Who were you Ramana?

In one of the recent comments it was stated that Bhagavan was an avatar of Subrahmanya, the second son of Siva. This was a widely-held view in Bhagavan’s time, primarily because Ganapati Muni had confidently made this assertion in the eighteenth chapter of Sri Ramana Gita. Krishna Bhikshu, Bhagavan’s Telugu biographer, accepted this claim and devoted several pages of his book (Sri Ramana Leela, chapter 49) to a series of examples and arguments which he said demonstrated that the claim was a genuine one.

Ganapati Muni’s conviction that Bhagavan was an avatar of Subrahmanya arose from an incident that occurred in March 1908 when he was with Bhagavan at Pachiamman Koil, a temple of the outskirts of Tiruvannamalai. Early one morning he saw a bright light appear and touch Bhagavan’s forehead. The light enveloped Bhagavan, and within that glowing effulgence Ganapati Muni discerned six stars of different colours which eventually merged into a single light.

Subrahmanya was created from light that came out of Siva’s third eye. Siva gathered this light in his hands and passed it on to Vayu, the god of wind. The power of the light was too much for Vayu, so he gave it to Agni, the god of fire, who deposited it in the Ganges. Ganga, the goddess of the Ganges, was also unable to bear the power so she carried it to a small pond and left it there. In this pond the light transformed itself into six babies. Parvati subsequently joined the babies together in a form that had one trunk, twelve arms and six faces. This is Lord Shanmukha, ‘The Lord with Six Faces’. His name Skanda means ‘the joined one’, a reference to the way Parvati amalgamated his bodies. The six visible stars of the Pleiades are known as ‘Karthika’ in India; Karthikeyan is another of Subrahmanya’s names. When Ganapati Muni saw six stars merge into one in Ramana Maharshi’s form, he naturally came to the conclusion that Bhagavan was a manifestation or avatar of the God.

A few years before Seshadri Swami had also come to the conclusion that Bhagavan was Subrahmanya, although there appears to be no record of how he came to that conclusion. Seshadri Swami identified himself with Parvati, Siva’s consort and decided that Bhagavan was ‘her’ son, Subrahmanya.

Proponents of the avatar theory have drawn up long lists of facts and coincidences to demonstrate the validity of their belief. For example, Bhagavan’s occasional references to Arunachala as his ‘father’ are taken to be proof that he must be one of Siva’s sons. For those who are interested, there is a list in chapter 49 of Sri Ramana Leela, and an even more exhaustive compilation in an article by Ra Ganapati that appeared in a 1984 edition of The Mountain Path.

Since the original claim can be traced back to Ganapati Muni’s vision, I should like to make a few comments about the nature of jnanis and visions. Bhagavan appeared on several occasions to devotees in forms that they desired. He had the power both to grant visions (see, for example ‘Bhagavan gives Rama darshan’ by T. K. Sundaresa Iyer) and to manifest in a different form. The following story is narrated by K. Vithoba Kamath:

I used to sit in the hall in the last row. One day an idea flashed that I should see Lord Krishna. I intently looked at Bhagavan and saw a dark cloud engulfing him and within that emerged the Lord. I was at my wit’s end. I thought it was a hallucination and a projection of my own mind. I wanted to try again. This time I thought of Gandhiji. Ramana was nowhere, but in his place there was Gandhiji. Being bewildered, I looked at Bhagavan. There! He was looking straight at me with a benign smile on his face. I felt highly blessed. (Arunachala’s Ramana, Vol. V, pp. 114-123)

The desire for a vision does not need to be expressed. If there is a hidden desire for one, then that may be enough for Bhagavan to appear in a different form. I think the following comments by Papaji explain this quite well:

The enlightened man, the jnani, does not do anything. He just sits quietly, like a mountain. He does not respond to your requests by doing anything, but if you go near him with a desire in your mind, there will be an automatic response. If you throw a rubber ball at a wall, it will bounce back. The angle and speed of the ball off the wall will depend on the angle and speed at which you throw it. The wall does not have to decide how to respond to the incoming ball. When you go into the presence of a jnani with desires in your mind, the appropriate response comes back automatically. You don’t even have to talk about them. If your mind is in the presence of a jnani, it will be flinging its desires at the wall of his enlightenment, and that wall will give you back what you desire or need. But if you go into the presence of a jnani without any thoughts or desires, what will be reflected back will be the state of thoughtlessness and desirelessness. In his presence you will be established in that state. This is the sannidhi, the presence of the jnani, at work. You don’t need to ask for anything. Just go near him. (Nothing Ever Happened, volume three, pp. 335-6)

My feeling is that the vision which appeared to Ganapati Muni in 1908 was triggered by his latent desire to see Bhagavan in the form of a God. It was not in itself an indication that Bhagavan was an avatar of Subrahmanya.

What did Bhagavan himself make of these claims? To some extent he encouraged their persistence by neither denying nor confirming them. He seemed happy to have some of his devotees believe that he was Subrahmanya, if that was good for their level of devotion, but he never actually endorsed their belief. When he was living at Virupaksha Cave, he even composed a verse saying that he was Subrahmanya for the benefit of a devotee, Perumal Swami, who wanted to have a poem that expressed these sentiments. This incident resurfaced in the mid-1930s when Perumal Swami was suing the Ramanasramam management over the ownership of its properties. The following exchange was recorded:

Lawyer: People say that you are the incarnation of Lord Subramania.

Bhagavan: That and all gods are only me. [laughter]

Lawyer: Perumal Swami has written in his diary that you are an avatara of Lord Subramania. [The lawyer then showed Bhagavan a verse in Perumal Swami’s diary.] This verse says that you are Subramania. Is the handwriting yours?

Bhagavan: The handwriting is mine but the idea was Perumal Swami’s. (Living by the Words of Bhagavan, p. 138)

In the verse Bhagavan composed he clearly identifies himself with Subrahmanya, but one should remember that he wrote this poem to please Perumal Swami, not to confirm this particular identity. The verse says:

The six-faced Lord who came on earth borne by Mother Azhagu and Sundaram in Tiruchuzhi in order to remove the defects of his devotees by saying ‘Fear not!’, who bears the twelve hands in order to bestow his own state by destroying the karmas of those seeking refuge at his feet, who, having subdued the five senses rides upon the peacock of the elevated mind-lotus, and who plays the game of throwing the spear which is the glance of jnana, he is indeed the Lord who blissfully abides as Arunamalai-Ramana.

