Guhai Namasivaya-publicdomain

8/8/2019 Guhai Namasivaya-publicdomain

1/31

Guhai Namasivaya

(First published in The Mountain Path, 1990, pp. 115-23)

Visitors to Virupaksha Cave, the place where Ramana Maharishi spent about fifteen years of hislife, may have noticed a small walled compound a few hundred feet lower down the hill. This

compound, which one enters through a small gopuram on the eastern side, contains a cave that

was, several centuries ago, occupied for many years by a yogi called Guhai Namasivaya. Thecave and the few buildings that surround it now bear his name.

The gopuram over the entrance to the Guhai Namasivaya Temple

Guhai Namasivaya is known to have been born around the year AD 1548 in Karnataka to a

pious Saiva couple. According to his somewhat hagiographical biography, his spiritual naturebecame evident at an early age: he was virtuous in his conduct, adept at his studies and evinced

no attachment to worldly matters. Feeling a great longing to receive the grace of the Lord, he

embarked at an early age upon a search that led him to Sivananda Desikar, a famous Guru who

lived at Sri Sailam. He became a disciple of this Guru and began to serve him with fervent andselfless devotion.

Sivananda Desikar belonged to the Virasaiva sect. Since Guhai Namasivaya immersedhimself in this tradition for many years, a brief account of the beliefs and practices of this sect

will throw a little light on the kind of life he led as a young man.


2/31

The origin of Virasaivism, an offshoot of Saivism, can be traced back to the twelfth century.

Its philosophy has grown out of the twenty-eight SaivaAgamas and the writings of its earlyexponents. Virasaivas are also known as Lingayats on account of the immense importance they

attach to their conception of the term 'Linga'. For them,Linga is not merely a physical object, it

is synonymous with chaitanya, or consciousness, and can be taken to be Siva himself. In their

philosophy, the termLinga can be equated with the Parabrahman of the Upanishads, but it hasother connotations as well. It is the cosmic principle that is the source of the universe and, in its

physical form, it is the visible symbol of the consciousness that exists in all beings. In addition,

and this is particularly interesting in view of the years Guhai Namasivaya spent at Arunachala, itis often conceived of as a mass of light or a column of blazing fire. Worship of the Linga in all

its forms is central to Virasaivism.

The goal of Virasaivas is the attainment of oneness with Siva. To reach this exalted state,

Virasaivas believe that one must submit to and serve a Guru who has already attained that

oneness. Thus, in the Virasaiva tradition, the Guru is given immense importance, for it is healone who can initiate the disciple, purify him, and lead him to unity with Siva.

For a devout Virasaiva, the spiritual path begins when he approaches a competent Guru andasks him for initiation. Usually, the Guru will first test him for a year to see how serious his

spiritual inclinations are. When the Guru is satisfied that the disciple's desire is genuine, he

agrees to initiate him and accept him as a disciple. The initiation given by the Guru activates thepower ofLinga in the three bodies, the causal, the subtle and the gross, and removes some or all

of the taints or imperfections that reside in each of the three bodies. Virasaivas believe that these

taints, called mala, prevent the disciple from becoming established inLinga, the Supreme Siva-

consciousness.

In the initiation ceremony the Guru first places his right palm on the head of the disciple,

thereby awakening the supreme Self in the causal body in a form that is called Bhavalinga.Simultaneously, through his power, the Guru attempts to eliminate any impurities that dwell

there. Next, the Guru whispers the great mantra 'Nama Sivaya' in the right ear of the disciple. All

Saivas hold this to be the best and most potent mantra. The act of whispering establishes in thesubtle body a form or aspect of theLinga that is called Pranalinga. The power transmitted by

this mantra initiation also cleanses the subtle body and removes some of its imperfections. Then,

in what is perhaps the most significant part of the ritual, the disciple is given a physical Linga.Virasaivas believe theLinga is a great light in the innermost heart that can be brought out and

shaped into a physical form by the Guru. In the final part of the rite, the Guru draws out the

power ofLinga from the heart of the devotee, establishes it in a physical Linga, which is called

Ishtalinga, presents it to the disciple and commands him to worship it as if were Siva himself.The handing over of theIshtalinga removes the taints that are attached to the physical body.

The Guru then commands the devotee to wear theIshtalinga on his body at all times and toworship it three times a day. The Guru also tells him that the Linga must on no account be

separated from the body since such a separation is equivalent of spiritual death. In the Virasaiva

tradition, it is not permitted to worship Siva in any other form except that of the Istalinga or the

Linga installed over one's Guru's samadhi. Virasaivas are therefore forbidden from worshippingforms of Siva that have been installed in temples.


3/31

We can assume that Guhai Namasivaya underwent this initiation ceremony since it is a

compulsory rite of passage for all Virasaivas. He probably went through it quite early in his life,for it was not uncommon for eight-year-olds to be initiated in this way.

Sivananda Desikar, Guhai Namasivaya's Guru, was an adept in a Virasaiva yoga system

known as Siva Yoga. When Sivananada Desikar noticed what a mature disciple GuhaiNamasivaya was, he initiated him into its practices. From then on, Guhai Namasivaya alternated

his time between physical service to the Guru and the practice of Siva Yoga. In the course oftime he too became an accomplished Siva yogi.

Siva Yoga emphasises dharana, dhyana and samadhi, the last three stages of Patanjali's RajaYoga system, but it gives them a Virasaiva turn by emphasising meditation on the three Lingas

that the Guru has established in the three bodies. In the Siva Yoga system, worship of the

Ishtalinga, theLinga given by the Guru to the disciple, is called dharana, or uninterrupted

concentration; worship of the Pranalinga established in the subtle body is dhyana, or meditation;remembrance and awareness of theBhavalinga in the causal body is called samadhi. According

to Maggeya Mayideva, a Virasaiva saint, 'samadhi is the action which includes both radiantworship and meditation on one's ownLinga'.

The yoga practice is performed in the following way: 'SettingIshtalinga firmly in his left

palm, restraining the traffic of his other limbs, restraining the movement of breath through breathcontrol, orpranayama, controlling the modifications of the mind, focussing his physical eye on

Ishtalinga, his inner eye on Pranalinga and his intuitional eye onBhavalinga, being one with

Linga and unifying the tripleLinga into one - he lives his own Self.'(1)

The goal of the yoga is to find Siva in everything and to discover the fundamental root of that

immanent Siva manifestation in one's heart. Though Siva Yoga has a strong bhakti component, it

must not be forgotten that it is also a variety of Kundalini Yoga. The Siva yogis aim to makecontact with the power of the Lord. They believe that the contact finally takes place after the

prana, rising through the sushumna, has passed through all the six chakras and moved on to the

bramarandhra, located at the top of the head. Accomplished Siva yogis, at the time of theirdeath, voluntarily send all theirpranas out of their bodies through this brahmarandhra and

merge into the all-pervading consciousness of Siva.

