, English, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam. One Special note about the divya prabandham script in our web page. The pasurams are parsed spliting the compound Tamil words for easy understanding and recitation. Pause marks (*) have been provided to indicate where to pause while reciting in a goshti. Worship procedures like Thiruvaradhana kramam and rituals like sandhyavandhanam are being added now and there are plans to include more and more sampradayic information in the coming years.

We seek the blessings of Sriya: Pathi and all bhagavathas to continue our humble attempt to spread our glorious sampradayam in this island.

Srivaishnava Satsangh
Bahrain

Contact: rmvenkat@yahoo.com
Web: http://srivaishnavam.com