Guru Namasivaya
Guru Namasivaya
(Parts of this article were first published in The Mountain Path, 1992, pp. 13-22)
Page 1
In the account of Guhai Namasivaya's life that I gave on this site it was mentioned that in the period of his life when he was living on the hill, he began to attract disciples and teach them. The most eminent and well known of these disciples was a man who later became known as Guru Namasivaya.
There is no available information about the early part of their relationship, for even the most detailed accounts of his life begin at a point where Guru Namasivaya is manifesting siddhis (supernatural powers) and nearing the day of his spiritual liberation.
As the story begins both Namasivayas are living together on the hill. Guhai Namasivaya is lying in his hammock, his favourite resting place, absorbed in the Self. Guru Namasivaya is nearby, doing service to him. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, Guru Namasivaya bursts out laughing.
'Namasivaya,' asked his Guru, 'What wonder did you see that made you laugh?'
The disciple first responded by reminding his Guru of their relationship.
'When I offered you my body, my possessions and my soul, you, my Lord, accepted them all, having a wish to take over this slave.'
Then he went on to explain what had caused him such amusement.
'At Tiruvarur [a temple town located a long way from Tiruvannamalai] Tyagaraja Swami [a local deity] was being taken in procession through the streets. Many women dancers, so skilled that they cannot be equalled by apsaras [dancers from the heavenly realms], were accompanying it and dancing. One of these women stumbled and fell. All those who were standing there laughed. I too laughed. That is all. There was nothing else.'
This same ability manifested sometime later when Guhai Namasivaya noticed that his disciple had just rubbed the cloth he wore around his shoulders in a strange way.
'For what reason did you rub it?' he asked.
The disciple answered, 'The Golden Dancing Hall at Chidambaram was screened with a black screen. The wick of a ghee lamp was burning nearby. A mouse took the burning wick, dragged it along, causing a curtain to catch fire. Those who were present vigorously smothered the burning curtain. Swami, I too rubbed my cloth so that the curtain would not burn any more.'
Guhai Namasivaya knew from these incidents and from his own direct knowledge that his disciple had reached an advanced stage of his sadhana, but he also knew that siddhis such as those just described are no real indication of spiritual progress. He therefore decided to test his disciple's level of devotion. He vomited, caught the vomit in his begging bowl, and then ordered his disciple to dispose of it in a place where it would not come into contact with human feet. This disciple's love for his Guru was so great, he took the vomit to be prasad and secretly ate it.
Guhai Namasivaya affected not to know what his disciple had done. Later, he asked him ingenuously, 'Appa Namasivaya, did you leave it in a place where feet could not touch it?'
The disciple bowed his head and confirmed that he had taken it to be prasad. 'I have kept it in a place where it ought to be kept,' he answered.
Seeing the powers his disciple was developing, and noting the extent of his devotion, Guhai Namasivaya thought to himself, 'Day by day my disciple's knowledge is increasing. He should not be kept here any more. Let me test him one more time, and then I can send him to a place that will be appropriate for him.'
Guhai Namasivaya, an accomplished extempore poet, then composed the first two lines of a venba verse and chanted them to his disciple:
The fruiting banyan provides fruit for the birds,
The bamboo when it matures is not without its use…
Then, addressing his disciple, he said, 'Appa Namasivaya(1), you can complete the remainder of this venba for me'.
The disciple immediately realised that he was being tested. He examined the words of his Guru and decided that the banyan tree signified Guhai Namasivaya and that the bamboo was a reference to himself. The fruit of the banyan was therefore the grace of the Guru that was made available to all devotees who came to him. Extending the analogy, the disciple found that the second line contained what were, for him, ominous words. It seemed to be saying, 'Since you have attained spiritual maturity, you too can be useful to devotees who seek the grace of the Guru'. Namasivaya was very much attached to the physical form of his Guru and wanted only to stay with him and serve him. The idea of abandoning this simple and satisfying relationship did not appeal to him. However, being a fully surrendered devotee, he felt no inclination to dispute the words and decision of his Guru.
So, when Guhai Namasivaya asked him to complete the verse, he merely replied, 'Swami, the disciple should not bandy words with the Guru. This is not proper conduct for the disciple.'
Guhai Namasivaya then gave him the freedom to express his own views by saying, 'Son, since you are knowledge itself, you may speak'.
The disciple then expressed this fear of being sent away by completing the verse in the following way:
My Lord Namasivaya, would you consent to keep company with one who refrains from performing great and wondrous deeds?
The disciple realised that his display of siddhis and his extreme devotion in swallowing the vomit had triggered Guhai Namasivaya's test. His answer therefore took the form of a simple plea: 'If I stop manifesting siddhis and refrain from exaggerated acts of devotion, will you permit me to continue staying with you?'
Guhai Namasivaya was delighted with the way that his disciple handled the test.
He climbed down from his hammock and exclaimed, 'Appa! Pupil of my two eyes! Only today did you attain true knowledge! What a wonder! Who will ever get a disciple like you? From today you may use the title ''Guru Namasivayamurti''.'
His pleasure, though, did not cause him to change his decision to send his disciple away. Embracing his disciple he continued, 'Two elephants should not be tied to the same post. This is a bhoga kshetra [see the explanation given below]. There is a divine kshetra [holy place] called Chidambaram where Ambalanavar, [the God] who removes ignorance and grants true knowledge, has graciously manifested. You have some renovation and endowment work at that place. So, go and live there.'
Bhoga means enjoyment or pleasure and is generally associated with physical or sensory indulgence. A kshetra is a holy place. So, a bhoga kshetra can be literally translated as 'a holy place for the enjoyment of physical pleasure'. Since this is a strange and inappropriate designation for a sacred site such as Arunachala, one should look for alternative translations and explanations.
One possibility is that Guhai Namasivaya is referring to one of three avattai - modes of being of the deity:
1. ilayam, in which only the divine knowledge is manifest.
2. bhogam, in which knowledge and action are equally balanced.
3. adikaram, in which action predominates.
If one follows this explanation, one can interpret Guhai Namasivaya's comments to mean that Arunachala is one of the places where Siva became involved in the world, performing lilas as well as bestowing grace and liberation, whereas Chidambaram is a kshetra where Siva's energy is concentrated solely on the granting of divine knowledge. This interpretation does not imply that one place is superior to the other. It merely notes that Siva chooses to function in a different way in Chidambaram. At first glance this explanation looks plausible, particularly since Guhai Namasivaya contrasts the bhoga kshetra of Arunachala with the 'divine kshetra' of Chidambaram. However, closer scrutiny reveals a major problem: Siva has repeatedly manifested at Chidambaram for the benefit of his devotees there, so that would make it, like Arunachala, a bhoga kshetra.