The translation is taken from The Mountain Path, 1984, page 94. The six-faced Lord is Subrahmanya; Azhagu and Sundaram are Bhagavan’s parents; Tiruchuzhi is Bhagavan’s birth place; the twelve hands, the spear and the peacock are iconographical features of Subrahmanya.

With Bhagavan showing a willingness to help devotees in this way, it is not surprising that the ‘Subrahmanya-avatar’ theory persists to this day.

Ganapati Muni did not stop at claiming that Bhagavan was Subrahmanya. He also maintained that Bhagavan was an incarnation of Jnanasambandhar, the Tamil poet saint who lived around the sixth century AD. In Sri Ramana Gita, chapter eighteen, verse nineteen, he wrote:

Again, this boundless genius [Bhagavan] is another advent of the Master-poet, the twice born Tamil child [Jnanasambandhar] who, drinking in the breast-milk of the Mother of the Universe, sang in dancing tunes the praises of Siva.

Bhagavan narrated the story of Jnanasambandhar ‘drinking in the breast-milk of the Mother of the Universe’ in Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, Letter 85, 30th January, 1947. The translation of the interpolated verse is by T. V. Venkatasubramanian, Robert Butler and myself:

Sambandha was born in an orthodox Brahmin family in the town of Sirkali, to Sivapada Hridayar and his wife Bhagawatiyar The parents named him Aludaya Pillayar. One day, when the boy was three years old, the father took him to Thiruttoni Appar Koil. While immersed in the tank for a bath, he began repeating the aghamarshana mantram. When the child could not see the father in the tank, it looked around with fear and grief. There was no trace of the father. It could not contain its grief and so wept aloud looking at the temple chariot saying, ‘Father! Mother!’ Parvati and Lord Siva appeared in the sky, seated on the sacred Bull and gave darshan to that little child. Siva directed Parvati to give the boy a golden cupful of her breast milk, the milk containing Siva Jnana [Knowledge of Siva]. She did accordingly. The boy drank the milk and became free from sorrow, and the divine couple disappeared.

Having drunk the milk of jnana, and feeling quite satisfied and happy, Sambandha sat on the tank bund with milk dribbling from the corners of his mouth. When the father came out from his bath, he saw the boy’s condition and angrily asked, flourishing a cane, ‘Who gave you milk? Can you drink milk given by strangers? Tell me who that person is or I will beat you.’ Sambandha immediately replied by singing ten Tamil verses beginning with:

He has an ear-jewel in one ear.
He rides upon the bull.
The crescent moon, pure and white,
upon His crown He wears,
and His body with ashes
from the burning ground He smears.
He is the thief who stole my heart!
He dwells in Biramapuram,
whose glory is that He did here
once deign to grant His grace,
when lotus-dwelling Brahma
bowed down to Him in praise.
Verily, He it is that is our Lord!
(Tevaram 1.1.1)

It was clear from the verses, that the people who gave milk to the child were no other than Parvathi and Lord Siva. People gathered round. From that day onwards, the boy’s poetic flow began to run unimpeded.

There are interesting parallels between Bhagavan’s life and the life of Jnanasambandhar. They were both born on Ardha Darsanam; both attained jnana early in their lives; both came to Arunachala and saw it for the first time at the Arayanainallur temple; more remarkable still, both had a vision of light there.

Jnanasambandhar passed away at the age of sixteen, the age at which Bhagavan realised the Self. This led some devotees to conclude that ‘The sceptre of jnana that Jnanasambandhar wielded till his sixteenth year was taken over by Bhagavan, also in his sixteenth year’. (The Power of the Presence, part one, pp. 89-90)

Bhagavan had a very high regard for Jnanasambandhar, as the following remarks by Devaraja Mudaliar indicate:

Bhagavan used sometimes to refer to Tevarams also as occasion arose in the course of conversation. He had reverence for all the three Tevaram saints and admiration for their songs. And yet I have observed that Bhagavan considered Tirujnanasambandhar the most powerful manifestation of God’s grace amongst these three famous saints. He pointed out that Sambandhar frequently referred to Tiruvannamalai. He has also remarked more than once about Sambandhar, ‘See with what confidence and authority he says that those who sing his songs will be saved. Is he not God’s son?’ (My Recollections of Bhagavan Sri Ramana, pp. 53-4)

However, despite having a deep appreciation of his life and poetry, Bhagavan never gave the slightest hint that he had a past life connection with him. Jnanasambandhar himself never claimed that he was an avatar of Subrahmanya. That particular connection was made centuries later when Arunagirinathar, a Tamil Murugan bhakta who lived in Tiruvannamalai, mentioned in one of his poems that Jnanasambandhar was an incarnation of Subrahmanya. The idea has persisted among Subrahmanya devotees, but one should remember that it was not made by Jnanasambandhar or any of his contemporaries: the first mention of it is in a poem written about 800 years after he died.

There is one other life that Ganapati Muni attributes to Bhagavan: that of Kumarila Bhatta, a scholar who was a contemporary of Adi-Sankaracharya. The claim is recorded in Sri Ramana Gita, chapter eighteen, verse sixteen. Here is the verse followed by Kapali Sastri’s commentary on it:

He [Bhagavan] is a reincarnation of [Kumarila] Bhatta, praised by assemblies of scholars, the author of Tantra Vartika, elixir of the Vedas, brilliant with various ingenious ideas; in this birth, however, he elucidates the teachings of Vedanta alone.

Bhatta was the one who wrote the work famous as Tantra Vartika which served as the life breath of the Veda, making it resplendent with a variety of wonderful rational cogent arguments. By composing such a mature work serving as a crown to the science of Dharma Mimamsa, he disarmed and vanquished the Buddhists who were practising a religion founded outside the pale of the Veda. That is why the attribute ‘the life-breath of the Veda’ is employed to describe the work…

His [Kumarila Bhatta’s] work became virtually the life breath, the sustenance of the vedic religion. And so he has been applauded by the world of learned men. Ramana is He in another guise. Kumarila, a staunch believer in karma, was a Mimamsaka who broke to pieces other religions. On the other hand, the Maharshi is a jnanin, a person of knowledge getting the same relish in all religions. That is why it is said that his guise is one enquiring into the words of Vedanta. The purport is that Bhagavan Ramana is another form of Kumarila, now enquiring into the meaning of Vedanta. (Ramana Gita, tr. Sankaranarayanan, Sri Ramanasramam 1998 ed. p. 225)

Kumarila Bhatta was a scholar from Allahabad. Being a contemporary of Adi-sankaracharya, he lived somewhere around the eighth century. He composed Mimamsaslokavarttika, a major text of the Purva Mimamsa school; he was also an expert on sacrificial rites and laid great stress on the theory of karma. During his lifetime the vedic teachings on sacrifices and rituals were coming under increasing attack from Buddhist scholars. With a desire to refute their arguments, he pretended to be a Buddhist and enrolled at Nalanda University in order to equip himself to debate Buddhist scholars on the subject of rituals and ritual sacrifices. At the conclusion of his studies he challenged his Buddhist teacher to a debate on the vedic teachings. When his teacher ridiculed certain Hindu beliefs and expressed his opinion that the Vedas were not authoritative scriptures, Kumarila Bhatta burst into tears because he was unable to maintain his equanimity and his disguise while his beloved Vedas were being attacked. The teacher suspended the debate and demanded to know who he really was. When Kumarila Bhatta confessed, he was sentenced to death and an order was given to have him thrown off a cliff.

