Narayana Guru

Sree Narayana Guru (IPA: [nɑːrɑːjɐɳɐ guˈru]) (20 August 1856 – 20 September 1928) was a philosopher, spiritual leader and social reformer in India. He led a reform movement against the injustice in the caste-ridden society of Kerala in order to promote spiritual enlightenment and social equality. A quote of his that defined his movement was "one caste, one religion, and one god for all human beings." He is the author of the Advaita poem Daiva Dasakam, which is one of the most used poem in Kerala for community prayer.
Narayanan, né Nanu, was born on 20 August 1856 to Madan Asan and Kuttiyamma in an Ezhava family of ayurvedic physicians, in the village of Chempazhanthy near Thiruvananthapuram, in the erstwhile state of Travancore. Unlike other Ezhavas who confined their Sanskrit reading to ayurvedic works, Narayana guru studied religious texts as well. His early education was in the gurukula way under Chempazhanthi Mootha Pillai during which time his mother died when he was 15. At the age of 21, he went to central Travancore to learn from Raman Pillai Asan, a Sanskrit scholar who taught him Vedas, Upanishads and the literature and logical rhetoric of Sanskrit. A year later, he married Kaliamma but soon disassociated himself from the marriage to commence his public life as a social reformer. He returned to his village in 1881, when his father was seriously ill, and started a village school where he taught local children which earned him the name Nanu Asan.
Leaving home, he traveled through Kerala and Tamil Nadu and it was during these journeys, he met Chattampi Swamikal, a social and religious reformer, who introduced Guru to Ayyavu Swamikal from whom he learned meditation and yoga. Later, he continued his wanderings until he reached the Pillathadam cave at Maruthwamala where he set up a hermitage and practiced meditation for the next eight years.
In 1888, he visited Aruvippuram and spent time meditating in a cave near the Neyyar River. It was here that his first and one of his prominent disciple, Sivalingadasa Swamikal, who hailed from an orthodox Nair family, discovered him. During his stay, he consecrated a rock from the deepest part of the Neyyar River, a whirlpool sinkhole known as 'Sankaran Kuzhi'. It is believed that it was in this 'Sankaran Kuzhi' sage Agastya gave his worshipping Shiva Linga to Neyyar river somewhere before leaving. This rock was established as the idol of Shiva, and the site has since been known as the Aruvippuram Shiva Temple. The act, which later came to be known as Aruvipuram Pratishta, created a social commotion among the upper caste Brahmins who questioned Guru's right to consecrate the idol. His reply to them that "This is not a Brahmin Shiva but an Ezhava Shiva" later became a famous quote, used against casteism. It was here, the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP Yogam) was founded on 15 May 1903 by the efforts of Padmanabhan Palpu with Narayana Guru as its founder president.
Guru shifted his base to Sivagiri, near Varkala in 1904 where he opened a school for children from the lower strata of the society and provided free education to them without considering their caste. However, it took him seven years to build a temple there, the Sarada Mutt was built in 1912. He also built temples in other places such as Thrissur, Kannur, Anchuthengu, Thalassery, Kozhikode, and Mangalore and it took him to many places including Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) where he made his final visit in 1926. On his return to India, he was involved in a number of activities including the planning of the Sivagiri pilgrimage which was planned after his visit to Pallathuruthy in 1927 to attend the anniversary of the S.N.D.P. Yogam.
Soon after the meeting at Pallathuruthy, which was the last public function he attended, Guru became ill and underwent treatment at places such as Aluva, Thrissur, Palakkad, and finally to Chennai; the physicians attended to him included Ayurvedic physicians like Cholayil Mami Vaidyar, Panappally Krishnan Vaidyar and Thycauttu Divakaran Moos as well as allopathic physicians viz. . Krishnan Thampi, Panikker, Palpu and a European physician by name, Noble. He returned to Sarada Mutt and died on 20 September 1928, at the age of 72.
Casteism was practised in Kerala during the 19th and early 20th centuries and the backward castes such as Ezhavas and other untouchable castes like Paraiyars, Adivasis and Pulayars had to suffer discrimination from the upper caste community. It was against this discrimination that Guru performed his first major public act, the consecration of Siva idol at Aruvippuram in 1888. Overall, he consecrated forty five temples across Kerala and Tamil Nadu. His consecrations were not necessarily conventional deities; these included a slab inscribed with the words, "Truth, Ethics, Compassion, Love", a vegetarian Shiva, a mirror, and an Italian sculpture. He propagated the ideals of compassion and religious tolerance and one of his noted works, Anukampadasakam, extols various religious figures such as Krishna, The Buddha, Adi Shankara, Jesus Christ.
