While Ramanuja was touring South, He reached Mithila Saligrama. Here they found the place full of staunch adherents of Saivism, who gave the new arrivals scant or no welcome. Ramanuja hit upon a method to turn their minds. He called Dasarathi to his side and said “Son, here is the fountain from which the village folk carry their drinking water for their households. Unnoticed by them, dip your feet into the water and watch the effect.”
He did as said. The villagers drank the water and their hostility for the new comers turned into civility. They even went so far as to become Ramanuja’s followers in Faith. A memento of this incident of the water, magnetized by the holy feet of the best of his disciples, affecting a miracle, is to this day still preserved in the shape of a small shrine erected on the spot. Here are installed the feet of Ramanuja for devout worship by all, and the holy fountain is close by, connected with the shrine by a flight of steps. Every pilgrim descends into it and reverently sprinkles the waters over his head. “The town deserves the name of Saligrama, i.e., the stone symbol of Vishnu,” said Ramanuja in joy, on account of this strange event.
Of the many who embraced the Faith here, the chief was Vaduga-nambi or Andhrapurna, who became a most devout and intimate follower. Ramanuja taught him all the arcane truths of religion for days, in the Temple of the Lord Narasimha, in the outskirts of the village. And here also, it is chronicled, Ramanuja prayed fervently to Lord Srinivasa of Tirupati to put an end to cruel Parantaka or the Chola king and heretic, his tormentor, persecutor and the declared enemy of the Srivaishnava-faith. It would appear that this intense invocation to the Deity produced its effect inasmuch as Chola found a carbuncle-the king’s evil-forming on the nape of his neck, festering with worms, and eventually killing him after much torment. Hence he is known as Krimikantha Chola, or worm-necked Chola.