As he was about to be hurled to his death he called out, ‘If the Vedas are true, let me be saved!’

He survived the fall without sustaining any serious injury except that he was blinded in one eye by a stone. This was attributed to his doubting that the Vedas were true. Instead of saying ‘If the Vedas are true…’ he should have said ‘As the Vedas are true…’.

He escaped from the Buddhists, settled down in Allahabad and continued with his studies.

However, some time later, overcome with guilt that he had both deceived his Buddhist guru and expressed a slight doubt about the truthfulness of the Vedas, he decided to commit suicide as an act of atonement. His chosen method was self-immolation. He placed himself on top of a pile of paddy husk and was on the point of igniting it when Adi-sankaracharya appeared and asked him to debate his ideas. Kumarila Bhatta refused, saying that he had already taken the decision to give up his life to atone for his sins. Instead of debating with Adi-sankaracharya, Kumarila Bhatta recommended that he visit one of his own students, Mandana Mishra, and have the desired debate with him instead. Adi-sankaracharya took the advice, debated the student and defeated him, but before he went there he accepted Kumarila Bhatta’s final request that he chant the Taraka mantra as the flames consumed his body.

I have to confess that I find Kumarila Bhatta to be a very odd candidate for a previous life of Ramana Maharshi. I can understand how Ganapati Muni took Bhagavan to be an avatar of Subrahmanya after his 1908 vision. I can also understand why he also identified him with Jnanasambandhar because of the similarities in their lives and the belief, started by Arunagirinathar, that Jnanasambandhar was an incarnation of Subrahmanya. However, the assertion that he was also Kumarila Bhatta seems to have no published facts or evidence to support it. There is also a chronology problem. This is how Krishna Bhikshu explained the various births of Bhagavan:

As Kumarila he established the supremacy of the karma marga, as Jnanasambandhar, he brought bhakti marga close to the people, and as Ramana he showed that the purpose of life was to abide in the Self and to stay in the sahaja state by the jnana marga. Truly wonderful! (Sri Ramana Leela, p. 314)

The problem with this sequence is that Jnanasambandhar lived about two hundred years before Kumarila Bhatta, who was supposedly the first of the three human incarnations of Subrahmanya. Modern scholars have concluded that Adi-Sankaracharya lived around the eighth century. Some traditional scholars who base their conclusions on genealogies of the Sankaracharyas that have been preserved by the Sankaracharya maths have claimed that Adi-sankaracharya lived over a thousand years earlier, but this contention brings up some glaring anachronisms such as Adi-Sankaracharya commenting on texts that had not even been written when he was alive.

What did Bhagavan make of all this? This is what he had to say on the subject when he was asked in 1946:

Mr G. Subba Rao read from Ramana Lila that Sankaracharya had told one of his disciples that Bhagavan was the third avatar of Subrahmanya, the first one having been Kumarila Bhatta and the second Jnana Sambandhar, and asked Bhagavan to whom it was Sankaracharya said so. Bhagavan did not know. But he said that Sankaracharya must be the one before the last, i.e., the third back from the present one. Bhagavan also added, ‘That Sankaracharya came and met me at Skandasramam. He must have been repeating what he heard. It is only Naina [Ganapati Muni] that started it. None said so before.’ (Day by Day with Bhagavan, 1st February, 1946, afternoon)

The problem of the chronology of the various incarnations was also raised in a discussion that Suri Nagamma recorded:

On the 7th of this month [January 1947] Dr T. N. Krishnaswamy, a devotee of Bhagavan, celebrated the Jayanthi of Sri Ramana in Madras. It seems a Pandit mentioned in the course of his lecture on the occasion that there was a reference somewhere that Bhattapada [Kumarila Bhatta] would be born in Thiruchuli as Ramana.

While the devotees in the Asramam were searching for these references, Bhagavan himself said, ‘Nayana [Ganapati Muni] said that Skanda (Lord Subramanya) was born first as Bhattapada, then as Sambandha (Thirujnanasambandhar), and in the third birth as Ramana. The appellation, “dravida sisuhu” used by Sri Sankara in Soundarya Lahari refers to Sambandha, doesn’t it? Therefore Sambandha must have existed prior to Bhattapada who was a contemporary of Sankara. Nayana said that Sambandha was of a later date than Bhattapada. One is not consistent with the other; which of the above versions is the authority for the aforesaid lecturer’s statement is not yet known.’

Surprised at these words which were meant to throw everyone off his guard, I said, ‘Why so much discussion about it? We may ask Bhagavan himself. Doesn’t Bhagavan know who He is? Even if He does not tell us now, there is His own reply to the song asking, “Who is Ramana?” written by Amritanatha Yatindra while Bhagavan was dwelling on the Hill.’

Bhagavan replied, ‘Yes-yes!’ with the smile of approval on His face.’ He waited for a while, and then said, ‘Amritanatha is a peculiar person. He is very interested in all matters. When I was on the Hill he used to come now and then, and stay with me. One day I went somewhere. By the time I returned, he had composed a verse in Malayalam, asking “Who is Ramana?” left it there and went out. I wondered what was written on the paper, so I looked at it and found out. By the time he returned I [had] composed another verse in reply, in Malayalam, wrote it down below his verse and put the paper back. He liked to attribute supernatural powers to me. He did so when he wrote my biography in Malayalam. Nayana had it read out to him, and after hearing it, tore it off, saying, “Enough! Enough!” That was the reason for his posing this question also. He wanted to attribute some supernatural powers to me, as “Hari” or “Yathi” or “Vararuchi” or “Isa Guru”. I replied in the manner stated in the verse. What could they do? They could not answer. A Telugu translation of those verses is available, isn’t there?’