On 12 March 1925, Mahatma Gandhi visited the Sivagiri Ashram in Varkala, Kerala, during the Vaikom Satyagraha. During his stay, he met Narayana Guru, who emphasized the need for education and wealth for the upliftment of lower castes rather than mixed eating and marriages. This conversation, facilitated by a translator, also addressed religious freedom and the caste system. Narayana Guru's logical arguments and inclusive practices profoundly impacted Gandhi. Witnessing lower-caste children reciting prayers and their knowledge of the Upanishads impressed Gandhi and challenged his casteist views. Inspired by Guru's teachings, Gandhi re-evaluated his stance on caste and untouchability. As a result of this transformative experience, Mahatma Gandhi began to focus on eradicating untouchability and upliftment of Harijans (Dalits) in the national movement. He renamed his newspaper "Young India" to "Harijan" and made the eradication of untouchability a central part of his mission. This marked a significant shift in Gandhi's approach, integrating the fight against caste discrimination into the broader struggle for India's independence.
Mahatma Gandhi subsequently renamed his newspaper from "Young India" to "Harijan" and made the eradication of untouchability and upliftment of Harijans a part of the national movement.
In 1905, Narayana Guru organized All India Industrial and Agricultural Exhibition at Kollam, first time in India to facilitate industrialization and agriculture. Guru wanted to convey the importance of regaining the lost places of worship (later rebuilt by the Guru himself) and wealth.
The social protest of Vaikom Satyagraha was an agitation led by backward caste communities against discrimination in Hindu society of Travancore. It was reported that the trigger for the protest was an incident when Narayana Guru was stopped from passing through a road leading to the Vaikom Temple by an upper caste person. It prompted Kumaran Asan and Muloor S.Padmanabha Panicker, both disciples of Guru, to compose poems in protest of the incident. T. K. Madhavan, another disciple, petitioned the Sree Moolam Popular Assembly in 1918 for rights to enter the temple and worship, regardless of the caste. A host of people including K. Kelappan and K. P. Kesava Menon formed a committee and announced the Kerala Paryatanam Movement and with the support of Mahatma Gandhi. The agitation developed into a mass movement which resulted in the opening of the temple as well as three roads leading to it to people of all castes. The protest also influenced the Temple Entry Proclamation of 1936.
The Sivagiri pilgrimage was conceived by three of the disciples of Guru viz. Vallabhasseri Govindan Vaidyar, T. K. Kittan Writer and Muloor S. Padmanabha Panicker which Guru approved in 1928, with his own recommendations. He suggested that the goals of the pilgrimage should be the promotion of education, cleanliness, devotion to God, organization, agriculture, trade, handicrafts, and technical training and advised Vaidyar and Writer to organise a series of lectures on these themes to stress the need for the practice of these ideals, stating this to be the core purpose of Sivagiri pilgrimage. However, his death soon after delayed the project until 1932 when the first pilgrimage was undertaken from Elavumthitta in Pathanamthitta District.
Guru organized an All Religion Conference in 1923 at Alwaye Advaita Ashram, which was first such event in India. During this period, communalization escalated into riots in India. In Kerala, the Malabar rebellion occurred. According to the Simon Commission report, more than 112 major communal riots took place in India between 1922 and 1927. Throughout this time, the guru also received letters from a communal leader, Abdul Hamid Qadri Badayuni, from Uttar Pradesh, who later moved to Pakistan. The guru responded to his queries and questions through letters. The All Religions' Conference, which was the first of its kind in India, was organized against this backdrop to foster peace among the various religions of the country and at the entrance of the conference, he arranged for a message to be displayed which read, We meet here not to argue and win, but to know and be known. The conference has since become an annual event, organised every year at the Ashram.
Narayana Guru provided spiritual initiation to people of all faiths and sects. He initiated an individual from an orthodox Nair family in Koyilandy, who missed seeing the Guru upon his arrival due to huge crowd. This individual composed a poem in praise of the Guru and sent it through a friend. Upon reading the poem, the Guru blessed him by saying he will become a great yogi. This individual later became a yogi and known as Sivananda Yogi of Koyilandy.
Guru Narayana initiated Abdul Khader Masthan, a Muslim man, into spirituality. Born into the traditional Muslim family of Valiyakandy in Kannur city, which was traditionally involved in the copper business, Abdul Khader Masthan came into possession of a copper plate as part of the business. The inscriptions on the copper plate were in the Chenthamizh language. Being illiterate and unable to read even Malayalam, he found it difficult to interpret this ancient script and sought help from many, but to no avail. Eventually, Narayana Guru provided a solution.
Upon examining the script, Narayana Guru read it but did not tell the meaning to him rather he smiled at Abdul Khader Masthan and advised him to consult Sufi saints in Tamil Nadu, who could decipher its meaning. Following Narayana Guru's guidance, Abdul Khader met with a Sufi saint in Tamil Nadu. The saint read the inscription, which turned out to be a Sufi text. Inspired by this experience, Abdul Khader Masthan later became a renowned Sufi saint known as Icha Mastan. He has composed many Sufi poems including praise of Shiva.