Guhai Namasivaya practised this system of yoga for many years. When he had thoroughly

mastered it, Lord Mallikarjuna, the presiding deity of Sri Sailam, appeared to Guhai Namasivayain a dream and commanded him to go to Arunachala and remain there as a Guru, giving

teachings to mature disciples who approached him. When he related this dream to his Guru,

Sivananada Desikar gave him his blessings and told him to carry out the order. Shortly

afterwards, Guhai Namasivaya set out on horseback for Tiruvannamalai.

There is a tradition in Tiruvannamalai that Guhai Namasivaya was accompanied on his

journey by Virupaksha Deva, the man who gave his name to Virupaksha Cave. RamanaMaharishi occasionally told his devotees that the two of them were Virasaivas who came from

Karnataka to Tiruvannamalai at the same time. It is reported that both of them had served

Sivananada Desikar for twelve years. Almost nothing is known about the life of Virupaksha
http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref1http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref1http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref1http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref1


4/31

Deva except that he lived in Virupaksha Cave for a long time, and that when he died there his

body transformed itself into vibhuti (sacred ash). That vibhuti is still kept in the cave andpuja isdone to it every day.

On his journey to Tiruvannamalai Guhai Namasivaya came one evening to a village where a

wedding was in progress. The head of the house where the wedding was taking place greetedhim respectfully, invited him into the house, gave him the place of honour and performed puja to

him. At the conclusion of thepuja everyone present received some vibhuti from the hand ofGuhai Namasivaya. Shortly afterwards, the house was completely destroyed by a fire. Some

people, associating the fire with Guhai Namasivaya's visit, poured scorn on him by saying, 'The

ash given by this yogi has turned the house itself into ash'.

Guhai Namasivaya was deeply hurt by this taunt, not personally, but because of the ridicule to

which the Lord's vibhuti had been subjected. He therefore meditated on Siva and through his

grace was able to restore the house to its former unburnt state. Subsequently, those in the villagewho had formerly reviled him began to praise and worship him as if he were Siva himself. Guhai

Namasivaya, perturbed by all the fuss his visit had caused, then took a vow that wherever hewent in future, he would never again stay in any house.

On reaching Tiruvannamalai he stuck to his vow and lived in public halls, temple flower

gardens and occasionally in the surrounding forest. He devoted himself to the practice of SivaYoga and became so accomplished in it that he was able to spend long periods in samadhi,

immersed in his innerLinga. Each day he visited the entrance of the Arunachaleswara Temple

but went no further because, as a Virasaiva, he was prohibited from worshipping there. It seemsthat Guhai Namasivaya either had a desire to worship in the temple, or felt that he would benefit

by doing so, for each day he would gesture with his hands in the direction of the shrine and to

say to himself, 'Are you well without worshipping him?'

There was a sadhu called Sivakkira Yogi who noticed that Guhai Namasivaya never went

through the temple entrance, but merely made strange gestures there. He interpreted this strange

behaviour as deliberate irreverence and decided to punish him by striking him on the back withhis cane. Guhai Namasivaya made no attempt to retaliate, nor did he even reproach his attacker.

He merely composed an extempore venba verse in Tamil to the effect that the Lord had struck

him in order to drive out his evil propensities. When Sivakkira Yogi saw Guhai Namasivayaresponding in such a humble way, he immediately realised that he had failed to recognise the

latter's greatness.

After this incident Guhai Namasivaya began to feel that it would be appropriate for him to

enter the temple and worship there. While he was contemplating this breach with tradition, his

Guru, Sivananda Desikar, unexpectedly appeared, surrounded by a retinue of his devotees. GuhaiNamasivaya greeted him with great love and devotion. In return, Sivananda Desikar spoke to

him in a friendly and intimate way. Then to Guhai Namsivaya's surprise, his Guru entered the

temple with his disciples, walked straight to the inner sanctum and began to worship Siva there.

Guhai Namasivaya, who had accompanied his Guru into the temple, followed his Guru'sexample. He threw himself full-length on the ground and, filled with ecstasy, mentally

worshipped the image of Siva that was enshrined there. When he stood up he could see no sign


5/31

either of his Guru or his fellow disciples, but when he looked at the Linga he had been

worshipping, he saw only the form of his Guru. Spontaneously, the following verse came to hislips:

Lord Arunagiri! Form of true knowledge! Guru to whom I call out 'Om Namasivaya!' Do not

scorn me as one who is devoid of Love for you, who is a liar and without self-respect, who ismentally immature and deficient in intelligence, but take me to yourself and be my Lord!(2)

Guhai Namasivaya, realising that the appearance of his Guru had been the play of the Lord,interpreted his vision to mean that he now had permission to enter the temple and worship there.

In Virasaivism, the authority of the Guru is paramount. If the Guru sanctions a practice, it

immediately becomes acceptable even if it contravenes traditional rules and regulations.

After this incident Guhai Namasivaya decided to take up residence in the entrance to the

temple. Each day he was there, he composed a verse in praise of Arunachala-Siva and put

together a flower garland. He would then offer both of them to the Linga of Lord Siva in theinner shrine. He described his actives in the following verse:

Many times have I wreathed him with flower garlands and adored him with song garlands. Mytongue has sung a thousand melodies in praise of him. To see him, the Lord Sonachala

[Arunachala], famed all over the earth, I, worthless as I am, need a thousand eyes. (3)

During this period of his life Guhai Namasivaya supported himself by begging for his food

and seemed quite content with his spartan existence: 'To beg for food and eat it, and to come here

and sleep at the sacred portals - this alone is my happiness.' (4)

After he had lived like this for some time, Lord Siva appeared in one of his dreams and

commanded him: 'Remain in a cave on the slopes of our mountain and carry on your yoga

practice there.'

Guhai Namasivaya accepted the order and moved into a cave on the lower slopes of theeastern side of the hill. He spent the remainder of his life in this cave and thus acquired the title'Guhai', which is the Tamil word for cave.

