Arunachala and Ramana Maharshi

A Curious Court Case

2011-07-22T09:12:00.004+05:30

A few weeks ago a friend of mine, armed with a letter of recommendation from the president of Ramanasramam, went to an Indian consulate office in Australia and asked for a long-term visa. The consular official, who had obviously never heard of Bhagavan or Ramanasramam, asked my friend for proof that Sri Ramanasramam was a registered charity in India. I had never heard of Ramanasramam’s status being queried in this way before. However, thinking that it might be a standard feature of future visa applications, I went online, typed ‘Ramanasramam’ and ‘charity’ into Google, and found myself being directed to the transcript of a 1959 court case in which Ramanasramam’s legal status was clarified. It was a fascinating document that I pored over for the better part of an hour. I am reproducing it here in full because I want to discuss some of the evidence and assumptions that featured in the case.

First, though, a little background information is needed. In 1938 Bhagavan executed a will that bequeathed all the Ramanasramam properties to his brother, Chinnaswami. It was further stated that Chinnaswami would continue to run the ashram after Bhagavan’s mahasamadhi, and that when Chinnaswami died, those rights would be inherited by his son, T. V. Venkataraman.

There is one word – appanages – in the court’s written judgement that had me hunting through my dictionaries. It appeared to refer to the properties owned and run by Ramanasramam. The only definition I could find, even in the Complete Oxford Dictionary, was ‘The provision made for the maintenance of the younger children of kings, princes, etc.’ I rather like the mental image of ‘King’ Ramana bestowing the gift of Ramanasramam on his younger ‘princeling’ brother in order to support him after he passed away, but I suspect that in legal circles the term may have a slightly different meaning.

Bhagavan’s will envisaged a succession of ashram managers, determined by the laws of primogeniture: Chinnaswami was to be followed by his eldest son T. N. Venakataraman, and he in turn would be succeeded by his own eldest son, the current ashram president, V. S. Ramanan. There were few instructions in the will about what should go on at the ashram: there was a clause that a statue should be erected on Bhagavan’s samadhi, another that a daily puja should be performed at Bhagavan’s samadhi and in the Mother’s Temple, and in a more general instruction Bhagavan said that the ashram should remain open as a spiritual institution so that anyone who wished to could avail themselves of its facilities.

I quite like the fact that there was no attempt to dictate what visitors and devotees should do or not do at the ashram. There is no mention in the will that Bhagavan’s teachings should be promulgated to the people who came, or that people who went there would be expected to learn them or put them into practice. During Bhagavan’s lifetime there was no compulsion to be anywhere at a particular time, or to follow any particular practice. Visitors could follow their own routines and immerse themselves in the sannidhi in whatever way they felt was most beneficial to them.

After Bhagavan’s mahasamadhi the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Board (nowadays known as the ‘Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Administration Department’) went to court and challenged the right of Chinnaswami to run the ashram. One of the primary functions of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Board (HRCEB in future references) was to take over Hindu institutions that were either not being run properly, or had no legally established management structure. The HRCEB wanted to take over Ramanasramam since it claimed that Bhagavan’s will did not legally convey the ashram properties and the management of them to Chinnaswami.

I have not seen a record of the first court case, which took place in the District Court of Vellore in 1954, so my information about it is second-hand, and may well be wrong. Some devotees who were associated with the ashram in the 1950s told me that, though the judge recognised that the will was a validly executed document, he concluded that it lacked legality since it could not be proved that Bhagavan actually personally owned all the properties he was disposing of. I am not sure if that is the full story since section 21 of the document I am posting today seems to indicate that Bhagavan did acquire property rights during his lifetime. Or at least Ramanasramam claimed in the court that he did. Bhagavan himself sometimes said that his only possessions were his water pot and his stick.

The judge eventually found in favour of the HRCEB, a decision that legally nullified Bhagavan’s clearly expressed wish that his family should run the ashram after his passing away.

Though Bhagavan’s family had their right to manage the ashram negated by the 1954 court case in Vellore, the rival claims of the HRCEB depended on proving that Ramanasramam was a Hindu institution. The HRCEB could only take it over if it could establish that the entity it was annexing was used exclusively by Hindus, or a specific section of the Hindu community. This they attempted to do by asserting that what they were actually taking over was the Mother’s Temple – the most Hindu feature of the ashram – arguing that all the other components of Ramanasramam were merely adjuncts to this temple. I don’t know what arguments it put forward to support this peculiar and, to my mind, somewhat ludicrous position, but the judge eventually found in their favour.

Sri Ramanasramam appealed against this decision. After a delay of several years (more on that later) it was heard in 1959 by a two-judge bench of the Madras High Court. Sri Ramanasramam argued in its appeal that it was not a Hindu institution, and therefore could not be taken over by the HRCEB. It asked, instead, to be regarded and legally recognised as a public religious trust whose aim was to maintain Ramanasramam in a way that was consonant with Bhagavan's declared wishes.

The HRCEB, in order to sustain its case, had to convince the appeal court of the validity of several points:

(a) That the Mother’s Temple really was a Hindu temple. This depended not on how it looked or what went on there but on whether it met a set of rather strict legal rules.

(b) That Ramanasramam was a Hindu institution, and not one that catered to other religious communities.

(c) That the temple was the centre of Ramanasramam and that all other buildings and activities were subsidiary adjuncts to it.

Having set the scene, I will now give the judgement of the appeal court in full. The principle judge (Justice Ramaswami) expounded at some length on various legal niceties that may not be of great interest to many readers of this blog. There are learned expositions on the legal distinction between public and private, what constitutes a Hindu trust, when and whether a samadhi shrine can properly be described as a temple, and much else besides. For those who want to pass over these sections, I have highlighted key portions in bold type. It is the content of these sections in bold that I will refer to and discuss towards the end of this post.

The online record I found came from a scan of the original court document that had subsequently been processed by text-recognition software. This meant that I had to go through the text quite carefully in order to correct the mistakes that this treatment always introduces. I did my best, but I am not a legal expert. There may be technical terms and references that are still misspelled or misrepresented since I don’t have the knowledge to make an appropriate correction.

* * *

Madras High Court

Equivalent citations: AIR 1961 Mad 265, (1960) 2 MLJ 121

Bench: Ramaswami, Anantanarayanan

Ramanasramam By Its Secretary G. Sambasiva Rao And Ors. vs The Commissioner For Hindu Religious And Charitable Endowments, Madras on 12/12/1959

JUDGMENT

Ramaswami, J.

1. This appeal is directed against the decree and judgment of the learned Subordinate Judge, Vellore, in O.S. No. 69 of 1954.

2. It is a statutory suit filed under Section 62 of the Madras Hindu Religions and Charitable Endowments Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) by the persons aggrieved who consist of Sri Ramanasramam, by its Secretary G. Sambasiva Rao, T. N. Venkataraman, A. W. Chadwick, S. S. Cohen, Framji Dorabji, A. Devaraja Mudaliar and C. Somasundaram Pillai. The defendant is the Commissioner for Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments, Madras.

The question for consideration is whether the component part of Sri Ramanasramam, by name Sri Mathrubhutheswaraswami Temple, an institution registered under the Societies Registration Act, (Ex. A. 23 dated 11-9-1950) is a temple as contemplated by Section 6(17) of the Act, as has been held by the learned subordinate Judge or a public religious trust as has been contended by the plaintiffs, with the following objects, viz., to carry out the provisions in the will of Sri Bhagwan, to administer Sri Ramanasramam, Sri Mathrubhutheswaraswami Temple, the Samadhi of Sri Bhagwan Ramana Maharshi with the properties and assets attached thereto and for propagating the sayings of the Bhagwan.

3. Section 6(17) of the Act defines a temple as, "a place by whatever designation known, used as a place of public religious worship, and dedicated to or for the benefit of or use as of right by the Hindu community or any section thereof, as a place of public religious worship".

4. In regard to what constitutes a public religious trust in Hindu law, we have three authoritative works of Pandit Pran Nath Saraswati's Hindu Law of Endowments (T.L.L.) 1892, P. R. Ganapati Aiyar's Hindu and Muhammadan Endowments, 2nd Edn. (1918), and B. K. Mukherjee's (late Chief Justice of India) Hindu Law of Religious and Charitable Trust, T.L.L. (1952), and the following information can be gathered therefrom.

5. In the Hindu system there is no line of demarcation between religion and charity. On the other hand, charity is regarded as part of religion. This is because the Hindu Religion recognises the existence of a life after death, and it believes in the Law of Karma according to which the good or bad deeds of a man produce corresponding results in the life to come. Therefore, all the Hindu sages concur in holding that charitable gifts are pious acts par excellence which bring appropriate rewards to the donor.

6. Hindu religious and charitable acts have been from the earliest times classified under the two heeds viz., Istha and Purtta. The two words are often used conjointly and they are as old as the Rigveda. The compound word Ishta-purtta has been retained in the writings of all Brahminical sages and commentators down to modern days, and although the connotation of these two expressions was extended to some extent in course of time, the fundamental ideas involved in them remain practically the same, By Ishtha is meant Vedic sacrifice, and rites and gifts in connection with the same; Purtta on the other hand, means and signifies other pious and charitable acts which are unconnected with Vedic sacrifices. The meaning of these two expressions has been discussed elaborately by Pandit Pran Nath Saraswati, in the Tagore Law Lectures on the Hindu Law of Endowments.

7. Following a text of Sankha quoted by Hemadri, Pandit Pran Nath Saraswati makes the following enumeration of Ishtha works, viz., (1) Vedic Sacrifices, etc. (2) Gifts offered to priests at the same, (3) Preserving the Vedas, (4) Religious austerity, (5) Rectitude, (6) Vaiswadeva Sacrifices and (7) Hospitality. The Purtta works not only signified such works of public utility as excavation of tanks, wells, etc., but included all acts which either conferred some kind of benefit on those who were in need of it, or were regarded as meritorious from the spiritual or religious point of view. From the numerous Smriti texts bearing on the point, Pandit Pran Nath Saraswati has compiled a list of Purtta works which are generally recognised as such by Brahminical writers.

These are : (1) gifts offered outside the sacrificial ground, (2) gifts on the occasion of an eclipse, solstice and other special occasions, (3) the construction of works for the storage of water, as wells, tanks, etc., (4) the construction of temple for the Gods, (5) the establishment of procession for the honour of the Gods, (6) the gift of food and (7) the relief of the sick. This list is by no means exhaustive. One other form of religious and charitable endowments which is popular with the Hindus is to create places where hospitality can be combined with dissemination of religious knowledge and facilities for meditation.

Charitable trusts are of two kinds--public and private. The Hindu law itself knows no distinction between public and private religious or charitable trusts: Rupa v. Krishnaji, ILR 9 Bom 169. Hence it was that West J. remarked in general terms in Manohar v. Laxmiram, ILR 12 Bom 247 that a trust for a Hindu idol and temple is to be regarded in India as one created for public charitable purposes within the meaning of Section 539 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1882, corresponding to Section 92 of the present Code.

Still that distinction is not without its meaning in Hindu law as now administered. It is, therefore necessary to show here where the distinction lies. In English law the terms "public" and "private" are thus defined: By "Public" must be understood as such as are constituted for the benefit either of the public at large or of some considerable portion of it answering a particular description. The essential elements of a public charity are that it is not confined to privileged individuals but it is open to the indefinite public, or some portion thereof or upon an indefinite class of persons.

It is this unrestricted quality that gives it its public character: 19 American Jurisprudence, 588. The lines of distinction between purpose of a public nature and of private nature is fine and practically incapable of definition. 4 Halsbury 3rd Edn. page 211. See also Ram Saroop v. S. P. Sahi, (a case under Bihar Hindu Religious Trusts Act) and also Moti Das v. S. P. Sahi.

To this class "public" belong all trusts for charitable purposes and indeed "public" trusts and "charitable" trusts may be considered in general as synonymous expressions. In "Private" trusts the beneficial interest is vested absolutely in one or more individuals who are, or within a certain time may be, definitely ascertained and to whom therefore collectively, unless under some legal disability, it is, or within the allowed time will be, competent to control, modify, or determine the trust.

A public or charitable trust on the other hand has for its object the members of an uncertain and fluctuating body and the trust itself is of a permanent and indefinite character and is not confined within the limits prescribed to a settlement upon a private trust; Lewin on Trusts, page 18. The same distinction has been expressed in a simpler language by Mr. G. S. Shastri in his Hindu law at page 491.

He says that when property is dedicated to charitable, educational or religious uses for the benefit of an indeterminate body of persons, the endowment is a public one and when property is set apart for the worship of a deity of a particular family in which no outsider is interested, the endowment is a private one. It seems that it was with this distinction in view that the Privy Council held in a Calcutta case that in the case of a family idol the consensus of the whole family might give the estate another direction: Konwur Doorganath Roy v. Ramchunder Sen, ILR 2 Cal 341 (PC). This decision appears to have been followed in another case which went up to that High Court and approved in a somewhat analogous case by the Bombay High Court: Gobinda Kumar v. Debendra Kumar, 12 Ca,l WN 98, Khetter Chunder v. Hari Das, JLR 17 Cal 557, Rajaram v. Ganesh, ILR 23 Bom 131. These decisions are obviously based on the belief that the endowment in each case was a private one.

Mr. Shastri has, in view of the decisions, gone so far as to assert that if all the members of the family to which an endowment belongs renounce Hinduism and choose to throw the family idol into the water of the Ganges and themselves enjoy its property, no outsider can raise any objection to that course: Shastri's Hindu law, page 491. The Allahabad High Court had, on the other hand, occasion to define what a public endowment was in the case of Puran Atal v. Darshan Das, ILR 34 All 468. Therein Chamfer J. remarked :

"It seems beyond doubt that in order that a trust may be a trust for a public purpose it is not necessary that it should be a trust for the benefit of the public at large. It is sufficient to show that it is a trust for the benefit of a section of the public." It seems it was with some such definition of a "public trust" in view that, where a Hindu provided for the creation and maintenance of a religious endowment in favour of the sect known as the Bhagavatas, appointing managers and directing the manner in which the profits of the endowment properties were to be spent, the Calcutta High Court held that there was a public religious endowment within the meaning of Section 539 C.P.C. 1882 : Kanhaya Lal v. Salig Ram, 1894 All WN 159.

8. In regard to abuses relating to public and private trusts and the powers of the Civil Court to give relief like the framing of schemes of management etc., in the case of public trusts, the powers are regulated by Section 92 C.P.C. and in the case of private trusts, by a long series of decisions. It is enough to refer here to the following decisions : In Narayanaswami Naidu v. Balasundaram Naidu it was held that,

"even in the case of a private trust, it is open to any member of the founder's family wherein his rights are impugned to seek redress in courts of law .....The Court cannot refuse to frame a scheme in the matter of a private trust so far as the members of the family are concerned, who are interested in the trust, if the trustee for the time being mismanages or acts in breach of trust, it is a civil right which is infringed and under Section 9 C.P.C., they are entitled to seek redress in court for the purpose of remedying the mischief".

In Chellam Pillai v. Chatham Pillai, AIR 1953 Trav-Co 198, it has been held that

"though Section 92 C.P.C. in terms does not apply because it relates specifically and definitely to the case of public trusts, in the ease of a private family trust the court has got jurisdiction to frame a scheme for the management of the trust",

In Vaithinatha Aiyar v. Thyagaraja Aiyar, 41 Mad LJ 20 : (AIR 1921 Mad 583), two plaintiffs instituted the suit under Section 92 C.P.C, as the descendants of the founder of the charity, a chatram. On the question of their right to institute the suit, it was held that

"the fact that the plaintiffs belong to the family of the founder would naturally give them an interest in the family charity so as to enable them to bring a suit under Section 92 C.P.C."

In addition, the powers of the civil court in the case of private trusts to frame a scheme have been affirmed in a Bench decision of this court in A. S. No. 221 of 1951, to which one of us was a party.

9. Bearing these principles in mind, let us examine the facts of this case and find out whether the institution under consideration is a temple within the meaning of Section 6(17) of the Act, or is a public religious trust as contended for by the appellants before us.

10. In order to find out whether this institution falls within the scope of the Act, we must first of all determine the connotation of a temple which consists of the following component parts, viz, firstly, that it must be an exclusively Hindu institution and, secondly, that it must be exclusively a place of Hindu public religious worship.

11. In regard to the first point, in Seshachalam Chettiar Charities, Tiruchirapalli v. State of Madras, W. P. No. 1034 of 1957, Balakrishna Aiyar, J. has construed the long title and preamble to the Act which runs as follows:-

"An Act to provide for the better administration and governance of Hindu Religious and Charitable Institutions and Endowments in the State of Madras. Whereas it is expedient to amend and consolidate the law relating to the administration and governance of Hindu Religious and Charitable Institutions and Endowments in the State of Madras, it is hereby enacted as follows:"

The learned Judge observed:-

"I would draw attention to the words "Hindu Religious and Charitable Institutions and Endowments" occurring in both the long title and the preamble. The Act is intended to apply to (1) Hindu Religious Institutions and Endowments, and (2) Hindu Charitable Institutions and Endowments. It seems to me to be manifest that the word "Hindu" is not used in one sense in relation to religious institutions and endowment and in another sense in relation to charitable institutions and endowments. The word "Hindu" must be given the same connotation whether it is read in connection with religious institutions and endowments or whether it is read in connection with the charitable institutions and endowments. Now we can have a Hindu religious institution or a Christian religious institution or a Muslim religious institution. But, I do not see how we can have a religious institution which is at one and the same time partly Hindu and partly Christian or partly Muslim. I am not aware that any religious institution exists in the State which bears such a composite character. There can be no doubt whatever that so far as religious institutions are concerned, the Act is intended to apply to only religious institutions and endowments which are exclusively Hindu in character. The omission of the word "exclusively" on which Mr. Srinivasan laid stress, is of no consequence. In fact, the introduction of such a qualifying word was entirely unnecessary and would only have led to confusion and controversy in other places in the Act. The expression "Hindu temple" is plain enough. By saying "exclusively Hindu temple" we are not making the meaning plainer; we are only introducing a degree of annoyance. "..... Section 9 of the Act enjoins that the Commissioner, every Deputy Commissioner, every Assistant Commissioner and every other officer or servant appointed to carry out the purpose of the Act, by whomsoever appointed, shall be a Hindu. The section also enacts that should a person so appointed cease to be a Hindu, he shall also cease to hold office. Likewise, Section 22 requires that no person shall be appointed to be a trustee of a religious institution ...... unless he is a Hindu. Provision of this kind would be appropriate only in respect of institutions which are exclusively Hindu. The legislature could hardly have intended that provisions of this kind should apply to what may be called mixed or composite institutions, that is to say, institutions which are only partly Hindu and partly non-Hindu. That would amount to discrimination based on religion. It would also probably be correct to say ..... that the Act would apply to institutions which, are exclusively Hindu in character."

The evidence in the instant case shows that this institution is a composite institution and it is only in accordance with Sri Ramana Maharishi's universal outlook making his Asramam open to devotees of all religions; vide B-16 pages 74, and 284; Ex. A-27 page 201 and Ex. A-30 page 13. The contributions came also largely from non-Hindus; See Exs. A-38 to A-47 and the account books of the Asramam (Ex. A-17 and Ex. A-14). It stands to common sense also that no exclusively Hindu shrine would be an appendage of a cosmopolitan Asramam, and which would have been totally inconsistent with Sri Ramana Maharishi's teachings and life.

This is not the place for further dealing with the life and teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi which would amply bear out this conclusion, because they are not in dispute. It would be enough to refer here to a valuable publication of the life and teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi by the late Sri B.V. Narasimhaswami, a distinguished lawyer and legislator of this State, of which the 5th Edn. has been revised by Mr. S. S. Cohen, one of the appellants before us.

12. The oral evidence has established beyond doubt that persons of other religions were consistently paying homage to the shrine, see Ex. A50 and the deposition of Dr. Syed. In other words, the evidence in this case clearly shows that the first requirement, viz. that it must he a place exclusively dedicated to the Hindus and is an exclusively religious place, does not stand made out.

13. Then we have to define the religious worship of Hindus. The term "religion" whatever its best definition, clearly refers to certain characteristic types of data (beliefs, practices, feelings, moods, attitudes etc). It primarily involves some immediate consciousness of transcendent realities of supreme personal worth vitally influencing life and thought, expressing themselves in forms which are conditioned by the entire stage of development reached by the individual and his environments and tending to become more explicit and static in mythologies, theologies, philosophies and scientific doctrines.

14. The lexicographers' definition of "religion" can be gathered from the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Funk and Wagnall's New dictionary of the English language, Webster's International Dictionary of the English language, Murray's New English Dictionary and Earl Jowit's (former Lord Chancellor of England) Law Dictionary, 1.959.

(i) Action or conduct indicating a belief in, reverence for, and desire to please, a divine ruling power; the exercise of practice of rites or observances implying this.

(ii) Some system of faith and practice, resting on the idea of the existence of one God, the Creator and Ruler to whom his creatures owe obedience and love. As to conditions as to religion, see Re Allen, Faith v. Alien, 1953 Ch 810, Re Wolffe Shapley v. Wolffe, 1953-1 WLR 1211, Re Alien, Faith v. Alien, (No. 2), 1954 Ch 259.

(iii) A belief in an invisible superhuman power (or powers) conceived of after the analogy of the human spirit, on which (or whom) man regards himself as dependent, and to which (or whom) he thinks himself in some degree responsible, together with the feelings and practices which naturally flow from such a belief.

(iv) The outward act or form by which men indicate their recognition of the existence of a God or of Gods having power over their destiny, to whom obedience, service, and honour are due; the feeling or expression of human love, fear, or awe of some superhuman and overruling power, whether by profession or belief, by observances of rites and ceremonies, or by the conduct of life; a system of faith and worship; a manifestation of piety; as, ethical religions, monotheistic religions; natural religion; revealed religion, the religion of idol worshippers.

Religion (as distinguished from theology) is subjective, designating the feelings and acts of men which relate to God. As distinguished from morality, religion denotes the influences and motives to human duty which are found in the character and will of God while morality described the duties to man, to which true religion always influences.

15. Religions, by which are meant the modes of divine worship proper to different tribes, nations, or communities, and based on the belief held in common by the members of them severally. There is no living religion without something like a doctrine.

16. What is worship? The word itself is English and almost untranslatable into other languages. Originally it implied acts prompted by veneration, but with stress of time and weight of usage, it has come to be applied to the whole range of religious behaviour, so that one might well say that worship is the active side of religion (Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 12 page 752, and foll.)

17. The lexicographer's definition of worship can be gathered from Balantine Law Dictionary, Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language, Murray New English Dictionary, Funk and Wagnall's New Dictionary of the English Language, Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as follows: Worship is the act of paying honour to the Supreme Being; religious reverence and homage; adoration paid to God or a Being viewed as God with appropriate acts, rites or ceremonies: See Hansher v. Hansher, 132 Illionis 273 : 8 LRA 556.

18. So far as the Hindus are concerned, worship includes the place of worship, and forms in which this active behaviour and veneration should be expressed and those are all regulated by Agama Sastras. In Saraswathi Ammal v. Rajagopal Ammal, it has been held by the Supreme Court that in the case of Hindus the institution must be shown to have a Shastraic basis. This Shastraic basis is not only provided for by the Agama Sastras, but it has also got an equivalent when particular practices have obtained recognition as constituting long religious practice and usage of a substantially large class of persons.

Thus in South India several places of public-worship not governed by the Agama Sastras have grown up, on account of the super imposition of the Aryan culture over the Dravidian native culture. (See Kanakasabhai Pillai, Tamil Eighteen Hundred Years ago (reprint by the South Indian Saiva Sidhanta Works, Tirunelveli) Ch. XV, P. 22S and foll.). One illustration may be given. In Commissioners Hindu Religious Endowments, Madras v. Narasimham, 1939-1 Mad LJ 134 : (AIR 1939 Mad 134) the curious temple consisted of the images of as many as 66 heroes who were said to have been killed in a war between two 'neighbouring kingdoms in the 13th Century,' and they were systematically worshipped.

Similarly, cave temples, and the village deities like Poleri Amman, Mariamman, Ellai Amman etc., which have no roof over their heads may not conform to the Agama Sastras. But on account of the long worship by the Hindu public they have in course of time come to be classed as temples. In other words a temple must conform to Agama Sastras or by immemorial public usage must have come to be regarded as a place of public religious worship notwithstanding its non-conformance with the Agama Sastras.

It is as against this background we have got to examine whether the Mathrubhutheswara temple in the Ramanasramam is a Samadhi only or has evolved into a public temple. In Elumalai Chetty v. Commr., Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments, Madras, 68 Mad LW 260 (2) one of us has set out the origin and development of temples in Southern India. In India during the Vedic period there were no temples on account of the domestic character of Vedic worship (Saraswati, Tagore Law Lectures p. 34). No traces of temples built in the pre-Buddhist period is known.