An alternative explanation can be found in Day by Day with Bhagavan (6th December, 1945). Devaraja Mudaliar asked Bhagavan about one of the verses fromArunachala Mahatmyam that Bhagavan had translated into Tamil. At the end of the verse Arunachala-Siva, speaking of Himself, says, 'Know that within me caves shine, surging with many enjoyments [bhoga]'. The following dialogue ensued:
I asked Bhagavan whether the cave mentioned in it is inside God or inside the mountain (which of course is also said to be God). Bhagavan replied, 'Of course, in the context, it means the cave is inside the hill and that there in the cave are all enjoyments'. Bhagavan added, 'The stanza says you are to believe that inside this hill there is a cave and that all enjoyments are to be found there'. I also asked Bhagavan, 'I have read somewhere that this place is called bhoga kshetra. I wonder what is meant thereby?' Bhagavan replied, 'Yes, it is so. But what does it mean? If thinking of this kshetra can itself give mukti, what wonder if this place can give all other enjoyments one may desire.'
Going back to the story, it will be remembered that Guhai Namasivaya had instructed his disciple to go and live in Chidambaram. Guhai Namasivaya still felt that, if he pleaded his case, he would be allowed to stay.
He told his Guru, 'This slave will remain here, having the Guru's darshan. He will not go to another place but will remain with the feet of the Guru. Moreover, this slave cannot go on living without having daily darshan of the Guru.'
Guhai Namasivaya was unmoved. 'Go to Chidambaram,' he ordered, 'and havedarshan of the Golden Dancing Hall [the shrine in which Siva in the form of Lord Nataraja resides]. If the Lord there gives you darshan even as I do myself, stay there. If not, come back here.'
Accepting the promise that the divine darshan would not be cut off, the disciple finally admitted defeat.
'This is good advice,' he said, 'I will follow it.'
Then, having accepted the decision, he composed the following song in praise of his Guru:
O Namasivaya! You destroy the subtle bonds of birth through your words and through your meditations, through your glance and through your touch, and through your compassion which gladdens our hearts! You attained liberation through the fourth leg of the chair.
The cryptic last line is an allusion to turiya, the fourth state that underlies the other three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping.
Guhai Namasivaya attained liberation by abiding permanently in this fourth state. Guhai Namasivaya, feeling that delay would serve no useful purpose, responded to the song by saying, 'You can start right now'.
Guru Namasivaya began to walk towards Chidambaram and by the time night fell he had covered about ten miles. Desiring a place to rest, he sat down under a tree and spent three hours absorbed in the Self. Then, becoming aware that he was hungry, he composed a venba verse that he addressed to Unnamulai, the consort of Siva in the Arunachaleswara Temple:
You who are the dearest to the heart of Lord Annamalai!
Holy Mother Unnamulai!
Bring forth rice(2) from every household to feed
Your servant whose every thought is in praise of you!
At the moment when Guhai Namasivaya was composing this verse, there was some sweet rice resting on a golden plate in the temple. It had been offered to Lord Annamalai as naivedyam (food offering), and the priest who had officiated had inadvertently forgotten to take the plate home with him when he had locked up the temple for the night. When Unnamulai heard Guru Namasivaya's prayer, she took the plate of rice to him and then returned to the temple.
At daybreak the priests opened the temple and looked for the golden plate. After searching fruitlessly for some time, the priests and the people of the town became convinced that the plate must have been stolen by a thief, although they could not understand how he had got into and out of the temple. No pujas were performed for eight hours, for everyone was engaged in a search for the missing plate.
At the end of that period a brahmin boy went into a trance, became possessed by a spirit and announced, 'Guru Namasivaya is under a banyan tree on his way to Chidambaram. Mother took food for him. The plate is lying there. Go and fetch it.'
The plate was eventually found there and returned to its rightful place in the temple.
Guru Namasivaya got up the next morning, completed his morning ablutions and walked eastwards, praising his Guru. His next stop was at a holy place called Rishi Vandanam. In this kshetra Siva and Parvati remain united as Ardhanari, an androgynous half-male and half-female form. This deity had been worshipped in ancient times by the king of the rishis, Agastya Mamunivar.
Guru Namasivaya took a bath there in a holy tank called Aiyayiram Kondam,(3) completed his puja, and then with a purity of body, speech and mind, worshipped the Lord of that place and had his darshan. Afterwards, he went back to the banks of the holy tank and became absorbed in the Self.(4) Some time later, when the pangs of hunger came, he composed the following verse to the Divine Mother:
Can a child starve as long as its mother lives?
Is it just that I should languish as long as you are here on this earth?
You whom all the hosts of heaven praise!
You whose shoulders are slender like bamboo!
And whose earrings are of heavenly pearls!
I beg you, bring me rice!
When the Mother heard this song, she came and asked, 'My son, when I am united with the Lord here, is it proper for you to sing to me as a separate entity? Now sing me another song in which I am united with him.'
Guru Namasivaya obliged by composing and singing the following song:
You whose earrings are of heavenly pearls,
You who are one with Lord Siva,
whose throat is like a dark cloud pierced by lightning! Mother, you who shine brighter than gold!
You who rise up, mountain-like in my stony heart!
I beg you, bring me rice!
As soon as he had completed the singing of this verse, the Mother brought food to him. Guru Namasivaya ate it, resumed his journey, and soon reached another famous pilgrimage centre, Vriddhachalam. He had a bath in the River Manimuttar, had darshan of Lord Siva and Parvati in the form of Lord Pazhamalainathar and the Goddess Periyanayaki, returned to the bank of the tank and became absorbed in the Self. When hunger again affected him, he composed a verse and addressed it to Periyanayaki, the local name of the Goddess, who is traditionally depicted as an old woman:
Elderly Lady, you who are known as Periyanayaki,
abounding in goodness!
Elderly Lady, you who ever abide at the side of Lord Siva!
Elderly Lady, you whose body is dark blue!
Elderly Lady of the mountain, you who stand before me,
I beg you, bring me rice!
As soon as he had uttered this verse, the Mother appeared as an elderly woman with a walking stick and said to Guru Namasivaya, 'What is this, my son? Is it good to sing of me with your tongue, repeatedly calling me ''Elderly Lady''? Can an old woman walk? Can she fetch water? Can she bring you food?'