‘Yes, there is. Isn’t Bhagavan’s own version enough for us to establish that Bhagavan is Paramatma himself?’ I said.

Bhagavan smiled, and lapsed into mouna. (Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, 29th January 1947)

Amritanatha Yati posed the following question in a verse: ‘Who is this Ramana in the Arunachala cave, who is renowned as the treasure of compassion? Is he Hari [Vishnu] Sivaguru [Subrahmanya], Yativara [Siva] or Vararuchi [the principal scholar at the court of King Vikramaditya]? I am desirous of knowing the Guru’s mahima [greatness].’ This is Bhagavan’s reply, taken from Collected Works, page 142:

In the recesses of the lotus-shaped hearts of all, beginning with Vishnu, there shines as absolute consciousness the Paramatman, who is the same as Arunachala Ramana. When the mind melts with love of him and reaches the inmost recess of the Heart wherein he dwells as the beloved, the subtle eye of pure intellect opens and he reveals himself as pure consciousness.

It is clear from this reply and all the other recorded responses on the same topic that Bhagavan was not interested in endorsing any of the past-life suggestions that were made to him, nor was he willing to offer any alternatives. I am sure he knew who he was last time around, but he kept this knowledge to himself and never gave the slightest hint of who he might have been.

I once asked Papaji if he could recollect having any association with Bhagavan in an earlier life. I asked because Papaji sometimes spoke about a remarkable incident in which he saw all his past lives while he was sitting on the banks of the Ganga.

With all this past-life knowledge he surprised me by saying, ‘I must have had some connection with him. How else could I have gone to him and taken him as my Master? But I have no idea where and when that connection was.’

I also asked Saradamma once if Lakshmana Swamy had ever told her who Ramana Maharshi had been in his previous lives. She responded by giving a mischievous smile and putting her index finger to her lips. I took this to mean that it was a secret that neither she nor Lakshmana Swamy was willing to divulge. Lakshmana Swamy had had recollections of previous lives – one as a yogi, one as a raja and one as a Christian priest – but I never heard him speak of any incident that revealed a connection with Bhagavan.

I don’t find Ganapati Muni’s claims to be very plausible, and I have not an iota of reliable evidence to support any alternative claims. However, I won’t let that stop me from playing my own guessing game about whom Bhagavan might have been last time around. As I mentioned earlier, I believe that visions indicate the state of mind of the person who is seeing them and as such are not reliable indicators of who Bhagavan might have been. I would take a different approach and look at the samskaras that Bhagavan manifested and extrapolate them backwards to see what kind of person he was in his past life, and what interests he had.

The strongest and most obvious samskara was his love of Arunachala. In the first verse of Arunachala Ashtakam he wrote, ‘From knowledgeless early childhood Arunachala was shining in my mind as that which is most great’. That is to say, before he had the capacity even to think rationally, he instinctively knew that Arunachala represented or constituted the Supreme. Next, since he realised the Self with the minimum amount of effort and practice, that would indicate that he was a highly mature soul who had almost reached the goal of liberation in his previous birth. One other talent or interest is worth noting. He had an aptitude for Tamil literature while he was still a young boy. Though he never did much work at school, he was apparently correcting his Tamil literature teacher when he was only thirteen. These three characteristics – an immense love for Arunachala, spiritual maturity and a talent for Tamil poetry – would seem to me to indicate that Bhagavan had a recent life as an Arunachala saint who either appreciated Tamil poetry or who had a talent for composing it. And, it goes without saying, it has to be someone who died before Bhagavan was born.

Before I review the limited options on this I want to relate an interesting incident that took place a few years ago at Virupaksha Cave. A visitor who was meditating there went into a kind of trance and passed out for some time. When he came round, he said that he had had some kind of vision in which he had been taken back in time to the days when Virupaksha Devar was there, and he found himself sitting with the saint. He said that Ramana Maharshi was also there, and in that previous life both the man who had had the trance and Bhagavan seemed to be disciples of Virupaksha Devar. Now, as I have already mentioned, I don’t set much store by visions, but this is just the kind of life I would expect Bhagavan to have had. Virupaksha Devar and Guhai Namasivaya came from Karnataka together about 450 years ago on the instructions of their Guru. Little is known about Virupaksha Devar, but Guhai Namasivaya wrote thousands of Tamil venba verses that praised Arunachala. The venba metre was the one that Bhagavan most commonly used when he wrote Tamil verse. I would certainly list Guhai Namasivaya as a possible last-life candidate for Bhagavan, and I would not exclude Virupaksha Devar, even though he does not appear to have left any poetic record. The fact that Bhagavan was drawn to live in both Virupaksha Cave and Guhai Namasivaya Temple (which is where he composed Who am I?) might indicate that he had samskaras associated with both places. There is also the possibility that Bhagavan, as reported by the man who had the vision in the cave, was an unknown disciple of Virupaksha Devar.

There is one other candidate I would add to my list: Isanya Jnana Desikar. He was also a Tiruvannamalai saint who fell in love with Arunachala and wrote verses in praise of it. He was born in 1750 and passed away in 1829 in Tiruvannamalai. For those who are interested, the following two links are to articles on my site that give a lot more information about this saint’s life and poetry.

http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/garland1.shtml

http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/isdesikar.shtml

I think I would put him slightly ahead of all the other candidates I have offered so far because his poems contain not just praise of Arunachala but also teachings that are highly reminiscent of Bhagavan’s own. The references in his Garland of Hymns to Arunachala to ‘being still’ to ‘Who am I?’, and to ‘finding the source of the “I”’ are highly unusual in Saiva saints who normally focus on devotional pleas and sentiments.

As I have said before, I have not the slightest shred of evidence to back up my views on this subject, so please take what I have said as just a little entertaining speculation. I will conclude with a few of Isanya Jnana Desikar’s verses. All of them are addressing Arunachala. As you read them, ask yourself, ‘Who does this remind me of?’

11

O Supreme Bliss! Eternal Plenitude! Teacher of Nama Sivaya! You who cannot be approached by the Agamas, the Puranas, the Itihasas and the Vedas! Father! Eternal One! [Arunachaleswara!] the husband of Mother Unnamulai who resides in Arunai! Please instruct me about the supreme state: the single, infinite state that is full of silence, in which the flood of the unified taste of peace prevails, where the body and all enjoyments are blissfully forgotten, where true knowledge shines like the sun. This is the yogic state that is called ‘Being still’.