But the Ramayana and Mahabharata mention Chaityas in several places. Originally, Chaitya seems to have been a tree planted on the grave. Tree planted on the Chiti became Chaitiya. Later shrines probably of wood were erected. It is even possible that they had upper storeys. For the Ramayana in one place (Book I) compares the upper parts of the places in Ayodhya to the Vimanas of the Shidhas, a species of Gods.

Although the Arthasastra of Kautilya does not describe anywhere a temple, it mentions Chailyas and gives in book 2, 3, a description of the temple of Kumari the Goddess of War. Kautilya agrees with Megasthenes that the temples were under the control of Government and there was a special department to govern religious institutions and its head was known as the superintendent of religious institutions. Religious edifices are certainly known for the first time in Buddhism.

Hindu temples doubtless owe much in their inception to Buddhism and proliferated into a great variety in structure, size and ornamentation. Temple buildings reached fresh heights in the Gupta period. The Agama Sastras naturally came into existence to formalise and regularise temples and worship in temples.

18a. So far as Southern India is concerned, in course of time by the 7th Century A.D. substantial temples in stones came to be constructed. The earliest well known Hindu temples in South India are those of Mahabalipuram in the Chingleput District.

The inscriptions show that they were hewn out of the living rock by the Pallavas in the 7th Century A.D. There has subsequently been a ceaseless building of temples by the warrior kings and noblemen and men and women of piety of all castes. It is enough to mention here that one type of shrine was built at graves. The connection with the graves is seen not only in the case of the temple of the village deities but in that of temples of certain Gods like Siva-Smasaneswara.

Shrines over and near the burial grounds called Palli-Padai are recorded in the inscription of the 9th Century A.D. at Selapuram in North Arcot Dt. recording that the Chola king Rasaditya caused a Siva temple to be built on the spot, where his father had been buried. Similar Inscriptions relate to Tondamanad in Chittoor Dt. and Cheleswara temple in Melpadi. We have already referred to the shrine of the 66 heroes who fell in battle. In South Arcot Dt. there are shrines in existence called Veerakkala commemorating the fallen village horses grappling with marauding tigers.

Over the tombs of saints shrines have also been built and Guru Poojas performed. It is quite true that notwithstanding the non-conformity with the Agama Sastras, by reason of long public worship they have become temples. But it has now become settled law so far as this State is concerned that a Samadhi by itself and not treated as a fitting object of public Hindu religious worship for over a long period does not evolve into a temple. Otherwise all of us can deify ourselves.

In Ratnavelu Mudaliar v. Commr. for Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments, a Bench of this Court had to consider whether an institution known as Apparswami Pagoda situated in Mylapore, is a temple. It is reputed to be the samadhi or tomb of one Apparswami. It attracted a concourse of worshippers and the building has got all the normal features of a temple in that it has got a Prakaram, Dhwajasthambam, Balipeetam and Nandikeswara, and there are shrines for Bhairavar, Kasi Visalaki, Chandikeswarar and other deities.

It has a 16 pillar mandapam and there are Gopurams all over the shrines. Festivals are being performed and the deity is taken in procession and Archanas are performed by the worshippers. The Bench held that on account of the fact that this institution for over a century at least had been regarded as a place of religious worship by the public entitled thereof as a matter of right, though the institution had its reputed origin in a Samadhi and continued to retain traces of its origin and Guru-pooja was performed in the precincts, the institutions would be a temple.

Reference was made in the judgment to the decision of Viswanatha Sastri J. in Ramaswami Servai v. Board of Commrs. for Hindu Religious Endowments, Madras, where on account of the long public religious worship what were originally memorials for heroes or martyrs had subsequently developed into temples and come to be recognised as temples. In Bodendraswami Mutt v. President of Board of Commrs. for Hindu Religious Endowments, it was held that a Samadhi of a holy man and a saint cannot ordinarily evolve into a temple for public religious worship and that the mere presence of idols of Gods, and recognised deities in the Matam round the Samadhi and the festivals which have grown up round such Samadhi inevitable in the case of all tombs of saints and great men in this country, would not bring it within the definition of a temple and that a Samadhi is not a temple.

We have already referred to the Supreme Court decision in which it was held that the dedication of property for worship at a tomb is not sanctioned by Shastraic practices and is not valid amongst Hindus. A number of decisions of this court were referred to with approval, viz, Kunhamutty v. Ahmad Musaliar, 68 Mad LJ 107 : (AIR 1935 Mad 28), A. Draiviasundaram Pillai v. Subramania Filial, 1945-1 Mad LJ 328 : (AIR 1945 Mad 217), Veluswami Goundan v. Dandapani, 1946-1 Mad LJ 354 : (AIR 1946 Mad 485), for the position that the building of a Samadhi or tomb over the remains of a person and the making of the provision for the performance of Gurupoojas and other ceremonies in connection with the same, cannot be recognised as charitable or religious purposes according to Hindu law.

18b. That the institution in question called Mathrubhutheswaraswami is only a Samadhi and not a temple is established by the facts of this case. It is admittedly the Samadhi of a Hindu Brahmin widow viz., the mother of Sri Ramana Maharshi. It is elementary that a South Indian Hindu brahmin widow is not entitled to Sanyasam. If support is required see Ex. A 28 and the deposition of P.W. 6.

If that lady who was the Baktha of her own son was not entitled to Sanyasam, she is certainly not entitled to Samadhi, since our Hindu Sastras require that she should be cremated. In fact the classical instance of the mother of the greatest Adi Sankaracharya can be remembered. That lady was a widow when her son wanted to become at very early age a Sanyasi and she would not give her consent which was necessary before a Brahmin can become a Sanyasi repudiating his obligations.

It is said that one day while bathing a crocodile caught hold of the young Sankaracharya and his mother when she begged piteously from the shores of the river for the freeing of her son, she was told by him that the crocodile would free him only if she allowed him to become a Bala Sanyasi. The mother agreed on one condition viz., that on her death her son should perform her last obsequies and cremate her and not leave her to the tender mercies of the hostile Nambudiri reversioners.

It is said that Sri Sankaracharya when the moment of his mother's death came to be known to him by his foresight, he managed to be at the spot and the cremation of the mother was done by him which normally he could not, having renounced the world, but for the promise made to his mother. So even Sri Ramana Maharshi could not confer Sanyasam on his deceased mother, in fact it must be said that he never thought of it even.

Such a Samadhi cannot be consecrated and Prana Prathishta done, which is essential for the installation of the idol. Otherwise, the Lingam would be a mere piece of stone and nothing else. It is only Prana Prathishta which makes it a living God a juristic entity, entitling it to be an object of gift. Then there is another provision in the will for the installation of a statue or image or symbol of Sri Ramana Maharshi himself and certainly it would be idle to contend that this would evolve into a public temple. It is also seen that along with this Brahmin widow laid to rest, a cow by name Lakshmi, a dog and a monkey also be buried there.

From the point of view of the Maharshi, who saw divinity in every thing, this is not bizarre, but certainly it would be outrageous to say that the burial place of the bipeds and quadrupeds would evolve into a public temple. In fact so far as Hindus are concerned, entering Rudra Bhumi causes pollution and has to be expiated by a bath and it need not be pointed out also that a burial place for cows, dogs and monkeys would certainly be considered by Hindus as being a sacrilegious adjunct to the temple. In fact even if deaths are to occur incidentally inside the premises there can be no worship until Samprokshanam is performed. Then only worship will be presumed.

19. In the circumstances of this case it cannot also be said that there has been a dedication exclusively to the Hindu public or a section thereof. In fact contrary to the notions of Hindus, Sri Ramana Maharshi, who was above all rules and restrictions and practices governing the lives of Hindus in the matter of religious worship, considered that the death of his mother did not cause any pollution. Similarly, the Bhagvan, universal in his outlook, threw open his Asramam to devotees of all religions.

This Asramam itself, as mentioned before, has been built by contributions given largely by non-Hindus. The oral evidence shows that persons of other religions came to pay homages at the shrines. It stands to common sense that there would not have been an exclusively Hindu shrine in the cosmopolitan Asramam, inconsistent with Sri Ramana Maharshi's teachings and life.

So, if there was a dedication, that dedication must have been to persons of all castes and creeds and not to the Hindus only or to any definite section thereof only. In fact, Ex. A. 12, the site plan of the Asramam, shows that the frontage is Sri Ramana's hall. This place was the magnet that attracted all the persons seeking self-realisation. It was in search of Bhagwan and the solace of peace that his presence gave that the devotees belonging to all castes and creeds came from all over the world.

It is significant that for the celebrations within the Asramam invitations were not sent to all and sundry. But a list of invitees was kept, who were the devotees of the Asramam. This is borne out by Ex A. 4, the deposition of Sri Ramana Maharshi (Ex. A. 18), the deposition of Mr. K. Sundaram Chettiar (Ex. A., 37), Ex. B. 16 (pages 1 and 284), Ex. A. 29 (page 152)and Ex. A. 32 (pages 28 and 29) and the admission of Mouni, the contestant in the proceedings, and the other witnesses in the earlier case.

20. To sum up, the Samadhi described as Mathrubhutheswara Swami is an adjunct to the Asramam and is certainly not the core around which the Asramam grew.

21. This can be tested from another angle also. The properties have been acquired only personally by Sri Ramana Maharshi. According to them, himself and his institution "Ramanashramam" are one entity; vide Exs. A. 1, A. 3 and A. 6, documents relating to the acquisition of property and also the admission of D.W. 4. The Asramam accounts show that the monies were brought into the Bhagwan's accounts and then disbursed. Ex. A. 4 recognises that the Bhagwan held properties as his own. The Bhagwan's will Ex. A. 5 came into effect on his Siddhi. Nothing transpired on his Siddhi or thereafter to convert these private properties into public properties excepting by being registered under the Societies Registration Act.

22. In fact, what has really happened is absolutely clear. The origin of the Shrine is a matter of yesterday's history. In this case we are fortunately in possession of information showing the circumstances under which the Samadhi came into existence and the other appanages were built around it from the Bhagwan's own mouth as well as of persons present at the foundation and construction. The remains of Sri Ramana Maharsbi's mother instead of being cremated were, by the devotees of Sri Ramana Maharshi, his brother and others, buried in a grave and a structure has been erected thereon and a Lingam, which has made available was installed thereon.

This is in accordance with the practice of honouring the dead prevalent among several sections of the people in Southern India and to which a more detailed reference will be made when we come to deal with the learned Government Pleader's arguments. As pious and charitable people contributed funds for the glorification of this Samadhi, more and more appanages were built around. This Samadhi however continues to be a part of the various other places which have been erected within the Asramam compound and the frontage of the shrines, as mentioned before, is the hall of the Bhagwan with a dais for him to sit upon.

Naturally, legends have grown up regarding what happened to the mother and her demise. These theological and philosophical aspects of what happened after the mother died do not constitute any solid basis for discussion especially in view of Sri Ramana Maharshi's own deposition Ex. A. 18 where there is no reference to any apotheosis of his mother. In Southern India it is the commonest thing that in announcing the death of elderly persons, it is generally stated that he or she has reached Sivapadam, or attained Mukthi or had become one with the divine.

In fact all the Brahmin ceremonies beginning from the tenth day and ending with the annual shradha are all directed towards the soul merging in the divine. But stripped of all these embellishments, the body of the deceased practically illiterate Brahmin widow whose only claim to fame was devoted service to her ati-ashramite son was nothing more than a simple corpse buried there and in fact the pooja is stated to be only for the Annai or mother. All the Ashramam publications inclusive of the Kumbabisheka Patrika, emphasise that the so-called temple enshrines the remains of the mother only.

23. In this connection we may refer to the following publications : Ex. B. 16 (1944 Edn) Self-realisation; Ex. A. 29 (1931) Edn. Self-realisation; Ex. B. 2 Kumbabisheka Patrika; Ex, A. 5 Sri Ramana Maharshl; Ex. B. 14 (1951) Tamil History of Sri Ramanashramam, Ex. A, 49 (1939) Sri Maharshi, Ex. A. 52 (1947) Sri Ramana Maharshi; and Ex. B. 15 (1951) Book on Sri Maharshi, in English. We may also refer to the oral evidence of persons present, viz, P.W. 4, Raju Sastri (whose deposition before the Deputy Commissioner is marked as Ex. A 28) and Sri Ramana Maharshi himself (Ex. A. 18).

24. The learned Government Pleader wants to get over this fact that the sanctum sanctorum enshrines only the mortal remains of Sri Ramana Maharshi's mother and constitutes nothing more than a Samadhi of recent origin and it could not certainly be stated to have evolved into a temple by three arguments, viz, (a) the extract from the Judgment or Varadachariar J., 1939-1 Mad LJ 134 : (AIR 1939 Mad 134); (b) the Samadhi contained all the indicia of a temple; and (c) the public worship is to the Sivalingam installed on the Samadhi, which is the deity and not to the Samadhi.

25. The following is that extract from the judgment of Varadachariar J. relied upon by the learned Government Pleader :

"That what the evidence in this case describes as taking place in connection with the institution is public worship can admit of no doubt. We think it is also religious. The test is not whether it conforms to any particular school of Agama Sastras; we think that the question must be decided with reference to the view of the class of people who take part in the worship. If they believe in its religious efficacy, in the sense that by such worship, they are making themselves the object of the bounty of some super-human power, it must be regarded as a religious worship".

26. In regard to the actions of a public temple, he relies upon the decision of this court set out in Paragraphs 33 to 45 of the decision in 68 Mad LW 260 (2) and add to these decisions the subsequent decisions in Ramanatha Iyer v. Board of Commrs. Hindu Religious Endowments, Madras, , Mahadeva Gurukkaly. Commissioner to the Board of Hindu Religious Endowments, Madras, 1956-1 Mad LJ 309 : (AIR 1956 Mad 522), Commissioner of H. R. and C. E. v. Kal-yanasundaram Mudaliar, 1957-2 Mad LJ 463, and Deoki Nandan v. Murlidhar, (S) .

(26a) We have already discussed the scope of the observations of Varadachariar J. about the possibility of having temples not governed by the Agama Sastras. But this does not mean that when according to the learned Government Pleader a public temple was constructed as per Agama Sastras, viz, with a Dwajasthamba, Prakaram, Balipeetam etc., we can consider as irrelevant the established Shastraic injunction against constructing a temple over the tomb of a Brahmin window not entitled to Sanyasa.

We cannot invoke the Agama Sastras for one purpose and ignore it for another purpose, in the teeth of the decisions of this court. Gopala Mooppanar v., Subramania Aiyar, 27 Mad LJ 253 : (AIR 1915 Mad 363) has laid down that Agama Sastras regulate the temple rituals etc. In 1946-1 Mad LJ 354: (AIR 1946 Mad 485) it was held that where a temple is only an adjunct to the tomb, a dedication of property for daily worship, Gurupooja and annual Annadhanam even though there is provision also for worship three times a day with offerings of Naivedyam etc. and a Sivalingam was kept and worshipped there, will be wholly unlawful and the gift invalid and it would not make it a temple and the Lingam would be regarded as an adjunct to the tomb. It is unnecessary to multiply other instances to show that such a Samadhi cannot evolve into a temple notwithstanding the rituals and appanages betokening the character of a temple.

27. The learned advocate Mr. T. M. Krishnaswami Aiyar points out: Sivalingam is an emblem of the omniscient and all-pervading God Entity. It is a matter of common faith that God lives in every human being and God living in the limitations of the human body is described as the Jivatma. It is ordained according to the Sastras and the aphorisms of the great sages that the object of every worthy life must be to bring about the unification of the Jivatma, the human life, with the Paramatma, the Universal life.

On the background of this faith, the achievement of a pure and purposed life is understood to be the union of the Jivatma and the Paramatma. Hence when a man dies, the remains of the body, wherever it is buried, are associated with the habitation of Jivatma which when it deserts the body is supposed to have coalesced with the Universal Paramatma, which is signified in the form of a Linga, which is being placed on the grave.

The graves of religious-minded Hindus of the Saivite class are found to be mounted with Sivalinga. The indication is that a Jiva whose physical body lies buried has attained its Mukthi or union with the God of the universe which is represented in the word of form and names and matter as Sivalinga. The installations of a Sivalinga on the graves of religious minded persons are not by themselves intended as dedications for worship of the Universal God Siva as He is described.

They are not constructions of temples to God but are resting places of a Soul which by its own goodness, the mercy of God and the pious good wishes of relatives and friends interested in its attainment of Heaven reach sayujyam. It means no more than this: "Here lies the remains of one whose life has united with the Lord". In fact, one has only to travel along the highway from Madras to Conjeevaram to see innumerable saliyar tanks with Sivalinga placed therein reverently tended with flowers, lamps etc., on either side of the road.

Similarly on the road side of the Nandavanam of Nadars around Virudhunagar. In the case of a Vaishnavite, more often than not, a Tulasi plant is nurtured over the grave. In the case of pious Christians the Cross or the figure of the Virgin or some patron saint or a symbol of the deceased is placed on the grave or tomb. The magnificent public cemeteries in Geneva, Florence and the tombs in the Church of Saint Peter at Rome are a few of the places where such symbols adorn the graves and are often the handiwork of the great Italian sculptors like Canoova, Michael Angelo etc. They do not become churches notwithstanding the saying of prayers over the tombs by the pious Catholics or daily services like placing flowers, lighting lamps etc.

28. The use and purpose of the symbol is twofold : (1) to set forth in visible or audible likeness what cannot really or fully be expressed to the physical eye or ear, or even clearly conceived by the limited faculties of the human mind. All language is in the last resort symbolic, and religious language in an especial degree, for it endeavours to present a mystery, a reality too deep for words. The Hindu faith had at its service a language of the utmost delicacy and flexibility, with a vigorous and fertile growth and an almost unlimited vocabulary and found itself in a world of tropical luxuriance, with a tropical wealth of beauty and suggestiveness.

It was not to be wondered at that it became profuse in type and symbol and laid under contribution all the facts and phenomena of nature to serve its religious and priestly ends. All the great Gods had their resemblances, animal or material forms, in which they presented themselves embodied to human sight, which served to recall to the worshipper the deity, whose mind and character they more or less inadequately reflected. Other more rare and refined symbols were presentative of qualities or attributes, a Lotus, the emblem of spotless purity preserved under the most unfriendly conditions. All idols, totems fetishes are symbols. The wise man does not worship the symbol, the shape in clay or wood or stone, but is thereby reminded of the invisible substance or reality which they each represent.

(2) The image or symbol serves the purpose also of providing in material and suitable form a convenient object of reverence, to meet the religious need of those whose minds, through darkness and ignorance, are unable to grasp the conception of an unseen formless deity. Such men, if left without a visible object to which their reverence and fear may attach themselves, will wander in a maze of doubt, disquiet and unbelief. It is better that they would worship erroneously, worship a thing, than that they should not worship at all. There is much that might be urged an favour of the Hindu view that regards the worship of the external symbol as a stepping-stone to higher, clearer forms of belief; it is a view unacknowledged perhaps but not unknown to other faiths. And in Hinduism, whatever may be said of or claimed by the wise and instructed thinker, the puja of the multitude to the image of the God is reverent and sincere. In some respect also and within definite limits the Indian contention has justified itself that the symbol has proved a signpost and a guide to better, higher thoughts and to a truer worship of Him whom no form can express or language describe. See Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. 12, p. 142).

29. For an exposition of the symbolism of Sivalinga, see pages 710 of Vol. 4 of Kalaikalanjiam published by the Tamizh Valarchi Kazhagham Sennai.

30. Therefore, as repeatedly decided in the decisions of this court, the Sivaligam is only an art adjunct to a tomb and it will not evolve the tomb into a temple.

31. The third point has already been discussed above and the mere fact that there are the appanages of a temple plus the front hall of Sri Ramana Maharshi, would not make this institution fall within the ambit of the cases set out above. A Samadhi of a Brahmin widow who died recently is a Samadhi and all the decisions of this court cannot make it into a Hindu temple wherein Hindus can congregate for the public religious worship as prescribed in the Sastras.

32. The net result of this analysis is that the institution under consideration is not a temple but is a religious public trust of a cosmopolitan character.

33. On that conclusion it follows that the issues have to be found as follows : under issue I that the Sri Mathrubhutheswarar shrine is not a temple within the meaning of Act XIX of 1951 and is only an adjunct of the Sri Ramanasramam, a public religious trust; under issue 2 that the orders in O. A. No. 58 of 1952 and App., No. 36 of 1953 are illegal and have to be set aside; and under issue 3 that it does not advise for consideration.

34. The decree and judgment of the learned Subordinate Judge are set aside and the suit is decreed for plaintiffs to the above extent. There will be no order for party and party costs in the circumstances of the case. The plaintiff will take their costs out of the estate.

35. Having come to the conclusion that the suit institution is a public religious trust and not a temple, we are also of the opinion that this is an eminently fit case where a scheme should be framed under Section 92 of the Civil Procedure Code. The learned Advocate T. M. Krishnaswami Aiyar for the appellants unhesitatingly shares our view. In fact the learned Advocate General who appeared in Court at our instances was also agreeable to the framing of a scheme provided we came to the conclusion that this is a public religious trust and, secondly, indicated our view as to the necessity for the framing of a scheme.

That if we came to the conclusion that the institution is not a temple as strenuously contended for by him but only a public religious trust, a scheme for the better management of the institution would be essential was not denied by the learned Government Pleader. Therefore, we direct that a copy of this judgment be forwarded to the learned Advocate General for his taking the requisite action at an early date in the light of the observations made above.

Anantanarayanan, J

36. I find myself in entire agreement with the conclusions of my learned brother in the judgment just delivered, which I had the advantage of study. I think that the question whether the suit institution is a "temple" within the scope and definition of Section 6(17) of the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act (XIX of 1951), which is the crucial issue before us, is one that cannot be satisfactorily determined if we are to leave out of account, particularly when we remember that the foundation or dedication is so recent, the life and ideas of the founder himself, and the unique circumtsances of the Case, as evident in the record.

As for the definition in Section 6(17) itself, I am unable to see how it can be construed and applied apart from the entire purpose of the legislation, or the scheme of the Act. I am in respectful agreement with the dictum of Balakrishna Aiyar J. in (W.P. No. 1054 of 1957 (Mad) ) that the Act itself is intended to apply only to religious institutions and endowments which are exclusively Hindu in character.

It is with this broad perspective that we must approach the individual question of fact. In such a view, the words "used .....by the Hindu community or a section thereof, as a place of public religious worship" would be all important, in the definition. Clearly, we are not concerned here with a shrine, a place of worship, or by whatever other designation the place is known, which transcends Hindu credal categories altogether, or is non-Hindu in character.

37. When this is borne in mind, I do not think that the case law presents any peculiar difficulties. A Samadhi over one who comes to be regarded as of the illuminati, or even the tombs of heroes may evolve in course of time as a shrine of Hindu public religious worship. 1939-1 Mad LJ 134 : (AIR 1939 Mad 134) and relates to such instances. Nor is the existence or consecration of an idol, a prerequisite. But in all such cases, what must be essentially regarded, and never lost sight of, is the character of Hindu public religious worship evinced at such shrines, whether this has grown through the decades and attached itself to the institution, or whether it was the full-fledged purpose at the birth of the shrine. Where this is present and undeniable, it will not matter that the origin is unsastraic, that the temple evolved from a samadhi, though ordinarily this conception is not in harmony with Hindu concepts, as emphasised in or if the Agama Sastras had been adhered to or not.

In my view it is with this background that we should comprehend and appreciate the dicta of Varadachariar J. in 1939-1 Mad LJ 134 : (AIR 1939 Mad 134) to the effect that the test was not whether the foundation conformed to any particular school of Agama Sastras, or of Viswanatha Sastri J. in that it was sufficient that the worshippers considered themselves likely to be the recipients of the bounty or blessings of a Divine presence, which they believed to exist at the place. Divorced from their contexts, such observations ought not to be interpreted as supporting a theory or thesis which would be opposed to the very purpose and scheme of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act.

38. But though Hinduism is a pervasive creed, with a genius for the assimilation of protestant movements which sprang up from its own field, where such movements still retain their individuality and character, they ought not to be confused with it. Thus, I do not think that it could be seriously maintained that a Jain or Buddhist temple is a "Hindu temple", though the founders of these creeds were Hindus conscious perhaps of a purificatory evangelism, but not of a mission to destroy the background of religion that gave them birth.

Equally I do not think that it could be justifiably argued that a meditation hall of a Theosophical Society, or the Durga of a Muslim Saint with characteristic appanages (Firs) is a "Hindu temple" within the scope of the definition, merely because the Hindus also worship there in public on certain occasions. We must remember that the core of Hinduism is tolerance of all creeds, and a tendency to bow the knee at the shrines of all faiths. Surely, the legislature never intended that shrines or places of congregation and prayer or meditation, essentially non-Hindu in purpose and spirit, should be assimilated to Hinduism, or to Hindu religious institution by a kind of legal fiction. That is not the purport of the Act at all.