Guru Namasivaya responded by saying, 'Mother, at Balakasi [young Kasi] you are Balambika [young Ambika]. This is Vriddhakasi [old Kasi]. Here you are Periyanayaki [old woman]. Your Lord is also Pazhamalainathar [the old mountain Lord]. That is why I sang of you in that way.'
The Mother replied, 'That may be so, but now sing of me as a young woman'.
Guru Namasivaya responded by saying, 'If I do, I will be singing of two different Mothers'.
'If that is so, then let it be,' answered Periyanayaki. 'But please sing of me as a young person.'
Guru Namasivaya then composed another verse:
You who dwell upon a mountain
girded by the River Manimuttar,
You at whose feet devotees fall in praise!
You who dwell at Lord Siva's side!
You whose ever-youthful breasts
are adorned by a jewelled necklace!
I beg you, bring me rice!
As he was concluding the verse, Mother, in the form of Balambika [the young form of Parvati], brought food to him. After eating it he continued his walk and eventually reached a town called Bhuvanagiri. From this place his final destination, Chidambaram, could be seen in the distance. When Guru Namasivaya first sighted the four gopurams (temple towers) of the Chidambaram Temple from Bhuvanagiri, he spontaneously composed a verse that expressed the great joy that the sight of them had brought to him:
At the mere sight of these four gopurams
all my sins have vanished
like cotton drifting into a flame.
What then will be the desert,
O Lord of Tillai's Hall,(5)of those who cast their eyes
upon the divine redness of your feet,
girt with tinkling anklets?
He was singing this song as he reached Chidambaram. On his arrival he took a bath in the Siva Ganga Tank in the main temple, after which he composed yet another song in praise of the holy Mother:
Those who see the holy bath of Mother Sivakami,
as voices versed in ancient Tamil swell in praise,
will see the effects of all their deeds destroyed.
And those who gather this water in their hands
will be plundered of all their actions' evil fruit!
Sivakami, meaning 'The lady who desires or who is desired by Siva', is the name of the female deity in the Chidambaram Temple. She is the silent witness to Lord Nataraja's dance in the inner sanctum. The reference to the 'holy bath of Sivakami' and the purifying effect of bathing in this tank may be an allusion to one of the main Chidambaram myths.
Before the creation of the shrine of Lord Nataraja there was a temple dedicated to Kali in the Tillai forest. When Siva first began His ananda tandava, his dance of bliss, in Chidambaram, Kali was filled with pride and challenged the Lord to a dance contest. Siva wished to eliminate her arrogance so he laid down the following terms: whoever won would become Lord of Tillai; whoever lost had to leave his or her shrine. While the gods and sages watched, Kali and Siva began to dance. When Siva performed a difficult manoeuvre called urdhva tandava - one leg thrust vertically towards the sky - Kali conceded defeat because she was unable to execute that particular step. After acknowledging her defeat she was forced to leave her shrine in the heart of the Tillai forest and relocate herself outside the boundary of the town. In order to remove the pride that led her to challenge Siva, Kali bathed in the temple tank and afterwards worshipped Siva. Her fierce form disappeared and she acquired a gentler demeanour, along with a new title, 'The Great Goddess who possesses the Tillai forest'.
In this verse Guru Namasivaya seems to be saying that just as Kali expiated her sins by bathing in the tank, all others who follow her example will have their future karmas wiped out.
The site of the dance contest is sometimes identified as the Nritta Sabha inside the main temple. It now features an eight-armed image of Siva performing theurdhva tandava, the posture that defeated Kali.
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Before I continue, it will probably be helpful to give a brief account of the configuration of the Chidambaram Temple. It has as its sanctum the Chit Sabha, 'The Hall of Consciousness', from which the town itself derives its name. It contains the akasa lingam (a lingam in the form of empty space, denoting the unbroken expanse of consciousness in which all manifestation arises) and a large bronze image of Nataraja. Immediately in front of it, serving it as a mantapam, is the Kanaka Sabha, 'The Golden Hall' that Guru Namasivaya often refers to. The Nritta Sabha, which commemorates the Kali-Nataraja dance contest, is in the second prakara. There is also the original lingam shrine (Mulasthana) that faces east and antecedes the other halls. This was the original temple before Lord Nataraja came to Chidambaram to perform his dance of bliss. That story will be told later.
Returning now to the narrative, Guru Namasivaya completed his bath in the Siva Ganga Tank and walked into the temple, expecting to have the darshan of Lord Nataraja in the inner shrine. Instead, in that place, the Lord gave him darshanin the form of Guhai Namasivaya, who was then still living on Arunachala. This unexpected manifestation prompted Guru Namasivaya to compose a verse in praise of Siva:
Lord of the Golden Hall! King of Heaven!
You who grant to those who praise and worship you whatever it is they most desire,
whether they be spiritual adepts or mere disciples!
How was it that you came to dwell on holy Annamalai
in the from of my Guru, Guhai Namasivaya,
and placed your twin feet upon the head
Of such a wretched devotee as I?
This is something that my understanding cannot compass.
One account of his life written in verse, describes this manifestation of his Guru in the following way:
The Lord whose golden image resides in that place
Appeared to him in the form of a loving Sadguru.
Awakening from a swoon, he pondered deeply to himself, 'What ill can befall me if I remain here in this place?'
His realisation deepened until it encompassed all of creation.(6)
In an ecstatic state he composed another hundred verses, all praising Siva, in less than half an hour. Afterwards, he retired to a secluded room in the temple and became absorbed in the Self.
It will be remembered that Guhai Namasivaya had told Guru Namasivaya that if the latter did not have darshan of his, Guhai's, form at Chidambaram, he could return to Arunachala. The manifestation therefore meant that Guru Namasivaya had to stay in Chidambaram and attend to the renovation work that Guhai Namasivaya had given him. At this point in the story Siva himself interceded and made the temple authorities aware of Guru Namasivaya and the works he was destined to perform.
At that time there were three thousand brahmin priests who were permitted to serve in the Chidambaram Temple. The Chidambara Mahatmyam, a compilation of local legends and myths, has an account of how these priests came to occupy their position.
There was a legendary king from North India called Hiranyavarman who rebuilt the temple as an act of gratitude after he was cured of leprosy by taking a bath in the Siva Ganga Tank. He also brought back from North India the 3,000 Dikshitars, the original priests of the temple who had, for some reason, emigrated to the north. On their return there were only 2,999, but the original number was restored when Siva agreed to be counted as one of the 3,000.