The mountain soon became the main focus of his sadhana. To understand how this came

about, it will be instructive to compare certain aspects of Virasaivism, particularly the teachings

on the nature ofLinga, with the spiritual traditions that are associated with Arunachala. The

Virasaivas conceive ofLinga, in its unmanifest form, as a blazing mass or column of light in the
http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref2http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref2http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref2http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref3http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref3http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref3http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref4http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref4http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref4http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref4http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref3http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref2


6/31

heart of each devotee. At the time of initiation, the Guru draws out this power, installs it in a

physical form, theIshtalinga, and instructs the disciple to worship it as if it were Siva himself. Inthe case of Arunachala, Siva initially appeared as a dazzling, limitless column of light and then

later transformed himself into the physicalLinga of Aruanchala. As Ramana Maharishi remarked

on several occasions, the hill is not the abode of Siva or a symbolic representation of him, it is,

like theIshtalinga of Virasaivas, Siva manifesting in aLinga-shaped form. This is what he had tosay to someone who enquired which portion of the hill was the holiest and most sacred:

The whole hill is sacred. It is Siva himself. Just as we identify ourselves with a body, so Siva haschosen to identify himself with the hill. Arunachala is pure wisdom in the form of a hill. It is out

of compassion for those who seek him that he has chosen to reveal himself in the form of a hill

visible to the eye.(5)

There is a tradition in Tiruvannamalai that theLingam in the Arunachaleswara Temple and

the mountainLingam of Arunachala are one and the same. Thus, when Sivananda Desikar

manifested and superimposed his image on the templeLingam, Guhai Namasivaya, who hadbeen worshipping that image, received the message that his Guru and Arunachala were identical.

This understanding is mentioned in the verse he immediately composed. Furthermore, realisingthat the vision had authorised him to regard Arunachala as his Guru, he began to worship the

Mountain as a GuruLinga. He described this new relationship and the effect it had on him in thefollowing verse:

Taking into my heart as my Guru the Red Mountain Lord [Arunachala], who now standsformless before me, I have put to flight the unutterable arrogance of my good and evil deeds, my

soul's indissoluble threefold impurity and my unparalleled accumulation of karma.(6)

In Virasaivism it is the Guru's job to cleanse the devotee of the threefold impurities that clingto the three bodies. This process would have been initiated by Guhai Namasivaya's human Guru,

but as the above verse clearly states, it was Arunachala-Siva who completed the job.

By channelling his devotional fervour towards the mountain, he was able to generate a levelof love that he had never experienced from worshipping his Ishtalinga and practising Siva

Yoga:

Except for the ineffable Lord Annamalai and His consort Unnamulai, who sits at his Lordship's

side, I have known no other gods. Or, if I have known them, I have never cherished them in my
http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref5http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref5http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref5http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref6http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref6http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref6http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref6http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref5


7/31

heart of heartsMonarch who dwells as the Red Mountain! When I lauded you as the SupremeOne, worshipping and praising you with melting heart, when I sought you with hands clasped

and with tears running down from my eyes, you granted me my boon, according to my desire. OKing of compassion! I find nothing which I can adequately offer in return.(7)

The boon he sought was nothing less than freedom from the cycle of birth and death:

My heart! By praising the bounteous one who drives away the effects of evil deeds that torment

perpetually the hearts of those in whose mind there is attachment, we have received our boon.

We have received the fruit that is proper for this human birth: we have ceased to be reborn.(8)

In one of his other verses he indicates indirectly that he obtained this boon by thinking

continuously and lovingly of the Red Mountain Lord:

Those who desire the boons of fame, long life and children, all praise the Red Mountain Lord.

For those who praise him continually, incapable of forgetting him even when asleep, there is no

further rebirth.(9)

Guhai Namasivaya makes no mention in his verses of the Siva Yoga that he had perfected in

his early life. He may have given it up sometime after his arrival in Tiruvannamalai for he

frequently asserts in his poetry that devotion to Siva and complete surrender to him are quitesufficient to attain liberation. His own devotional practices were simple and direct. We know, for

example from the writings of his best-known disciple, Guru Namasivaya, that Guhai Namasivaya

composed a four-line verse each day in praise of Arunachala: 'Mountain to which GuhaiNamasivaya, performer of immensely great austerities, makes obeisance, daily adorning him

with a garland of one venba verse.'(10)

He had begun the practice while he was still living in the temple entrance, and he seems to

have continued it when he moved into the cave on the hill. He must have composed thousands ofverses in praise of the mountain, but very few of them have been preserved. Only two of his

poems have been publishedArunagiri Antadi(100 verses) and Tiruvarunai Tanivenba (36verses). A few other stray verses of his can be found in quotations in the writings of other people,

but it would seem that the bulk of his poetic output has been irretrievably lost. (11)

Although he was born in Karanataka and spoke Kannada as his mother tongue, he thoroughly

mastered the Tamil language. His principal extant poem,Arunagiri Antadiis often used as a text
http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref7http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref7http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref7http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref8http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref8http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref8http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref9http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref9http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref9http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref10http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref10http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref10http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/agiriantadi1.shtmlhttp://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/agiriantadi1.shtmlhttp://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/agiriantadi1.shtmlhttp://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref11http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref11http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref11http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/agiriantadi1.shtmlhttp://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/agiriantadi1.shtmlhttp://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/agiriantadi1.shtmlhttp://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/agiriantadi1.shtmlhttp://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref11http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/agiriantadi1.shtmlhttp://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref10http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref9http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref8http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref7


8/31

in Tamil schools to illustrate the intricacies of the venba metre. Ramana Maharshi remarked on

several occasions that this metre was reputed to be the most difficult form to compose in; andGanapati Muni, a superb extempore poet, once confessed that the venba metre was so difficult,

he was unable to utilise it. Dandapani Swami, a famous 19th century poet and scholar, felt that

Guhai Namasivaya's poetry was so good it could only have been composed as a result of divine

inspiration. In his verse biography of Guhai Namasivaya he wrote: 'Although learned in nolanguage other than Kannada, my Lord Siva caused him to compose venba verses of an

excellence that only the most eminent of Tamil poets could equal. He could not have done it had

he relied on his own inspiration alone.'(12)

In addition to composing verse, Guhai Namasivaya also performedpradakshina of themountain and repeated the great mantra of Saivism, Nama Sivaya. In several of his verses he

encourages other people to take up these practices and, in addition, to think continuously of

Arunachala.