39. Particularly in the case of this institution where the life and teachings of the founder are so recent, and still vividly available to us, it will be a great mistake to ignore these aspects, and to assume that this shrine was ever intended to be a Hindu temple by its founder, or that it has already evolved into this, because of certain insignia, or of ritualistic worship, or installation of a Sivalinga over the mortal remains of the mother of the Maharshi.

My learned brother has already referred to, and discussed, these facts which so startlingly belie the interpretation that this shrine was ever intended to be a place of Hindu public religious worship, or that it could be permitted to evolve into a Hindu temple, without desecration of the universal principles and of realisation transcending all creeds including Hinduism, for which the Maharshi stood: and which he expressed in his life. Certainly, these aspects which are definitely repugnant to Hindu notions of installation and worship ought not to be ignored, and this is no mere question of adherence to the Agama Sastras or perhaps unintentional and unknowing departures therefrom.

The Samadhi of a Brahmin widow, even if she was a most worthy and excellent person who gave birth to one who was surely among the Illuminati, cannot be consecrated ground according to the Sastras. Without Prana Pratishta, which spiritual descent cannot be invoked at such a place, there can be no idol; and the Linga installed can only be symbolic of a union (Sayujya), like the cross erected over a Christian tomb, as a symbol of redemption. The record is definitely against the interpretation that the Maharshi authorised the worship of his mother, as one who had attained realisation, a Mukta.

Certain words used by him support the interpretation on the contrary, that he considered all as Muktas, and even included the dumb creatures within the scope of his vast acceptance and affection. My learned brother has already referred to these facts which, if interpreted in the same mode, would authorise Hindu temple worship at the tomb of a cow or a pet monkey, which have equally found burial within the Ashram premises.

40. The Maharshi described himself as an Atiyasrami, literally one who has transcended the four Asramam of Hinduism, like Sukha or Jada Baratha. Thus, he could not even be described as a Sanyasi. His teaching was a method of introspection into the Centre of the self within each and all of us, the meditation "Who am I"? carried on with ceaseless vigilance until the dawn of a perfect awareness obliterates limitations.

Such a teaching had its exemplary origin in the silence of Avatar Dakshinamurthi, rather than even the most refined metaphysics of Advaita Vedanta. Everything else appears to have been a concession to human frailties round him, which he did not care to meet with opposition. The record shows that the Maharshi could not be described as having devotees, for he gave no Diksha (Initiation) and acknowledged none as a disciple.

He came away to Tiruvannamalai in his seventeenth year, penniless and friendless, and never accumulated wealth, personally speaking. He never married and had no family; even the provisions in his will relating to the continued management of the Shrine and Ashram after him by his Sanyasi brother Niranjanaudaswami (Sarvadhikari), and that line of descent, were clearly prompted by a concern to retain his abode at Tiruvannamalai as a spiritual centre, not for self-glorification or the security of dependants.

Are we to seriously accept the hypothesis that such a person desired to exclude a Muslim, European or Parsee attracted to his teachings, from his shrine? The Maharshi was perfectly aware of the normal postulates of Hinduism. He must have been aware that such a shrine of him over the Samadhi of his mother, with a statue of himself as another symbol of adoration in the same hall, could be no Hindu temple. He was not an iconoclast, intent on a revolutionary transformation of Hindu creeds or practices.

The probabilities are overwhelming that, as far as the founder's message, intentions and outlook are concerned, the Mathrubhuteswar shrine was not founded as a Hindu temple, but essentially as a public religious shrine or institution of a universal character. The evidence on record clearly establishes further that it is not a place of Hindu public religious worship, though the forms of puja or archana might be similar to those adopted in Hindu temples, but that it is a shrine in which all who are drawn to the Maharshi's teachings, whether Hindu, Christian, Parsee or Muslim, have equal rights of access and to the acquisition of spiritual benefit by prayer or meditation.

41. For these reasons, I concur in the judgment of my learned brother, and further fully endorsed his view that it is most desirable in the interests of the wider public that a scheme should be framed under Section 92 of the Civil Procedure Code for the better management of the shrine and the public trust or endowments relating thereto, conserving the universal spirit and character of this foundation so clearly expressed in the life and teachings of the founder. I agree that this appeal should be allowed.

* * *

The first and most important thing to note is that this decision emphatically removed the possibility that the HRCEB would end up running Ramanasramam. The judges accepted that Sri Ramanasramam met the requirements of a public religious trust and laid the framework for the constitution that governs the ashram to this day.

A scheme was subsequently drawn up under which Ramanasramam would be recognised as a public religious trust, governed by a board of trustees, with the president of Sri Ramanasramam being a permanent member. He was allowed to designate two more trustees, while the government was allowed to nominate two. The four nominated trustees had fixed terms of office. This arrangement enabled the ashram president (originally T. N. Venkataraman and latterly V. S. Ramanan) to run the ashram with a three-to-two voting majority on the board. It may not be exactly what Bhagavan envisaged when the will was signed in 1938, but in practice it has meant that his original wishes are being respected: the ashram properties are in trust, and they are managed by the descendents of Chinnaswami.

I remember speaking to Krishnaswami, chief attendant in the hall for most of the 1940s, in the 1980s. He told me he once broached the possibility with Bhagavan that the ashram might become a government-run trust after Bhagavan passed away. Krishnaswami was not a fan of Chinnaswami, and I think he was hoping his control of the ashram might lapse with Bhagavan’s passing away.

Bhagavan clearly did not want that to happen. He remarked, ‘Let those who have worked for it look after it. If outsiders come in, they will not care about the place so much, and they might use it to make money for themselves.’ This, unfortunately, is often what happens when outsiders are brought in as trustees to manage religious bodies in India.

I would take ‘those who have worked for it’ to mean Chinnaswami and his designated successors. Bhagavan’s ‘will’, in the general rather than the legal sense, has ultimately prevailed. The ashram remains open to all seekers who want to visit, and it has been managed since his mahasamadhi by the people whom Bhagavan designated in the 1930s.

The road to the final resolution of the case was a long and winding one. Bhagavan’s wishes on the future ownership of the ashram, expressed in his will, were considered by the Vellore judge to be legally unenforceable, and the ultimate battle was fought over what, to most devotees, were totally irrelevant issues: was the ashram a Hindu institution, and was the samadhi of Bhagavan’s mother a Hindu temple, and not just a samadhi?

The evidence that the ashram catered to all religious communities was well presented by the Ramanasramam lawyers. Accounts were produced which demonstrated that non-Hindus were major supporters of the ashram’s projects, and in a nice touch the appeal itself has the following four devotees listed as ‘aggrieved persons’:

S. S. Cohen [Jewish]
Framji Dorabji [Parsi]
Devaraja Mudaliar [Hindu]
Major Chadwick

I think Chadwick was listed to give the impression that there was also a Christian on the ‘aggrieved’ list, but at that stage of his life, he was more Hindu than most Hindus.

The question of who is and who is not a Hindu is one that has vexed both lawmakers and the leaders of Hindu spiritual movements. There are some who would maintain that one has to be born a Hindu, and that one cannot adopt it later on in life as a system of beliefs and practices. A caucasian foreign-born devotee of Bhagavan such as Chadwick would never be accepted as a Hindu by large swathes of the Hindu community, even though he devoted years of his life to promoting and preserving vedic traditions at Ramanasramam. I have spent thirty-five years in India associating with Hindu Gurus, practising their teachings, living in their ashrams and propagating their teachings, but that doesn’t make me a Hindu in most people’s eyes. In fact, I never claim to be one.

Years after the Ramanasramam court case was concluded, the Supreme Court of India grappled with the competing ideas of ‘Who is a Hindu?’ and came up with the following marvellous judgement:

In principle, Hinduism incorporates all forms of belief and worship without necessitating the selection or elimination of any. The Hindu is inclined to revere the divine in every manifestation, whatever it may be, and is doctrinally tolerant, leaving others – including both Hindus and non-Hindus – whatever creed and worship practices suit them best. A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu, and since the Hindu is disposed to think synthetically and to regard other forms of worship, strange Gods, and divergent doctrines as inadequate rather than wrong or objectionable, he tends to believe that the highest powers complement each other for the well-being of the world and mankind. Few religious ideas are considered to be finally irreconcilable. The core religion does not even depend on the existence or non-existence of God or on whether there is one God or many. Since religious truth is said to transcend all verbal definition, it is not conceived in dogmatic terms. Hinduism is, then, both a civilisation and conglomerate of religions, with neither a beginning, a founder nor a central authority, hierarchy, or organisation.

This remarkably tolerant and catholic expression of what constitutes a Hindu formed part of a 1977 judgement. I read it in The Hindu newspaper in the early 80s, and was so impressed by it, I copied it out and had it reprinted in The Mountain Path when I was briefly its editor. Many years later I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Papaji had read this particular quote in The Mountain Path and taken the trouble to copy it out in one of his journals.

If one accepts this all-embracing definition, I would say that Ramanasramam is a Hindu institution, and that virtually all the devotees of Bhagavan who come here from abroad would qualify as Hindus. The quoted passage radiates the inclusiveness and tolerance that were hallmarks of Bhagavan’s life and teachings.

I am not qualified to comment on the other principal issue that the judges considered: is the building constructed over the samadhi of Bhagavan’s mother a temple as defined by Hindu law, or is it merely a samadhi? I can see from what the judges have written that the ultimate legal definition of this issue is determined by Hindu case law and agamic rules that I have no knowledge of. However, I will say that the two judges do appear to have derived their conclusion from the erroneous starting point that Bhagavan’s mother was merely a ‘brahmin widow’ and not a fully enlightened jnani.

Let us consider the sequence of events from the point of view of Bhagavan and his devotees. Bhagavan is accepted as a jnani by his devotees, and when his mother passed away he declared that she too had attained this rare and final state. He asked that she be buried in a way that is reserved for Saiva saints, in a specially constructed tomb whose specifications are laid out in a chapter of the Tirumandiram. Since she was not a sannyasin, this in itself indicated that she was not merely a brahmin widow. Years later Bhagavan ordered the construction of a vedic temple over her samadhi. The work took ten years and was done in accordance with the exacting standards laid down in the Vedas. To inaugurate the temple a kumbhabhishekam was performed, supervised by the Sankaracharya of Puri. Bhagavan was also in attendance. Vedic rites were performed there every day by qualified brahmin priests. Did this make it a temple? Not in the eyes of the judges.

There is a saying, ‘If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck’. It appears that one cannot apply this line of logic to buildings that appear to resemble temples, and which function in ways that are indistinguishable from ‘real’ temples.

If anyone is interested, I wrote an article in the early 1990s, entitled ‘The Evolution of the Mother’s Temple’, which chronicles the history of The Mother’s Temple and Bhagavan's intimate and prolonged association with it. It can be found at: http://www.davidgodman.org/rteach/evolmothertemp.shtml.

The sticking point for the judges appeared to be the spiritual status of Bhagavan’s mother at the time of her death. If she had simply been an unenlightened non-sannyasi brahmin widow, their conclusions are probably correct. But what if they had started from the premise that what Bhagavan said about her was true: that she was a fully enlightened being? What do the Agamas have to say about this? Are there any agamic experts reading this who would like to offer an opinion?

There are other factors that complicate this issue. Bhagavan’s mother was buried in a Hindu graveyard, traditionally a place where most vedic rites (including those done regularly at the Mother’s Temple) are not supposed to be performed. This created a problem for the Paramacharya of Kanchipuram, Chandrashekarendra Saraswati Swamigal. When the priests from Ramanasramam went to his math in Tiruvannamalai, they were told that they must have a purificatory bath before they would be allowed on the premises. The Sankaracharya had decreed that since Bhagavan’s mother was not a sannyasin, the structure over her body was not a temple. And since it was not a temple, it was still a Hindu graveyard, and anyone who went or worked there would need to take a purificatory bath after leaving it. This particular incident is narrated by Ra. Ganapati and can be found in an article he wrote entitled ‘The Maha-Svami and The Maharishi’. It appears online at: http://www.kamakoti.org/souv/5-58.html.

In the same article Ra. Ganapati reports that the Paramacharya seemed to change his position once the kumbhabhishekam had been performed in 1949. Although he is a little vague on this topic, Ra. Ganapati gives the impression that the Paramacharya hinted that some part of the ceremony sanctified the Mother’s samadhi in such a way that it had become a temple which could be visited by the orthodox.

The Paramacharya fully accepted that Bhagavan was a jnani. Ra. Ganapati records this conversation in the same article:

He [the Paramacharya] went on, brimming with his admiration for the Maharishi.

‘We have read in the books about the Atma Nishthas (those absorbed in the Self), Brahma-Jnanis (knowers of Brahman) and Jivan-Muktas (those liberated even while living in the body), to whom the existence and extinction of the body made no difference and who, fully one (with the Self) did not have an inkling of desire to see or hear anything. Ramana Rishi was among the few extraordinary (apurva) persons of the recent times who have demonstrated all that as true. He is the one who has brought, for the world to see, the hoary Jnani-tradition down to the present day.’

‘Authentic saint?’ I said, partly in the affirmative, partly as a question.

‘And a jnani at that. Authentic jnani,’ he amended.

Though the Paramacharya fully accepted Bhagavan to be a jnani, there is nothing in his comments about Bhagavan and the Mother’s Temple that indicates that he regarded Bhagavan’s mother as a jnani. I find it a little odd that he accepted Bhagavan’s credentials as a jnani, but not his judgement on who else might be a jnani. The notion that only a jnani can determine who else is a jnani is not one that appeared to carry any weight in this situation. The Paramacharya seemed to derive his position from the same premise as the Madras judges – that Bhagavan’s mother was a non-sannyasi brahmin widow – and ended up in the same doctrinal place: that any building constructed over her body cannot be a temple.

I appealed earlier for expert agamic help. I make the same appeal again for vedic knowledge. If the Paramacharya had accepted that Bhagavan’s mother was a jnani, would that have enabled him to change his opinion on the status of the Mother’s Temple in the years prior to its kumbhabhishekam? According to the Vedas, could a jnani’s body in a graveyard have a temple constructed over it that could be visited and used by orthodox Hindus?

Ganapati Muni, an accomplished vedic scholar himself, fully accepted that Bhagavan’s Mother was enlightened and that she deserved the vedic worship that was bestowed on her samadhi. His disciple Kapali Sastri seemed to believe that it was the divine energy emanating from the Mother’s Temple that enabled Ramanasramam to expand the way it did in the decades that followed her passing away.

Ganapati Muni’s position on the status of the Mother and the propriety of the temple are probably derived from answers he received from Bhagavan himself. Ganapati Muni's wife Visalakshi, asked her husband to obtain answers from Bhagavan to the following two questions:

If obstacles confront women that abide in the Self, does the sastra sanction renouncing the home and becoming ascetics?

If a woman liberated while alive, happens to shed her body, what is the proper thing to do, cremation or burial?

Bhagavan: Since there is no prohibition in the sastra, there is nothing wrong in women abiding in the Self and, fully ripe, becoming sannyasis. As in mukti and jnana there is no difference between man and woman, the body of a woman liberated during life is not to be cremated, for it is a temple. (Sri Ramana Gita, chapter thirteen, verses 5, 6, 8, 9)

It should be noted that this was said several years before Bhagavan’s mother realised the Self. Kapali Sastri in his commentary on these verses (Sri Ramana Gita, p. 177) concedes that smrti 'prohibits the fourth stage of life for women' but concludes that Bhagavan's authority to decide this matter is paramount. He remarked that Visalakshi's question was asked 'fully knowing that the authority of Sri Maharshi's words is mightier than the Dharma Sastras'.

Bhagavan clearly disagreed with the consensus that was reached by the judges in the 1959 case by stating clearly that sannyasa was an option for spiritually mature women and furthermore, that it was perfectly correct to regard the buried body of a woman jnani as a temple. However, Bhagavan’s views appeared to carry no weight in this legal discussion.

T. K. Sundaresa Iyer, himself a student of Ganapati Muni, noted in an early issue of The Mountain Path (1965, p. 136):

Bhagavan was above formal orthodoxy or unorthodoxy. Whatever he did was orthodox because he did it, since he was higher than Manu and was himself the source of orthodoxy. People who failed to see that were putting the letter above the spirit.

What we have here is two different sources of authority clashing. The Sankaracharya didn’t recognise the sanctity of the Mother’s Temple because his ultimate rule book said there were too many irregularities going on there. Bhagavan’s devotees, on the other hand, recognised that the Mother’s Temple was a genuine temple because Bhagavan had given his imprimatur to the spiritual state of his mother, on the structure that was erected over her body, and the rites that were conducted there. The devotees (quite rightly in my opinion) accepted that their Guru, a jnani, had the authority to say what was and what was not acceptable in the spiritual world.

This view is nicely summarised in verse 96 of Sorupa Saram, a text I posted here a couple of months ago:

Question: What is proper conduct and what is prohibited conduct for jnanis?

Answer: Actions they undertake are proper conduct; actions they abandon are prohibited actions.

For the jnani who has become one, tranquil and blemishless, everything, beginning with space [and including the other elements] is his own form. The actions he abandons are prohibited actions, and the actions he takes up are proper actions.

The Madras judges and the Sankaracharya have given their own respective verdicts on what constitutes a Hindu temple. The arguments of the former were backed by Hindu case law and agamic rules, the latter by vedic tradition. But when Bhagavan said, ‘The body of a woman liberated during life is not to be cremated, for it is a temple,’ (Sri Ramana Gita 13.9) he was putting his authority behind a radically different idea about ‘What makes a Hindu temple a temple?’

Let us remind ourselves of what happened when Bhagavan’s mother realised the Self in her final moments at Skandashram. When someone commented ‘Mother has passed away,’ Bhagavan immediately interjected, ‘She did not pass away. She was absorbed.’ Here was the first public proclamation of her liberation.

Then, in a very telling comment, Bhagavan addressed the devotees who were with him, saying, ‘We can eat. Come on; there is no pollution.’ (Self-Realization, p. 129, 1993 ed.)

Ordinarily, coming into contact with a dead body, or just being near it, puts one in a state of ritual impurity. Before one resumes one’s other activities, one needs to take a bath. In this case, though, Bhagavan said that, though dead, the mother’s body could not be a source of pollution. Why? Because her liberation had transformed her body into a temple.

The body of Bhagavan’s mother was carried down the hill and interred the following morning. The site where she was buried did not ‘become’ a temple by having a building erected over it, or by having a kumbhabhishekam performed there. It was a temple from day one because it contained the physical remains of a mukta.

According to Bhagavan, the mother’s body was not a source of pollution (as the judges and the Sankaracharya claimed); it was a temple in itself. It follows from this that the building which was subsequently erected over it was a geographical extension of the original body-temple in much the same way that the outer courtyards of a big temple merely extend the physical boundaries of the sacred terrain.

If one accepts Bhagavan's verdict on the sanctity of a mukta's body, then one might take exception to an assumption that is made in Justice Ramaswami’s written judgement:

…it would be outrageous to say that the burial place of the bipeds and quadrupeds would evolve into a public temple. In fact so far as Hindus are concerned, entering Rudra Bhumi causes pollution and has to be expiated by a bath and it need not be pointed out also that a burial place for cows, dogs and monkeys would certainly be considered by Hindus as being a sacrilegious adjunct to the temple.

This may be the traditional scriptural view, but I, for one, would not consider it ‘sacrilegious’ if the authorities at Ramanasramam decided one day to erect a temple over the remains of cow Lakshmi. I accept Bhagavan’s judgement that she attained liberation shortly before she passed away, and this means (in my inexpert opinion) that her qualifications to have a temple erected over her remains are the same as those of Bhagavan’s mother.

There is one other aspect of this appeal case that particularly intrigues me: the junior member of the two-judge bench, Justice M. Anantanarayanan, had a strong connection with Bhagavan and by extension Sri Ramanasramam, which was one of the parties to the case. Four years before he made this concurring judgement he had made a free rendering of Upadesa Undiyar (Upadesa Saram in Sanskrit), wrote a commentary on it, and had it published by Sri Ramanasramam under the title The Quintessence of Wisdom. The book had a brief foreword by Dr S. Radhakrishnan, who was Vice-President of India when the book was first published in 1955. This is what Anantanarayanan’s son, A. Madhavan, wrote about his father’s connection with Bhagavan in an online memoir (http://anantanarayanan.twobelugas.net/Pamani/Memoirs/MAbyAMViewV2.htm) that was published to commemorate Anantanarayanan’s birth centenary:

Appa’s [Anantanarayanan’s] next [judicial] posting, also at the same stagnant level, was to Vellore in North Arcot district, only a couple of hours by train or car from Madras. He varied his routine by visiting Tiruvannamalai, where Ramana, the great rishi lived and died. Appa had met Ramana and talked to him. The teachings and conversation of the sage had a deep influence on Appa’s mystical aspirations. We heard at home the basic question which Ramana wished everyone to reflect upon: ‘Who am I?’ It was here that Appa began his translation of Ramana’s ‘Thirty Verses’ from Tamil to English, with his own commentary and introduction. It was different from the usual run of books on Ramana, suffused by his reading of the Western philosophers. It was the first book he published.

Anantanarayanan’s connection with Bhagavan led him to the writings of Muruganar and Sadhu Om. He wrote an introduction to Sri Ramana Anubhuti, one of Muruganar’s books of devotional poetry; he wrote another introduction to the first Tamil edition of Sadhu Om’s The Path of Sri Ramana, and encouraged him to bring out an English edition of the book; he also actively encouraged Sadhu Om in his editing of Sri Ramana Jnana Bodham, the nine-volume series of Muruganar’s poetry that was published in installments throughout the 1980s and 90s. Though he does not appear to have written about his personal connection with Bhagavan, he gave occasional public talks on Bhagavan and Muruganar in the 1950s and 60s. He eventually became the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, a position he retired from in 1963.

M. Anantanarayanan, sometime in the 1940s

Now I am not suggesting that his connection with Bhagavan biased him in favour of the legal arguments of Sri Ramanasramam, but I am wondering what the rules are in India about judges who find themselves presiding over cases in which they have a strong personal interest. If there are any lawyers reading this, I should like to know how close a judge needs to be to a party in an appeal case in India before he or she is obliged to recuse himself (or herself) from presiding over the case.

T. N. Venkataraman, the president of Sri Ramanasramam while this court case was going on, did actually think that having Anantanarayanan on the bench would give him an advantage. I mentioned early on in this post that I would explain later why there was such a delay between the 1954 judgement in Vellore and the appeal that overturned it in 1959. Sadhu Om, who was intimately involved in the ashram’s affairs in the 1950s, told some of his devotees that the president was so uncertain about the outcome of the case, he repeatedly asked for and obtained six-month postponements to the appeal. However, when he heard in 1959 that Anantanarayanan would be on the bench for the appeal, he decided to go ahead on the assumption that he would never have a better chance of winning the case.

There is one other amusing Sadhu Om anecdote from this era. Sri Ramanasramam knew that the HRCEB would attempt to prove that the Mother’s Temple was, in fact, a temple under the legal definition of the term. Sri Ramanasramam had always maintained that the building over the Mother’s samadhi was a temple, but while the court case was pending, it tried very hard to pretend otherwise. In the early 1980s Sadhu Om recalled that he had been employed by Ramanasramam in the mid-1950s to perform the rather quixotic task of going through all the ashram’s Tamil publications to prepare new editions of the works that would have the phrase ‘Mother’s Stone Building’ replacing the original term ‘Mother’s Temple’. I don’t know if these revised Tamil editions of Ramanasramam publications were ever printed. If anyone out there has a 1950s ashram book in Tamil that repeatedly mentions the ‘Mother’s Stone Building’, do let me know. It’s a wonderful story, and I would like to back it up with some hard evidence.

There is one final story about Anantanarayanan that I would like to include. It has absolutely nothing to do with this court case, but it is so irresistibly entertaining, I cannot avoid the temptation of including it.

In 1959 Anantanarayanan wrote a novel entitled The Silver Pilgrimage and found a publisher for it in New York. This publisher managed to get the book reviewed in The New York Times. There, the review came to the attention of John Updike, the famous American novelist. Though he never read the book, he immediately became captivated by Anantanarayanan’s name and promptly wrote a poem about it.

I Missed His Book, But I Read His Name
by John Updike (1932-2009)

Though authors are a dreadful clan,
To be avoided if you can,
I’d like to meet the Indian,
M. Anantanarayanan.
I picture him as short and tan.
We’d meet, perhaps, in Hindustan.
I’d say, with admirable elan,
“Ah, Anantanarayanan –
I’ve heard of you. The Times once ran
A notice on your novel, an
Unusual tale of God and Man.”
And Anantanarayanan
would seat me on a lush divan
And read his name – that sumptuous span
Of “a’s” and “n’s” more lovely than
“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan” –
Aloud to me all day. I plan
Henceforth to be an ardent fan
of Anantanarayanan –
M. Anantanarayanan.

