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Narayana Guru    

Nārāyana Guru (1856 - 1928) was a great sage and social reformer of India. He was born into Ezhava/Thiyya family. (Ezhava caste, because of its precarious position between the upper and lowest strata in the caste hierarchy, faced much social injustice). Gurudeva as he is fondly called revolted against casteism and thereby transformed the society in Kerala.

Nārāyana Guru is revered for his Vedic knowledge, poetic proficiency, openness to the views of others, non-violent philosophy and most importantly his unrelenting resolve to set aright social wrongs. Nārāyana Guru was instrumental in setting the spiritual foundations for social reform in the current State of Kerala (erstwhile states of Travancore, Kochi and Malabar district of British India) and was one of the most successful social reformers who tackled caste in India. He demonstrated a path to social emancipation without invoking the dualism of the opressed and the opressor.

In contrast to certain other reformers who criticised Brahmins and upper caste Hindus for the conditions of the lower castes, Nārāyana Guru stressed on the uplift of a community through its own efforts by the establishment of schools and temples. In the process he brushed aside the Hindu religious conventions based upon Chaturvarna. His transformation of the social face of Kerala relied on emphasizing the Advaita philosophy of Sankara.

Early life

The Guru was born at Chempazhanthi, a small village near Thiruvananthapuram, circa 1856. As the only son of his parents, who had three daughters, the young boy was named Nānu (shortname for Nārāyana). The small thatched house where Nānu was born is preserved to date as a historical monument. Nānu’s father Mādan Āśān, of the Valyalvārathu joint family, was a Sanskrit teacher knowledgeable in astrology, Ayurvedic medicine and the epics of Hinduism. Nānu’s uncle Krishnan Vaidyan was a reputed Ayurvedic physician and Sanskrit scholar. Nānu is said to have been initiated into traditional formal education Ezhuthinirithal under Chempazhanthi Pillai, a local schoolmaster and village officer. Besides schooling, young Nānu continued to be educated at home, under the guidance of his father and his uncle Krishnan Vaidyan, where he was taught basics of the Tamil and Sanskrit languages and traditional subjects such as Siddharūpam, Bālaprobhodhanam and Amarakośam.

Biographical accounts describe Nānu as a reticent and intelligent boy who was intensely drawn to devout worship at the Manackal temple adjacent to the Valyalvārathu home. The boy Nānu is also said to have many a times criticised his own relatives for social discrimination and the apartheid-like practices of segregation of children of, supposedly, lower castes in his times. He is also said to have preferred solitude for meditation and to have shown a strong aptitude for poetics and reasoning, composing hymns and singing them in praise of God. He lost his mother around the age of 15. Nānu is thought to have spent most of his adolescent years and early youth assisting both his father, in tutoring, and his uncle in the practice of Ayurvedic medicine whilst for the rest of the time he gave himself to intense devotional practices at temples nearby.

Transformation as master, yogi and seeker of truth

At the age of 21 young Nānu was sent for further education under an eminent scholar Kummampilli Rāman Pillai Āśān of Karunagapalli. Living as a guest in a prominent family house Varanapallil near Kayankulam, Nānu, along with other students, was tutored by this scholar in subjects like advanced Sanskrit Language and Poetry, Drama and Literary Criticism, and Logical Rhetoric.

Around the age of 25, Nānu returned to his village after which he was off and on involved in running a village school for children. His role as a teacher gained him the name Nānu Āśān (Āśān meaning a master or teacher). Whilst teaching and continuing with his quest for Truth, through self-study and his own experiences in life, Nānu Āśān moved around on foot to places in the vicinity, often spending time in the confines of temples, writing poems and hymns and lecturing to village folk on philosophy and moral values.

Though married, through an initiative by his sisters, Nānu Āśān was not inclined towards a married life, nor is much known about his marital life, which would have ended with the increasing intensity of his spiritual inclination and drifting as a wandering ascetic in search of truth, as did Gautama Buddha.