Be they of lowly birth, without the advantage of learning, unable to practise the virtue of

liberality, it is of no account. Those who performpradakshina of holy Aruna, the Supreme,

submit to his rule and become his devotee, will excel even amongst the most excellent Recitethe five-lettered name of the First One, the Red Mountain Lord, and meditate upon it. Thus willthe straight path, the steadfast condition and the marks of true knowledge become manifest to

you. Your every wish will be granted, and fulfilment will be yours Taking a necklace ofrudraksha beads, whose nature is suited to solitude, recite the five letters [Na ma Si va ya] with

full voice, one by one, mindful of their meaning. Thus, earnestly seeking the feet of Lord

Sonagiri [Arunachala], whose ornament is the snake, we shall obtain the boon of freedom from

death for all eternityMy heart! Fix your thoughts on the Red Mountain Teacher, who, if you

believe in his grace and praise him daily, will take hold of you, desirous of your good, saying,'Behold, I am here!' If you think of him in this way, all the painful effects of your actions will

subside and go away.(13)

There is a famous story concerning Guhai Namasivaya that seems to show that although he

had great devotion to Arunachala, he was still capable of displaying bursts of extreme anger. Oneday, according to this story, he took pity on a poor man whose only goat had been killed by a

snake just before it was about to give birth. Guhai Namasivaya asked the man to leave the goat's

body with him and to collect it the next day. When the man returned to pick up the corpse, he

found that not only had the goat been restored to life, it had also given birth to two kids. As newsof this miracle spread around the town, some boys from the local weaving community decided to

play a joke on him. One boy, pretending to be dead, was carried into the presence of Guhai

Namasivaya by his friends. The boys claimed that their friend had died of a snake bite and asked

the saint to restore him to life. Guhai Namasivaya, who could see that they were merely makingfun of him, cursed them with such vehemence that the boy who was pretending to be dead

actually did die. Then Guhai Namasivaya cursed the whole weaving community, saying that they

would never prosper or flourish in Tiruvannamalai again. The curse took effect: all the weavers


9/31

were forced to leave town or take up other occupations because none of them could make a

living by weaving in Tiruvannamalai. In the years that followed, all attempts to re-establishweaving businesses in the town failed.

Guhai Namasivaya made better use of his power and his anger on another occasion, with

equally devastating results. A barbarian chieftan called Agittu once invaded and looted the town.He murdered many of the inhabitants, abducted a large number of the town's young women and,

in an act of deliberate desecration, he set up camp in one of the temple courtyards and roasted anox there. When news of this reached Guhai Namasivaya, he became angry and rebuked Lord

Arunachaleswara in the following manner:

Lord Sonesan! Are your three eyes, including the eye on your forehead, fast asleep? Hassomeone stolen away the battle-axe and trident you wield? Haven't you any self-respect? Shall

all your devotees be abandoned to an accursed death?(14)

Arunachaleswara accepted the justness of the complaint and, for the sake of GuhaiNamasivaya, decided to intervene in the matter. That night the Lord appeared to Agittu in a

dream in the form of a sadhu and struck him on the back with his stick. Agittu woke up

immediately and noticed that on the spot where he had been beaten there was a rash that soongrew and developed into a large, swollen abscess. He consulted some of the elders of the town,

recounting his dream to them. They all advised him that he could only save his life by leaving

the temple. Agittu, not wanting any further punishment, abandoned the temple to thepujaris and

the town's devotees who cleared up his mess and reconsecrated the holy shrine. However, Agittu

could not escape the wrath of Guhai Namasivaya and Lord Arunachaleswara. His abscess grewand worms appeared in it, which gnawed away at his healthy flesh. All remedies failed, including

one horrific experiment in which he applied foetuses, taken from pregnant women he hadslaughtered for the purpose, to the wound. When he eventually died in great agony, his death was

celebrated throughout Tiruvannamalai. The local people anointed themselves with oil, put on

new clothes, ate a special meal and danced in exaltation.

When Guhai Namasivaya reached 100 years of age, the thought occurred to him: 'The span

allotted to man by Brahma is 100 years. That is enough for this worldly life.' He had his disciplesprepared a samadhi pit for him, intending to enter it and give up his life there. But, as he was

lowering himself into the crypt, Lord Siva spoke to him, ordering him to stay a further 100 years

on earth. His resigned response to the Lord's intervention is recorded in one of his verses:

To me, a devotee of blissful Lord Arunagiri, who is kinder to me than any mother or wise father,

it matters little whether he ordains that I should die, or that I should suffer on in this delusive

body, in spite of my 100 years.(15)


10/31

One hundred years later he had another samadhi pit prepared in the cave that now bears his

name. Before lowering himself into it, he composed his final two verses:

I will no longer bear this delusive body, which is the dwelling place of all the 360 diseases

known to our science. Lord Arunesan, who wears in his locks the holy waters and the waning

moon! May you wipe out at once this birth for the sake of your solitary devoteeWe havefound refuge at the feet of our father, Lord Sonagiri. We have crossed the threefold waters of ourfinal birth. Behold! No longer do we bow down to the lotus-born Brahma, the creator, nor to

Yama [the god of death] who rides the powerful buffalo.(16)

The only known image of Guhai Namasivaya. It comes from a granite, bas-relief that is located

in the rear of a mantapam that

adjoins the cave where Guhai Namasivaya was interred.

After saying these words, he descended into the samadhi pit and seated himself in the full-

lotus position. Then, utilising a practice he had mastered during his days as a Siva yogi, he gaveup his life by sending thepranas out of his body via the bramarandhra at the top of his head. His

disciples erected aLinga on the spot and instituted worship of it. Dailypuja has been conducted

there right down to the present day.
http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref16http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref16http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref16http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref16


11/31

Samadhi of Guhai Namasivaya

Thus ended the life of a great Arunachala bhakta. His long stay on the mountain had taught

him the simple truth that those who surrender lovingly and completely to the Red Mountain Lord

have all their sins and karma washed away:

I have perceived the means of dissolving away all the manifold maladies that beset my life andcrush me down. I have taken into my heart the lotus feet of the Red Mountain Lord. What then

do I lack? For those who are without love for the Red Mountain Lord, who cleaves away

falsehood and subjects us to his rule, will it be of any benefit to mortify the body?Whether hebrings ruin upon our heads, or whether he lifts us up through his grace, repeat the name of Lord

Sonesan and believe in his word.(17)

(1)The Virasaivite Saints - A Study - by H. Thipperudra Swamy p. 255.

(2)Tiruvarunai Tanivenba, v. 11.



(5)Ramana Pictorial Souvenir, p. 7.
http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref17http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref17http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref17http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn1http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn1http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn1http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn2http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn2http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn2http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn3http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn3http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn3http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn4http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn4http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn4http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn5http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn5http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn5http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn5http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn4http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn3http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn2http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn1http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftnref17


12/31

(6)Arunagiri Antadi, v. 85.