The poem was published in Telegraph Poles, and appeared later in a volume of Updike’s selected verse.

Bhagavan Sri Ramana as I Knew Him

2011-05-25T11:21:00.002+05:30

A few weeks ago I was hunting up some references in The Call Divine when I came across a long section in a 1955 issue entitled ‘Symposium: Bhagavan Sri Ramana as I knew him’. The editor, Swami Rajeswarananda, had written to many devotees who had had personal contact with Bhagavan and asked for their recollections of the time spent in his presence. Many people responded, enough to fill almost one hundred pages of the January 1955 issue. I think this was probably the first attempt to collect and publish an anthology of accounts of people who had been affected by Bhagavan.

I went though it and found many fascinating narratives, some of which I had not come across before. Many familiar names were there, along with some I had never heard of. I am presenting a selection of the accounts here.

Since the style and the language were often of a very poor quality, I have rewritten and edited almost all of the accounts. When I have the time, I will go through the rest of the contributions and post another selection here. The order in which the accounts appear is the same as in the original anthology.

Sri Devaraja Mudaliar, Sri Ramanasramam

It was in 1900 that I first cast my eyes casually on Bhagavan. From 1914 on I began visiting him, though my visits were few and far between. It was not till 1933 when I had my first great adversity that, true to the old adage, Bhagavan, our God, got his opportunity.

From that time on I came more and more under his spell, got to know him better, and as a result have stuck to him for ever. In this long interval between 1933 and his samadhi in 1950 I am vain enough to imagine it has been given to me to know so much of him. It would be difficult to press it all into the compass of a small article, as a contribution to a symposium must necessarily be. However, I must try and do my best.

The first thing that was borne in upon me, which subsequent closer acquaintance has thoroughly confirmed, was the fact that Bhagavan was no more anxious to annex any devotee who came to him than the devotee was fit to be annexed. Even to draw me nearer his spell took him nearly twenty years. He waited for time and circumstances to make me ready for him. In my long connection with him I have discovered this is one of his traits, whether you hold to it to his credit or otherwise. Kavyakanta Ganapathi Sastri was so advanced in mantra japa, tapasya, and had great devotion to Bhagavan. Bhagavan, in return, had great respect for him and showed him great consideration. But even in a case such as this, Bhagavan did not go out of his way to ripen him before his time was due. He was content to wait for the right moment.

I have heard that when, after the Sastriar’s passing away, Bhagavan was asked whether, in his case, there was likely to be liberation from all further births. He replied, ‘How could it be? He had such a strong desire for more powers?’

However, it was well-known that this great person desired powers not for selfish purposes, but for the regeneration of the world and its betterment.

This characteristic of Bhagavan is not to be wondered at. Tagore sings, ‘Time is endless in thy hands, my Lord. Thou knowest how to wait. Thy centuries follow each other, perfecting a small wild flower.’

The reader should not, however, run away with the impression that Bhagavan does nothing. On the contrary, he does everything, each act in its own proper time, as he alone knows best. In the worst years of my domestic grief, which occurred at the same time as the end of my professional success, Bhagavan was a source of help and strength, past all description. In that period, a devotee, well known in ashram circles as Thiruppugazh Alamelu, was singing before Bhagavan a song from Bharathi’s ‘Kannan Pattu’, but substituting the name Ramana for Kannan. I felt then, and feel even more so now, that all that is said therein of Krishna is true of Bhagavan. The poem says:

If he wants to initiate a soul in the path of perfection, he can do it in a word. He will tell us how to overcome karma and get on in life. When earnestly sought for, he will come without a moment’s delay and without pretexts for holding off. To me, he is what the umbrella is against rain and food against hunger. He will give me money whenever I ask for it. Bear and forbear even when I scoff at him. Console me with dance and song and know without my telling him what is my heart’s desire. Among all saints, where is there one so kind? If I get conceited, he will bring me to my senses by sending a severe blow. He will contemptuously turn away from anything said in hypocrisy. In times of depression his words of grace will flood our soul with light and cheer. When we have our quarrel with him and feel he has neglected us, he will do something to gladden our heart and fill it with gratitude. When we are in great peril, he will come and stand by us and avert the catastrophe. By his grace all evils will be consumed like moths in a flame.

From my experience and also the experience of some other devotees I can affirm all this of Bhagavan, though it must perhaps be added that such things happen to Bhagavan’s devotees more in the earlier stages of their affiliation with him than in the later years, after they had become seasoned followers. Has he not himself exclaimed in the first of his Five Hymns to Arunachala:

You showed your heroic prowess, but having subdued, you do nothing at all now, O Arunachala.

This is not to say that nothing bad or painful will ever happen to a devotee. There would still be cases where some calamity, disaster, sickness or pain has to come, as per one’s prarabdha, which it would not be proper even for great souls such as Bhagavan to prevent altogether. In such cases I have found Bhagavan greatly softens the blow, or at the very least grants all help and resources in various ways so as to enable the devotee concerned to tide over the crisis and bear it easily. I have seen all this happen in my own case, as well as in the case of others. Even now I am just passing through the effects of a small mishap which befell me recently. But while the mishap had to come, Bhagavan has seen to it that it came at a time and place, and under circumstances which were the best for one in my position to face.

Once when I asked Bhagavan how, in answer to our earnest prayers to him for help, we get relief, seeing that he has no mind which can desire to send us the required relief, he was pleased to say, ‘All will still happen. It will happen automatically.’

There is another trait that I have observed in Bhagavan. Though he was equally accessible and kind to all alike, and though thousands of visitors came and went over the years, there was a small coterie of followers among all this crowd whom he definitely took over for his special care. Here again it must be said that he was not making any choice, for where was there a mind in him to make a choice? Such things were happening automatically. However, to all alike he was immeasurably kind.

Now I must draw attention to another characteristic of Bhagavan. He was extremely humble, affable and accessible, and yet kept all at a distance. There was a royal dignity that clothed the naked Bhagavan, and few could ever allow themselves to forget it. Also, even in his kindest and most indulgent moods, even in dealing with children or grown-up children (which some of his disciples like me were), he would never make a concession in stating the truth or advising its pursuit. Kind and loving as he undoubtedly was, he was, unlike some saints, more the strict father than the indulgent mother. I myself used to call him my father-mother in all my letters to him. Whenever anyone used to sing a Tamil song in which that phrase occurred, Bhagavan would look at me and smile. I mention this here merely to illustrate what great attention he was always paying to his devotees.

I wrote of Alamelu Ammal and the Kannan song she used to sing. About two years before Bhagavan’s mahasamadhi, after she had passed away, somebody came and sang that song. Bhagavan said ‘Alamelu used to sing that song’. While apparently indifferent to the hordes who came and went, he was really closely attentive to all that was happening, and helping wherever he could. Bhagavan has himself said that as soon as someone appears before him, that person was an open book for him. Nothing about us was hidden from him.

Though Bhagavan’s main teachings are well known and need no further publicity, I shall refer briefly to them here. His whole teaching was succinctly expressed in the biblical quote, ‘Be still and know that I am God’. That is to say, one should attain quiescence or real mauna and realise the Self that is within each of us as ‘I am’. To attain this state of thoughtlessness Bhagavan asked us to concentrate on the question ‘Who am I?’ He wanted us to find the source of this I-thought, which is the root of all other thoughts. Through this enquiry, he said, the individual ‘I’ will disappear and the Self will emerge. Though Bhagavan always said this vichara method was the best, he almost always added, ‘If you say this method is too hard for you, or if you are too weak to follow it, you had better completely surrender to God. The same result will follow.’

Thus he advocated the bhakti method almost in equal measure, saying that the bhakta will eventually come to realise there is only the Self and not a dichotomy of God and devotee. I never, however, saw Bhagavan recommend either the karma yoga or raja yoga methods.

Yogi Shuddhananda Bharati, Yoga Samaj, Vadalur

November 20th: Krithikai Day. The ashram is busy with the pouring crowds. Bhagavan is sitting outside his cottage. The ashram was then just a cottage of thatched leaves. I was sitting inside. I did not stir from my perch from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Even the call for food did not shake me. My friends had come that day to take me to Pondicherry. I was rather unwilling to leave the presence of this dynamic force. I could not even open my lips for permission. For my mission and its fulfilment were clear before me. I was hanging and swinging between ‘this’ or ‘that’, ‘here’ or ‘there’. My friends sat before me putting questions to me. Silence was my answer. They went to Maharshi and rolled out their conundrums. Silence was the answer. We were in silent heart-to-heart communion as my friends pestered him.

What is the good of remaining mum like this? What is the goal of man? What is God? What is ‘I’? Why are we born? How to get swaraj [self-rule] for the country? Violence or non-violence? What is Vedanta? What is Siddhanta? What is the meaning of the Vedas? A series of serried questions and a cascade of thrilling silence followed. One self-sufficient man lost his patience; he was a follower of modern education. His brain was full with Kant and Descartes. He had very poor opinion about our Sankaras and Gaudapadas. He had more regard for hatted and booted western armchair philosophers than for realised bald heads.

He hurried up to me and remarked, ‘Swamiji, you, as a well-educated man, must not be like this. You must be more like Bergson, Berkeley, Jung, Huxley. You must go to America and London and acquire name and fame.' My reply: silence.

At this time Maharshi rose up and came inside. The crowd was melting away for supper. The evening was solemn. Maharshi sat quite near me. I touched his feet, and then caught hold of his hands. His force was flowing into me. I saw his eyes; for Maharshi to me was his vision in and out. I saw the fire of knowledge radiating from those two red binocular-like eyes that saw the world around like a cinema show. His eyes darted into me. Tears flowed from my eyes. I did not move my tongue. Maharshi was reading my heart and mind, which were being saturated with divine consciousness. Silence for five minutes.

Then Maharshi spoke out in a calm, mellow, silvery voice: ‘Bharathi, take refuge in silence. You can be here or there or anywhere. Fixed in silence, established in the inner I, you can be as you are. The world will never perturb you if you are well founded upon the tranquility within. You have a sankalpa – to write out your inspirations, to bring out the Bharata shakti [power of India]. It is better to finish off sankalpas here and now and keep a clear sky within. But do it in silence. Gather your thoughts within. Find out the thought centre and discover your Self-equipoise. In storm and turmoil be calm and silent. Watch the events around as a witness. The world is a drama of gold, women, desire and envy. Be a witness, inturned and introspective.’

I wept and mumbled, ‘Do you want me to remain?’ I felt I must come back the next day. Maharshi, after a deep silence, saw my face. After his gaze had sunk into me he whispered, ‘You must come back, and you will. For every one must come to this path. Wind wanders before returning to the silence of the akasa.’

‘Are you saying that I will not return in a week?’

Maharshi smiled now and said, ‘Why a week? Even after years you must come here. Only take refuge in silence. Allow karma to work itself out and march on in faith. You will not miss the goal.’

With this he fell into trance while I fell at his feet. One hour passed. Then half an hour more. My philosophically inclined friend also stood there, struck dumb. His questions were rushed into silence. I placed a lump of dates into the hands of the Maharshi. He took a piece and returned the rest to me. I understood, ‘Today’s date is a sweet one. It is the date when I received the message of silence. I must taste in silence each date of my life by having communion with the divine.’

For two decades I was silence itself. Years later I returned. The former simple ashram had disappeared; the body of the Maharshi had disappeared. But the vibrating presence whispered into me ‘Silence, yet more silence!’

Prof. V. B. Athavale, M.Sc., F.R.G.S., Kirloskarwadi

I had the good fortune of meeting Sri Ramana Maharshi in April 1944 and observed for one week his state of supreme consciousness in which worldly knowledge appears insignificant and produces no worries.

When Paul Brunton asked, ‘Will the world soon enter a new era of friendliness and mutual help, or will it go down into chaos and war ?’ Maharshi replied, ‘There is one who governs the world. He knows how to look after it. He bears the burden of the world and not you.’

Maharshi’s reactions to my unspoken intentions were, however, very tender and marvellous. I reached his Tiruvannamalai ashram with my wife on 16th April. To investigate the relation between Gita and the Vedic literature with regard to the Vedic quotations explicitly referred to by Maharshi Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, (the author of the Gita) I had prepared a genealogical chart of some 350 persons mentioned in the Rigveda. I intended to show this chart to Sri Ramana Maharshi and talk to him about my Gita study. But when I found that no one talked in the hall, I dropped the idea and decided not to talk about it unless the Maharshi showed some interest himself.

Next day, when I entered the hall at 8 a.m., I was surprised to find that the Maharshi had asked Mr Iyer to hand over a Gita book to me that contained 746 verses instead of the normal 700. Mr Iyer had also been asked to get my opinion on this difference. Thus I got the chance of opening the Gita topic. To avoid disturbing the peace in the hall, Maharshi asked me to meet a pandit that afternoon to talk about the Gita. The pandit was going to relay our discussion to the Maharshi later. I ended up talking to this pandit for four days.

Maharshi eventually saw my genealogical chart and asked me, via the pandit, what I had to say about ‘tenaiva rupena chaturbhujena’, the reference to the four hands of Krishna in the 11th chapter. I explained to him that Arjuna has addressed Krishna twice as ‘Vishno’ in the 11th chapter. In the 10th chapter we are told that Krishna was Vishnu out of Adityas. Though this expression is usually interpreted to mean the sun in the twelve signs of the zodiac, it cannot be correct. Because, the next words say ‘I am the sun among the stars’. The Rigvedic expression ‘Astau putraso Aditeh’ tells that Aditi had eight sons and Adhvaryu Brahmana tells that Vishnu was one of the eight sons of Aditi. Yajurveda states, ‘Narayanaya vidmahe Vasudevaya dhimahi tanno Vishnuh prachodayat’. It means that Vishnu was called Vasudeva patronymically. Thus Krishna and Vishnu had the identical name Vasudeva patronymically.

According to old traditions Vishnu holds in his four hands (1) Shankha, (2) Chakra, (3) Gada, (4) Padma. Krishna had in his normal two hands the famous Panchajanya conch and the reins of the four horses. Arjuna first saw the four-handed form of Vishnu. Hence the 17th verse mentions only ‘Gada’ and ‘Chakra’ to be the two weapons, which were not in the hands of Krishna. The Mahabharata states that Krishna had decided not to wield any weapon in the war. In verse 44 Arjuna says, ‘I am terrified by this thousand-fold form. Please show me your original form with four hands. Verse 45 again mentions the same two weapons ‘Gada’ and ‘Chakra’. Verse 51 refers to the normal human form of Krishna.

Maharshi was pleased when he heard the explanation. He gave me his blessings for the study and suggested that I should write a commentary on the Gita. On 23rd April I was sitting as usual in the hall. One gentleman, who was sitting near me, was reading some English passage from a book in a loud whisper. I heard the sentence, ‘A siddha is inferior to a conjuror’. I thought that the author of the sentence had committed a mistake, but didn’t intervene. On 24th April I went into the hall in the morning and informed Maharshi that I was leaving in the evening and requested him to give his autograph. The secretary told me that Maharshi never signed his name. I expressed regret for my ignorance of the rule and said that I merely wanted the handwriting of Maharshi and not his signature. The gentleman, whose sentence I had heard the previous day, was sitting near me. I was thinking of asking him the name of the author who had written that a siddha was inferior to a conjuror. I wanted to point out the mistake and demand its rectification.

Meanwhile, Maharshi took a pen and a piece of paper in his hand and asked Mr Iyer to tell me that he was writing a reply to my query. Mr Iyer told me that my wish had been fulfilled and that Maharshi was giving his handwriting to me. The verse that Maharshi wrote was a reply to my unspoken query to the gentleman, as well as to my mental comments about the sentence I had heard.

The book which the gentleman was reading was the English translation of a Tamil rendering by Maharshi of an old Sanskrit poem, called Rama Gita. The verse says, ‘A conjuror deludes others by his tricks but he himself is never deluded. A siddha who manifests his siddhis is, however, deceiving others as well as deceiving himself.’

When Maharshi handed over the Devanagari script to me, a flash in his eye suggested that I was free to point out the mistakes of the author of the statement.

The handwritten verse that Bhagavan wrote for the professor

Dr Hafiz Syed, M.A., Ph.D., D.Litt., Allahabad

It was in March 1935 that a friend of mine, Mr. Bertram Keightly gave me a copy of A Search In Secret India by Paul Brunton. I devoured it, felt interested in Ramana Maharshi, and longed to meet him. The same year during the Christmas week I paid my first visit to Madras to attend the Theosophical Society convention. From there I went to Mysore in response to the invitation of Sir Mirza Mohd. Ismail. On my return to Bangalore I accidentally met Maurice Frydman. His ascetic life made me curious to know who he was and what made him lead an austere life. It was he who told me a great deal about Ramana Maharshi and roused my sleeping interest in him.

Through his good offices I arrived in Tiruvannamalai one morning and was ushered into Maharshi’s presence by Paul Brunton himself. After three days’ stay there, while taking leave of the Maharshi, I begged him to give me his ashirvad [blessings] before I left him. He was gracious enough to nod his assent, which meant a great deal to me.

Next year, 1936, I visited him again during Dassara holidays. In 1937, the most momentous year in my life, I was attacked by a series of misfortunes. I had to stay in one of the rooms in the ashram itself for more than a month on account of a serious illness. It was during those days that I realised vividly his greatness as a divine man who was endowed with all spiritual and human qualities. While I was lying ill with a high fever, Maharshi was considerate enough to visit me three times and prepared upma for me with his own hand. My eyesight was affected by the high fever. When parting with him to start for Madras for treatment, I took hold of his toes and touched my eyes with them. For me, that was a sufficient guarantee that my eyesight would not fail me. So it has not. I shall never forget the grace he gave me during my serious illness. I had no idea what it was till I returned to my place in North India and felt its purifying effect on my life. I never felt so light and free from all taint of desire as I did in those days.

In 1939 I went on a sacred pilgrimage to him during the summer vacation. As there was a big crowd in the ashram, I could not take leave of Maharshi before leaving Tiruvannamalai. The result was that, somehow or other, I was deprived of the inestimable privilege of having Maharshi’s darshan for three years. From 1943 onwards I never let a year pass without visiting him. I was present during his final illness and saw him undergoing an operation for sarcoma without any sigh, shriek or anaesthetic. The doctors were amazed at his composure and an unheard-of peace of mind.

During his serious illness he was so considerate and thoughtful of the feelings of others that, despite his intense suffering, he did not deprive any one of the privilege of having his darshan. His sense of humanity was as great as his sense of spirituality.

Once, during one of his birthday celebrations, I read out an article in the hall that contained the statement, ‘The more a person is spiritual, the more he is human’. I asked about this, and he agreed that it was true. The sight of suffering, or a mere tale of it, touched his heart.

I invariably noticed during my close contact with him that he was indifferent to his body, as he believed that it was transitory. The real in him, and in others, was beyond any change.

One of the plainest teachings he gave to seekers of truth was self-surrender to God or Guru. He recommended it because he himself had surrendered himself to the divine and reaped its fruit. This method of approach to truth, he said, was the easiest and the safest if one had an earnest desire to attain liberation. I have often felt strongly that his method of approaching truth was so definite, clear and direct, it must appeal to the modern mind because it is essentially scientific. Maharshi never expected anyone to pin his faith in any particular scripture, or practise any sadhana, or repeat any mantra. All he expected of us was to closely and critically analyse the content of our own being, to discover what we really were to see if there was any thing in us which survived the decay of our bodily frame. His words went straight into our heart because he lived what he taught. His grace was ready for those who were ready for it; in other words, those who had made themselves fit recipients of his grace.

The dominating feature of his philosophy was the unity of life, the oneness of the divine essence which is the indwelling Self of all. In view of this deep-seated conviction of his, we noticed that he made no distinction in everyday life between great and small, rich or poor, holy or profane. He treated all alike. He habitually saw the one life vibrant in all. Another remarkable and distinguishing feature of his life was that he showered grace on every one whom he considered eligible for it, whether they were frequent visitors to his ashram and attached to him or not. Those who came from other ashrams and were the disciples of other Gurus received the same transmissions of grace, if they were ready.

I heard him repeatedly say that there is one who governs the world and that it is his task to look after the world. He who has given life to the world knows how to look after it also. It is he and not us who bears the burden of the world. He would also say that each was helped according to his nature, in proportion to his understanding and devotion.

Yogi Ranganathan, Madurai

[This account is by Rangan, one of Bhagavan’s childhood friends. I included a chapter about him in The Power of the Presence (part one, pp. 1-38). I took the first few pages of my account from a chapter in one of Chalam’s books. Going through this 'Call Divine' account, which I was not aware of when I compiled The Power of the Presence, I can see that Chalam himself used it extensively in his Telugu version.]

My father, an Inspector of Police, was transferred to Tiruchuzhi in 1885. Bhagavan’s father Sundaram Aiyar was then practising there as a vakil. The two became close and intimate friends. I was a classmate of Bhagavan. My elder brother was in the same class as Bhagavan’s elder brother. Our two families moved on the friendliest terms, almost as close relations.

Around the middle of 1888 my father was transferred to another place and we left Tiruchuzhi. Bhagavan and his brother went to Dindigul for education and from there came to Madurai to continue their education. By that time we had also come to Madurai for our education. Bhagavan was first reading in the Mission School, whereas I was attending the Native College. However, the institutions were adjacent to each other. If my school closed earlier I would wait for Bhagavan; and if his school closed earlier, he would wait for me. I and my brother, along with Bhagavan and his brother, would go to the Vaigai River, play on the sands and return home. Other boys would join us. I was just one year older than Bhagavan. Bhagavan left Madurai in August 1896. After that, I didn’t see him again for a long time.

When I saw him for the first time in Tiruvannamalai, I was accompanied by my wife, mother and daughter. I asked Bhagavan whether he recognised me. His reply sounded as if he was speaking from the back of his throat.

‘Rangan,’ he croaked.

In those days Bhagavan spoke rarely, and he had almost lost speech through lack of practice.

Turning to Palaniswami, he pointed out my mother and asked him ‘Do yon recognise this lady?’

‘Yes,’ he replied.

She had visited Bhagavan when he had been living at Pavalakundru in the 1890s. I spoke to Bhagavan for some time.

As I was taking leave of him I remarked, ‘You have attained a great stage’.

His reply was, ‘Distance lends enchantment to the view’.

I learned later from the many teachings that he gave to me directly, and from advice given to other people that I overheard, that he was implying ‘A householder’s life was as good as that of an ascetic, and could equally lead one to jnana’.

On my next visit, when I was still ten or fifteen steps from Skandasramam, Bhagavan, who was then cleaning his teeth near the parapet wall, observed my coming and told his mother, ‘Mother, Rangan is coming’.

She said, ‘Let him come. Let him come.’

When I got up after prostrating before Bhagavan, he said, ‘It is a rare privilege to get the darshan of saints. It is good to go and visit them frequently. They will weave the cloth and give it to you.’

From this I gathered that if one had Bhagavan’s grace one could gain jnana, even without any effort on one’s own part.

During my next visit, when Bhagavan, his mother and I were alone together, I told Bhagavan’s mother, ‘I have also a right to a share in all that Bhagavan has gained’.

Mother asked Bhagavan, ‘Did you hear what Rangan said?’ Bhagavan laughed and said, ‘Is he not also one of us? He has also a share.’

On another occasion I came to Bhagavan on my way to Madras where I wanted to try for a job.

When I got up after prostrating, Bhagavan asked me, ‘Men can go anywhere and somehow eke out a livelihood. But what arrangements have you made for your wife and children?'

I replied, ‘I have provided for them’.

I stayed for a few days with Bhagavan and then went away to Madras. A few days later my elder brother visited Bhagavan. Bhagavan made kind enquiries of him whether my wife and children were getting on well, without any hardship.

My brother had to tell him, ‘He left some money when he started for Madras. All that has been exhausted and they are now suffering great hardship.’

Then he continued his journey to Madurai.

When, after making some efforts for a job at Madras, I returned to Bhagavan, he asked me, ‘You told me you had provided for your wife and children. Your elder brother told me they are undergoing hardship.’

I did not make any reply. Why? Because Bhagavan knows all and is also all-powerful. I again went to Madras and, finding my efforts for a job there were in vain, returned to Bhagavan and stayed with him for some time.

During that time, one night, when I was sleeping outside on a double cot that was lying there, Bhagavan suddenly came and sat near my feet. Seeing this I got up.

Bhagavan asked me, ‘What is the matter with you? Are you restless and not getting sleep because of your family troubles? Would it he enough for you if you get Rs 10,000?’

I kept silent. Once when Bhagavan and I were going round the hill he said, ‘There are herbs on this hill which can transmute base metals into gold’.

That time too I kept silent. Bhagavan used to often joke with me and laugh, asking, ‘Oh, are you suffering very much?’