This legend may have arisen out of a need to explain why the Chidambaram Temple does not follow the traditional rules and rituals prescribed in the SaivaAgamas, the scriptures that lay down the regulations for all acts of worship in South Indian Saiva temples. Instead, the temple rites are governed by a manual attributed to the sage Patanjali. This was brought back from North India by the Dikshitars when King Hiranyavarman persuaded them to return home.
The temple suffered no loss of prestige by adopting these strange rites. On the contrary, for many Saivas, the Chidambaram Temple is the holiest place of worship. Its unique sanctity can be gauged from the fact that millions of Tamil Saivas refer to it as 'Koyil', meaning 'the Temple'. For them, no further name is required or ever given to it.
When Guru Namasivaya appeared in Chidambaram, the priestly caste was headed by three of these Dikshitars - Jivanmukta, Jatamukta and Mahamukta. By virtue of their seniority they were entitled to be carried from place to place in a palanquin. Shortly after Guru Namasivaya's arrival, Siva himself appeared before these priests and gave them the following instructions.
'A very great person has come from Arunachala. He is very much absorbed in yoga. You must arrange a secluded place for him. Many holy works are destined to be done by him on my behalf. If you were to ask, ''What place shall we put him in?'' I would tell you that his place is on the northern side of the temple beyond the temple border. I have twice placed my foot there in the past: once when writing theTiruvachakam of Manikkavachagar, and also when I brought the milk ocean for Upamanyu. You can take him there.'
Upamanyu was the son of the sage Vyaghrapada and his story appears in theMahabharata. He had acquired a taste for milk, but none was available in the forest hermitage where he lived. He asked his mother for some, but she was unable to give him any. She explained that they were living simply and primitively and that they depended on Siva for all their needs. Seeing in this statement a chance to take his request to a higher authority, the boy demanded to know who Siva was and asked how he could earn his grace. His mother taught him how to mediate, without being aware that her son was only learning in order to beg for milk.
When the boy had mastered the technique of meditating on Siva, Siva appeared before him and said, 'Child Upamanyu, I am pleased with you. You are a sage already. You are a great devotee. I have seen that you are a brahmarishi in the making. You will have eternal youth and lustre. An ocean of milk will be there for you whenever you want it. You can enjoy this with all your friends and relatives and finally you will have bliss by attaining me.'
A local tradition locates this incident at Chidambaram. The Tirupparkkadal Tank - 'The Tank of Divine Milk' - is situated to the north of the main temple compound. Adjoining it is a math that is supposed to be the place where Manikkavachagar, the ninth-century Saiva poet-saint, composed many of the poems that are included in the Tiruvachakam, his principal work.
The priests took Guru Namasivaya to his appointed spot near the Tirupparkkadal Tank and returned to the temple.
Guru Namasivaya sat there, absorbed in the Self, until the pangs of hunger again brought him back to the world. In his usual fashion he called out to Parvati for food:
My lady Sivakami whom the wise praise
with the sweet nectar of their words!
I offer praises to your golden foot
that treads the realms of heaven,
that you may preserve from starvation
this flesh-bound bodily frame.
I beg you, bring me rice!
At the conclusion of the song, the Mother brought him food. As she was approaching him, she sang a verse in reply:
I, Sivakami, sister to the great Lord
who in ancient times drank with relish
milk at the demoness' breast,(7) have brought rice to delight
the servant and slave of Guhai Namasivaya.
From that day on Lady Sivakami daily brought food and gave it to Guru Namasivaya. He continued to sit there, absorbed in his yogic practices.
While he was staying in that spot, many people who frequented the place used to leave money in front of him because, seeing him, they felt that he was a very great spiritual being.
After some time, when a large amount of money had piled up in this way, Guru Namasivaya looked at it and commented, 'This wealth is a killer of man'.
He told the people who were nearby at the time to take it all for themselves. This they did. When the three thousand priests saw what was happening, they were upset because they felt that a lot of wealth was being wasted. They went to Guru Namasivaya and begged him to change the place where he sat and did his yoga.
'Because you are staying here, outside the temple, all kinds of people are taking away the money that is being given to you. If you come inside the temple and let us collect the money for you, a lot of holy works and endowments can take place, So, please come and sit inside the temple.'
'I have come here at the request of the Lord of Chidambaram,' replied Guru Namasivaya. 'What reason is there for me to go inside?'
The three thousand priests felt that Guru Namasivaya would never come inside if they alone invited him, so they asked the three principal priests to intercede directly with the deity.
They went to him and said, 'If Guru Namasivaya comes inside the temple, money will come and many holy works and endowments can start.'
'Yes, this is good,' said the Lord. 'But he won't come if you call him. I myself will go and fetch him.'
Then, assuming the form of a sangama,(8) he went to the place where Guru Namasivaya was staying and stood before him. When the Lord arrived, carrying a stick and a water pot, Guru Namasivaya was absorbed in the Self. As he came out of this state, he saw the elderly Saiva monk in front of him and exclaimed respectfully, 'Slave of your feet!'
'Where have you come from?' asked Guru Namasivaya.
The sangama replied, 'We reside at Tillaivanam [another name for Chidambaram]'.
'And what is your name?' enquired Guru Namasivaya.
'My name is Ambalatthaduvar [The Dancer in the Hall].'
'And what is the purpose of your coming here?' asked Guru Namasivaya.
'I need some food,' said the sangama. 'I went all over this place. Some people told me that if I came here I would get some food.'
Guru Namasivaya told him, 'Mother Parvati brings food for me every day. I don't even have a vessel.'
The sangama responded by saying, 'Here is the vessel,' as he pointed at the moon.
Then, to demonstrate how he got his food, Guru Namasivaya looked in the direction of the Goddess, and some food immediately appeared.
Addressing the sangama, he said, 'Please take this.'
The sangama refused, 'I won't take it,' he said.
'Why not?'
'If you give me food every day in this way, only then will I take it. Not otherwise.'
'You appear quite old,' remarked Guru Namasivaya. 'I travel about a lot to places like Kasi and Rameswaram. How can I promise that I will offer food to you every day? You may not be anywhere near me.'
'If I walk in front of you,' replied the sangama, 'then you must give me food. If I am behind you, I do not need food.'
Guru Namasivaya agreed: 'If you stand in front of me I will give you food. Otherwise I will not.'
'I agree to those terms,' said the sangama. 'I will stand in front of you if I need food.'