Narayana Guru welcomed a Muslim named Khader during his Sri Lankan visit who expressed a keen interest in becoming his disciple. Khader inquired whether he would be accepted into the group and if a change of religion was necessary. The Guru assured him that changing his religion was not a prerequisite to becoming a disciple. A year later, during Narayana Guru's second visit at Sri Lanka, Khader met him again, this time dressed as a Hindu saint instead of his usual white Muslim attire. The Guru, feigning ignorance, asked Khader who he was. Disappointed, Khader reminded the Guru that he was his disciple, initiated the previous year. Narayana Guru expressed his recognition of the 'old' Khader and reiterated that changing his Muslim attire was not necessary to be his disciple.
Guru published 45 works in Malayalam, Sanskrit and Tamil languages which include Atmopadesa Śatakam, a hundred-verse spiritual poem and Daiva Dasakam, a universal prayer in ten verses. He also translated three major texts, Thirukural of Valluvar, Ishavasya Upanishad and Ozhivil Odukkam of Kannudaiya Vallalaar. It was he who propagated the motto, One Caste, One Religion, One God for All (Oru Jathi, Oru Matham, Oru Daivam, Manushyanu) which has become popular as a saying in Kerala. He furthered the non-dualistic philosophy of Adi Sankara by bringing it into practice by adding the concepts of social equality and universal brotherhood.
In 1916, Ramana Maharshi hosted Narayana Guru at his Tiruvannamalai ashram when Guru was returning from a trip to Kancheepuram where Swami Govindananda, a disciple of Guru, had established the Sree Narayana Seva Ashram. Rabindranath Tagore met Narayana Guru at the latter's ashram in Sivagiri in November 1922. Tagore later said of Narayana Guru that, "I have never come across one who is spiritually greater than Swami Narayana Guru or a person who is at par with him in spiritual attainment". Three years later, Mahatma Gandhi visited Guru during his 1925 trip to Kerala to participate in the Vaikom Satyagraha after which the Indian independence movement leader stated that "it was a great privilege in his life to have the darshan of an esteemed sage like Narayana Guru."
On 21 August 1967, Narayana Guru was commemorated on an Indian postage stamp of denomination 15 nP. Another commemorative stamp on him was issued by Sri Lanka Post on 4 September 2009. The Reserve Bank of India and Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India issued two sets of commemorative coins depicting Guru's image, each valued at ₹5 and ₹100 respectively, on the occasion of his 150th birth anniversary.
The first of the several statues of Narayana Guru was erected at Jagannath Temple, Thalassery in 1927 while he was still alive. His statues are seen in many places in Kerala which include a 24 feet statue at Kaithamukku in Thiruvananthapuram. The Government of Kerala observes his birthday, the Sri Narayana Jayanthi, and the date of his death, Sree Narayana Guru Samadhi as public holidays.
The life of Narayana Guru has been portrayed in a number of movies starting with the 1986 film Sree Narayana Guru, made by award-winning director P. A. Backer. Swamy Sreenarayana Guru, an Indian Malayalam-language film directed by Krishnaswamy, released the same year. Almost a decade and a half later, R. Sukumaran made a film on the life of Guru, titled Yugapurushan, in 2010 with Thalaivasal Vijay playing the role of Guru and the film also featured Mammootty and Navya Nair. Brahmashri Narayana Guru Swamy is a Tulu film made in 2014 by Rajashekar Kotian on Guru's life and the film was the 50th film made in the language. His life during the eight years he spent at Maruthwamala (also known as Marunnumamala) has been adapted into a docufiction, titled Marunnumamala and the film was released by Pinarayi Vijayan, the chief minister of Kerala on 9 August 2016.
In 2016, Kerala High court observed that the statue of Narayana Guru cannot be treated as a Hindu deity.
Narayana Guru attained samadhi at Sivagiri, Kerala. The cause of death was indigestion and prostate inflammation. He had told all the great physicians and disciples of that time who came to treat him that the Guru had approached his samadhi in advance and that the ashram should be well looked after and that everyone should live as good people (18 January 1928). The special public meeting of the SNDP meeting held at Kottayam was the last public ceremony attended by Narayana Guru.
In 1927, naturopathy was carried out in Mangatukodi and Kandachira on the banks of Ashtamudikayal along with Pazhavila Chattambiasan. He was bedridden for a long time suffering from senile disease but was treated by many doctors but could not cure the disease completely. He died during meditation in the presence of devotees on 20 September 1928 (Malayalam year: 1104 Kanni 5). It was just three weeks after his 72nd birthday. The body was laid to rest in Sivagiri, Kerala Mathvalap. Today there is a hall with his statue.