He then told me, ‘When a man sleeps, he dreams he is being beaten and that he is suffering terribly. All that would be quite real at the time. But when he wakes up, he knows it was only a dream. Similarly, when jnana dawns, all the miseries of this world will appear to be mere dream.’

A few days later I returned to Madurai and through a friend got a manager’s job in a motor company. Later, I was also appointed as agent for the sale of buses in Ramnad and Madurai by another company, with a commission of 5% on all sales effected by me. From this and in other ways I got Rs 10,000, which I spent on clearing off my debts and marrying two of my daughters.

I never used to mention my family troubles to Bhagavan, nor ask him for anything. He was himself looking after me and my family. Why, then, should I make any requests for this or that particular thing? I left everything to him. It never occurred to me to ask him for any wealth.

I frequently used to tell Bhagavan, ‘I have entrusted my body, possessions, soul, all to you. The entire burden of my family is hereafter yours. From now on I am only your servant, doing only what you ask me to do. I am a puppet moved by your strings.’

Bhagavan would just laugh.

Once, at Skandasramam, when Bhagavan was standing, I felt his legs from the knee downwards, running my hands over them.

I remarked, ‘When in the old days we played together, I used to feel as if I was pricked with thorns whenever your legs came in contact with my body. Your skin in those days was rough and scaly. Now I find your legs are soft, like velvet.’

Bhagavan responded by saying, ‘My body has completely changed. This is not the old body.’

One day Bhagavan told me, ‘Let us go to Pandava Tirtham and swim in it. Can you still swim?’

I told him I had not forgotten and that I would be happy to go with him. The next morning, at 3 a.m., we went and swam there, playing as we did in the old days. We returned before people came there for their early bath.

Bhagavan said, ‘Let us do it again tomorrow. But we have to go early and return before people come there for their morning baths.’

I agreed and we went swimming there every morning for the next few days.

One day, before dawn, when I was restless in my bed, rolling from one side to another, Bhagavan came to me and asked, ‘Are you not getting sleep? What are you worried about?’

I told him, ‘I am thinking of taking up sannyasa. If I do it here my people would discover it. So, I want to go away to a distant place like Banaras and become a sannyasi there.’

Bhagavan went away and came back with a copy of Bhaktha Vijayam. He read from it the portion dealing with Vithoba’s determination to remain a sannyasi in a forest, along with the advice from his son Jnandev that the same mind goes with a man whether he stays at house or retires into a forest. He told me I could attain jnana while continuing to be a householder.

I asked Bhagavan, ‘Why then did you become a sannyasi?’

He replied, ‘That was my destiny’.

Then he added, ‘Though it is irksome to remain a householder, it is easy to attain jnana that way.’

Once at Skandasramam, after Bhagavan and I had taken a bath and he was drying his body with a towel, I noticed that from his knee to his ankle the skin had peeled off and blood was oozing. I asked him what the matter was with his leg. He said he didn’t know.

I asked, ‘Is it not your legs that blood is oozing from? You seem to know nothing about it!’

He replied very casually, ‘When I was sitting down, the fire from the charcoal brazier in which incense powder was being burnt might have burnt my skin and caused this sore’.

I at once sent for some ointment and applied it to his legs. From this I learnt how completely detached from the body Bhagavan was. He lived only in the Self.

One day, Bhagavan and I went round the hill by the forest foot path close to the foot of the hill. After I had gone a little distance on that path, which was full of thorns and sharp stones, I stepped on a thorn.

As I was lagging behind, Bhagavan observed me, came back to me, removed my thorn, and said ‘Now, we can continue’.

We carried on together but after a few yards he too stepped on a thorn. Noticing this, I ran up to him, lifted up his foot and saw the marks of several thorns there. I then examined his other foot and found several marks there too.

Bhagavan said, ‘Are you going to remove the new thorn or the old thorns?’

Then, with the greatest indifference, he pressed his foot on the ground, pushed it forward, and the thorn broke off. We then continued with our walk. It confirmed for me that he was living completely detached from his body. I further imagined that both of these incidents were somehow staged by Bhagavan to impress on me that he was not his body.

On another occasion Bhagavan said to me, ‘You think you are undergoing great troubles. Hear some of mine. I was once climbing the hill up a precipitous track and when I caught hold of a rock above me. The rock dislodged itself and I fell on my back. The moving rock dislodged others, all of which fell on top of me while I was lying on the ground. I managed to remove the rocks that were covering me and climb out. I found my left thumb was dislocated and hanging loose. I forcibly brought it back to its place and reattached it there.’

At that stage in the narration Bhagavan’s mother appeared and remarked, ‘Don’t ask for that horrid story. He came home with blood all over his body. It was too heart-rending a spectacle.’

I cannot understand who came and removed the rock, treated his wounds and fixed up the thumb. Who was that doctor?

One day Bhagavan’s mother told me in his presence that once, while he was standing, she saw various kinds of snakes all over his body, round his neck, chest, waist, legs. She became very afraid, but after some time the snakes all went back to their places. I believe that this was one of the visions vouchsafed by Bhagavan to his mother to wean her from the belief that Bhagavan was her son and to impress on her that he was God Himself.

Once, at Skandasramam, when Bhagavan, his mother and I were the only people there, mother told the following story: ‘About ten days ago, at about this time, ten in the morning, I was looking at Bhagavan. His body disappeared gradually and transformed into a lingam like the one in Tiruchuzhi Temple. The lingam was lustrous. At first I could not believe my eyes. I rubbed them, looked again, and still saw the same sight. I became afraid because I thought he might be leaving us. But slowly and gradually his body reappeared in place of the lingam.’

After hearing this account I looked at Bhagavan, who smiled at me. From this I gathered he was confirming his mother’s account. When I returned home I mentioned this to the members of my family. My eldest son, who was writing an account of what he called ‘Bhagavan’s marriage with his bride jnana’, included this incident in it.

Later, when that work was being read out before Bhagavan by my son and this incident came up, Bhagavan asked ‘Who told you this?’

My son, of course, replied ‘My father’.

Then Bhagavan said, ‘Oh, that fellow came and told you everything, did he?’

Some of the devotees who were listening to the work being read out asked what exactly was the incident referred to. Bhagavan dismissed it, saying it was nothing. I myself gathered from this vision of Bhagavan’s mother that Bhagavan was God himself, and that the vision was granted to mother to impress on her that she was no longer to think of him as her son, but as God Supreme.

One day, when Bhagavan and I were climbing the hill, I told him that because I have had the good fortune to have Bhagavan’s darshan, all my sanchita and agami karma had been burnt away like a bale of cotton by a spark of fire, and that only my prarabdha karma was left.

He replied, ‘Even prarabdha will remain only so long as the mind remains. If the mind is destroyed, to whom does the prarabdha belong? Think over that deeply.’

From that I understood that once the mind is killed and jnana is attained, there is no such thing as prarabdha.

Once a devotee who had behaved improperly towards Bhagavan asked me what he might do to expiate his offence. I advised him to do pradakshina round Bhagavan three times.

He walked around him three times, prostrated before him and said, ‘Bhagavan should not keep in his mind the mistake I have committed’.

Bhagavan replied, ‘Where do I have a mind? Only if I have a mind can I keep something there’.

It is clear from this that Bhagavan has attained mano nasa, extinction of the mind.

When Bhagavan was in Skandasramam, a gentleman from Malabar, greatly learned, and an expert in yoga sastras, came and lectured for four hours on yoga.

After he had finished, Bhagavan said, ‘Now, you have finished, I hope, everything that you wanted to say. The end of all your yoga is seeing lights and hearing sounds. The mind will be in laya (a suspension of mental activity) while the sound or light is there. When they disappear, the mind will again emerge. The real thing is to achieve mano nasa or extinction of the mind. That is what is called jnana.’

The other man said, ‘What you say is the truth,’ and took leave of Bhagavan.

Sri Mouni Sadhu, Australia

Those who ‘knew’ Sri Bhagavan Ramana know him forever. This is because even a single encounter with the great rishi on our life’s path is an event that can never be forgotten or dimmed in our consciousness by the passage of time. For some of us, it meant a complete change in the course of our present and future lives, and this could never have happened otherwise.

The scope of the subject is far too broad to be described in detail within the framework of such a short article. I am therefore compelled to condense it as much as possible.

The first time I met him I had come directly from the cart that had brought me from the Tiruvannamalai railway station. Before visiting the ashram, I had been conversant with Sri Maharshi’s teachings for some four years and the many photographs I had seen had made his features quite familiar to me. When I was ushered into the dimly lit dining hall, I was therefore able to recognise him immediately, even though at that time his figure was much more meagre than in the pictures I had seen. He was sitting close to a wall, eating his evening meal. I bowed in greeting, and with an incomparable expression of kindness on his face, he asked me where the other devotee was who had come with me. I wondered at his very sharp memory because the letter announcing my proposed visit had been written many months before. My friend’s absence was explained; he had not been in a position to come. Sri Bhagavan then asked that supper be brought to me.

When I became conscious that at last I had found what I had been seeking all my life, this knowledge did not come through conscious deliberation but via an intuitive flash. I immediately became absorbed into the presence of the Master. At first I was worried about his precarious physical state, but my grief quickly became dissolved in his spiritual radiation. The outer appearance soon merged into that mysterious inner link with him that has remained unbroken from that moment up to the present time. While I was at his feet, I learned to stop the thought-current in my mind, a thing that formerly had devoured long years of effort, and which had never been completely successful, despite the many exercises of various occult systems. I never returned to those exercises; they were quite inadequate in the sublime spiritual atmosphere surrounding the Master, which in itself permitted much faster development.

The key to it – concentration – came of itself. Firstly, and most importantly, I became aware that there is a thing above all things that I had never known before. This cannot be adequately described in words, but nevertheless, perhaps some direct hints will give an idea about it. The eyes of the Master conveyed in silence that there is a state which is beyond and untouched by all human troubles, a state which is certainty and peace in itself, in which we know everything. For in that state everything is in us. This mysterious process in consciousness was induced by Sri Bhagavan, or rather by his presence, for he was himself all harmony and peace.

I tried to analyse the changes that arose in me when I meditated at his feet. I found that the mind was easily freed from thoughts, and that memory – in the usual meaning of the word – was no more. Also absent was the concomitant subdivision of time into past, present and future. Instead, there appeared something that cannot be properly described in words. Perhaps a conception of living eternity would be best. There were no visions but, strangely enough, one knew that there could be nothing unknown to him, for by completely directing the attention, one could know everything. These experiences have been more explicitly described in the book In Days of Great Peace.

In some wonderful way the Maharshi seemed to supervise these inner processes in us, just as an operator watches the work of complicated machinery that he knows thoroughly. Moreover, he mysteriously helped in these inner experiences, but how he did it still remains a mystery to me. At the same time, without any deliberation from my side, a potent love for him was created in my heart, simply because it could not be otherwise. Altogether, a man emerged from these experiences greatly changed and quite often with a totally different idea about everything in this world. I myself called it ‘the spiritual alchemy of the Master’. As time passed, I ceased to consider Sri Bhagavan as a being of flesh and blood. This was the most wonderful experience and conquest. From that time on the Master could never be lost to me, although I was only too well aware that his days on this earth were numbered and few remained. I saw the spiritual essence of the man, the indestructible core instead of just the mortal frame. This was the chief factor that enabled me to bear his physical departure without any inner catastrophe.

The word ‘spirit’ is plainly misused by a world that cannot connect the term with anything real, often confusing it with emotional and mental impressions, creating from them an idea of something indefinite and dim. All his long life Sri Maharshi taught that the true reality is beyond all forms, no matter to which plane of existence they belong. And yet, for many people this remains merely a myth or theory. After the Master left this earth, I tried to analyse what it was in his manifestation amongst us that was the most important thing for future generations to remember him for. I reached the conclusion that it was that he himself showed the example of what final attainment is, thereby making it accessible to everyone else. An eternal wisdom lies in all his utterances. He confirmed the truth of them by being that wisdom himself. For example, Maharshi demonstrated that he was not the body and that his true Self never suffered when that body was attacked by a painful disease, one that would be terrifying for an average person to undergo. However, we all felt that, though he was detached from his bodily pains, he could have overcome the disease if such an outcome had been necessary.

When such a sage testifies to the immaterial truth of being, and daily pointed us all towards it, how could I ever seek something apart from it? The Maharshi himself knew very well the decisive role he played in the lives of those who were fortunate enough in their karmas to come to him from all sides of the world.

He says, ‘Association with the sages who have realised the truth removes material attachments. These attachments being removed, the attachments of the mind are also destroyed. Those for whom attachments of the mind are destroyed become one with That which is ever motionless. They attain liberation while yet alive. Cherish, therefore, the association with such Sages.’

Such a sage was and is Sri Ramana, and there are many of us who used to know and revere him.

M. K. S., Karachi

No man can be happy without the knowledge of God. Scriptures are our guides in the path to the Godhead. It is said in the Bible, ‘Many are called but few are chosen’. Religion is essential for all. Man needs spiritual bread for his sustenance in the struggle of life. A stage arrives in the evolution of a human soul when man is not satisfied with mere teachings and promises of a life hereafter. He longs for God. He thirsts for God. He gets intoxicated in his love of God. He sets aside his Bible, his Koran, his Gita, his Gathas. He wants to see God face to face. He yearns and pines for his visual revelation. He discards everything in life. He is prepared to go through all the trials, tests and ordeals that may be necessary for attaining the object of his heart. He starts on the journey in the quest of truth. He yearns to unravel the secrets of the universe and be merged in God.

In July 1947 I was ordered by my Spirit Master to pay a visit to Tiruvannamalai and sit at the feet of the Sage of Arunachala, Bhagavan Sri Ramana. The journey was long but the longing to see the sage was greater. Accompanied by my wife, we embarked upon the journey, a distance of more than two thousand miles by rail. Passing through Bombay and Madras we arrived at Sri Ramana’s ashram with hearts gladdened by the prospect of attaining spiritual enjoyment. We arrived when the moon was shining in the sky, casting its shimmering, pale, silvery light through the foliage of trees, through which we passed to reach our destination. It was all so quiet.

We stayed in a cottage, named ‘Detachment’. The very name of the cottage was enough to send thrills of delight through every nerve and fibre of our being. It appeared God was preparing in His subtle manner for the great future that was awaiting.

The next day we were in the presence of the sage in the hall. Prostrating at full length, we sat near him on the floor. My friend Doraiswami, the Honorary Secretary of the Spiritual Healing Centre, Coimbatore, had also accompanied us from Madras. As I sat for hours and hours together without being fatigued or exhausted in that hall, with many other devotees squatting on the floor, my eyes were rivetted upon the magnetic personality of the sage. Naked, except for a loin cloth that he wore, his face kindled with the fire of the inner light, his deep, searching eyes that seemed to penetrate into the soul of every devotee gathered in that silent throng, his majestic look, his tall frame made slender by the years of abstinence and tapas practised in the forests and the caves where he communed alone with his God – all this made a deep impression upon our minds.

Sri Ramana appeared to be the very soul of India. This country has been known as a land of rishis. And it is India’s pride that in spite of the wave of materialism that is sweeping all over the world, this tradition of her spirituality has been maintained so beautifully. In fact, India’s greatest contribution to the world is her spirituality. We are living in an age of rush and crash. Passivity is decried and activity is hailed as a mark of progress in all phases of life. We do not deny the role of human activity in the economy of life. But it is incorrect to say that passivity is alien to progress and that it is tantamount to sin. The life of the sage of Arunachala is a most salient and solid rejoinder to this vile accusation. This man lived all his life in the vicinity of Arunachala. He lived a life of silence, seclusion and solitude, away from the maddening crowds, in utter renunciation, and he realised God. God-realisation is the only real goal of life.

This is lost sight of by westerners, and passivity is wrongly criticised. By passivity, we mean, passivity of the right type, when man yearns for God and in his yearning, he is prepared to forego everything and seeks Him by the marga of silence, seclusion and deep meditation. Ramana left his home, when he was just a lad studying in a school, when the longing came to him to give himself up solely to God. He went in search of his Lord and found Him in the seclusion of his heart in the midst of surrounding quietude of nature, away from the dust and din of a skeptic world steeped in ignorance of God’s light and beauty. To sit at his feet in that silent hall vibrant with the radiance of his soul pervading the whole atmosphere was a feast for the soul.

Devotees of various classes come for his darshan. Some come in the hope of solving their difficulties. Some come for his blessings. Some come out of sheer curiosity. Some come with an understanding heart, that the sage in his invisible, subtle manner, would kindle a fire and let loose the soul from the bondage of the body. I was fully aware that this miracle would be performed by him.

On the last day, before bidding adieu to the Sage, I sat for a long time, squatting on the floor and lo! to my surprise, I fell into a sort of samadhi – the first of its kind experienced. It was like awakening in a new world. It was all rapturously divine. The sage had worked his miracle. The secret purpose of my visit was understood. He opened the inner valves and gave me freedom. My soul was free. I left the sage of undying fame and his ashram with a heart bounding with joy and bursting with gratitude.

Sri M. S. Madhava Rau, Mangalore

My claim to write is that of one who saw Him. I dare not say ‘I know Him’. Twice I and my wife had the beatific privilege of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi’s darshan, with a space of ten years intervening. A decade after the last visit I am now writing of the deep and abiding impression he made on me.

My first visit was in the company of Maurice Frydman from Bangalore. Suddenly one morning, early in 1934, he said that he was going to Tiruvannamalai that night. He asked us if we would like to accompany him. He had been there many times before but never invited us. Nor had we ever thought to ask if we could accompany him. This time, though, the question and our own wishes were beating in unison.

The offer came at an unfortunate moment since we didn’t at that time have the money required for the trip. However, almost immediately, the post brought a letter from relations in Mangalore asking us to meet that day a person to whom some of our articles had been sent. We called on her and received the parcel. Inside, among other things, was an envelope containing some currency notes. An accompanying note said that in the haste and confusion of our departure from her house a few months earlier this money had been left in a cupboard in their home. We counted it out and discovered that the newly acquired sum would be just sufficient for a trip to Tiruvannamalai and back. And so we went with Maurice.

At the ashram Maurice introduced us to the Maharshi. He welcomed us with a gracious smile and made enquiries about where we were from. When we replied ‘Mangalore’, the Maharshi said that M. S. Kamath (of the ‘Sunday Times’) was a frequent visitor to the ashram. He then told the other people in the hall a few interesting tidbits about the languages, customs and so on of that part of the country. When he learnt from us that for some years we had lived and worked in the Theosophical Society, Adyar, he smiled again and said that we would then easily make ourselves at home in the ashram. And we did, very happily too.

The Maharshi’s serene and busy life reminded us of Dr Annie Besant in several respects. In the evening a visitor arrived, a big and prosperous-looking Punjabi Sikh gentleman, dressed completely in European clothes. Noting his discomfort while he was attempting to perform the full pranam that Indian etiquette requires, the Maharshi immediately set him at rest, saying it was unnecessary. He also arranged for a chair for him to sit in. The gentleman said plaintively that he was pining for peace of mind. The Maharshi asked who it was that was pining. The visitor was puzzled. In humble and anxious tones he pleaded that he was too ignorant and busy for such deep introspection. However, he added that he would be grateful for some japa, prescribed in the Maharshi’s own words, and conveyed with his blessings. He promised to do the japa in whatever spare time he had.

The Maharshi told him that devoting the same amount of time he had to spare for his japa to enquiry instead would be more beneficial, and that, with practice, it would amply repay his efforts and could even be done at the times when he was busy at work. This was not what the Sikh visitor wanted to hear. After he had failed in his repeated attempts to persuade the Maharshi to give him some japa, he asked, sadly, whether, having come with such high hopes, the Maharshi was now going to send him away empty handed. The Maharshi assured him in a compassionate way that he should not think in this way.

The following morning the Maharshi cited some verses to the Sikh visitor that came from an edition of Yoga Vasishta that had been printed by Maurice Frydman. This appeared to revive his spirits and he left for his train in a good mood.

That evening Frydman and I took Bhagavan’s permission to return to Bangalore and come back. Bhagavan repeated the ‘come back’ part of the request in an affectionate and slightly quizzical way. We did come back, but not for another ten years.

In 1944 my wife and I came with Mr and Mrs Sanjiva Rao. That time we put more planning and organisation into our trip. The ashram premises and the neighbourhood around it had expanded immensely in our absence. There were many more visitors, and more ashram activities had been added. The Maharshi had clearly advanced in age. He looked much older, and he had grown weak as well. We spoke to Dr K. Shiva Rao about it and he confirmed that Bhagavan’s health was in decline. We were told that he consistently refused to take any special food that might improve his condition, saying that he would only take what was offered to everyone else in the ashram.

We were introduced to him again. He looked at us and said that the introduction was superfluous since we had been introduced by Frydman many years before. He remembered us. Life in the hall was more active and varied than on our earlier visit. There were numerous visitors who had come from all over the world. Mothers frequently brought their babies for a blessing, which he bestowed on them with a tender smile. The morning and evening prayer times were silently vibrant with a power that stirred and pacified one’s innermost being. People mostly sat quietly or meditated, and as they did so Bhagavan’s eyes would impersonally scan the room, imperceptibly alighting for a moment on the people who were sitting there. Animals came and went freely and often left with food given by Bhagavan himself. One day I saw a brahmin woman, dressed in rags, come into the hall and begin to wail in a pitiful way. Bhagavan rose from his seat and met her half way. He enquired about the cause of her misery and learned that she was an ill-treated and abandoned wife who had been driven from her home. Bhagavan asked her to stop crying and invited her to sit down and have a rest. She followed his advice and shortly afterwards looked consoled and calm.

On one afternoon there was discussion among a small group over an ignorant questioning of the Maharshi’s teaching in some British or American philosophical journal. The Maharshi joined in with a few brief remarks, and resolved the doubts of those who had raised questions about the contents of the article. He ended the discussion in a humorous way, speaking partly in English and partly in Tamil, by saying, ‘Indian philosophy begins where western philosophy ends’.

The sublime and the mundane were readily mixed. Early one morning he was making a joke about a laxative he had concocted himself. He said that one devotee, in an excess of zeal, had taken an overdose and paid for it by having no rest for several hours.

One experience impressed itself on me indelibly. Before beginning meditation in his presence, I decided that at some point during that day I should ask the Maharshi about a personal problem I had been agonising over for some time. As I sat there meditating, the answer flashed before me, and along with it I was filled with an indescribable flow of happiness. Without needing to vocalise the problem to him, I had received both an answer and the experience of his power and grace. This experience in his presence was sufficient for me to sense the truth of both his message and his silent teaching.

Tattuvaraya and Sorupananda

2011-05-20T08:46:00.004+05:30

A few years ago T. V. Venkatasubramanian, Robert Butler and myself made a translation of Sorupa Saram and had it published in The Mountain Path (2004, pp. 75-103). It turned out to be highly popular. The issue sold out almost immediately, the only time this has ever happened. Once the last copy had been sold, xeroxed copies of the Word document I submitted to the magazine were given to those who could not obtain copies of the magazine itself.

The man who composed this work, Sorupananda, had a disciple called Tattuvaraya who eventually became just as famous as his Guru. In this four-part post Venkatasubramanian, Robert and myself have collected all the known facts of Tattuvaraya’s life and translated some of his voluminous writings. The four sections cover the following topics:

Part one: The life of Tattuvaraya and the relationship he had with his Guru Sorupananda.

Part two: a full translation of Sorupa Saram. Though this has appeared both in The Mountain Path and on my site, there may be new readers here who have not seen this wonderful text before.

Part three: extracts from Amrita Saram, one of Tattuvaraya's works on Vedanta.

Part four: translations of songs from Paduturai by Tattuvaraya. The selections include advice to sadhakas, expressions of gratitude towards his Guru, and verses in which he declares his own experience of the Self.

Sorupananda and Tattuvaraya appear in several Ramanasramam publications, with their names being spelled in a variety of ways: ‘Tatvaroyar’,‘Tatva Rayar’ and ‘Swarupananda’ can all be found. I have standardised the spellings as Sorupananda and Tattuvaraya in all four parts of this post.

* * *

Tattuvaraya was a Tamil saint and poet whom scholars believe flourished in the late 15th century. He was a prolific author who wrote thousands of verses on a wide variety of spiritual topics. Bhagavan noted in Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, talk no. 648, that he was ‘the first to pour forth advaita philosophy in Tamil’. Prior to his arrival on the Tamil literary scene, advaita texts in Tamil seem to have been translations of, or expositions on, texts composed in Sanskrit.