'So now please eat,' said Guru Namasivaya, offering him his first instalment of food.
The sangama then tried to revise the conditions, 'If you offer food after first touching your vibhuti pouch or rudraksha beads, then I will take it.'
Guru Namasivaya refused to agree to these new conditions. He repeated his previous commitment: 'If you stand before me, I will give you food.'
The sangama backed down. 'Good,' he said. 'When I need food, I will come and stand in front of you.'
'And if you do,' reiterated Guru Namasivaya, 'I will give you food.' (9)
Just as the Lord was assuming a position which indicated that he was about to take Guru Namasivaya's food, he said, 'I need water to quench my thirst'.
Guru Namasivaya made no attempt to serve him personally. 'The Tirupparkkadal Tank is over there,' he said, pointing in the right direction. 'You can take water from there.'
The Lord did as he had been instructed, went to the tank and then suddenly disappeared. He reappeared in the temple, still in the guise of a sangama, and spoke to the three thousand priests.
'I have arranged a plan. All of you should now take the palanquin in which I ride and all the ceremonial banners that have come into existence here for my sake. Get him into the palanquin, arrange all the banners around him, and then take him along all the four streets that surround the temple. Afterwards, bring him to me.'
The priests took the palanquin and the banners, went to Guru Namasivaya and politely requested him to come to the temple with them.
When they asked him to get into the palanquin. Guru Namasivaya refused, saying, 'Why a palanquin for me? There is no need.'
The three thousand priests responded by telling him, 'This is not a palanquin, it is a tiger-skin seat, appropriate for a yogi like you'.
Guru Namasivaya, still disinclined to go with them, replied, 'No, it is not fitting'. Then the priests tried a new approach.
'Yesterday afternoon our Lord came to you. What did you tell him?' Guru Namasivaya remembered the strange encounter he had had on the previous day and the thought came to him that the sangama may not have been just a simple monk. He went into a yogic trance and saw in that state that on the previous day it had been the Lord Himself, who had come and given him darshan.
He resumed his normal state and remarked to the priests, 'After he came here, he must have gone to tell you what happened'.
When he finally understood what had been happening, he composed the following verse:
Appearing as a Virasaiva mendicant,
The Lord himself manifested to me
and asked me to give him alms.
But when I offered him food,
He bade me create all the endowments
to guarantee his service every day.
Only after reciting this verse did he finally consent to get into the palanquin. As he was being taken around the streets of Chidambaram, he sang another verse in praise of the Lord:
Our Lord in Tillai's Hall, Consort to her whose breasts are ample and shapely,
to whom I daily raise my voice in praise.
Will he abolish the births, past, present and future,
upon this great wide earth
of those who have not known his holy heart?
Will he cut out their good and evil deeds
and bestow his twin feet upon them?
Singing this song, he reached the temple. He disembarked from his palanquin near the flagpole, took off his sandals outside the Panchakshara Compound, walked into the Golden Hall and had darshan of the Lord there.
He then looked at the three thousand priests and asked them, 'What endowments shall I create?'
The Lord himself then spoke through an oracle in the temple: 'Create endowments for all people.'
Guru Namasivaya thought that if the Lord himself gave a donation to start the endowment, and gave it in such a way that it was witnessed by all the assembled devotees, it would be certain that the endowment would continue forever. He therefore sang the following verse while holding a golden plate in his upraised hands:
Lord of Chidambaram's Hall, you who held me in your sway
in the form of my revered Guru!
I beg you for alms
so that no holy endowment shall be lacking
in the worship of your lotus foot.
As soon as he had completed the singing of this verse in front of the Lord, a gold coin came from the sky and fell onto the plate. All those present said that the Lord himself had given a donation. Feeling that this was a sign that the Lord wanted them all to contribute, the devotees present gave an abundance of gold, pearls and other things. Guru Namasivaya handed over all these donations to the three thousand priests and began to walk away from them.
As he was attempting to leave, his steps faltered and he enquired rhetorically of the priests, 'What is stopping me now?'
The priests, not knowing the answer, replied, 'How can it be known to us?'
Guru Namasivaya again went into a yogic trance to ascertain the reason for his inability to leave.
When he resumed his normal state he enquired, 'Has there been any jewellery made for the Lord?'
After thinking for some time they replied, 'Tinkling anklets [silampu] and a girdle of tinkling bells [kinkini] have been made. That much we know. Apart from this, there is no other jewellery.'
On hearing this answer Guru Namasivaya called the artisans and said to them, 'Silampu, kinkini and veerakantamanai [a ring with little bells worn on the leg] have to be made. How much money will be needed?'
'Fifty thousand gold coins.' They answered, very optimistically.
Without querying the amount, he took all the money that had been collected and gave it to them, asking them to make the necessary jewels.
Later, when he was resting, all the three thousand priests gathered together and spoke bitterly among themselves.
'We all thought that we could benefit through him. But now he has given all the wealth to make jewellery!'
Then they all united in ridiculing him, saying, 'If the Lord wears such expensive jewels, then he will have to dance as well.'
One of them also said, sarcastically, 'So our Lord is now going to dance just for him.'
Guru Namasivaya heard all their comments. On the fortieth day, when all the jewellery had been completed and brought to him, he called all the three thousand priests and said to them, 'If the Lord now dances, will you all be willing to witness it?'
To this they answered immediately, 'How much merit must we have acquired to see such a sight! If we see it, twenty-one generations of our line will be redeemed.'
Then Guru Namasivaya thought to himself, 'The people here are very sceptical. If the Lord moves, they may say that it is merely on account of the breeze.'
He therefore ordered that all the windows be closed. He adorned the Lord with the jewellery that had been made and then, earnestly seeking darshan of the Lord's dance, he sang the following verse:(10)
Lord of the Hall, can we ever perish
if but one of your feet dances?
To behold all the gods in heaven
could not compare with such a sight!
And could that foot ever grow weary
which delighted victorious Patanjali
and the fierce tiger-footed Vyaghrapada too?
To understand the significance of this and subsequent verses, it is necessary to digress a little into the background and traditions surrounding the ananda tandava, the dance of bliss that Lord Nataraja performs in Chidambaram.