During his meandering days, at the house of another Sanskrit scholar and old classmate, Perunalli Krishnan Vidayar, Nānu Āśān got introduced to many learned men and peers, including Kunjan Pilla, who was destined to become his spiritual guide and soulmate Chattampi Swamikal. Kunjan Pilla, who discovered and appreciated Nānu Āśān’s philosophical genius and passion for Yoga, introduced Nānu Āśān to a master of Yogic practices by name Thycaud Ayyavu. Under the Yogi Thycaud Ayyavu, Nānu Āśān mastered various Yogic practices including Hatha Yoga. The exposure gained from this scholastic experience had a lasting impact on the later life and philosophy of Nārāyana Guru.

Enlightenment and its poetic expression

It is uncertain as to when precisely Nānu Āśān moved to his hermitage deep inside the hilly forest area in Maruthwāmala, where he is said to have subjected himself to the most austere life immersed in meditative thought, other rigorous yoga practices and extreme sustenance rituals. After an unpretentious life of over thirty years abounding in knowledge and harsh experiences, this epoch is considered the culmination of the meditative recluse; the point at which Nārāyana Guru is believed to have attained a state of Enlightenment, i.e. an absolute state of wisdom or awakening.

Nārāyana Guru’s later literary and philosophical masterpiece Atmopadeśa Śatakam (one hundred verses of self-instruction, written in Malayalam circa 1897) is considered a fertile poetic expression, encapsulating the Guru’s philosophy of egalitarianism, emanating from the author’s attainment of an experienced state of primordial knowledge and quintessence of the Universe; and his ensuing ability to view the human race, from a dignified and elevated perspective, as nothing but one of a genus, in unqualified equality and without any racial, religious, caste or other discriminations whatsoever.

Consecration of Siva Lingam at Aruvippuram

During his wandering life he happened to be at Aruvippuram in 1888. In the month of March that year, because of the request from local people who had no privileges to enter into Hindu temples, he decided to build a place of worship. He picked up a stone from a nearby river (Neyyar) and used it as an idol for the proposed temple and consecrated it. This in itself was revolutionary step for according to some of the Hindu scriptures, only brahmins can consecrate a temple. To the brahmins who questioned his right to do so, he replied that what he consecrated was an Ezhava Siva. Those who questioned the timing of the consecration saying it was not an astrologically auspicious time, he replied: Horoscope is to be cast after the birth of a child, not before. He instructed to place a plaque containing a motto on the temple wall which read as:

Devoid of dividing walls of Caste

Or hatred of rival faith,

We all live here

In Brotherhood,

Such, know this place to be!

This Model Foundation!

A new phase began in the Guru's life in 1904. He decided to give up his wandering life and settle down in a place to continue his Sadhana (spiritual practice) he choose Sivagiri, twenty miles to the north of Thiruvananthapuram. Goddess 'Amba' became his deity of worship.

Next, he started a Sanskrit school in Varkala. Poor boys and orphans were taken under his care. They were given education regardless of caste distinctions. Temples were built at different places - Trichur, Kannur, Anjuthengu, Tellicherry, Calicut, Mangalore. A temple was built for Sharada Devi in 1912, at Sivagiri. Worship at such temples helped to reduce to a large extent superstitious beliefs and practices.

In 1913, he founded an Ashram at Alwaye. It was called Advaita Ashram. This was an important event in his spiritual quest. That Ashram was dedicated to a great principle - Om Sahodaryam Sarvatra (all men are equal in the eyes of God). This became the motto of the new Ashram.

When Nārāyana Guru attained the age of sixty, his birth day was observed throughout the west-coast from Mangalore to Sri Lanka. Between the years 1918 and 1923 he visited and taught in Sri Lanka. In 1921, a Conference of Universal Brotherhood was held at Alwaye. Again in 1924, a conference of all religions was held at Alwaye. The Guru stressed the need for a Brahma Vidyalaya for a comparative study of different religious faiths.

Sree Nārāyana Guru has many followers and disciples. Nataraja Guru,a notable disciple of Sree Nārāyana Guru, introduced Guru's visions and ideals to the western world. He established Narayana Gurukulamin 1923 at the Nilgiris with the blessings of Nārāyana Guru.