One of Tattuvaraya’s compositions was mentioned several times by Bhagavan. This is how he narrated the story in Day by Day with Bhagavan, 21st November 1945:

Tattuvaraya composed a bharani [a kind of poetical composition in Tamil that features military heroes who win great battles] in honour of his Guru Sorupananda and convened an assembly of learned pandits to hear the work and assess its value. The pandits raised the objection that a bharani was only composed in honour of great heroes capable of killing a thousand elephants, and that it was not in order to compose such a work in honour of an ascetic. Thereupon the author said, ‘Let us all go to my Guru and we shall have this matter settled there’. They went to the Guru and, after all had taken their seats, the author told his Guru the purpose of their coming there. The Guru sat silent and all the others also remained in mauna. The whole day passed, night came, and some more days and nights, and yet all sat there silently, no thought at all occurring to any of them and nobody thinking or asking why they had come there. After three or four days like this, the Guru moved his mind a bit and thereupon the assembly regained their thought activity. They then declared, ‘Conquering a thousand elephants is nothing beside this Guru’s power to conquer the rutting elephants of all our egos put together. So certainly he deserves the bharani in his honour!’

There is a very similar retelling of the bharani incident in Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, talk no. 262.

Sorupananda, his Guru, was also his maternal uncle. Early on in their life they had made an arrangement whereby they would both seek Gurus in different places. Tattuvaraya travelled to the north of India from Virai, their home town, Sorupananda to the south. The agreement further stipulated that whichever of the two attained the grace of the Guru first would become the Guru of the other. Sorupananda became the disciple of Sivaprakasa Swami and realised the Self with him. Then, to fulfil the agreement with his nephew, he became his Guru.

In Letters from Sri Ramanasramam (letter dated 8th April 1948) Bhagavan gives a brief summary of how Sorupananda became Tattuvaraya’s Guru:

This afternoon when I [Suri Nagamma] went to Bhagavan, I found someone singing a song, ‘Gurupada Mahima’ [Greatness of the Guru's Feet].

After the singing was over, looking at me, Bhagavan said: ‘These songs have been written by Tattuvaraya Swami. You have heard of the sacredness of the feet of the Guru, haven’t you?’

‘Yes. I have heard the songs. As the meaning of the songs is profound I thought some great personage must have written them,’ I said.

‘Yes. There is a story behind it,’ remarked Bhagavan. When I enquired what it was, Bhagavan leisurely related to us the story as follows:

‘Both Tattuvaraya and Sorupananda decided to go in search of a Sadguru in two different directions. Before they started they came to an understanding. Whoever finds a Sadguru first should show him to the other. However much Tattuvaraya searched he could not find a Sadguru. Sorupananda, who was the uncle of Tattuvaraya, was naturally an older man. He went about for some time, got tired, and rested in a place.

Feeling he could no longer go about in search, he prayed to the Lord, ‘O Iswara! I can no longer move about. So you yourself should send me a Sadguru.’

Having placed the burden on the Lord, he sat down in silence. By God’s grace, a Sadguru came there by himself, and gave him tattva upadesa (instruction for Self-realisation).

This story was originally published in Letters from and Recollections of Sri Ramanasramam as letter number five. The letters from this volume have now been added to the enlarged and consolidated edition of Letters from Sri Ramanasramam.

Though Tattuvaraya was a prolific author, only one work has ever been attributed to Sorupananda: Sorupa Saram, a 102-verse poem about the nature of the experience of the Self. This work was so highly valued by Bhagavan, he included it on a list of six titles that he recommended to Annamalai Swami. Since the other five were Kaivalya Navaneetam, Ribhu Gita, Ashtavakra Gita, Ellam Ondre, and Yoga Vasishta, Sorupa Saram is in distinguished company.

Tattuvaraya realised the Self quickly and effortlessly in the presence of Sorupananda. The opening lines of Paduturai, one of his major works, reveal just how speedily the event took place:

The feet [of Sorupananda], they are the ones that, through grace, and assuming a divine form, arose and came into this fertile world to enlighten me in the time it takes for a black gram seed to roll over. (Tiruvadi Malai, lines 1-3)

Black gram is the variety of dhal that is one of the two principal ingredients of iddlies and dosa. It is 2-3 mm across and slightly asymmetrical, rather than spherical. This property led Tattuvaraya to write, in another verse, that Sorupananda granted him liberation in the time it took for ‘a [black] gram seed to wobble and turn over onto its side’. (Nanmanimalai verse 10)

Tattuvaraya attributed this near-instantaneous enlightenment wholly to the power and grace of his Guru, rather than to any intrinsic merit, maturity or worthiness:

It is possible to stop the wind. It is possible to flex stone. But what can be done with our furious mind? How marvellous is our Guru, he who granted that this mind should be totally transformed into the Self! My tongue, repeat this without ever forgetting.

When my Lord, who took me over by bestowing his lotus feet, glances with his look of grace, the darkness in the heart vanishes. All the things become completely clear and transform into Sivam. All the sastras are seen to point towards reality.

Most glorious Lord, if you hadn’t looked upon me with your eye of divine grace, how could I, your devotee, and the mind that enquired, experience the light that shines as the flourishing world, as many, as jnana, and as one?

To destroy me, you gave me one look in which there was no looking. You uprooted the ignorance of ‘I’ and ‘mine’. You brought to an end all the future births of this cruel one. O Lord, am I fit for the grace that you bestowed on me? (Venba Antadi, vv. 12, 14, 60, 69)

Sorupananda’s mind-silencing ability is quite evident both from the story of the bharani that Bhagavan told on several occasions and from the verses in which Tattuvaraya spoke of this transmission from his own direct experience. Tattuvaraya even stated in some places, somewhat hyperbolically, that Sorupananda, unlike the gods, bestowed instant liberation on everyone who came into his presence:

[In order to convince the devas] Brahma, [lacking the power] to make them experience directly the state of being, held the red-hot iron in his hand and declared, ‘This is the ultimate reality declared by the Vedas. There is nothing else other than this. I swear to it.’ Siva as Dakshinamurti declared, ‘In all the worlds, only the four are fit; they alone are mature for tattva jnana.’ Lord [Krishna], holding the discus, had to repeat eighteen times to ignorant Arjuna, who was seated on the wheeled chariot. But here in this world [my Guru] Sorupananda bestows jnana on all as palpably as the gem on one’s palm. (Tiruvadi Malai lines 117-126)

‘Eighteen times’ refers to the chapters of the Bhagavad Gita.

The Brahma Gita is the source of the story mentioned at the beginning of the verse. This text was translated from Sanskrit into Tamil by Tattuvaraya himself. His version of the relevant verses, taken from chapter five, is as follows:

96 The four-faced One [Brahma], he who creates all the worlds and is their Lord, said, ‘You [gods] who love me well, listen! Since it is I who declare to you that this is the meaning of the arcane Vedas, this is the reality beyond compare. If you are in any doubt, I will have the iron heated till it is red hot and hold it in my golden hands to prove myself free of any falsehood.’

97 He who sits upon the lotus blossom [Brahma] said, ‘[Gods, you who are] loving devotees [of Lord Siva], listen! The meaning of the Vedas, as I have explained it, is just so. There is nothing further. In order that you should be convinced of this in your minds, I have sworn a threefold oath, holding onto the feet of Lord [Siva].

Holding a red-hot iron in one’s hand was ancient trial-by-ordeal way of affirming the truth. If the flesh of the hand did not burn, then the statement uttered was deemed to be true.

Tattuvaraya made the claim in the Tiruvadi Malai lines that his Guru was more powerful and more capable of granting enlightenment than the trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu in the form of Krishna, and Siva. Elaborating on this theme, Tattuvaraya stated that Siva, appearing as Dakshinamurti, only managed to enlighten the four sages (Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatkumara and Sanatsujata); Brahma had to resort to holding a red-hot iron and taking an oath to persuade his deva followers that his teachings were true; whereas Krishna, despite giving out the extensive teachings that are recorded in the Bhagavad Gita, wasn’t able to enlighten even Arjuna. Though this is a somewhat harsh assessment, the inability of Krishna to enlighten Arjuna through his Gita teachings was mentioned by Bhagavan himself:

Likewise, Arjuna, though he told Sri Krishna in the Gita ‘Delusion is destroyed and knowledge is imbibed,’ confesses later that he has forgotten the Lord’s teaching and requests Him to repeat it. Sri Krishna’s reiteration in reply is the Uttara Gita. (Sri Ramana Reminiscences, p. 52)

While all this might sound slightly blasphemous, it is a long and well-established position in Saivism that, when it comes to enlightening devotees, the human Guru is more effective and has more power than the gods themselves.

Though Tattuvaraya knew that it was the immense power of his Guru that had granted him liberation, he was at a loss to understand why that power had ultimately singled him out as a worthy recipient of its liberating grace. In one of his long verses he ruminated on the mysterious nature of prarabdha – why events had unfolded the way they did in various narratives of the gods – before chronicling the circumstances of his own liberation in a stirring peroration:

When [even] the gods despair; when those who investigate the paths of every religion become confused and grow weary; when even they fail to reach the goal, they who perform great and arduous tapas, immersing themselves in water in winter, standing in the midst of fire in summer, and foregoing food, so that they experience the height of suffering, I do not know what it was [that bestowed jnana upon me]. Was it through the very greatness of the noble-minded one [Sorupananda]? Or through the nature of his compassion? Or was it the effect of his own [absolute] freedom [to choose me]? I was the lowest of the low, knowing nothing other than the objects of sense. I was lost, limited to this foul body of eight hands span, filled with putrid flesh. But he bade me ‘Come, come,’ granting me his grace by looking upon me with his lotus eyes. When he spoke that single word, placing his noble hands upon my head and crowning it with his immaculate noble feet, my eye of jnana opened. [Prior to this] I was without the eye [of jnana], suffering through births and deaths for countless ages. [But] when he commanded me ‘See!’, then, for me, there was no fate; there was no karma; there was no fiery-eyed death. All the world of differentiated forms became simply a manifestation of Sorupananda. (Nanmanimalai, v. 37, lines 28-50)

The lines that immediately precede this extract discuss destiny, karma and death, and mention a claim that it is impossible to destroy them. Tattuvaraya then disagrees, citing his Guru Sorupananda’s statement: ‘We have routed good and evil deeds in this world; we have destroyed the power of destiny; we have escaped the jaws of Yama [death].’ (Nanmanimalai v. 37, lines 24-26)

In the portion of the verse cited here Tattuvaraya emphatically backs up this claim by saying that when his own eye of jnana was opened through the look and touch of his Guru, ‘for me, there was no fate; there was no karma; there was no fiery-eyed death. All the world of differentiated forms became simply a manifestation of Sorupananda.’

There are other verses which reaffirm Tattuvaraya’s statement that after he had been liberated by Sorupananda he knew nothing other than the swarupa which had taken the form of Sorupananda to enlighten him:

All that appears is only the swarupa of Sorupan[anda]. Where are the firm earth, water and fire? Where is air? Where is the ether? Where is the mind, which is delusion? Where indeed is the great maya? Where is ‘I’?

[In greatness] there is no one equal to Sorupan. Of this there is no doubt. Similarly, there is no one equal to me [in smallness]. I did not know the difference between the two of us when, in the past, I took the form of the fleshy body nor later when he had transformed me into himself by placing his honey-like lotus feet [on my head]. Now I am incapable of knowing anything. (Nanmanimalai, vv. 38, 39)

Let some say that the Supreme is Siva. Let some say that the Supreme is Brahma or Vishnu. Let some say that Sakti and Sivam are Supreme. Let some say that it is with form. Let some say that it is formless. But we have come to know that all forms are only our Guru. (Venba Antadi, v. 8)

Tattuvaraya wrote of the consequences of his realisation in a poem entitled ‘Pangikku Uraittal’ (Paduturai, v. 64), which can be translated as ‘The Lady Telling her Maid’. The second of the five verses, which speaks of the simple, ascetic life he subsequently led, was mentioned with approval by Bhagavan in Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, talk no. 648:

1

Our reward was that every word we heard or said was nada [divine sound].
Our reward was to have ‘remaining still’ [summa iruttal] as our profession.
Our reward was to enter the company of virtuous devotees.
My dear companion, this is the life bestowed by our Guru.

2

Our reward was to have the bare ground as our bed.
Our reward was to accept alms in the palms of our hands.
Our reward was to wear a loincloth as our clothing.
My dear companion, for us there is nothing lacking.

Bhagavan’s comment on this verse was:

I had no cloth spread on the floor in earlier days. I used to sit on the floor and lie on the ground. That is freedom. The sofa is a bondage. It is a gaol for me. I am not allowed to sit where and how I please. Is it not bondage? One must be free to do as one pleases, and should not be served by others.

‘No want’ is the greatest bliss. It can be realised only by experience. Even an emperor is no match for a man with no want. The emperor has got vassals under him. But the other man is not aware of anyone beside the Self. Which is better?

The poem continues:

3

Our reward was to be reviled by all.
Our reward was that fear of this world, and of the next, died away.
Our reward was to be crowned by the lotus feet of the Virtuous One [the Guru].
My dear companion, this is the life bestowed by our Guru.

4

Our reward was the pre-eminent wealth that is freedom from desire.
Our reward was that the disease called ‘desire’ was torn out by the roots. Our reward was the love in which we melted, crying, ‘Lord!’
Ah, my dear companion, tell me, what tapas did I perform for this?

There is an indirect reference in the first line to Tirukkural 363: ‘There is no pre-eminent wealth in this world like freedom from desire. Even in the next, there is nothing to compare to it.’

The final verse says:

5

Our reward was to wear the garment that never wears out.
Our reward was to possess as ‘I’ the one who is present everywhere.
Our reward was to have [our] false devotion become the true.
My dear companion, this is the life bestowed by our benevolent Guru.

‘The garment that never wears out’ is chid-akasa, the space of consciousness.

After his realisation Tattuvaraya subsequently spent much of his time absorbed in the Self. Sorupananda knew that his disciple had a great talent for composing Tamil verses and wanted him to utilise it. However, to bring him out of his inner absorption and to set him on the literary path, he knew he had to coax him out of his near-perpetual samadhi state.

This is how the story unfolds in the traditional version of Tattuvaraya’s life. The indented biographical details in the account that follows are all taken from an introduction to a 1953 edition of Tattuvaraya’s Paduturai, published by Chidambaram Ko. Chita. Madalayam. They appear on pages 8-16.

Sorupananda thought, ‘This Tattuvaraya is highly accomplished in composing verses in Tamil. Through him, we should get some sastras composed for the benefit of the world.’

He indicated his will through hints for a long time, but as Tattuvaraya was in nishta [Self-absorption] all the time, he could not act on the suggestions.

Sorupananda eventually decided to accomplish his objective by following a different course of action.

Pretending that he wanted to have an oil bath on a new-moon day, he turned to his attendant and asked, ‘Bring oil’.

Tattuvaraya, who was standing nearby, knew that it was amavasya [new-moon day]. He began to speak by saying ‘Am…’ and then stopped.

It is prohibited to have an oil bath on amavasya. This breach with custom was sufficient to bring Tattuvaraya out of his Self-absorption. He spontaneously uttered ‘Am…’, presumably as a prelude to saying that it was amavasya, but then he stopped because he realised that it would be improper of him to criticise any action his Guru chose to perform. This gave Sorupananda the opportunity he was looking for:

As soon as he heard Tattuvaraya speak, Sorupananda pretended to be angry with him.

He said, ‘Can there be any prohibitions for me, I who am abiding beyond time, having transcended all the sankalpas that take the form of dos and don’ts? Do not stand before me! Leave my presence!’

Tattuvaraya thought to himself, ‘Because of my misdeed of prescribing a prohibition for my Guru, who shines as the undivided fullness of being-consciousness-bliss, it is no longer proper for me to remain in this body. There can be no atonement other than drowning myself in the sea.’

With these thoughts in his mind, he walked backwards while still facing his Guru, shedding torrents of tears at the thought of having to leave his presence.

Other versions of this story make it clear that Tattuvaraya walked backwards away from his Guru’s presence because he felt that it was improper to turn his back on his Guru. Though it is not clear in this particular retelling, he apparently walked backwards until he reached the shore of the sea where he intended to drown himself. The narrative continues:

Through the compassion he felt for other beings and through the power of the Self-experience that possessed him, he began to compose verses as he was walking [backwards towards the ocean]. These were the eighteen works he composed in praise of both his Guru and his Paramaguru [Sivaprakasa Swami]. These were noted down by some of Sorupananda’s other disciples.

As he continued to sing these eighteen works, the disciples who were following him took down what he said, [conveyed the verses to] Sorupananda, and read them in his presence.

Sorupananda pretended not to be interested: ‘Just as a woman with hair combs and ties it, this one with a mouth is composing and sending these verses.’

Another version of Tattuvaraya’s life states that Sorupananda had sent disciples to write down the verses that Tattuvaraya was composing, so his lack of interest should not be taken to be genuine. It was all part of a ruse to get his disciple to begin his literary career.

Meanwhile, Tattuvaraya was pining and lamenting: ‘Alas, I have become unfit to have the darshan of my Guru. Henceforth, in which birth will I have his darshan?’

Like a child prevented from seeing its mother, he was weeping so much, his whole face became swollen. At this point he was singing ‘Tiruvadi Malai’ from Paduturai. He was close to the edge of the sea and was about to die.

When the disciples went to Sorupananda and updated him about these events, he [relented and] said, ‘Ask the ‘Guruvukku Veengi’ [the one whose obsessive desire for his Guru is making him ill] to come here’.

When Tattuvaraya heard about this, he was completely freed from his bodily suffering, and he also regained the power to walk [forwards].

The Pulavar Puranam, an anthology of the biographies of Tamil poet-saints, reports in verse thirteen of its Tattuvaraya chapter that he was already neck-deep in the sea when Sorupananda summoned him to return. The story continues:

He [Tattuvaraya] told the disciples [who had arrived with the message], ‘Sorupananda, the repository of grace and compassion, has ordered even me, a great offender, to return’.

Experiencing supreme bliss, he sang some more portions of Paduturai, and then returned to the presence of the Guru. He stood there, shedding tears, in ecstasy, singing the praises of his Guru.

Sorupananda merely said, ‘Iru’.

Iru is the imperative of a verb that means both ‘Be’ and ‘Stay’. In choosing this word Sorupananda was ordering him both to remain physically with him and also to continue to abide in the state of being.

Tattuvaraya lived happily there, serving his Guru.

Sorupananda went through the works that Tattuvaraya had composed and was delighted with their depth of meaning and the grandeur of their vocabulary. However, he made no sign of the joy he felt.

Then he thought to himself, ‘These sastras will be useful only for the learned and not for others’.

He told Tattuvaraya, ‘Son, you have sung all these sastras for your own benefit, but not for the benefit of the people of the world’.

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the cooks who informed Sorupananda, ‘Swami, you should come to have your food’.

When Sorupananda went for his meal, Tattuvaraya, who was left alone, pondered over the words of his Guru. Concurring with his remarks, he composed Sasivanna Bodham before Sorupananda had returned from eating his meal. He placed it at the feet of his Guru [when Sorupananda reappeared] and prostrated. Sorupananda was delighted at the simplicity of its style and the speed with which Tattuvaraya composed poetry.

The next incident is the story of the bharani that Bhagavan narrated and referred to. There are several sources of Tattuvaraya’s life, and the details vary from text to text. The version that appears in this narrative is slightly different from the one Bhagavan told, and it also has a few extra details:

Tattuvaraya composed some Vedanta sastras, but was mostly in samadhi. Around that time some Virasaivas, who were on a pilgrimage, along with some pandits, came before Tattuvaraya, who was sitting in the presence of Sorupananda.

[They read the bharani and complained:] ‘A bharani is [only] sung about great heroes who have killed a thousand male elephants on the battlefield. How is it that you have composed this [kind of poem] on your Guru who has not heard of or known heroic valour even in his dreams?’

To this Tattuvaraya replied, ‘As our Guru kills the ego-elephants of disciples, I sang in this way’.

They responded, ‘The ego-elephant that you mention is not visible to the eye, so it is not proper [to compose in this way]. However, even to kill one ego-elephant would take many, many days. How did he manage to kill the egos of 1,000 disciples simultaneously?’

Tattuvaraya, thinking that they should be shown through a demonstration, resumed his samadhi state, without replying to them.

Under the power and influence of Sorupananda all the pandits who came remained in paripurnam [had the full experience of the Self] for three days, without knowing either night or day. On the fourth day Tattuvaraya opened his eyes. All the pandits arose and prostrated to both Tattuvaraya and Sorupananda.

They said, ‘It was because of our ignorance that we objected. The power of your [Sorupananda’s] presence is such that even if 10,000 disciples happen to come, it [the presence] has the ability to bring them all to maturity simultaneously.’

Then they composed their own verses in praise of the bharani and departed.

It is not unreasonable or fanciful to compare the relationship of Tattuvaraya and Sorupananda with the one that existed between Muruganar and Bhagavan. Tattuvaraya and Muruganar came to their Gurus (who both liked to teach through silence) and realised the Self soon afterwards. They both subsequently composed thousands of verses that either praised their respective Gurus, or recorded some aspect of their teachings. Tattuvaraya’s poems in praise of his Guru (and Sivaprakasa Swami, his Guru’s Guru) include Venba Antadi (100 verses), Kalitturai Antadi (100 verses), Irattaimanimalai (20 verses), Nanmanimalai (40 verses), Jnana Vinodan Kalambagam (101 verses), Kali Madal (232 verses), Ula (393 verses), and many, many more. Then there was the bharani that Bhagavan mentioned: a 493-verse poem (Ajnavatai Bharani) on the annihilation of ignorance by the ‘hero’ Sorupananda. Mokavatai Bharani was another 850-verse bharani on the killing of delusion that includes in its text 110 songs in which a goddess instructs her followers in Vedanta. These 110 songs are often published independently as a Tamil primer on Vedanta under the title Sasivanna Bodham. This is the work that Tattuvaraya composed while Sorupananda was having his meal.

There are, in addition, two long anthologies of Tamil poetry that contain more of Tattuvaraya’s verses: Peruntirattu (The Great Anthology), and Kuruntirattu (The Short Anthology). Though these anthologies mostly contain works by other authors, Tattuvaraya contributed some verses to both collections, and he is also acknowledged as the compiler of both books.

Muruganar, at Bhagavan’s behest, composed Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai, modelling it on Manikkavachagar’s Tiruvachakam. In another interesting parallel Tattuvaraya composed Paduturai, a 1,140-verse collection of verses that are derived from contemporary folk songs. This work is also loosely based on Tiruvachakam. The ‘Lady Telling her Maid’ poem that appeared earlier in this article comes from this collection of verses.

Though Tattuvaraya clearly played a Muruganar-like role in the life of Sorupananda, it is interesting and a little intriguing to note that Satyamangalam Venkataramayyar, the author of Sri Ramana Stuti Panchakam, addresses Bhagavan himself as ‘Tattuvaraya’ in the second line of verse nine of ‘Kalaippattu’. This poem is chanted every Saturday evening in Bhagavan’s samadhi hall.

In addition to the original Tamil compositions and the anthologies he compiled, Tattuvaraya also translated Brahma Gita and Iswara Gita from Sanskrit into Tamil.

Despite this prolific literary output, it is fair to assume that Tattuvaraya regarded as his greatest accomplishment the state that was bestowed on him by his Guru Sorupananda:

What if the world praises me henceforth or reviles me? What if Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, remains close to me or separate from me? What if the body assuredly exists without ever decaying or perishes? Will there be any gain or loss to me on account of them, I who have worn perfectly on my head the twin feet of immaculate Sorupananda? (Jnana Vinodan Kalambagam v. 99)

The passing of both Sorupananda and Tattuvaraya is described in the traditional story of their lives:

Sorupananda started to wander aimlessly, leaving Tattuvaraya behind. Tattuvaraya followed him. When Sorupananda reached the sea shore, the waters separated to let him enter. However, when Tattuvaraya tried to do the same [and follow him], the sea did not part.

Tattuvaraya stood on the shore, crying loudly, like a calf separated from its mother. He searched for his Guru in all directions. Finally, Sorupananda appeared to give him [a final] darshan before shining as akanda paripurna satchitananda [the undivided transcendent fullness, being-consciousness-bliss].

In the context of what follows, this is the author’s way of saying that Sorupananda took mahasamadhi.

After performing his Guru’s samadhi rites, Tattuvaraya was constantly thinking of Sorupananda. Either through the supreme love he felt for him, or through his inability to bear the separation, or because of the understanding that there was nothing for him to do apart from his Guru, he immediately attained mahasamadhi.

Tattuvaraya’s samadhi shrine is located at Irumbudur, which lies between Vriddhachalam and Chidambaram.

Tattuvaraya's samadhi shrine. The president of Sri Ramanasramam, Sri V. S. Ramanan, can be seen on the right.

Sorupananda: Sorupa Saram

2011-05-20T08:40:00.002+05:30

In the first installment of this four-part series I mentioned that Bhagavan had included Sorupa Saram, the only known work of Sorupananda, on a list of six books that Annamalai Swami should read. Seven years ago The Mountain Path (2004, pp. 75-103) published a translation of this work by T. V. Venkatasubramanian, Robert Butler and myself. Later that year I posted the translation on my site, with extra biographical details: http://www.davidgodman.org/tamilt/sorupasaram.shtml.