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The story begins, according to the Koyil Puranam, the sthala puranam of Chidambaram, in the forests of Tarakam. In that place there was a large multitude of rishis, all following the ritualistic practices of Mimamsa. Siva went there to confront them, 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. Undiscouraged by this failure, the sages renewed their offerings and produced an enormous serpent that Siva seized and wrapped round his neck like a garland. Then he began to dance. However, the rishishad not exhausted their tricks. They created a malignant dwarf, Muyalakan, who rushed towards Siva with the intention of attacking him. Siva touched him with the tip of his foot and fractured his spine, leaving him writhing on the ground. Siva then resumed his dance, which was witnessed or accompanied by several of the gods and the rishis. A typical description of the dance scene can be found inPatanjali Charita, 4, 61-7:
At the very sign of his [Siva's] brow, Vishnu takes up the drummardala which, with its noble rumbling note, starts the musical sound. With his lotus hands, Brahma takes up a pair of cymbals, Indra plays the bamboo flute, while Saraswati plays the lute. Siva ties up his hair with the snake, wraps the elephant hide around his waist and begins to dance.
The myths and legends of Chidambaram state that Siva was compelled to continue his dance at Chidambaram, rather than in the Tarakam forest, because he could see that the original site could not sustain the powerful energies of the dance. Invoking a yogic parallel, he identified the snaking ida and pingala currents in the subtle body with geographical locations north and south of Chidambaram, and then said that the central channel [natuvinadi] passed directly through Tillai, making it the centre of the world and the site of the original cosmic lingam.
It is through this analogy that Chidambaram, according to local tradition, became the centre of the cosmos, the axis mundi around which all the rest of the universe rotates. The dance is so powerful, only the true centre, the heart of the spiritual and material universe, can support and sustain it. According to this tradition, Chidambaram becomes the world centre on the physical plane; on the spiritual plane, the central shrine becomes the Heart-lotus, the still centre out of which emerges the primal dance of creation in the form of Siva's dance of bliss.
I will return to the theme of the ananda tandava as the primal dance of creation a little later, but before that it needs to be stressed, in the light of what follows in Guru Namasivaya's story, just how inaccessible the dance is to ordinary eyes. TheSuta Samhita (8, 9, 47) declares that the dance is beyond the vision of even the greatest of sages and adds that only Siva's consort is naturally able to witness the dancing movements of the Lord. Elsewhere the Suta Samhita (3, 4, 6) states:
Devi in her great mercy witnesses what is impossible for others to see. Like the mother who partakes of the medicine that the baby cannot directly taste, though through the mother would benefit by it, she gazes and passes on the benefit of the vision to the children, her devotees.
How then did the sages and gods get to see the dance? In the Tarakam forest it was Siva himself who graciously granted divine sight to the assembled gods andrishis so that they could watch him dance. Without that grace, even they would not have been able to see him.
In addition to Devi, known as Sivakami in Chidambaram, there are two sages who have been granted the boon of being able to witness Lord Nataraja's dance: Patanjali, who is the incarnation of the cosmic serpent Adiseshan, and Vyaghrapada,(11) the father of the boy Upamanyu for whom Siva created the ocean of milk. Patanjali and Vyaghrapada were worshipping the original lingam at Chidambaram with such devotion that Siva appeared before them and said that he would grant them a boon. They both asked to be eternal witnesses to his dance of bliss at Chidambaram, a request that Siva granted.
What exactly does this dance symbolise and signify? I will begin to answer that question by quoting five verses from Unmai Vilakkam, a thirteenth century canonical work of the Saiva Siddhanta school:
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The arch [over Lord Nataraja's head] indicates Omkar, and the torches(12) that fill the space with light are the [five] letters(13) that are inseparable from Omkar. Those who have given up their egoism know that this is the dance of the Lord, and knowing this, they will be released from the cycle of births and death.
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Understand that creation emanates from the drum, preservation from the hand of hope, destruction from the fire held in one hand, veiling from the foot which presses down, and liberation from the foot held aloft.(14)
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Our Lord's dance consists of scattering the darkness of maya, burning the strong karma, stamping down the soul's impurity, showering grace and lovingly plunging the soul in the ocean of bliss.(15)
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The silent jnanis, destroying the three-fold bond, are established where their selves are destroyed. To such jnanis, the dance of Lord Nataraja, the embodiment of grace, is the visible fountain of bliss in which they deeply drink.
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The one who is beyond word and thought becomes absorbed in grace, takes the form of the unsurpassed panchakshara mantra [Nama Sivaya] and dances on the base of parasakti, witnessed by his consort, the daughter of Himavan. Those who understand this mystic dance and cherish his memory have no further births.
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I noted earlier that for devotees of 'Koyil', Chidambaram signifies both the physical centre of the world and its spiritual Heart-lotus, that space of consciousness in which physical creation appears, and the place where the surrendered mind has to subside and die in order to get a true knowledge of Siva. The Heart is the place out of which creation manifests, and it is also the place where enlightenment takes place. The Heart-dance expresses itself phenomenally as the world and the power that sustains it, but it must be remembered that the place of its origin is the centre into which the jiva must withdraw in order to transcend creation and attain enlightenment. In an explanation of the significance of Lord Nataraja's dance, the Tamil work Tiru-Arul-Payan (IX, 3) identifies these two aspects and makes the following recommendations:
The dance of nature proceeds on one side; the dance of enlightenment on the other. Fix your mind in the centre of the latter.
I propose to follow the advice in the next few paragraphs.
Firstly, I should like to suggest that Guru Namasivaya's odyssey to Chidambaram can be interpreted in an allegorical way, revealing that the physical steps he took represent an internal spiritual pilgrimage towards and into the Heart.(16)
What clues or hints are given that this might be the inner import of the story? Firstly, one should remember the role that Sakti, Siva's consort, plays in Saivism. As I pointed out in the quote from Suta Samhita (3, 9, 6) her role is essentially that of a mediator and transmitter of Siva's grace. She alone can witness the primal dance and, having become energised and activated by it, 'She passes on the benefit of the vision to the children, her devotees'. In Saivism it is Sakti, not Siva, who creates the world; the panchakrityas (creation, preservation, destruction, veiling and grace) are all mediated through her.
On each day that Guru Namasivaya travelled towards Chidambaram, the Heart, he called out to a local form of Sakti and begged for food. The rice he received was the grace of the Lord, mediated through his consort. And each time he was the recipient of such grace, he was purified to the extent that he was able to move nearer and nearer to Chidambaram, the space of consciousness.
In Saivism, Sakti brings maya into existence while simultaneously providing the grace through which one can transcend it. As verse thirty-six of Unmai Vilakkamnotes, the energy of the dance scatters the darkness of maya, burns up karma, stamps out the soul's impurities, showers grace, and finally plunges the soul into the ocean of bliss.