[Unnamulai is the local name for the consort of Siva in Tiruvannamalai. Arunai is an ancient name for Tiruvannamalai.]

12

Eternal One! Consort of Unnamulai residing in Arunai! Without knowing the Self, I played with the body through the senses, the breath and the mind. I thought that I was born and that I will die. I considered my parents, women, the world and all its enjoyments to be real. But then you possessed me and made me join the select band of your devotees. You made me realise the complete knowledge that has neither birth nor death and let me enjoy the simple essence of remaining as the Self. O Father, thank you so much!

16

Like the scent in a flower, like the taste in honey, blissfully you have entered into me. Self of all souls! Lord of the Red Hill! Immanently you pervade the whole world, manifesting as the sky, the wind, fire, water, earth, the moon, the sun and the individual soul. You are the soul, the ‘you’ and the ‘I’. Up till now I have considered the world, which is only a mirage-like appearance, to be real. Who am I? What is this body? What is it that speaks ‘I’? What are all these relationships that appear as ‘father’, ‘mother’, ‘women’? Tell me!

20

Self of all souls on earth, existing beyond the mind, you are the plenitude of bliss! Lord of the Red Hill! You have entered me! Standing as the light through which the eye sees, you show me your form. From you arise, in the ear, songs, melodies, poetry and other sounds. The taste of earth on the tongue, the scent of a flower in the nose, the wind in the ear, the bite of a mosquito on the skin – all proclaim and announce you. Since you make me feel everything, from where, then, arises the sense or feeling of ‘I’?

22

Lord of the Red Hill! As complete bliss you have become the Self of all souls and entered me. Will you please tell me how the following pairs came into existence: the beginning and the end, men and gods, the arts and the Vedas, mother and father? What is this strong, binding karma? What pleasures and pains does the body undergo in heaven and hell? And what is it that remains beyond all this as ‘I’? Is it fair for you, the omnipresent one, to fail me? You are the first, the head of all others, so please show me your grace.

82-85

It is sheer delight to speak of Lord Aruna, the Light who is both beginningless and endless, unbroken, infinite space. It is sheer delight to say that Lord Aruna, the Light, is the source giving light to the sun, the moon, and fire. At the moment when one realises the Self by diving within, you become the face on the mirror. O personification of grace! What else needs to be known other than You who are omnipresent and who possess all?

Jnansambandhar

In my last post I mentioned that in Bhagavan’s day the daily Tamil parayana consisted not just of Bhagavan’s works and songs in praise of him; it also included devotional Tamil poetry that Bhagavan had personally selected. The list included all the Arunachala Tevaram verses that were composed by Appar, Jnanasambandhar and Sundaramurti. I am going to post one of the Jnansambandhar poems on Arunachala today, but before I do I should like to give some background information on the author and the spiritual movement to which he belonged.

About 1,500 years ago there was a spiritual revolution in South India. This is how I described it in an article (‘Bhagavan, Manikkavachagar and the Tiruvachakam’) I posted on my site a few years ago:

In the seventh to ninth centuries AD there appeared in South India an upsurge of devotional fervour that completely transformed the religious inclinations and practices of the region. Vaishnava and Saiva bhaktas became infused with a religious spirit that emphasised ecstatic devotion to a personal deity rather than the more sober rites and rituals of vedic Brahmanism. It was both a populist Hindu revolt, since it expressed the people’s dissatisfaction with the hierarchies of caste, and a demonstration of contempt for the alien philosophies of Jainism and Buddhism, which had by then permeated large areas of South India.

The movement’s leaders were the various saints who toured the countryside singing songs in praise of their personal God. The language of these songs was deliberately simple, for they were intended to be sung by ordinary devotees, either alone or in groups. While it is true that the deities addressed were ones such as Vishnu and Siva, who were prominent components of the North Indian pantheon, the mode of expression and the philosophical content of the poems were unique, being an expression of the indigenous Tamil spirit and culture. This was the first of the great bhakti movements that were to invigorate the Hindu tradition throughout India in the succeeding centuries. It was so successful in transforming the hearts and minds of the South Indian population, one commentator (Hymns to the Dancing Siva, by Glen Yocum, 1982 ed., p. 40) has gone so far as to say that these poet-saints ‘sang Buddhism and Jainism out of South India’.

The Saiva revival of this era owed much to four poet-saints who are often collectively referred to as ‘the four’ (Nalvar). Appar, the first to emerge, flourished from the end of the sixth century until the middle of the seventh. Jnanasambandhar, the next to appear, was a younger contemporary of his. They were followed by Sundaramurti (end of the seventh century until the beginning of the eighth) and Manikkavachagar, whom most people believe lived in the ninth century.

The spontaneous songs of these early Saiva saints were eventually collected and recorded in a series of books called the Tirumurais. The first seven (there are twelve in all) are devoted exclusively to the songs of Jnanasambandhar, Appar, and Sundaramurti, which are known as the Tevarams, while the eighth contains Manikkavachagar’s two extant works. These twelve Tirumurais, along with the later Meykanda Sastras, became the canonical works of the southern Saiva branch of Hinduism. This system of beliefs and practices is still the most prevalent form of religion in Tamil Nadu.

Jnanasambandhar and Appar both visited Arunachala, and both wrote poems in praise of it while they were here.

Jnanasambandhar was a child prodigy who obtained Siva’s grace in full measure while he was a three-year-old child. This is how Bhagavan described Janansambandhar’s pivotal encounter with Siva in Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, 30th January 1947:

[Jnana]Sambandha was born in an orthodox Brahmin family in the town of Sirkali, to Sivapada Hridayar and his wife Bhagawatiyar The parents named him Aludaya Pillayar. One day, when the boy was three years old, the father took him to Thiruttoni Appar Koil. While immersed in the tank for a bath, he began repeating the aghamarshana mantram. When the child could not see the father in the tank, it looked around with fear and grief. There was no trace of the father. It could not contain its grief and so wept aloud looking at the temple chariot saying, ‘Father! Mother!’ Parvati and Lord Siva appeared in the sky, seated on the sacred Bull and gave darshan to that little child. Siva directed Parvati to give the boy a golden cupful of her breast milk, the milk containing Siva Jnana [knowledge of Siva]. She did accordingly. The boy drank the milk and became free from sorrow, and the divine couple disappeared.