I have decided to repost it here since there may be readers of this blog who haven’t yet come across the work.

There are two components to the text: original verses by Sorupananda, and interpolated questions, answers and comments which were added by a later, unknown commentator. These additional remarks have always been associated with the work and are now regarded as being an integral part of the text.

Benedictory Verse Addressed to the Self

May the unique Self, which appears as various objects in the same way that gold takes the shape of the mould into which it is cast, be our support and guide for composing this work, Sorupa Saram, which proclaims that the nature of the world is only consciousness.

Text

Since the three kinds of differences do not exist, everything is only consciousness. The certainty of the existence of consciousness is stated in this way.

Since there is nothing at all that is different from consciousness, the five elements, along with the five senses and the five organs of sense, all these are consciousness only. Whatever is in the beginning, in the middle and in the end – all these are also consciousness. The indescribable illusion is also consciousness. The one who perceives everything and the act of perceiving are also consciousness.

Question: Is there a logical way of concluding that everything is consciousness alone?
Answer: Yes, there is.

All the world’s diversity, which derives from the misperceptions of the mind and which appears to be real – is it not the witnessing consciousness alone? Hence, everything – beginning with liberation and including purity and impurity, joy and misery, that which is and that which is not – is only being.

Question: If all is being, do objects appear as one’s own Self, which is being-consciousness-bliss.
Answer: Yes, they do.

In whichever direction I look there is absolute perfection. The real nature of all the holy waters is blissful consciousness. The real nature of all the verses praising the Lord is bliss. Apart from me, what other form can exist?

Question: Is the above statement merely verbal or is it experienced?
Answer: It is experienced as well.

My Guru instructed: ‘Sir, the world appearance and its substratum – all these are you. There is no one who does not say “I”. Therefore enquire thoroughly into the “I”.’ If this is known intently and thoroughly [one can say] ‘I myself am pure consciousness’. Hence, I am the primal entity.

Question: Which entity had this experience of the Self, and when did the experience arise?
Answer: It is experienced by myself and the experience is ever-present.

I saw my real nature as pure consciousness. I see only myself, and not the great multitude of the world. Simply because I had not looked at myself thoroughly, did I at any time cease to exist?

Question: If everything is only the Self, why are the names many?
Answer: The many names do not make the Self multiple.

Since everyone abides as ‘I’ and declares himself to be ‘I’, right up to Iswara there is nothing other than ‘me’. The same person is addressed differently as son, brother and father; but for that reason will the body of the person become different?

Question: If so, the known and the knower will be different.
Answer: No, they won’t be different.

It is my Self who remained as the [seer] ‘I’. Those objects that were rejected as ‘not I’ – these too are my Self. It is like someone who goes to sleep at night as himself, manifests [in dream] as the form of [the seer and] the world and then wakes up as himself.

Question: What is the inherent nature of the Self that shone as everything?
Answer: It is ‘shining by itself as itself’.

The Self that shines as the body, as the beloved soul, as all the actions, as ignorance, as the enjoyment of true knowledge, as the blissful reality and as the one consciousness – that indeed is my own real nature.

Question: Is it possible to give a true name to the Self that shines by itself.
Answer: As it is a transcendental experience, it is not possible to give it a name.

They will describe it as bliss, as transcendence, and as the witness of all that remains at the culmination of the four Vedas. What designation might I apply to my real nature, which all the treatises on jnana are unable to track down?

Question: If it is transcendent, there is no scope for enquiry. It is therefore necessary to indicate and signify it in some way.
Answer: As it is everything and as it is nothing, it is beyond description.

Is it ‘I’? Is it That? Am I That? Is That ‘I’? Is it shining jnana? Is it the source of all sounds [nadanta]? Is it mauna? Is it the pure state [suddha]? Is it a void? The self-shining natural state is all these and none of them.

Question: If it is said like this, none can realise the Self, and so there can be no realisation. Hence, a name should be given.
Answer: The following are the names given by the Vedas.

Abundance of knowledge; abundance of love; abundance of perfect bliss; abundance of being; abundance of consciousness; abundance of tranquillity; abundance of purity; the wonderful abundance beyond the scope of the Vedas; the abundance of pure consciousness that is the source of all.

Question: Are all these descriptions experienced?
Answer: They are experienced and also transcended.

My son! I became and dwelt as the indescribable experience, transcendental joy, and everything else. I felt no need to declare, ‘I have rid myself of the misery-causing karma’. I recovered my Self and have been freed.

Question: What is the benefit arising from this experience?
Answer: It is becoming the ruler of the kingdom of liberation.

I obtained the supreme lordship that is never lost. I burned up the pair of opposites – happiness and misery. I gave up the life of the body-forest, which tormented the mind. I entered and occupied the house of liberation.

Question: What play will this king witness on his stage?
Answer: He will witness the dance of the three avasthas [waking, dreaming and sleeping].

In the waking state I will witness the dance of the five organs of action and the five organs of sense. In dream I will witness the dance of the mind. In thought-free sleep I will dance the object-free void-dance. However, I will [always] remain as the exalted essence [the Self].

Question: Where was this experience when you were regarding happiness and misery as ‘I’?
Answer: Then, too, I was remaining as the Self. I was nothing else.

Who was the one who remained as [the ego] ‘I’? If I see him, I will not allow him to take up the form of the body. Only the ‘I’ whose form is consciousness is the real ‘I’. All other ‘I’s will get bound to a form and go through birth and death.

Question: The Self is immutable. Will it not get bound if it gets involved in activities?
Answer: As the Self remains a witness, like the sun, it will not get bound.

Even if I bear the burdens of the family and have them follow me like a shadow, or even if the cloud called ‘maya’ veils, I am, without doubt, the sun of knowledge, self-shining as pure light and remaining as the witness [of the world].

Question: But the jnani is not remaining motionless like the sun.
Answer: He also remains actionless.

Whatever comes, whatever actions are performed, in whatever I may delight, I am only pure consciousness, remaining aloof and aware, without becoming any of them.

Question: All things move because the Self makes them move. Hence, is there bondage for the Self?
Answer: Like the rope that makes the top spin, there is no bondage for it.

In the same way that a top is made to spin by a rope, desires fructify in my presence. But, like the rope that is used to spin the top, I will not merge with them. I have rid myself of their connection. I became my own Self. My bondage is indeed gone.

Question: But what is the way by which knowledge and ignorance was destroyed?
Answer: In one’s own experience of the Self neither attainment of knowledge nor removal of ignorance is seen.

By what did ignorance get destroyed? Through what did knowledge gained through enquiry arise? How was the clarity, known as the experience of true knowledge, obtained? Other than my Self, what do I know?

Question: If the dawn of knowledge and the removal of ignorance are not known, how can we call such a one a jnani?
Answer: With ignorance removed from knowledge, like unreal from real, becoming both and becoming neither – this indeed is the nature of the jnani.

When, ultimately, the real shone as ‘I’, did the unreal, which became ‘I’, go anywhere? I myself became the base of both the real and the unreal, but remained beyond the reach of the conflicting pair of real and unreal.

Question: Previously it was stated, ‘I am the possessor of the body, but not the body’. Now it is said, ‘I will remain different from the body and also be the body’. Which is true?
Answer: The truth is remaining in but aloof from the body, like the kernel in the mango seed that remains within the seed shell, but aloof from it.

Oh, I said, ‘I am the body!’ I regarded wealth as mine! I felt, ‘I am the enjoyer!’ Are all these not false? Though I remained as everything, beginning with the body, the real ‘I’ always remained aloof without associating with anything, like the mango kernel in the seed of the sweet mango.

Question: Is remaining like this [attached and detached] only in the period of ignorance, or also in the period of knowledge?
Answer: It is in both.

The periods of jnana and ajnana were seen and passed like the periods in which intellect had not developed and in which intellect had developed. Everything that was a superimposition during practice has now become false.

Question: Is there birth and death during the period of ignorance that exists prior to this experience?
Answer: As these are illusory, they do not exist.

Oh, where was I born? What did I worship as God? Where did I seek refuge? When I became the blissful essence, the reality, experiencing unbroken bliss, were not all these [known to be] false?

Question: In what condition was the Self before the dawning of this experience?
Answer: When I am redeemed by realisation of the truth, I am not confused any more.

I lived as ‘someone’. I laboured in vain for ‘somebody’. I underwent change, taking a thousand names. Now, enough of this! I have seen my Self, that which is hard for me to discover. Oh, now I am free!

Question: What is obtained and experienced if one sees the Self?
Answer: The mind dissolves in love and one becomes sat-chit-ananda.

I made the deceitful mind melt and dissolve. I knew myself as I really am. Since I am the substratum for everything, I became and dwelt as myself, the clear ambrosia of sat-chit-ananda.

Question: Is the statement ‘The world is only the Self’ figuratively true and not literally true?
Answer: Anything seen cannot exist apart from the eye. Similarly, the world does not exist apart from the Self.

Can there be anything seen that is apart from the eye? Can there be anything heard that is apart from the ear? Did any of the other four elements manifest independently of space? Though the world may appear like a flowing mirage-river, when thoroughly examined, can the world exist apart from the Self?

Question: Seer and seen appear different.
Answer: This is just like seeing gold as various ornaments. They are not different.

Here, other than myself, nothing else exists. I swear to this. A gold ornament does not exist separate from the gold. In the same way that one can change the shape of gold and give it different names, I described myself in various ways.

Question: What is the nature of this experience?
Answer: It is the transcendence that arises, dissolving thoughts, and in which everything shines as the Self.

It is beyond the reach of speech and it is beyond the reach of the mind. It is the clear ambrosia with which one does not get satiated, even when it overflows. Like saliva that secretes on the tongue, it springs forth from within me. Like a dumb pot it remained as ‘I’, without being another.

[A dumb pot is a spherical, baked mud pot, without a mouth, that absorbs water through its porous skin.]

Question: When everything exists as Sivam, why should one become Sivam?
Answer: This is to enable the removal of all differences of ‘one’ and ‘two’ and to become perfect jnana.

Do not question, ‘What is the bliss of Siva? What is Siva-nature? What is Siva’s activity?’ It is only the fullness of consciousness that does not get divided, does not unite, and does not become different.

Question: What is to be rejected as asat [unreal], and what is to be accepted as sat [reality]?
Answer: Reject objects that are known as asat and accept consciousness as sat. This is tranquillity.

All the tattvas [principles] that one knows are foreign to oneself. While rejecting these objects as ‘not-Self’, realise the Self through the consciousness that remains as the one who rejects objects. This is tranquillity.

Question: If tranquillity is the one true thing, what is the witness?
Answer: Tranquillity is itself everything, beginning from the witness right down to svanubhava [one’s own experience]. It is Sivam, the state of realisation.

Tranquillity is itself the witness-Self. The witness-Self is itself Brahman. Brahman is fullness. The pure fullness realised by enquiry is itself the ever-present svanubhava. This is the state of realisation, which is itself Sivam.

Question: Even if the mind subsides, sayujyam [oneness, intimate union] is attained only when maya is destroyed.
Answer: The destruction of the mind is itself the destruction of maya, and hence it is sayujyam.

I have seen the way of the birth of the mind that leads to the birth of the world and the birth of the doer, the ego ‘I’. The non-subsidence of the mind is itself maya. The firmness of those who destroy this maya is sayujyam.

Question: If this is sayujyam, where will the past karmas go?
Answer: In this experience they will disappear without leaving a trace.

I rid myself of the fear that arises from the misery of imagining, ‘I underwent an endless succession of births and deaths’. All of the ancient world has become the vast, empty expanse that is my own Self, since everything other than my Self is false.

Question: When there is such an experience, why perform karma?
Answer: When this experience has not arisen, actions are performed.

Until I became the endless, blissful experience through the superior discrimination that regards all worship and similar things as the ‘not-Self’, I worshipped the gods at the prescribed times and observed all the vows.

Question: Who will attain this experience?
Answer: Only those who are pure and who have the prescribed qualifications will attain it.

The experience of reality – eternally abiding and shining as oneness, as freedom from impurity, as fullness, and as truth – is attained only by those who are most qualified, pure, who have a steady mind, and who are undergoing their final birth.

Question: What are the marks of a pure one?
Answer: They are as follows:

[The answer is the content of verses 37-42]

They will not utter harsh words; they will not hate anyone; they will be of cheerful countenance; whatever things they relish, they will not use them for themselves but will offer them to the great ones; they will not associate with evil persons; they will not curse anyone; their eyes will not blaze with anger. These are the ones who will rid themselves of birth.

They will not value as real those things that are destructible; they will never speak out, saying, ‘This is good and this is bad’; they will not grieve over events of the past; they will not condemn anything; they are the exalted ones.

They will not speak contemptuously of the ordinances of the Vedas; they will not remain without chanting and melting with devotion as long as they live; they will not forget death; they will not get attached to this world through weakness of mind; they are the ones who will not be born again.

They will not experience at all sudden movements of the mind; they will only desire to know the path of salvation; their minds will not get immersed in attachments, saying greedily, ‘This is my wealth, my house, my wife and my children’. Such are the mature ones.

Will they care for things that are valued by others as desirable and not desirable? When one really looks, those who become tranquil and eternal, who experience truth and abide in the final state are few in number.

Those who do not see anything other than their Self here and in the hereafter, who are beyond both and without any division, will they degrade themselves by not regarding as trivial this phantom-like world appearance that is an illusory play of the sankalpas?

Question: Sastra vasana [a latent desire for scriptural knowledge], or the vasanas of knowledge and ignorance – will these too not arise in those jnanis even through forgetfulness?
Answer: As these are vasanas, they will not arise.

During every superimposing avastha the liberated one clearly knows that the illusion of sound and the illusion of real and unreal are only the illusion of the mind, because [he knows that] the superimposed avastha that appears and disappears is false.

Question: If this is so, for such ones what is the worship of God for?
Answer: Worship is only seeing the Self.

The great tapasvin devotedly worships with the flower of tranquil space and with the mantra of aloneness the deity [who abides as] the expanse of consciousness in the temple of the body. Who can equal those who live forever, revering such jnanis?

Question: Why does everyone not perform this worship?
Answer: Because of ignorance.

When the three prime fruits [mango, jackfruit and banana] along with rice pudding made with milk are right in front of them, they will long for food vomited by a dog. Without knowing that we ourselves are the great essence, the basis of all things and all powers, they become slaves of the mighty.

This concerns the fate of those who insult jnanis.

They do not know fairness and rectitude; they do not know the phantom-like nature of the world; they do not know themselves; they do not realise the disgrace that arises from their ignorance. They are dark within themselves and without any reason insult those who are good, the righteous. Which way will these people go?

Question: Are all books, other than those that speak of supreme bliss, not true?
Answer: No, they are not true.

The five flowers [of Kama] are his arrows. The six-legged beetle is the bowstring. The soft sugarcane is his bow. This bodiless cupid is a valorous warrior. He will infect everyone with powerful lust. All this is false. Similarly, is all this barren world-appearance true? You yourself reply.

Question: Are time and so on false?
Answer: To those who are not attached to anything, they are certainly false.

Be it time, or God, or karma, or illusory observances, the workings of the mind, the great enthusiasm that accomplishes things – to him who is not attached in any way, where is the question of taking them to be either good or bad?

Question: Are they [time and so on] at least necessary for the body?
Answer: Since the body is not-Self, they are not needed.

Why are they born, those cunning ones who do not seek their Self? What is this body that has come into being through food? Who is the ‘I’? How many were the bodies that were discarded before? Innumerable were the bodies that were taken with delight again and again.

Question: But are all these [jivas] reflected consciousness?
Answer: As there is no knowledge without the Guru enabling one to know, they are only reflected consciousness.

To reveal the unreal as unreal and to make the real real, truly a Guru was needed. Alas! All the jivas, becoming kings and achieving greatness, are only reflected consciousness.

[‘Achieving greatness’ can be taken to mean ‘arrogantly strutting around’. It can also be translated as ‘flourishing and becoming like little children’.]

Question: Why should the one Brahman appear differentiated as many, as reflected consciousness?
Answer: To those who do not see it as one, it appears as many.

What is the truth of the world reflection that appears in the one [Brahman] but does not appear as one? Like the scenes that appear to the vision of a bewildered person, the world appears as many only to those with defective knowledge and who therefore do not see it as the one reality.

Question: When all is one like this, what is the reason for not seeing it as one?
Answer: I do not know the reason for not knowing the Self that exists as one’s own Self.

What a wonder it is that one seeks the Self without knowing the Self! What can I say of this? Know that this is like a person in this world standing [neck-deep] in water having his thirst unquenched. What else can we say?

Question: What is the way to see the Self?
Answer: By abiding still in the Self. This is the essence of enquiring into the scriptures.

You who, babbling the scriptures, become haughty! You who accumulate karma with your caste and lineage! Can you not become sattvic, know your Self through your Self, give up unceasing activity and remain still?

Question: Can devotion to God be jnana?
Answer: There can be no devotion apart from the devotee.

Those who are wallowing, identifying with the body, will perform puja, wave lights and bring their palms together in salutation before the idol of the god with much longing, but they will not enquire whether the true God is the worshipper or the idol.

Question: Is it not necessary to go and see the car festival?
Answer: No. The one who sees the car festival should be seen.

They will go, see, and salute the car on the auspicious day of the car festival. Alas! Leaving their Self, whom are they going to worship? The god seen in the car is not fullness. Does anyone not know this?

Question: If so, is yoga good?
Answer: For knowing consciousness it is not necessary.

They will practise the highly respected yoga, remaining in a corner and controlling their breath and speech. For seeing and abiding as supreme consciousness, why this sadhana? They are attempting to eat and live here for a long time by making the body strong.

Question: In that case, can sannyasa be good?
Answer: True bliss, which is present in those who renounce the ego, is not there in sannyasa. How, then, can it be good?

Without any difficulty they will take up a begging bowl in their hands; they will shave their heads and wear only a loincloth; and they will appear to be great ones. But will they also experience the bliss of sleeping without sleeping that is experienced by those who have renounced the ego.

Question: In that case, are scriptural study and spiritual practice not necessary?
Answer: To those who have seen the Self, which is their true import, they are not necessary.

To see one’s Self, what sastra is needed? What sadhana is necessary? Is not all this a mad game? Those who regard as real the illusion that has arisen – like the imaginary imp created to scare simple-minded people – will not see the Self.

Question: Is not sadhana necessary to know the Self?
Answer: What use is a sadhana that does not enable one to see the sadhaka?

The objects, which are seen to be many, such as male, female and neuter, and the seer who remains as one – all this is only the manifestation of the excellence of consciousness. Can they exist apart from consciousness? However much sadhana they practise, how will it be of use for those who do not know this clearly?

Question: Why do they suffer instead of enquiring and realising the Self?
Answer: They suffer because what they have known to be one by studying has not been experienced.

What does it matter [to the realised one] who lives and in what way? What does it matter [to the realised one] who goes where and in what manner? His solitary state is like that of a bat in its roost. He will be detached in every way and will sleep experiencing the blessed state that never leaves. Bliss is only for him.

Question: Is it not necessary to know the nature of God and creation?
Answer: Since Sivam is non-dual, it is not necessary.

They will say that Iswara is infinite and that jiva is finite. They will say that jiva is like the eye and that Iswara is like the sun. These two definitely cannot be non-dual. Pure consciousness, which is neither of these two, alone is Sivam.

Question: Then what is the way to attain Sivam?
Answer: The way to see one’s Self is by rejecting everything else as maya.

The inert semen became the foetus and then became alive by mixing with the conscious principle. It appears to be real. When this happens, he who contemplates his real nature, regarding all this as illusory, is Sivam.

Question: Will not those who know the past, present and future become Sivam?
Answer: Only those who have seen the Self, which is beyond time, are Sivam, not those who know the three periods of time.

The self-effulgent Self destroys both night and day, the two that determine yesterday, today and tomorrow. Hence, he alone is Sivam who has become the Self and who consequently worships the auspicious day that remains perpetually as the one unique day.

Question: If one renounces the jnana sastras, how can one attain the bliss of liberation?
Answer: Liberation is only delighting in the Self through tranquillity and without anxiety. When this is attained, what is the use of books?

One may know the jnana sastras, or take up good sannyasa, or attempt to experience mauna samadhi, but the indescribable delight of liberation is simply to become the Self, remaining free of all anxiety, experiencing bliss.

[Continued from verse 64.]

He may be endowed with learning, or established in great yoga, or his body and senses may be active, but he who does not merge with supreme grace will not know tranquillity and will not obtain the final reward, the bliss of liberation that never fails.

Question: If so, do they not have to experience even prarabdha?
Answer: If one remains without movement as the Self, like the column supporting the windmill, the prarabdha will exhaust itself.

You base, ignorant ones, wallowing in the three types of prarabdha. If you understand that those who accepted alms will now be donors, you can be like the column that supports the windmill.

[Bhagavan: Prarabdha [the actions the body has to perform in this life] is of three categories, iccha, anichha, and parechha [personally desired, without desire and due to others’ desire]. For him who has realised his Self, there is no iccha-prarabdha. The two others, anichha and parechha remain. Whatever he does is for others only. If there are things to be done by him for others, he does them but the results do not affect him. Whatever be the actions that such people do, there is no punya [merit] and no papa [sin] attached to them. (Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, 3rd June 1946, p. 65.)

The column that is necessary for the existence and operation of the windmill remains unaffected. Only the sails of the windmill move. Similarly, the Self is unaffected by prarabdha. Only the body is affected by it.]

Question: But will not this experience come to everyone?
Answer: If one becomes inward-turned instead of being externalised, this experience will come for everyone.

I declare: ‘If their minds are directed inward, attending to the light [the Self], and do not become outward-turned, all those upon this earth are capable of seeing the Self, just as I have seen my Self.’

Question: Don’t jnanis have to perform karma?
Answer: Since they have seen the truth of both action and the one who performs the action, they do not have to perform activities.

He who has clearly seen in his mind both the performer of actions and the actions themselves, who has thus redeemed himself and become the reality, will he perform, without fail in every birth, every action at the prescribed time?

[This is a rhetorical question for which the assumed answer is ‘no’.]

Question: Will the jnanis hate the karmis [the performers of activities] when they see them?
Answer: They will delight in seeing the karmis, in the same way that they witness conjuring tricks, but they will not hate them.

Seeing the deceitful ones who cannot see and enjoy reality as it is and who cannot melt by experiencing it, I rejoiced. However many illusory lotus flowers bloom, is there any anger on the part of the moon?

Question: How did this experience arise?
Answer: It was obtained providentially through the grace of the Guru.

Like a sweet mango fruit appearing under the thorny karuvelam tree, the divine lotus feet of the Guru – who has the power to bestow the grace to transform me into the reality that is sought by everyone, everywhere – came to me who was replete with evil, taking birth over and over again.

Question: Is getting this experience so difficult?
Answer: It is extremely difficult.

Where is my [state of] remaining as the ego? Where is my attachment? Where is my desire to rule heaven and earth? Siva! Siva! Where is the jnana Guru? Where is liberation? How can I express this?

[The wide disparity between his previous wretched state and the state of knowledge makes the author wonder at the greatness of the Guru’s grace that accomplished the transformation, and how little he deserved it.]

Question: What is the benefit of this experience?
Answer: It is obtaining the Self that is beyond the mind.

I did not obtain anything other than my Self. I had my Self in my possession all the time. Separate from me, there is no bondage or release. If one sees [this], even the mind that enquires into these is non-existent.

Question: As soon as one obtains this experience, who should be worshipped?
Answer: The Guru, one’s own Self and the body should be worshipped, seeing them as the reality.

I will worship as my own Self the gracious Guru who showed everything to be like a conjuror’s trick, or the Self that is realised after thus scrutinising everything, or the body-temple that came [into being] to terminate the evil of birth.

Question: How to get rid of the vasana of the gross body?
Answer: It should be rejected by seeing it as the form of food.

You body who remain as the sheath of food! If you do as I tell you, you will experience bliss as long as you live. I swear to this. Do not go near evil and useless vasanas. Whatever comes according to prarabdha, remain a mere witness.

Question: How to remove [or be rid of] the senses of perception?
Answer: They should be removed by seeing them as the Self.

O senses! You cherished and nourished me all these years. Now I have become blissful consciousness. Even you, who [appear to] become different from me, I have come to know as my Self. Henceforth, remain one with me, without becoming divergent.

Question: How to be rid of desires?
Answer: Through desire for realisation of the truth.

O desire! Though I suffered much through you, on account of your help I dwelt in the Self. I reached the Sadguru through you. In liberation I have, along with you, become the Self. I swear to this.

Question: How to destroy anger?
Answer: Through tranquillity.