When Guru Namasivaya, at the threshold of the sanctum, bathed in the Siva Ganga Tank, he was immersing his soul in this ocean of bliss. As he commented at the time, those who have been fortunate enough to have this bath 'will see the effects of all their deeds destroyed… [and] will be plundered of all their action's evil fruit'.
The grace of Sakti brought him, step by step, to the threshold of the Heart; the bath in the sacred ocean of bliss eradicated his karmas, enabling him to move on and encounter the Lord in the Heart-lotus, the inner sanctum of the temple. But there, much to his surprise, he found not Siva but his own Guru, Guhai Namasivaya, thus confirming the ancient truth that God and the Guru are one and that at the moment of enlightenment they can both be found in the Heart.
There is a mystical and mysterious paradox at the heart of Saiva cosmology. Though the inherent power of Siva enables Sakti to arise within himself and perform all the panchakrityas, Siva himself does nothing. He is eternal silence, stillness and peace, untouched and unaffected by the activities that Sakti performs through his power and on his behalf. When one reaches the Heart, the source of creation, and directly experiences the dance of bliss there, one finds that it is a motionless dance of silence, not a frenetic physical act of movement and physical creation. There, as Ramana Maharshi says, Siva 'dances the dance of stillness in the dancing hall of the Heart'.(17)
I have already noted that Guru Namasivaya's story can be read on two equally valid levels: the miracle-laden physical and the spiritually symbolic. The two levels are clearly discernible as the narrative continues. At the point where I began this lengthy digression on Saiva philosophy and cosmology, Guru Namasivaya was singing a song to Siva, asking him to perform the dance of bliss for all the assembled priests and devotees. Though, ostensibly, he is asking for a physical manifestation, he is also calling on Siva to reveal himself in their hearts. Having, through grace, established himself in the Heart, Guru Namasivaya now has the power and the authority to grant a glimpse of that sublime state to the people assembled in the temple. But, when that glimpse is granted to them, they are paralysed with awe and fear. This is a common reaction in impure souls who are pushed too near the divinity.(18)
However, this is getting ahead of the story. I go back now to the song of supplication that Guru Namasivaya was addressing to Lord Nataraja, asking him to perform his dance:
Supreme Godhead! Divine Lord of Chidambaram!
You who perform your divine dance in Tillai's Hall
as the multitude sing hymns of praise and adoration,
and Tumburu and Narada(19) intone a heavenly melody,
as Vishnu slings a drum upon his hip
and raps out a thunderous rhythm,
and Gauri, Lady Ambika herself,
strikes her bright celestial cymbals
to mark the time in even measure!(20)
Will the day ever come
When my eyes will rejoice to see
that pounding golden foot,
that upraised lotus foot,
that delicate waist and navel's whorl,
that breast, white with smeared ash,
draped with a fierce tiger's noble pelt,
those four-fold golden arms
each as great as Meru's mount,
that blackened throat, that face, that holy head?
When Guru Namasivaya praised him in this way, Lord Nataraja started dancing. Everyone present fell down, overcome by awe, prostrated, and remained motionless, face down.
After a long time had passed, three of the three thousand priests raised their heads and said, 'The dance has been going on for a long time. Guru Namasivaya, you who are orchestrating the dance, and you, Lord of Tillai, who dance without, in reality, moving at all - your greatness cannot be perceived unless you stop the dance!'
Guru Namasivaya replied, enigmatically, 'Am, I the one who is asking for the dance? Am I the one who is asking for it to stop?'
'The one who is keeping time,' they all said, 'is the one who should stop first.'
Guru Namasivaya had been beating out the rhythm of the dance. He ignored their request and went on singing to the dancing Nataraja:
Holy dancer of Tillai's Hall! Our creator and daily benefactor!
Would there by any pain in your upraised foot
and would that other foot ever falter
which pounds upon the demon
Muyalakan if your dance went on and on for all eternity?
Muyalakan is the malignant dwarf who was created by the rishis to attack Siva in the Tarakam forest. Siva broke his back with his toe. In all iconographical representations of the ananda tandava Muyalakan is depicted under Nataraja's right foot. The dwarf symbolises ignorance, so when Nataraja repeatedly stamps on his body during the dance, he is eradicating the ignorance that separates one from God. Muyalakan is a Tamil name. In Sanskrit the dwarf is known as Apasmara, which means 'an epileptic'. Ignorance, in an epileptic fit of madness, tries to assail God, but is immediately broken and destroyed.
In response to this new verse, the dancing became even more frenzied. The three thousand priests, still wanting the awesome dance to stop, tried a different approach.
'Guru Namasivaya is singing the praises of Siva,' they said, 'and Siva is obeying him. Let us sing in praise of Guru Namasivaya and see if he will accept our request to stop the dance.'
Countless thousands of verses he has sung
in the presence of Tillai's Lord,
who delights in the pleasures of the hunt,
and who sports eternally with his consort Kali
as Kama's body wastes and withers away.(21)
It was on hearing that holy song of Guru Namasivaya
that the Lord was deeply pleased
and raised his ankleted foot to dance.
The change of tactics worked. Guru Namasivaya responded by composing a new verse that requested Siva to stop his dance:
My Lord, you who dance in the Golden Hall,
Your glorious foot and anklet are decorous indeed
As they dance to the rhythm tat-taa-taata-ti.
May you now heed my song and cease your holy dance.
The dance stopped as the verse was completed. The priests were so impressed by Guru Namasivaya's ability to command God himself to dance, they vowed to each other that after his death they would worship the lingam over his samadhi as if it were Siva himself. During his subsequent stay in Chidambaram Guru Namasivaya composed hundreds of verses, many of which have survived. One of his biographers, writing about this period, noted: 'No poem did he write but it sang the praises of his Guru, and no lesser deity filled his thoughts, only Lord Siva himself.'(22)
This is certainly true of his most famous poem, Annamalai Venba,(23) which extols Siva in the form of Arunachala and repeatedly praises the greatness of his Guru, whom he considered to be Arunachala-Siva in human form. Going through the verses, one can easily visualise him sitting in Chidambaram, dutifully carrying out his Guru's orders, but secretly dreaming of Arunachala-Siva, Guhai Namasivaya, his Guru, and the blessed period of his life when he had the constant company of both. A selection of verses from Annamalai Venba appears elsewhere on this site. Even the most casual perusal of this poem will give an indication of the reverence, the esteem and the devotion that the author felt for the sacred mountain and for its human manifestation, Guhai Namasivaya.