(7)Arunagiri Antadi , vv. 87 and 8.



(10)Annamalai Venba, v. 7.

(11) When I wrote this paragraph in the late 1980s, the information it contains was the accepted

scholarly view. I subsequently discovered more than 300 verses that were previously thought tobe lost. Some of these verses appear elsewhere on this site. SeeArunagiri Malaifor more

details.

(12) Pulavar Puranam, 'Guhai Namasivayar Sarukkam', v. 14.

(13)Arunagiri Antadi, vv. 26, 53, 42, 22.



(16)Tiruvarunai Tanivenba, vv. 20, 18.

(17)Arunagiri Antadi, vv. 67, 89, 40.

Guhai Namasivaya

When I started this blog, I promised an occasional contribution about Arunachala. Here is the first.

Before I start on it I want to give a little background information, along with a story from Bhagavan.

Ramaswami Pillai once asked Bhagavan about all the choices that were coming up in his life:

How can I tell if some prospective course of action that presents itself is something I have to do? Thereare so many things that I know will just waste my time and energy. How can I spot the activities that are

essential and act on them?

There is a Tamil belief that ones destiny is a large invisible load that one carries on ones head.

Bhagavan told Ramaswami Pillai: Throw it off your head three times. If it is something that you have to
http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn6http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn6http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn6http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn7http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn7http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn7http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn8http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn8http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn8http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn9http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn9http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn9http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn10http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn10http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn10http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn11http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn11http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn11http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/agirimalai1.shtmlhttp://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/agirimalai1.shtmlhttp://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/agirimalai1.shtmlhttp://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn12http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn12http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn12http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn13http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn13http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn13http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn14http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn14http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn14http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn15http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn15http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn15http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn16http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn16http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn16http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn17http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn17http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn17http://sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com/2008/05/guhai-namasivaya_03.htmlhttp://sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com/2008/05/guhai-namasivaya_03.htmlhttp://sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com/2008/05/guhai-namasivaya_03.htmlhttp://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn17http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn16http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn15http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn14http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn13http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn12http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/agirimalai1.shtmlhttp://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn11http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn10http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn9http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn8http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn7http://www.davidgodman.org/asaints/guhainam.shtml#ftn6


13/31

do, it will jump back. If it jumps back three times, then you have to do it.

I have my own head-load destiny story, one that I have been dropping off my head for more than

twenty years. It has jumped back on my head the requisite number of times, so now I have to do

something about it.

In the mid-1980s, when I was still looking after the Ramanasramam library, I would often go to the

Guhai Namasivaya Temple on the lower slopes of Arunachala and spend the night there. The first time I

did this, I felt an immense peace, a natural bonding with both the mountain and the temple that was

quite inexplicable. It felt like home, like a place I needed to come back to on a regular basis. Bhagavan

had briefly lived there at the turn of the twentieth century. It was there that Sivaprakasam Pillai

approached him and asked the questions that would later be incorporated in Who am I?Sivaprakasam

Pillai asked the questions and Bhagavan wrote answers with his finger on the sand forecourt of Guhai

Namasivaya Temple because he wasnt speaking at that time. Later, when Bhagavan moved up to

Virupaksha Cave, Keerai Patti moved into the mantapam at Guhai Namasivaya and lived there for

several years. She did an elaboratepuja to an image that had been carved on one of the pillars of the

mantapam, and when I visited in the mid-eighties, the dark oil stain that marked the object of her

veneration was still very much visible. A few years later the owner did a major renovation that, in my

opinion, bordered on vandalism. The whole place a gorgeous four-hundred-year-old cave-samadhi

shrine inside a walled compound was covered with concrete and the Keerai Patti oil stain whitewashed

out of existence. Keerai Patti passed away in the early 1920s and was buried somewhere near the front

wall of what is now the Morvi Compound in Ramanasramam. Later, if one is to believe all the accounts,

she was reborn as Lakshmi the cow and attained liberation in her final birth.

As I became more attracted to the temple I did some research on Guhai Namasivaya, the saint who was

buried there. He lived about four hundred years ago and had arrived at Arunachala in the company of

Virupaksha Devar, the man who gave his name to Virupaksha Cave. Both of them had been devotees of

a Virasaiva Guru in Sri Sailam who had sent them to Tiruvannamalai with instructions that they should

meditate there. Guhai Namasivaya initially lived in the space at the bottom of one of the gopurams in

the Arunachaleswara Temple, but after some time he moved a few hundred feet up the hill and took up

residence in the cave that still bears his name. Guhai in Tamil meanscave and Namasivaya is the

sacred five-syllable mantra beloved by all Saivas.

Guhai Namasivaya took the mountain of Arunachala to be his Guru and eventually gained

enlightenment through its grace. At the time I was visiting his temple the received scholarly opinion was

that he had only left one long poem of 100 verses (Arunagiri Antadi) along with about thirty-five other

short verses. All of them praised the mountain in some way. I asked Robert Butler, who was working

with me in the ashram library, to translate some of the verses for me. Fortunately, there was a Tamil

book about him, published by the Saraswati Mahal Library, Tanjore, that contained a short Tamil

biography, along with a prose rendering and commentary onArunagiriAntadi. I learned from the

biography that after Guhai Namasivaya had gained enlightenment through the power and grace of

Arunachala, he resolved to compose a four-line verse every day as an offering to the mountain. Since his


14/31


15/31

Guhai Namasivaya is one of the most famous Arunachala saints, and here, in Bhagavans own

handwriting, was a book that quadrupled the number of his verses that were known to exist. He

persuaded Ramanasramam to print these verses and volunteered to do the editing and restoration

himself. I say restoration because the person who had written over the original in ink had made many

mistakes. The original pencil marks had been obliterated by ink strokes that were not part of the original

text at all. Fortunately, Bhagavan had used a soft and stubby pencil, one that needed a little pressure to

make a mark. This meant that there was often a small but discernible indent in the paper that could be

used to reconstruct the original text. By holding the paper up at various angles in front of a 1,000 watt

lamp, Venkatasubramanian was able to extract all of the original text, letter by letter. There are still a

few verses that appear to make no sense at all, but these mistakes probably date from the last time the

palm-leaf manuscripts were copied. The Tamil edition was published by Ramanasramam a few years

ago.