Having drunk the milk of jnana, and feeling quite satisfied and happy, Sambandha sat on the tank bund with milk dribbling from the corners of his mouth. When the father came out from his bath, he saw the boy’s condition and angrily asked, flourishing a cane, ‘Who gave you milk? Can you drink milk given by strangers? Tell me who that person is or I will beat you.’ Sambandha immediately replied by singing ten Tamil verses beginning with:

He has an ear-jewel in one ear.

He rides upon the bull.

The crescent moon, pure and white,

upon His crown He wears,

and His body with ashes

from the burning ground He smears.

He is the thief who stole my heart!

He dwells in Biramapuram,

whose glory is that He did there

once deign to grant His grace,

when lotus-dwelling Brahma

bowed down to Him in praise.

Verily, He it is that is our Lord!

(Tevaram 1, poem 1 verse 1)

It was clear from the verses that the people who gave milk to the child were no other than Parvathi and Lord Siva. People gathered round. From that day onwards, the boy’s poetic flow began to run unimpeded.

At three years old the boy had become an enlightened saint. In subsequent years he toured the Tamil region singing the praises of Siva wherever he went. Bhagavan has described how he acquired his name:

In this connection a devotee asked Bhagavan one day, ‘Sambandha’s original name was Aludaya Pillayar wasn’t it? When did he get the other name “Jnana Sambandhamurthy” and why?’ Bhagavan replied, ‘As soon as he drank the milk given by the Goddess, Jnana Sambandha [contact with knowledge], was established for him, and he got the name Jnana Sambandhamurthy Nayanar. That means, he became a jnani without the usual relationship of Guru and disciple. Hence, people all over the neighbourhood began to call him by that name from that day onwards. That is the reason.’ (Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, 1st February, 1947)

When Bhagavan lived on the hill many devotees believed that Bhagavan was a reincarnation or avatar of Jnansambandhar. In the following quotation Akhilandamma explains the reasoning behind this supposition:

It is well known that many of the devotees who had darshan of Bhagavan Sri Ramana during his early days at Arunachala adored him as Jnanasambandhar himself. That sage also attained Self-realisation in his youth. Those who ponder over the two lives will discover many other similarities between the two. Bhagavan himself frequently praised the jnana of Jnanasambandhar. The birthday of both of them is Ardha Darsanam, both were strongly drawn to Arunachala, and both reached it by the same route. On the way to Arunachala both halted at the Arayanainallur temple. The sceptre of jnana that Jnanasambandhar wielded till his sixteenth year was taken over by Bhagavan, also in his sixteenth year. The similarities between the two are very striking. Because of this, when the Guru puja of Jnanasambandhar was celebrated every year at Sri Ramanasramam, I always used to go there, have Bhagavan’s darshan and offer bhiksha. (The Power of the Presence, part one pp. 89-90)

The idea that Bhagavan was or had been Jnanasambandar originated with Ganapati Muni, who claimed, in chapter eighteen of Sri Ramana Gita, that Bhagavan had been, successively, Subrahmanya, the son of Siva, Kumarila Bhatta, a contemporary of Sankaracharya, and Jnanasambandhar. Bhagavan himself never confirmed any of this. In Day by Day with Bhagavan (1st February, 1946, afternoon) he noted that all these stories had originated with Ganapati Muni:

Mr. G. Subba Rao read from Ramana Lila [the Telugu biography of Bhagavan] that Sankaracharya had told one of his disciples that Bhagavan was the third avatar of Subrahmanya, the first one having been Kumarila Bhattar and the second Jnana Sambandhar, and asked Bhagavan to whom it was Sankaracharya said so, Bhagavan did not know. But he said that Sankaracharya must be the one before the last, i.e., the third back from the present one. Bhagavan also added, ‘That Sankaracharya came and met me at Skandasramam. He must have been repeating what he heard. It is only Naina [Ganapati Muni] that started it. None said so before.’

Krishna Bhikshu, the author of Sri Ramana Lila, kept the idea alive by devoting a whole chapter in his biography to this topic.

In Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, 1st February, 1947, Suri Nagamma asked Bhagavan about an incident in Jnanasambandhar’s life, and Bhagavan responded by telling the story of how Jnanasambandhar came to Arunachala:

I [Suri Nagamma] said, ‘Bhagavan too [as well as Jnanasambandhar] acquired knowledge, without the aid of a Guru in human form.’

‘Yes! yes! That is why Krishnayya [Krishna Bhikshu] brought out so many points of similarities between Sambandha and myself,’ said Bhagavan.

‘In Sri Ramana Lila it is stated, that while Sambandha was coming to Tiruvannamalai the forest tribes robbed him of his possessions. He was a man of wisdom and knowledge. What property had he?’ I asked.

‘Oh! that! He followed the path of devotion, didn’t he? Therefore he had golden bells and a pearl palanquin and other symbols of that nature according to the injunctions of Ishwara. He had also a Mutt (an establishment) and all that a Mutt requires,’ said Bhagavan.

‘Is that so? When did he get all those?’ I asked.

Bhagavan replied with a voice full of emotion, ‘From the time when he acquired the name of Jnana Sambandha, that is, even from his childhood, he used to sing with uninterrupted poetic flow and go on pilgrimage. He first visited a holy place called Thirukolakka, went into the temple there, sang verses in praise of the Lord, beating time with his little hands. God appreciated it and gave him a pair of golden bells for beating time. From that day onwards the golden bells were in his hands whatever he sang and wherever he went. Thereafter he visited Chidambaram and other holy places and then went to a pilgrim centre called Maranpadi. There were no trains in those days. The presiding deity in that place observed this little boy visiting holy places on foot. So His heart melted with pity, and He created a pearl palanquin, a pearl umbrella and other accompaniments bedecked with pearls suitable for sannyasis, left them in the temple, appeared to the Brahmin priests there and to Sambandha in their dreams and told the Brahmins, “Give them to Sambandha with proper honours,” and told Sambandha, “The Brahmins will give you all these: take them”. As they were gifts from Gods he could not refuse them. So Sambandha accepted with reverential salutations by doing pradakshina etc. and then got into the palanquin. From that time onwards, he used to go about in that palanquin wherever he went. Gradually some staff gathered around him and a Mutt was established. But whenever he approached a holy place, he used to alight from the palanquin as soon as he saw the gopura (tower) of the shrine and from there onwards, he travelled on foot until he entered the place. He came here on foot from Tirukoilur as the peak of Arunagiri [Arunachala] is visible from there.’