The story of Guru Namasivaya's life ends rather abruptly here, for there is no further record of his activities, or even an account of his passing away. The text that is the source of most of the material in this chapter merely says that after performing many more holy works, Guru Namasivaya finally passed away at Tirupperundurai, a town associated with Manikkavachagar. However, to contradict this, there is a stone inscription in Chidambaram, apparently executed shortly after Guru Namasivaya's death,(24) which says that 'Namasivaya became one with the Siva lingam upon the mountain Arunagiri'. After this inscription there are three words, vanta guru tanam, whose meaning, in the context, is a little obscure. However, they can be taken to mean that Arunachala himself took the form of Guru Namasivaya and came to Chidambaram to execute his work there.
A devotee, Chinna Nalla Nayan, donated the stone and had the epitaph carved. He concluded his inscription with the following words:
We joyfully offer our worship to him who dwells in the city of the tiger [Chidambaram] in a hall of burnished gold, where Guru Namasivaya, disciple of the godly Guhai Namasivaya, who dwells on the slopes of Arunachala, dedicated himself to the service of the Lord. Praise be to the Lord!
See Annamalai Venba for a selection of Guru Namasivaya's verses in praise of Arunachala
(11) Both are alluded to in the song, composed by Guru Namasivaya in which he was attempting to persuade Lord Nataraja to begin his dance. Vyaghrapada, whose name means 'tiger-footed,' was given tiger's feet by Siva so that he could climb bilva trees to collect their leaves for ceremonial worship.
(12) The arch usually has many small flames coming out of it. Omkar is the sound of Om. The semicircle over the top of Nataraja's head is often compared to the top half of the Tamil letter for Om.
(13) The previous three verses equate various parts of Nataraja's body with the five holy syllables of Saivism: Na Ma Si Va Ya.
(14) Nataraja is always depicted with four arms. One of his legs is raised in a dancing posture. The positions and activities of the limbs are held to represent the panchakrityas, the five-fold activities of God: creation, preservation, destruction, veiling and grace. A verse from Chidambaram Mummani Kovai offers a similar interpretation:
O my Lord! Your hand holding the sacred drum has made the world and ordered the heavens and earth and other worlds and innumerable souls. Your lifted hand protects the multifarious animate and inanimate extended universe. Your sacred foot, planted on the ground, gives an abode to the tired soul, struggling in the toils of karma. It is your lifted foot that grants eternal bliss to those that approach you. These five actions are indeed your handiwork.
(15) As he was dancing in the forest of Tarakam, Siva himself expounded on the significance of his dance to all the assembled gods and rishis:
This is the illusion of the world as you see it here, and you will now know the eternal truth of Supreme Brahman, immanent, beginningless, eternal, consciousness, full of bliss, unending and One. (Patanjali Charita 4, 70-73)
(16) I am not saying that the physical events are fictitious. Some or all of them may have happened. I am merely pointing out that the narrative has been carefully constructed in such a way that it naturally lends itself to a symbolic interpretation.
(17) Arunachala Ashtakam, verse seven. See Five Hymns to Arunachala, tr. K. Swaminathan.
(18) An interesting commentary on this phenomenon can be found in No Mind - I am the Self, 2nd ed., pp. 193-4, where it is explained how and when the mind sinks into the Heart. There it is stated that when the impure mind approaches the Heart, it feels the peace and bliss of the Self, but if it comes too near, it then experiences a great panic and a great desire to go back to the world of manifestation again.
(19) Tumburu and Narada are devarishis and celestial musicians. Both of them witnessed the original dance of Siva in the Tarakam forest, before it was moved to Chidambaram
(20) All the texts pertaining to the ananda tandava, and all the sculptural representations of it, have Brahma, rather than Gauri, playing the cymbals. Siva's consort is always depicted as a non-participating witness to the dance. I have no idea why Guru Namasivaya wanted to change her role in this way.
(21) Kama, the god of love, was destroyed by Siva when at Brahma's request, he interrupted Siva's tapas and tried to make him fall in love with Parvati. Since Kama also signifies lust and desire in general, the lines indicate that though Siva sported with Parvati, it was just a lila, having no real lustful context.
(22) Pulavar Puranam, ch. 21, v. 2.
(23) Annamalai is one of the many Tamil names for Arunachala. It can be translated as 'unreachable or unapproachable mountain'. A venba verse is a Tamil metrical form that has four lines, three the same length and the fourth slightly shorter.
(24) The death date on the inscription occurs in the middle of the twelfth century. This seems to be a little early to me. Various references in Guhai Namasivaya's poems indicate that they were written about a hundred years later
In a hagiography such as this, it is not possible to separate, definitively, fact from fiction. Guru Namasivaya's literary works and the various inscriptions in Chidambaram can only corroborate the following facts:
1) That he lived at Arunachala with his Guru, Guhai Namasivaya.
2) That he achieved a very high spiritual stage through the grace of his Guru and the power of Arunachala.
3) That he went to Chidambaram and was responsible for many temple endowments there. An inscription there gives a list of all his literary works, all of which are poems praising different aspects of Siva.
Some of the miraculous events may have come from the author's imagination, since no Saiva hagiography is complete without them. But this does not mean that such events are not possible. In a conversation I had with Sri. H. W. L. Poonja (Papaji) he told me that he had met a yogi in the Himalayas who could command a goddess to bring him food. Sri Poonjaji tested him by asking for a certain dish that was the speciality of a town several hundred miles away. Thought they were both sitting at an altitude of 15,000 feet in a remote, inaccessible part of the Himalayas, the food immediately materialised out of nowhere. This yogi, a young Kashmiri boy, could also call on Saraswati, the goddess of learning, and with her help speak any language. Sri Poonjaji, an accomplished linguist, found that the boy could talk to him in all the ten languages that he knew.
The boy, who also demonstrated his ability to levitate and fly, had attained these siddhis through a determined practice of raja yoga. However, he quite frankly admitted that he had not attained Self-realisation and said that he was looking for a Guru who could give him Brahma jnana.
Feats such as those attributed to Guru Namasivaya are possible through yogic training, but they should not be taken to be indications or proofs of Self-realisation.
Guru Namasivaya in his poems states that through the grace of Arunachala and through the power of his Guru, true knowledge dawned in him causing the cycle of endless births to cease permanently. This is a better indication of his realised state than any of the miracles he performed.
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