O anger! Through you I rid myself of my deficiency. Because of the weariness experienced by your rising that invariably produced misery, I rid myself of this danger and dwelt in supreme tranquillity. Even in dream, do not rise up in lamentation, but remain calm.

Question: How to get rid of avarice?
Answer: By abiding peacefully in the Self.

O avarice! I took you as my relation. Those who do not know the truth say that your form is only sin. You will exert yourself hard merely to accumulate. O sinner! Because of you I am now possessed by peace.

Question: How to dissolve the mind?
Answer: It should be dissolved in the Self, which is its basis.

O mind! I myself am you. You yourself are me. Despite being so, deceitfully you forgot me. That I am surrendered to you is also true. But do not remain different from me, the reality.

[The same answer continues in verses 80, 81 and 82.]

My mind! You roamed about, laboured hard and learned many arts, seeking a way to make a living. You sought and gave me a Sadguru. To you who were so considerate to me, what help did I render in return?

O mind! Just as I once remained, assuming your form, now you have come and merged with me as my own form. Is there anyone like you who values the virtue of gratitude? Dwell henceforth in the loving care of the supreme state, without returning to your prior form.

O mind! You remained, right from the beginning, without renouncing love towards me. Through that love you gave me the benefit of cultivating all the virtues of a devotee, beginning with forbearance. You removed desire and its progeny. Now, like me, you remain still through good and proper discernment.

Question: Will the mind subside through the above means?
Answer: If it is firmly established in the experience of the Self, it will then shine as consciousness and remain still.

As my mind roamed about, I too was similar to it, thus allowing myself to remain in an unquiet state. With my mind remaining still and motionless, I too remained similar to it, shining and dwelling like gold.

Question: Are there no likes and dislikes in this experience?

Answer: Since everything is experienced as the Self, these do not exist.

Whatever is to come, let it come. Whatever is to leave, let it leave. I will not reject even a life of living on alms as defective. Neither do I desire even the state of Brahma. I became all actions.

Question: Will he worship God?
Answer: He has no worship other than the worship of seeing everything as his own Self.

What I extol everywhere is only my Self. What I worship everywhere as God – that too is only my Self. In all places, sitting, lying down and running are all performed only in my Self. I myself am the enjoyer and that which is enjoyed.

Question: Is this the experience of all jnanis?
Answer: There is no experience other than this experience of the Self.

He who has attained liberation will see, as not different from his Self, all this world that rises in the Self, which remains in the Self, and which merges in the Self. Will he see it as opposed to his Self?

Question: Will likes and dislikes arise in him?
Answer: As everything has become his Self, they will not arise in him.

For what will he desire? For what will he rise as ‘I’? For what will he experience envy and malice? He will dwell as the unmoving support for everything, as the sum of all things animate and inanimate, like the great Meru mountain that is the axis for the seven worlds.

Question: Will not this experience cease?
Answer: Even if the creations of Iswara falter, this experience will not cease.

Even if the cardinal points change, even if the moon emits heat, fire becomes cold, or the sun travels north to south, the Self-state of the liberated one who has enquired thoroughly into the primal state will not cease.

Question: How to determine those with such experience?
Answer: They remain unruffled in joy and misery. They should be known by taking this as the hallmark.

Only he is a jnani whose mind does not get agitated, who does not identify with and desire objects before him, and whose state of purity never wavers whether he lives on alms in poverty or enjoys the illusory state of being Brahma.

Question: Will they not care for praise and slander?
Answer: No, they will not.

Some may utter praises and worship, or evil and cruel ones may utter words of slander and insult, but the jnani’s mind will not associate with them. He will remain without thoughts, like the sky that remains the same whether the sun rises or a vast collection of clouds appear.

Question: What is food for the jnani?
Answer: Whatever happens to come to him is food for him.

Whatever experiences present themselves to him, and in whatever measure, he will undergo those experiences. Like the sun that spreads its rays, he will remain free of bondage in the unique and natural state.

Question: Will not the ego-nature, beginning with desire, touch these jnanis?
Answer: As they have attained total destruction of vasanas, it will not.

Desire, anger and so on will not touch the liberated one – who has become the form of consciousness and the witness of the world – since he has uprooted and destroyed all the base vasanas, and is therefore without sankalpas.

Question: Do they not need to stay in a holy place, or take baths in holy waters, and so on?
Answer: The place where they reside is the holy place. Their look is holy water.

The place where the unique jivanmukta – who exists everywhere equally – resides is itself the holy place. His look itself is holy water. The service to his lotus feet is itself liberation.

Question: What are the eternal attributes of a jnani?
Answer: They are soft words, and so on.

They are soft-spoken; their look is free of desire; they experience everything to be sat alone; they have a measured gait, and their mind is filled with a joy that never diminishes. The characteristic of a jnani is to be ever firm in these.

Question: What does the jnani think?
Answer: There are only thoughts that everything is the Self.

The jivanmukta is he who has become one [with the reality] through the experience ‘I have seen myself everywhere; I have seen everything in me’; who possesses intensely and clearly the experience of having learned ‘unlearning’, and who has renounced everything.

Question: What is proper conduct and what is prohibited conduct for jnanis?
Answer: Actions they undertake are proper conduct; actions they abandon are prohibited actions.

The jnani has become one, tranquil and blemishless. Everything, beginning with space [and including the other elements] is his own form. The actions he abandons are prohibited actions, and the actions he takes up are proper actions.

Question: What are the disciplines and pujas for the jnani?
Answer: They are meditating on the Self, and so on.

Meditating on consciousness is bathing for a jnani. Whatever external appearances he delights in, that is noble discipline. Whatever he obtains as alms and eats without ego, that is his supreme puja. His faultless movements are pure samadhi.

Question: The actions that should be performed, and the actions that should be avoided: are these not necessary for jnanis?
Answer: As they remain as Sivam, they do not exist for them.

To the jnani who has become Sivam, having seen all the universe as his Self and as the form of consciousness, for him, what is there that should be sifted and rejected, and what is there that should be accepted as proper?

Question: What is the state attained by those who criticise the conduct of jnanis?
Answer: It is the hell of transmigration.

Know that those cruel ones, who view as faulty the life of the jnani who has attained supreme bliss, will experience crore upon crore of births like the silkworm that never gets detached from its cocoon.

100

Question: What is the benefit obtained by those who worship them?
Answer: It is becoming the non-dual Self.

Those who are able to obtain the grace of the jnani – who remains as the eternal, formless, blemishless, blissful and pure non-dual reality, and for whom everything is his own Self – will become jnanis.

101

Question: How will the jnani shine?
Answer: He will shine as everything and as different from everything.

They have rid themselves of the blemish of the mind; they have rid themselves of the mind; they have rid themselves of the entity within the mind; they have transcended the shore of jnana; they have rid themselves of the blissful state of consciousness, the supreme; they have rid themselves of the experience of Sivam. They have also rid themselves of all concepts.

The Benefit of Studying this Work

102

Those who are able to enjoy through their two ears the savour of Sorupa Saram, which describes the experience attained at the proper stage of ripeness, will be able to see the entire world as their own Self.

Tattuvaraya: Amrita Saram

2011-05-20T08:34:00.002+05:30

This installment in the series on Tattuvaraya and Sorupananda comprises a sample of verses from a vedantic work by Tattuvaraya entitled Amrita Saram (The Essence of Nectar). The work (over 280 verses) is too long to include in full, but I think the selection we have chosen is representative of Tattuvaraya’s basic message. Many common vedantic images and ideas are there, but once in a while Tattuvaraya comes up with some quite novel ideas and interpretations.

All the translations are by T. V. Venkatasubramanian, Robert Butler and myself.

1 Reverence to the Lord

To those who possess the eye of jnana, Sorupan, the reality, is the effulgence of jnana-ananda. But to those who possess only the physical eye, he [that reality] is the world. His golden feet which are unattainable even by the gods in heaven are, on this day, easy for me to attain.

In the first verse Tattuvaraya salutes his Guru, Sorupananda, equating him with the bliss of jnana.

5 The greatness of the jnani’s words

What does it matter to what caste they [jnanis] belong? What does it matter which religion they belong to? What does it matter which type of verses they have sung? Only the words of those who have renounced the mind are pure words. All the rest lead only to rebirth.

6 Name of the work

A whole lifetime will not suffice for anyone to comprehend clearly the truth through studying the Vedas and Agamas. By studying this work [though], the heart will abide in the ocean of amrita [nectar]. It is therefore given the name Amrita Saram [The Essence of Nectar].

7 Expression of modesty

When formerly the three gods explained the import of the utterances of the Vedas, the world could not comprehend. Now, if I claim that I am going to declare this truth for the world to know, I will be like the firefly that says, ‘I will dispel and destroy the dense darkness that exists as high as heaven’.

8 Declaring the good [or beneficial] path

Knowing them to be transient, renounce the thought of life here and hereafter. Walk the path of virtue. Turn back the mind. Seek the Self-realised. Hasten to know the true nature of reality.

9 That which is rare

It is rare indeed to obtain a human birth. Even if one gets it, it is more rare to study the jnana scriptures. Rarer still is to become one who possesses renunciation. But rarer than that is to become one possessing knowledge of reality.

10 The characteristic of a jnani

The jnani knows that consciousness alone exists, and that there is nothing that is not consciousness. He knows consciousness entirely through consciousness. He is the Lord who exists without knowing or not knowing. He is indeed the Supreme Reality declared by the Vedas.

11 The jnani’s actions

For both the jnani and the ajnani external conduct in activities such as eating look identical. But the mind of jnani is quite different. Though the breast of a woman is the same for both her baby and her husband, their mental development [leads to] different [results].

Elsewhere in his writings Tattuvaraya expands on the idea in the last sentence by saying that when a lady’s breast is fondled by her baby it gives milk, but when it is fondled by her husband she feels intense joy, and she desires immediate union with him. For the ajnani actions are undertaken to yield sensory pleasures, but those same actions, if performed by a jnani, yield the bliss of the Self.

12 The jnani’s conduct

Will he think ‘This is good,’ or ‘This is bad’? Is not the entire world food for the jnani? Could there be any rule whereby a fire raging in the forest might discriminate between trees, thinking, ‘One good and another bad’?

13 Greatness of the jnani

Space is extremely vast, but the great maya that gave birth to it is mere clay in the hands of Iswara. If one ponders over it, there is no one greater than Siva, but the one who has contained Siva in his mind is greater than Siva Himself.

14 Greatness of service to the jnani

Whenever the powerful jnani asks God to manifest, God, eager to appear, will be waiting expectantly to serve him wherever he goes. Who indeed is there equal to those who serve the jnani?

15 Greatness of puja to the jnani

When the jnani eats, everyone in the universe has eaten. [Even] Brahma, Vishnu and Siva have eaten. He who worships a perfect jnani, regarding him as Sivam, has indeed feasted his eyes fully on the Supreme Being and worshipped Him.

16 Those who revile the jnani

Those who revile the powerful jnani, those who listen to it [the abuse], those who do not get angry hearing the abuse, those who permit the jnani to be abused, and those who do not leave the company of these four, thinking it best to keep away from them – these are the five deadly sinners.

17 Improper conduct

Those cruel hypocrites who have not removed the faults in their deluded minds, claiming, without having gained the true jnana born of yoga, that they are abiding as the one reality merely for the sake of food, will not attain liberation, and neither will those who hold them in their thoughts [their followers].

‘For the sake of food’ denotes any kind of material benefit that is gained from pretending to be enlightened.

20 The cause of the world

They will say ‘Atoms are the cause’; ‘Great maya is the cause’; ‘A combination of atoms is the cause’; ‘The five elements are the cause’; ‘The gunas are the cause.’ Let them say any cause to be the cause. Not asking ‘What is the cause of this world?’ is the real cause of the world.

21 Cause and effect are not different

Do not say that this impermanent world is apart from the eternal reality. Before becoming an ornament, when it is an ornament, and when the ornament is remelted and made again into a lump of gold, it is only gold.

22 Cause and effect are not different

The Lord is the underlying screen that is His one Self, which is the pure light of jnana ananda. On it He, the Self, traced, by means of Himself, the picture of the world of multiplicity, girt by the roaring ocean. He looked upon it and was well pleased.

25 The quality of all-pervasiveness

The Eternal One creates the 84 lakhs of different species and abides within them all, just as empty space enters into and occupies all the countless pots that have [ever] been made.

Some Hindu texts posit that there are 8.4 million (84 lakhs) of species in which one can incarnate.

26 Destruction

The body comprising the five elements will be destroyed in the elements. The five elements, beginning with space, will be destroyed in maya. Great maya, the darkness, in which multiplicity has ended, will be destroyed by the jnana that arises here [in this world], saturated with the light of being.

27 The cause of birth

Like the transparent, shining and colourless crystal which takes on the colour of the object that is adjacent to it, the knower [the crystal] becomes [i.e. takes on the appearance of] the adjacent objects [body and mind]. Since births come to an end when the knower knows his real nature, the fundamental cause of birth is ignorance of one’s real nature.

35 The base nature of the body

When their prana leaves men who are getting attached to land [wealth and women], they are given the name ‘corpse’ and removed for burial. In an instant worms come and infest this body. Is there in this body any place as tiny as the tip of the sesame seed that remains free from fault.

37 The despicable nature of enjoyment

The asuna bird, the elephant, moth, fish and bee get ruined respectively by a craving for sounds, touch, sight, taste and smell. How disgusting! Won’t humans, possessed by worries, lose their power through their appetite for not one, but all these five cravings, beginning with sound.

41 The base nature of swarga [heavenly worlds]

[Lying with celestial damsels is] lying with prostitutes. Drinking ambrosia is nothing but getting drunk on intoxicating liquor. When in one day of Brahma crores of devas are born and die, what is the glory that those who rule the deva world attain?

42 Impermanence

There is not a single thing that remains permanently in this world. This is what all the three gods declared. This is also the doctrine of those other religions that war with each other. Therefore, only impermanence is permanent.

44 Renunciation

Those who want to bring to an end this birth in which one is caught in ignorance should realise that even the body is superfluous, and renounce completely. For those who do not, it is not easy to attain liberation, which is freedom from taking birth and dying.

The verse includes an indirect reference to Tirukkural 345: ‘For those who seek an end to birth, the body itself is a superfluous burden. What then can we say of other forms of attachment?’

80 The argument that prarabdha is supreme

If the body is a result of karma, then it would mean that the body existed before to perform the karma. If karma is eternal, then liberation will never be attained. The fundamental cause of prarabdha is ignorance.

82 Taking kaya kalpas

We have not known anyone who lived for ever in this sea-girt world through kaya kalpa medicines. Why are you afflicting yourself, strengthening the body, which is as unstable as a water bubble, and which causes ruination to one and all?

Kaya kalpas are medicines that aim prolong the human lifespan or produce physical immortality.

83 Caste

Freedom from the primal ignorance is the caste of the rare tapasvins. Will they make even the slightest mention of differences in caste? Only those who possess jnana belong to the noble caste and lineage, and deserve to be worshipped. The rest are low-caste people.

84 Bathing in holy water

Will the defilement of a mind that is not established in dharma be cleansed through water that is external [to itself]? The holy rivers are for the body only. Otherwise they are powerless. For the mind to become cleansed of defilement and to shine, the holy water one bathes in is consciousness.

85 Puja

Those lacking wisdom and thirsting for bliss, while standing in the flood of endless supreme bliss that abides in the heart, will bathe in water, collect water for abhishekam, gather flowers, cleanse the precincts with cow-dung, and eventually perform puja.

86 Knowing the many paths

You who are a tapasvin seeking the truth! Let all the many paths declare ‘This alone is the way! This alone is the way!’ What is the path through which the consciousness that knows all these paths can be known? That path, which is declared by the Vedas, is the way of liberation.

87 Learning sastras

Those who have failed to grasp the true import of the holy scriptures they read and have therefore not come to know consciousness as it really is will not go anywhere near the truth, even if they read crores and crores of scriptures.

88 Attempting to know by measurement

It is through consciousness that all measures have to be known. He who desires to know consciousness through measures, all of which have to be known through consciousness, is like one who wants to burn fire with firewood.

89 Disputation

In the way of disputation, when one wins, pride greatly swells. When one loses, sorrow waxes a lot. [The conclusions of] disputation are not something that remain permanent. The only benefit is tearing one’s head off and getting a sore throat.

92 The noble way

If the truth is known clearly, then that path which remains without conflict with any other path will be the path of becoming sat. If there is God’s grace, it is easy to attain. In the absence of God’s grace, it will be difficult for everyone.

95 Sathya [truthfulness]

If you ask ‘What is the practice of truthfulness?’ then they say it is to utter that which does not cause harm to any being. But those who have realised the truth declared at the end of the Vedas, which speak a lot about purity, say that truth [sathya] is only the Supreme, the Imperishable One.

The first sentence refers to Tirukkural 291: ‘If you ask, “What is truth?”, it is to utter words that are entirely free of any harmful effect.’

Yamas and niyamas are codes of conduct for dealing with people and the world. In this selection verses 95-100 explain the inner significance of some of the yamas.

96 Ahimsa [non-violence]

Ahimsa is not to inflict suffering on any living being. The Self-realised know that realising that the Self is not destroyed by weapons, wind, water, fire, etc. is ahimsa to oneself.

97 Asteya [non-stealing]

They say that to steal a thing either through force or deceit is theft. But if we are to declare the doctrine of jnanis, stealing is to regard the body, which does not belong to one, as ‘I’ and ‘mine’.

98 Brahmacharya

Brahmacharya is to avoid the company of women, but those who truly possess brahmacharya are the ones who have become one with Brahman, which is extremely difficult to attain.

99 Arjava [honesty], dhriti [steadfastness] and daya [compassion]

Arjava [honesty] is to view completely as one mother, father, son, daughter, wife, and evil enemies. Dhriti [steadfastness] is conviction in the way of the Vedas. Daya [compassion] is to have love like a mother [towards her children].

100 Kshama [patience]

If you want to conquer those who have done evil to you, always bear with them patiently without entertaining hatred. If you have to entertain hatred [towards something], kill that one thing ‘anger’. He who can do it will be freed from all dangers.

103 Tapas

Tapas is curtailing one’s food through vows and tormenting the body. But the tapas to end births is enquiring ‘Who am I?’ ‘Through what did I get this birth?’ ‘What is the nature of liberation in which one becomes Sivam?’

Verses 103 and 104 elaborate on two of the ten niyamas.

104 Santosham [contentment]

Contentment is to be satisfied by acceptance of whatever one gets. But the Vedas’ words say that contentment is the happiness of experiencing truly the Supreme in the heart, forsaking all the states that are spoken of, beginning with Brahma Loka.

117 Ridiculing siddhis

There will be trouble for those who contemplate the wealth of siddhis, beginning with anima. Without realising that ashtanga yoga is a step towards attaining jnana, they are crazy, like those who lift an iron wall, using [flimsy] sugarcane as a lever, and willingly gather bran.

Anima, the first of the eight listed siddhis, is the ability to shrink oneself to a minute form.

Bran is the skin of the rice seed that is removed during milling. The combination of the two images in the final sentences indicates that an immense amount of pointless activity is invested in gaining siddhis that ultimately have little or no use.

127 The six defects

Food and drink are the prana’s. Happiness and misery are for the mind. The trouble of growing old and dying are for the body. If one [knows the truth, one] knows these are not for the Self.

129 The three malas

The three defilements anava [ego], maya and karma, which remain closely merged with the jiva, not allowing the jiva to know his real nature, are like the tip [germ], bran and husk. These jointly constitute the seed of birth which gives rise to embodiment.

137 The three attachments

All relationships that arise constitute attachment to offspring. All the sankalpas constitute attachment to the world. All the sense objects enjoyed constitute attachment to wealth. These three attachments will leave if one sees the reality.

148 Tattvas

If one knows the truth of the indestructible reality, then the rest of the various tattvas cease to exist. Then why are these mentioned and discussed? If people with defective vision see the moon as many, does it become many for that reason? Is not the cool moon one only?

159 The mahavakya

In the three words ‘That you are’ ‘That’ refers to Brahman, ‘you’ refers to jiva, the word ‘are’ refers to the union of Brahman and jiva, achieved through casting off the limitation, the body.

165 The difference between the jiva and the Supreme

In the body there are two, a knower and a witness, known as jiva and Iswara. The differences that can be ascribed as base and excellent qualities exist through limitations, but their swarupa is identical.

The implication of the original Tamil, which is hard to convey in a literal translation, is that once the jiva comes into existence with a limited outlook, the opposite and complementary entity, Iswara, comes into existence with no limitation on it.

167 The Supreme

He is the cause of everything and the Lord of everything. He is the source, sustainer and destroyer of everything. He is none of these many things, but they cannot exist apart from him. He pervades within and without, and knows all.

168 Jiva and the supreme are not different

If the limitations are destroyed, the jiva and the supreme are identical. Their limitations of base and excellent are only an appearance. It is like seeing the space within a pot and unlimited space as different. But look, consciousness is one only.

169 Cause of maya

If one seeks to know the fundamental cause of maya, which is not known [directly], it will be impossible to know it through consciousness. If you can know and tell me the cause of darkness with the help of a lamp, then you can know the cause of ignorance through consciousness.

171 The world

This world, a delusory dream, consisting of infinite differences, is seen as different from oneself, and as if real [in the sleep of maya]. When the sleep of maya ends, how can this world, which is destroyed in jnana, come into existence? Can there be dreaming after one wakes up from sleep?

172 The world

Despite fire existing within wood, it rots on earth, becoming a prey to white ants. This is similar to what happens in the absence of the shining of the Self. Will the miseries arising from the world exist if the Self, which is jnana, shines through [the grace of the] Sadguru. If fire is generated in wood, can the wood exist?

The fire within the wood denotes the hidden power of the Self within each being. The ‘shining of the Self’, channelled through the form of the Sadguru, brings out the latent fire within the wood.

173 The primacy of jnana

If the three paths charya, kriya and yoga do not become steps towards jnana, then they will become inferior states of liberation and be destroyed. To merge with the liberation that destroys identification with the body, there is no way other than the eye of jnana.

The practices of charya, kriya and yoga are part of the Saiva Siddhanta tradition. Kriya is worshipping Siva inwardly and outwardly, charya is rendering service in a temple and worshipping there, and yoga denotes inward meditation on Siva.

174 The characteristic of jnana

Jnana is to know consciousness without the knowing that takes the form of knower, knowing and object of knowledge. This occurs when knowledge of the mind and the senses, which know though the various sense organs, have all subsided.

175 The greatness of jnana

The rare Vedas position karma, which tosses one about, at the bottom. But they wear jnana on their heads without any contradiction and confusion. Only they know the greatness of jnana. The rest do not.

176 Jnana puja

To bathe in the tears of bliss, to worship strewing beautiful flowers of love, offering oneself as consecrated food, to view all the chid and jada appearing before one as Sivam – this is the puja to Siva.

178 The power of jnana

Do all the innumerable punyas and papas that attach to one exist when the fire of jnana is kindled? Is there anything that remains unburnt along with ignorance? When a forest is caught in a fire, does any tender tree survive?

179 Slipping from yoga

If a jnana sadhaka happens to die midway [through his sadhana] without merging with the reality through yoga, he will not enter the evil worlds but will gain and experience all the fruits attained by those who have performed virtuous sacrifices. Thereafter, he will be born again and attain liberation through yoga.

181 The means for liberation

Karma performed without desiring its fruits, listening to [expositions of] jnana scriptures, shanti, and renunciation are the means to attain a Guru. He is the means to gain the hard-to-attain liberation.

182 The Guru’s characteristic

O Lord! I am not any of those things beginning with the body, which is a prison, and ending with mind. The Vedas declared ‘You are That!’ But if you ask, ‘What am I?’, the Guru will declare, ‘You are this. See!’

183 The greatness of the Guru

God remains in the heart concealing himself, but the Guru, dispelling ignorance, reveals God. Tell me, who is the liberal benefactor? Is it he who bears the formless form, or he who took the form of the Guru, so that that formless form might be seen?

184 Incompetent gurus

The office of guru performed by those who do not have knowledge of reality is like the following: achieving pregnancy though intercourse in a dream, trying to make a cloth from the hair of a sea-turtle, trying to light a fire with a firefly, trying to make a bow with the horn of a hare, and obtaining milk from a bull.

185 The mature disciple

He who has realised in his mind the impermanence of the body, he who feels like one caught in a raging fire, or like the frog in the mouth of an angry cobra – his heart is like the prey caught in the tiger’s clasp.

186 The immature disciple

They do not have tapas, purity, truth and compassion. They do not worship the feet of the Guru. They do not believe in reality. They are eager to make money. Their thoughts are on enjoyments. It is not proper to bestow grace on these.

187 The immature disciple

The teaching which for some leads to clear attainment will for some others lead to perverse understanding. Though pure water is all the same, when the cow consumes it, she yields milk, but when the cobra consumes it, it yields poison.