A Tamil devotee said that that visit was not clearly mentioned in Periapuranam to which Bhagavan replied as follows:

‘No. It is not in Periapuranam. But it is stated in Upamanyu’s Sivabhaktivilasam in Sanskrit. Sambandha worshipped Virateswara in Arakandanallur and won the god’s favour with his verses and then he worshipped Athulyanatheswara in the same way. From there he beheld the peak of Arunagiri and sang verses out of excess of joy and installed an image of Arunachaleswara in the same spot. While he was seated there on a mandapam, God Arunachaleswara appeared to him first in the shape of a Jyoti (light) and then in the shape of an old Brahmin. Sambandha did not know who that old Brahmin was. The Brahmin had in his hand a flower basket. Unaccountably, Sambandha’s mind was attracted towards that Brahmin like a magnet.

‘He at once asked him with folded hands, “Where do you come from?”

‘“I have just come from Arunachalam. My village is here, nearby,” replied the Brahmin.

‘Sambandha asked him in surprise, “Arunachala! But how long ago did you come here?”

‘The Brahmin replied indifferently, “How long ago? Daily I come here in the morning to gather flowers to make a garland for Lord Arunachala and return there by the afternoon.”

‘Sambandha was surprised and said, “Is that so? But they said it is very far from here?”

‘The old Brahmin said, “Who told you so? You can reach there in one stride. What is there great in it?”

‘Having heard that, Sambandha became anxious to visit Arunachala and asked, “If so, can I walk there?”

‘The old man replied, “Ah! If an aged man like myself goes there and comes here daily, can’t a youth like you do it? What are you saying?”

‘With great eagerness Sambandha asked, “Sir, if that is so, please take me also along with you,” and started at once with all his entourage.

‘The Brahmin was going in advance and the party was following behind. Suddenly the Brahmin disappeared. As the party was looking here and there, in confusion, a group of hunters surrounded them, and robbed them of the palanquin, umbrella, golden bells and all the pearls and other valuable articles, their provisions and even the clothes they were wearing. They were left with only their loin cloths. They did not know the way; it was very hot and there was no shelter, and all were hungry as it was time for taking food. What could they do?

‘Then Sambandha prayed to God. “Oh! Lord, why am I being tested like this? I don’t care what happens to me, but why should these followers of mine be put to this hard test?”

‘On hearing those prayers, God appeared in his real form and said, “My son, these hunters too are my Pramatha Ganas (personal attendants). They deprived you of all your possessions as it is best to proceed to the worship of Lord Arunachala without any show or pomp. All your belongings will be restored to you as soon as you reach there. It is noon time now. You may enjoy the feast and then proceed further.” So saying he disappeared.

‘At once, a big tent appeared on a level space nearby. Some Brahmins came out of the tent and invited Sambandha and his party to their tent, entertained them to a feast with delicious dishes of various kinds and with chandanam (sandal paste) and thambulam (betel leaves). Sambandha who was all along entertaining others, was himself entertained by the Lord Himself.

‘After they had rested for a while, one of the Brahmins in the tent got up and said, “Sir, shall we proceed to Arunagiri?”

‘Sambandha was extremely happy and accompanied the Brahmin along with his followers. But as soon as they set out on their journey, the tent together with the people in it disappeared. While Sambandha was feeling astonished at those strange happenings, the guide who had been leading them to Arunachala disappeared as soon as they arrived there. Suddenly, the tent along with the people in it and the hunters who had robbed them previously appeared from all sides and restored to Sambandha all his belongings which they had robbed previously, and vanished. With tears of joy, Sambandha praised the Lord for His great kindness, stayed there for some days, worshipped Him with flowers of verses and then proceeded on his journey. Out of His affection for Sambandha, who was serving Him with reverence, God Himself, it would appear, invited him to this hill.’

So saying, Bhagavan assumed silence, with his heart filled with devotion and with his voice trembling with emotion.

Finally, here, as promised, is one of the poems (Tirumurai 1, decad 10) that Jnansambandhar sang about Arunachala. It has been translated by T. V. Venkatasubramanian, Robert Butler and myself. The earlier verse (Tevaram 1.1.1), inserted in Bhagavan’s story of how Jnansambandhar became enlightened, is also one of our translations. We translated all the Tevaram verses about Arunachala a couple of years ago. I have been planning to use them in two long articles that will include all Bhagavan’s statements on the Tevaram writers and their works, but I put it off because I had too many other things to attend to. I hope to get back to it later this year. I have included a few explanatory notes in italics after some of the verses.

97

The karma of those who worship the One,

the mountain who dwells with Unnamulai

and who took on a woman’s form,

will unfailingly be destroyed.

He is Lord Annamalai,

where many mountain torrents resound,

like children’s prattle or muffled drums,

their water glistening with precious gems

that in profusion lie upon His slopes.

Unnamulai is the Tamil name for the consort of Siva in Tiruvannamalai. It can be translated as ‘she of the unsuckled breast’. Annamalai is the most common modern Tamil name for Arunachala. It means ‘unreachable’ or ‘unapproachable mountain’, a reference to the puranic story in which Vishnu and Brahma failed to find the end of the infinite column of light that Siva had manifested as to teach them a lesson in humility.

98

The karma of those who contemplate His roseate feet,

adorned by anklets with pendants

shaped like beautiful mango leaves,

will be no more.

He is Lord Annamalai,

where a male monkey plucks a sweet mango fruit

and the branch, as it springs back,

lashes the pure black rain clouds,

scattering a fine drizzle over the rocky landscape

so that the wild bulls and cows

seek the shelter of His wooded groves.

99

For those who worship the roseate feet

that destroyed the might of the Lord of Death,

there will be praise indeed!

He is Lord Annamalai,

whose broad slopes are covered by wooded groves

over which clouds laden with raindrops crawl,

where the fan-tailed peacock dwells with his mate,

and whose forest floor is liberally strewn with pearls

shed by the ripe bamboo.

In a well-known puranic incident Siva killed Yama, the god of death, with a single blow of his foot.

100

The home of the feet of Lord Siva,

girt with tinkling anklets,

is Annamalai itself.

He wanders the whole world with Brahma’s skull,

white and hairless, as a begging bowl,

eating only what is offered as alms,

and rides upon a bull,

His venerable russet locks crowned

by the young white crescent moon.

Originally Brahma hade five heads, but when he spoke disrespectfully to Siva, Siva removed one of them and used its skull as a begging bowl.

101

Is it fitting that He,

paying no heed to the serpent that creeps

and the Ganga that flows within His matted locks,

should hold in His embrace Uma,

she whose tresses are soft

and redolent of kuravam?