About a year and a half ago Venkatasubramanian, Robert and myself agreed that we would bring out an

English edition of all the verses. We began the work but found that we didnt have enough time to do

both Guru Vachaka Kovaiand Guhai Namasivaya. Robert was also deeply engaged with his own Sri

Ramana Guru Prasadam project. We threw it off our heads one last time and all agreed that we would

all get back to it when our current projects were finished. Robert is about to send Sri Ramana Guru

Prasadam for printing, while I think I am less than two weeks away from sending Guru Vachaka Kovaito

the press. At some point in the next few months we will all sit down and complete our work on this

project.

I have already written far more than I intended to in this preamble. I will come back to the story of

Guhai Namasivaya and his poems on another day. For now, I will just select a few of his verses that

particularly appeal to me. The translations are far from final, and we may decide to change them a little

as the work progresses. I have added a few brief notes of my own in italics after some of the verses,

mostly to explain some of the names. The numbers are from Bhagavans notebook.

175

Through what tapas performed in what birth

I have come in this birth to reside in this great city of Arunai,I know not!

The Goddess and God

who dwell in the thoughts of devotees who praise Them

remain merged together within my eyes.

Arunai was the name of Tiruvannamalai several centuries ago.


16/31

177

My heart!

All that happens in this world

is the grace of the Lord of Arunagiri.Saying otherwise is wrong.

When someone uses his skill

to attach strings to a puppet

and makes it dance,

tell me, do the strings have any power of their own?

'Arunagiri means Red Mountain. It is one of the many names of Arunachala.

178

Those who come here, thinking

of the great and eternally famous town of Arunai,

are kept here by Uma

within the holy presence of Annamalaiyar,

who bestows liberation on them.

What sport is this for God and Goddess!

Annamalaiyar denotes the deity in the Arunachaleswara Temple in Tiruvannamalai, and by extension the

Lord of the Mountain as well. Uma is his consort.

195

Those who have a stony heart,

who are excessive sinners,

who every day in this world commit uncountable sins,

if they would only once utter the name Annamalai,

the very name of birth,

which comes like a flood,

will depart.

Annamalai is a Tamil name of Arunachala. It means unreachable mountain or unapproachable

mountain. It is a reference to the primary story of Arunachala in which Brahma and Vishnu failed to find

the end of the column of light or fire that Siva manifested as in order to teach them humility. The name is

now incorporated in the towns name Tiruvannamalai. Tiru is an honorific prefix.

197


17/31

Today Sonesan, who comes upon a bull,

understanding the state of my mind,

slowly entered unseen into my heart.

I have now known the thief!

It is not possible to reveal this

to everyone in the land,

but only to those who have known it within.

Sonesan (The Red Lord) is the thief who stole Guhai Namasivayas mind. Recognising his maturity,

Sonesan stealthily entered his heart and removed his mind from within.

198

The boon for my eyes

is seeing Your red lotus feet.

The boon for my tongue

is singing Your classical Tamil verses

in their prescribed tunes.

Lord of Arunai,

You are the King of Heaven

and everywhere else!

This indeed is the boon for this devotees mind.

199

I have now seen the ancient reality

not seen in former times

by Brahma and Vishnu.

I prostrate to it and praise it.

My ancient karmas!

Leave immediately, all of you!

I now have the courage to scatter

all the troubles you created.

209

Heart of mine!

If we have the grace of the eyes

of the King of Sonagiri

on whom the moon resides,


18/31

and who bestows the space [ofjnana],

how then will it matter to us

whether all the people of this world

respect us a little or a lot?

210

For those who listen to the sound of the conch,

blown in the presence of the Lord of Annamalai,

which is surrounded by thousands of Ganga-like rivers,

the sins within their impure minds will perish.

For those who seek it again and again

it will yield liberation.

211

The Lord of Sonagiri,

who holds a deer in His hand,

is the wielder of grace.

This is the result of becoming His devotee:

we have taken up a begging bowl;

we will never again fall into the evil of birth;

death will be no more;

we do not desire even the state of ruling a country as a king;

we have attained liberation.

216

Those who do not meditate

with their hearts melting towards Sankara of Arunagiri,

how will it matter if they display matted locks?

What if their head has gone grey?

How will it matter if they thoroughly research many books?

And if they avoid wearing clothes so what?

Sankara denotes Siva.

228

Though they may engage


19/31

in great and hard-to-perform tapas,

though they wander endlessly all over the world,

wearing themselves out,

will there be salvation for those

who do not see in their hearts

the Holy Being of Sonagiri

who wears hooded cobras as His ornament?

231

Arunesan!

I, a sinner whose heart does not melt,

never worship You.

Nor do I meditate on Your divine form in my heart.

I never lovingly chant Your name.

On what day will I attain salvation?

238

Existing as the medicine,

Annamalai will destroy the taint of sins

that remain hidden in the hearts of devotees

who continuously and unfailingly repeat

the Five-Syllabled Mantra

with the belief, This is our refuge.

242

Those who reach and circumambulate

the divine temple of the Lord of holy Arunai

will never enter the way of the womb.

They will not speak of the twin karmas.

They will remain instead in close proximity

to the One who wears a garland

of luxuriant kondrai blossoms.

252

If we are prospering,

then the whole country will be our relatives and friends,


20/31

but if we become destitute,

not even a single person will come to enquire about us.

However, the intimate relationship I have

with the Lord of Arunai, who is praised in all times

by the transcended ones, will exist for me forever.

255

Though excellent sacred places,

possessing great glory,

may exist in all the four directions,

will they equal Annamalai?

Having enquired into the matter,

it will be found that a thousand sinful deeds,

performed unintentionally here,

will be reduced to one,

just as one meritorious deed

will be multiplied a thousandfold.

263

Priceless Ruby Hill!

Medicine Mountain!

For You who, by revealing Your twin feet

to this feeble-minded dog,transformed me into agitation-free supreme bliss,

my offering is my verses.

266

You who ride the prancing bull!

JnaniArunagiri!

You who have the crescent moon

upon Your matted locks!

In the very moment You came

and dwelt in my heart

the twin karmas and the great illusion of birth perished.


21/31

Guhai Namasivaya

When I started this blog, I promised an occasional contributionabout Arunachala. Here is the first.

Before I start on it I want to give a little background information,along with a story from Bhagavan. Ramaswami Pillai once askedBhagavan about all the choices that were coming up in his life:

How can I tell if some prospective course of action that presentsitself is something I have to do? There are so many things that Iknow will just waste my time and energy. How can I spot theactivities that are essential and act on them?

There is a Tamil belief that ones destiny is a large invisible load thatone carries on ones head.

Bhagavan told Ramaswami Pillai: Throw it off your head threetimes. If it is something that you have to do, it will jump back. If itjumps back three times, then you have to do it.