Nārāyana Guru’s philosophy

After a span of a millennium since the time of Adi Shankara, Sree Nārāyana Guru was the next greatest proponent and re-evaluator of Advaita Vedanta and hailing from the same geographic region, i.e., present-day Kerala. Nārāyana Guru’s philosophy, which is fundamentally of Advaitic and non-dual wisdom in principles, further extended Advaita concepts into practical modes of self-realisation through spiritual education, compassion and vision for peaceful co-existence of the human race, whilst promoting social equality and universal brotherhood. His philosophy of non-violence and ahimsa strongly denounced discrimination in the name of caste or religion, and emphasised focusing on education and private enterprise for the ongoing uplift of the quality of life. The Guru’s philosophy emphasised the consistency between true existence of the “common reality” on Earth and one Divine behind the creation and sustenance of the Universe, dismissing any concepts of illusory worlds or any mid-way “city on high”.

The Guru’s philosophy is exemplified in his mystical writings that are truly interchanging warps and wefts of ethics, logic, aesthetics and metaphysics woven into masterpieces of silken rich poetry. The Guru’s literary works are in Malayalam, Sanskrit and Tamil languages, and these works are of a conceptual and aesthetic quality at par with the Upanishads.

At the time of its conception, Nārāyana Guru’s philosophy was in many respects ahead of its time and focused on a futuristic world order that could be shaped from his philosophical connotations that are underlain with transcendental aesthetics and logic embodied in knowledge and pure reason. Most of the serious scholars of Nārāyana Guru’s philosophy have been from generations beyond his lifetime; and this list keeps growing.

Rationalism and atheism

Although Nārāyana Guru had built a number of temples and composed many poems in praise of popular Hindu deities, he had many atheist followers. This shows his love for humanity as a whole which is irrespective of any faith based affiliations. Many of his atheist followers in fact considered him as an atheist. For instance, one of his prominent disciples Sahodaran Ayyappan was a militant atheist and one of the founders of Yukthivadi, the first rationalist/atheist magazine in Malayalam. When Sahodaran Ayyappan modified Nārāyana Guru's famous catchphrase, Oru Jati, Oru Matham, Oru Daivam Manushyanu (One Caste, One Religion, One God for Humanbeing) and re-written it as Jati Venda, Matham Venda, Daivam Venda Manushyanu (No Caste, No Religion, No God for Humanbeing), the latter did not protest

Casteism prevalent amongst the Hindus even in the first half of 20th century was so rabid that uppercaste people refused to have food along with the people belonging to lower caste and "untouchable" communities. Hindu scriptures were profusely quoted by them to justify this practice. The Ezhava community in which Nārāyana Guru was born too was not immune to this barbaric practice even after half-a-century of Nārāyana Guru's work. When Sahodaran Ayyappan, inspired by Narayanaguru's message of caste-less and creed-less society, launched what is called "Panthibhojanam" or community feasts participating people belonging to various castes and communities, the Ezhava lords called him "Pulayanaiappan" (Pulaya was used as a derogatory term for having feast with the Pulayas, an "untouchable" community in the caste-hierarchy of Hinduism) and tried to forcibly prevent the feast. It was in this context that Nārāyana Guru came out in support of Sahodaran Ayyappan and sent the message reproduced alongside. Translated into English, the message reads: "Whatever be one's religion, costume, language etc, since their caste is the same, there is nothing wrong in having inter-marriages and community feasts". It is this message of Narayanaguru which transgresses the established canons of Hindu religion (or any religion for that matter) that makes Narayanaguru a rationalist icon.

To avoid the attempts made by a section of his followers to identify him with the caste of the family he was born into, Nārāyana Guru was forced to state explicitly that he did not belong to any particular caste or religion. Through a message he sent in the year 1916, he proclaimed : It is years since I left castes and religions. Yet some people think that I belong to their caste. That is not correct. I do not belong to any particular caste or religion.

Some other prominent rationalist/atheist leaders, apart from Sahodaran Ayyappan, associated with Nārāyana Guru were M.C.Joseph, C.V.Kunhiraman and Mithavadi Krishnan.