He is Lord Annamalai,

where, with a sound of drums,

white torrents roar,

sweeping along in their flood

white kadambu and cilai trees

and pearls and gems in profusion.

The commentators on this verse say that the ‘Is it fitting?’ query means that Siva should not be embracing Uma while the goddess Ganga and the snake are watching.

102

Those whose minds melt,

praising His holy feet,

where torrents rise in spate,

will not be touched

by the manifold afflictions.

He is Lord Annamalai

of the fragrant matted locks;

He who dared to drink the poison

from the milky ocean,

over which the crescent moon arose;

He who wears the holy ash,

and whose throat grew black

as He drank that poisonous draught.

As the devas and the asuras were churning to Ocean of Milk to obtain the nectar of immortality, one of the first things to emerge was some deadly poison. Siva drank it to save the world from its lethal effects, but it caused his throat to go blue (the verse says ‘black’). Neelakantha, ‘Blue-throated’, is one of the many names or epithets of Siva.

103

The home of the Lord is Annamalai

[where,] as swarms of buzzing insects sing,

He dwells with her whose eyes

are laced with fine red veins.

He dances upon the fires of the burning grounds

where black-footed ghouls tear out and eat

the entrails of corpses,

and where grinning white skulls roll about,

kicked by jackals as they play.

Having eyes ‘laced with fine red veins’ is a traditional way of describing a woman’s beauty in old Tamil poetry.

In some traditions Siva is depicted as an ‘outsider’, someone who is beyond the pale of normal civilised society. The ‘dweller in the cremation grounds’ is one such depiction. For some devotees Siva’s decision to live on the cremation ground symbolises his supremacy over the cycle of birth and death.

The Mahabharata (13.128.13-15) describes Siva’s cremation-ground abode in very similar terms: ‘covered with hair and bones, full of skulls and heads, thick with vultures and jackals, covered with a hundred funeral pyres, un unclean place covered with flesh, resounding with the cries of jackals.’

104

Annamalai is truly the home of Him

whose ways are a mystery to the world,

who crushed Ravana to a pulp,

who wears as His dress

a sleek and shiny tiger pelt,

who seized a rutting elephant by the head

when it frightened Uma with its trumpeting,

and, all in play, flayed it

till its flesh showed white.

‘crushed Ravana to a pulp’. Following his conquest of Lanka, Ravana encountered Lord Siva at his abode in Kailash. Ravana attempted to uproot and move the mountain. Siva, annoyed by Ravana's arrogance, pressed his little toe on Kailash, pinning him firmly and painfully. The earth is said to have quaked at Ravana's cry of pain when the mountain was pinned on him. The word Ravana means ‘[he] of the terrifying roar’. Siva eventually released him and Ravana later became his devotee.

‘wears as his dress a sleek and shiny tiger pelt’. This refers to an incident in the Tarakam forest where Siva confronted a group of rishis. The rishis were all following the ritualistic practices of Mimamsa. Siva went there, accompanied by Vishnu disguised as a beautiful woman, and Adiseshan, the snake. Siva initially caused the rishis to have a violent quarrel among themselves, but later their anger was directed against Siva, whom they attempted to destroy by means of magical incantations. They created a fierce tiger out of a sacrificial fire and made it attack Siva. Unperturbed and still smiling, he caught hold of it and with the nail of his little finger he stripped off its skin and wrapped it around himself like a silk cloth.

‘rutting elephant’. Gajasura was an elephant demon who had obtained a boon that made him virtually invincible. When he began misusing his powers, devotees called on Siva for help. In a violent battle Siva killed Gajasura by piercing his hide with his trident. As Siva held Gajasura aloft on the end of his trident, Gajasura sang Siva’s praises and asked for a boon. When Siva granted his wish, Gajasura requested that after his death Siva should wear his hide.

105

He is the Lord of Annamalai

who appeared as a column of fire,

infinite in length,

both to him of deathless fame,

the Lord of the Vedas

who dwells upon an upraised lotus blossom,

and to him whose body is dark like the ocean.

He is the slayer of the demon who masqueraded

as a fruiting wood-apple tree.

He is the consort of Uma,

She of the firm breasts and sweet smile.

His feet alone are our sanctuary.

The ninth verse of all Jnansambandhar’s poems always includes a reference to the column of fire that Siva manifested as, the column that he later condenses into the form of Arunachala. Since no other Siva story is mentioned in every one of his poems, this indicates the importance and centrality of the column of fire story to Saivas of this era. Brahma and Vishnu, who failed to find the ends of the column of fire, are respectively referred to here as ‘the Lord of the Vedas who dwells upon an upraised lotus blossom’, and ‘him whose body is dark like the ocean’.

106

Heed not the words of those mere novices

who stand sweating and soiled,

tormenting themselves in the midday sun,

or of those who hide their chest,

covering it with clothing of bark!

To take refuge at the anklet-girt feet of Lord Annamalai,

He who wields a keen and shining battle-axe,

is the only proper course.

The tenth verse of all Jnanasambandhar always contains rude and insulting remarks about either Jains or Buddhists or both. These were the competing religions of the era, and Jnanasambandhar makes a point of ridiculing them in every one of his poems.

107

It is tapas indeed to honour the feet

of those who are deeply versed in this Tamil hymn

by Jnanasambandhar of cool Sikazhi,

where kuyils sing,

hopping from branch to branch.

It was sung in praise of Annamalai,

He who shot an arrow

that destroyed the three fortress cities,

and upon whose broad slopes

the sun shrinks from shining

his bright hot rays.

When, during a long war between the deva and asura realms, it looked as if the devas were about to lose, the devas appealed to Siva for help. The three cities of the asuras were protected by a boon that said they could only be destroyed if all three of them could be shot with a single arrow. Siva manifested and accomplished this feat. The destruction of the three cities with a single arrow is often used as a metaphor for the way Siva, through his power and grace, can destroy the triputis (knower, knowing and known and seer, seeing and seen) or the three states of waking, dreaming and sleep.

In Arunachala Puranam (‘Aaditi Aarukam’) there is an incident in which the sun god Surya rides over Arunachala, thinking it to be an ordinary mountain. There is a great explosion on top of the hill that causes Surya to lose the power to emanate rays of sunshine. Brahma, who was doing pradakshina of Arunachala at the time, advised Surya to do the same in order to propitiate Siva. When Surya followed the advice, Siva appeared to him, mounted on a bull, and restored his power.