I have my own head-load destiny story, one that I have been

dropping off my head for more than twenty years. It has jumpedback on my head the requisite number of times, so now I have to dosomething about it.

In the mid-1980s, when I was still looking after the Ramanasramamlibrary, I would often go to the Guhai Namasivaya Temple on thelower slopes of Arunachala and spend the night there. The first timeI did this, I felt an immense peace, a natural bonding with both themountain and the temple that was quite inexplicable. It felt likehome, like a place I needed to come back to on a regular basis.Bhagavan had briefly lived there at the turn of the twentiethcentury. It was there that Sivaprakasam Pillai approached him andasked the questions that would later be incorporated in Who am I?Sivaprakasam Pillai asked the questions and Bhagavan wroteanswers with his finger on the sand forecourt of Guhai Namasivaya
http://sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com/2008/05/guhai-namasivaya_03.htmlhttp://sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com/2008/05/guhai-namasivaya_03.htmlhttp://sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com/2008/05/guhai-namasivaya_03.html


22/31

Temple because he wasnt speaking at that time. Later, whenBhagavan moved up to Virupaksha Cave, Keerai Patti moved intothe mantapam at Guhai Namasivaya and lived there for severalyears. She did an elaboratepuja to an image that had been carved

on one of the pillars of the mantapam, and when I visited in themid-eighties, the dark oil stain that marked the object of herveneration was still very much visible. A few years later the ownerdid a major renovation that, in my opinion, bordered on vandalism.The whole place a gorgeous four-hundred-year-old cave-samadhishrine inside a walled compound was covered with concrete andthe Keerai Patti oil stain whitewashed out of existence. Keerai Pattipassed away in the early 1920s and was buried somewhere near thefront wall of what is now the Morvi Compound in Ramanasramam.

Later, if one is to believe all the accounts, she was reborn asLakshmi the cow and attained liberation in her final birth.

As I became more attracted to the temple I did some research onGuhai Namasivaya, the saint who was buried there. He lived aboutfour hundred years ago and had arrived at Arunachala in thecompany of Virupaksha Devar, the man who gave his name toVirupaksha Cave. Both of them had been devotees of a Virasaiva

Guru in Sri Sailam who had sent them to Tiruvannamalai withinstructions that they should meditate there. Guhai Namasivayainitially lived in the space at the bottom of one of the gopurams inthe Arunachaleswara Temple, but after some time he moved a fewhundred feet up the hill and took up residence in the cave that stillbears his name. Guhai in Tamil means cave and Namasivaya isthe sacred five-syllable mantra beloved by all Saivas.

Guhai Namasivaya took the mountain of Arunachala to be his Guru

and eventually gained enlightenment through its grace. At the time Iwas visiting his temple the received scholarly opinion was that hehad only left one long poem of 100 verses (Arunagiri Antadi) alongwith about thirty-five other short verses. All of them praised themountain in some way. I asked Robert Butler, who was workingwith me in the ashram library, to translate some of the verses for


23/31

me. Fortunately, there was a Tamil book about him, published bythe Saraswati Mahal Library, Tanjore, that contained a short Tamilbiography, along with a prose rendering and commentary onArunagiriAntadi. I learned from the biography that after Guhai

Namasivaya had gained enlightenment through the power and graceof Arunachala, he resolved to compose a four-line verse every day asan offering to the mountain. Since his biography claimed that helived to the age of 200, that meant a lot of verses had gone missing.One hundred and thirty-five seemed a meager extant haul from aman who, even during his lifetime, had a reputation for being agreat saint.

Sometime in 1985 V. Ganesan asked me to find a manuscript about

Tiruchuzhi, Bhagavans birth place, in the ashram archives. In thosedays all the ashrams manuscripts were kept in a separate roomunderneath the library. I went along the shelf where it was supposedto be stored, pulling out manuscripts and notebooks one by one tosee what was written on their covers. One faded old notebookstopped me dead in my tracks. It had the name Guhai Namasivayawritten in Tamil on the cover, and when I opened it, I saw, on itscrumbly old yellowed pages, over five hundred verses in the venba

style that I knew was Guhai Namasivayas trademark metre. I took itaway with me to do some further investigation. It was a schoolexercise book in which the original verses had been written inpencil. Someone had later gone over most of the pencilled script tomake the writing more legible.

The first discovery I made was that the pencil handwriting wasBhagavans. This made the notebook even more interesting andvaluable. I did some research and eventually pieced together the

story of the book. In 1901, when Bhagavan was staying at GuhaiNamasivaya Temple, there were still palm-leaf manuscripts inexistence that contained unpublished verses by Guhai Namasivaya.The priest had shown them to Bhagavan, and Bhagavan had decidedto copy them into this notebook. The original palm-leaf manuscriptswere lost several decades ago when the owner gave them to a man


24/31

who had promised to get them published. The man and the leavesdisappeared and neither has since resurfaced. That left Bhagavansnotebook as the only repository for most of Guhai Namasivayaswritten works.

I had the verses copied and arranged for some of them to betranslated. There is an article on my site, in the Arunachala saintssection, that contains these translations that were done in the1980s, along with a long article in which I summarised all theknown events of Guhai Namsivayas life. The workwas neverfinished because I was diverted into other activities.

In early 1993 I went to Lucknow to see Papaji on what I thought

would be a brief visit. I had been invited there because Papajiwanted me to write more about his life. He had appreciated the briefbiographical chapter that eventually appeared inPapajiInterviews,and he wanted me to expand on it. That work took almost fouryears, and during that period I only returned to Tiruvannamalaionce. When it became clear to me that I would not be returning for along time, I sent my ashram room key back with a woman who wasreturning to Tiruvannamalai. I asked her to go through a trunk I

kept in my room and hand over all the ashram books andmanuscripts that were in it to the ashram office. There were severallibrary books there, and a few manuscripts from the archives that Ihad been working on in my room.

When I returned to Tiruvannamalai at the end of 1997, I wentthrough this trunk and found that the Guhai Namasivayamanuscript was still there. Everything else had been returned, butthis one item had refused to leave me. It jumped back on my head

and told me that we still had some pending business.

When I showed the manuscript to Venkatasubramanian, I was notsurprised to see how excited he was. Guhai Namasivaya is one of themost famous Arunachala saints, and here, in Bhagavans ownhandwriting, was a book that quadrupled the number of his verses


25/31

that were known to exist. He persuaded Ramanasramam to printthese verses and volunteered to do the editing and restorationhimself. I say restoration because the person who had written overthe original in ink had made many mistakes. The original pencil

marks had been obliterated by ink strokes that were not part of theoriginal text at all. Fortunately, Bhagavan had used a soft andstubby pencil, one that needed a little pressure to make a mark. Thismeant that there was often a small but discernible indent in thepaper that could be used to reconstruct the original text. By holdingthe paper up at various angles in front of a 1,000 watt lamp,Venkatasubramanian was able to extract all of the original text,letter by letter. There are still a few verses that appear to make nosense at all, but these mistakes probably date from the last time the

palm-leaf manuscripts were copied. The Tamil edition waspublished by Ramanasramam a few years ago.

About a year and a half ago Venkatasubramanian, Robert andmyself agreed that we would bring out an English edition of all theverses. We began the work but found that we didnt have enoughtime to do both Guru Vachaka Kovaiand Guhai Namasivaya.Robert was also deeply engaged with his ownSri Ramana Guru

Prasadam project. We threw it off our heads one last time and allagreed that we would all get back to it when our current projectswere finished. Robert is about to sendSri Ramana Guru Prasadamfor printing, while I think I am less than two weeks away fromsending Guru Vachaka Kovaito the press. At some point in the nextfew months we will all sit down and complete our work on thisproject.

I have already written far more than I intended to in this preamble.

I will come back to the story of Guhai Namasivaya and his poems onanother day. For now, I will just select a few of his verses thatparticularly appeal to me. The translations are far from final, and wemay decide to change them a little as the work progresses. I haveadded a few brief notes of my own in italics after some of the verses,mostly to explain some of the names. The numbers are from


26/31

Bhagavans notebook.

175

Through what tapas performed in what birthI have come in this birth to reside in this great city of Arunai,I know not!The Goddess and Godwho dwell in the thoughts of devotees who praise Themremain merged together within my eyes.

Arunai was the name of Tiruvannamalai several centuries ago.

177

My heart!All that happens in this worldis the grace of the Lord of Arunagiri.Saying otherwise is wrong.When someone uses his skillto attach strings to a puppetand makes it dance,tell me, do the strings have any power of their own?

'Arunagiri means Red Mountain. It is one of the many names ofArunachala.

178

Those who come here, thinking

of the great and eternally famous town of Arunai,are kept here by Umawithin the holy presence of Annamalaiyar,who bestows liberation on them.What sport is this for God and Goddess!


27/31

Annamalaiyar denotes the deity in the Arunachaleswara Temple inTiruvannamalai, and by extension the Lord of the Mountain aswell. Uma is his consort.

195

Those who have a stony heart,who are excessive sinners,who every day in this world commit uncountable sins,if they would only once utter the name Annamalai, the very name of birth,which comes like a flood,will depart.

Annamalai is a Tamil name of Arunachala. It means unreachablemountain or unapproachable mountain. It is a reference to theprimary story of Arunachala in which Brahma and Vishnu failedto find the end of the column of light or fire that Siva manifested asin order to teach them humility. The name is now incorporated inthe towns name Tiruvannamalai. Tiru is an honorific prefix.

197

Today Sonesan, who comes upon a bull,understanding the state of my mind,slowly entered unseen into my heart.I have now known the thief!It is not possible to reveal thisto everyone in the land,but only to those who have known it within.

Sonesan (The Red Lord) is the thief who stole Guhai Namasivayasmind. Recognising his maturity, Sonesan stealthily entered hisheart and removed his mind from within.

198


28/31

The boon for my eyesis seeing Your red lotus feet.The boon for my tongue

is singing Your classical Tamil versesin their prescribed tunes.Lord of Arunai,You are the King of Heavenand everywhere else!This indeed is the boon for this devotees mind.

199

I have now seen the ancient realitynot seen in former timesby Brahma and Vishnu.I prostrate to it and praise it.My ancient karmas!Leave immediately, all of you!I now have the courage to scatterall the troubles you created.

209

Heart of mine!If we have the grace of the eyesof the King of Sonagirion whom the moon resides,and who bestows the space [ofjnana],how then will it matter to uswhether all the people of this world

respect us a little or a lot?

210

For those who listen to the sound of the conch,blown in the presence of the Lord of Annamalai,


29/31

which is surrounded by thousands of Ganga-like rivers,the sins within their impure minds will perish.For those who seek it again and againit will yield liberation.

211

The Lord of Sonagiri,who holds a deer in His hand,is the wielder of grace.This is the result of becoming His devotee:we have taken up a begging bowl;we will never again fall into the evil of birth;

death will be no more;we do not desire even the state of ruling a country as a king;we have attained liberation.

216

Those who do not meditatewith their hearts melting towards Sankara of Arunagiri,how will it matter if they display matted locks?

What if their head has gone grey?How will it matter if they thoroughly research many books?And if they avoid wearing clothes so what?

Sankara denotes Siva.

228

Though they may engage

in great and hard-to-perform tapas,though they wander endlessly all over the world,wearing themselves out,will there be salvation for thosewho do not see in their hearts


30/31

the Holy Being of Sonagiriwho wears hooded cobras as His ornament?

231

Arunesan!I, a sinner whose heart does not melt,never worship You.Nor do I meditate on Your divine form in my heart.I never lovingly chant Your name.On what day will I attain salvation?

238

Existing as the medicine,Annamalai will destroy the taint of sinsthat remain hidden in the hearts of devoteeswho continuously and unfailingly repeatthe Five-Syllabled Mantrawith the belief, This is our refuge.

242

Those who reach and circumambulatethe divine temple of the Lord of holy Arunaiwill never enter the way of the womb.They will not speak of the twin karmas.They will remain instead in close proximityto the One who wears a garlandof luxuriant kondrai blossoms.

252

If we are prospering,then the whole country will be our relatives and friends,but if we become destitute,not even a single person will come to enquire about us.However, the intimate relationship I have


31/31

with the Lord of Arunai, who is praised in all timesby the transcended ones, will exist for me forever.

255

Though excellent sacred places,possessing great glory,may exist in all the four directions,will they equal Annamalai?Having enquired into the matter,it will be found that a thousand sinful deeds,performed unintentionally here,will be reduced to one,

just as one meritorious deedwill be multiplied a thousandfold.

263

Priceless Ruby Hill!Medicine Mountain!For You who, by revealing Your twin feetto this feeble-minded dog,

transformed me into agitation-free supreme bliss,my offering is my verses.

266

You who ride the prancing bull!JnaniArunagiri!You who have the crescent moonupon Your matted locks!

In the very moment You cameand dwelt in my heartthe twin karmas and the great illusion of birth perished.

Documents

Guhai Namasivaya-publicdomain