Place · reformist ashram and samadhi · India
Sivagiri, Varkala
Also known as Sivagiri, Shivagiri, Sivagiri Mutt, Sarada Mutt, Kaithakunnu
Sivagiri is a hill in Varkala, Kerala, where Narayana Guru settled in 1904, opening a school and a night school for marginalised communities, and in 1912 consecrated the octagonal Sarada temple to the goddess of learning, built with windows for ventilation and without food offerings or ritual bathing of the image. It holds his samadhi and is the headquarters of the Sree Narayana Dharma Sangham; the yellow-clad Sivagiri pilgrimage arrives each year from 30 December to 1 January.
- Date
- 1904–None
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 8.739, 76.732
Worth knowing
Approving the pilgrimage in 1928, the Guru told pilgrims not to buy yellow silk but to dip a white cloth in turmeric water; the first five, walking from Elavumthitta in 1932, were mocked on the road as 'yellow birds'.
About the place
Placed on Sivagiri hill in Varkala, using the coordinates on the Wikipedia article.
Connections (4)
- FoundedNarayana Guru
Narayana Guru moved his base to Sivagiri near Varkala in 1904, built a hermitage on the hill and opened a school and a night school for children of the lower castes. In 1912 he consecrated the octagonal Sarada temple to the goddess of learning, with Kumaran Asan as secretary of its committee. The Sree Narayana Dharma Sangham he founded is headquartered there; he died there on 20 September 1928, and his samadhi is the goal of the Sivagiri pilgrimage.
- Historical linkMohandas Karamchand Gandhi
On 12 March 1925, during the Vaikom Satyagraha, Mahatma Gandhi visited the Sivagiri ashram and met Narayana Guru through a translator. The Guru argued that education and wealth, rather than inter-dining and intermarriage, would raise the lower castes, and Gandhi watched lower-caste children there recite prayers and passages from the Upanishads. The Wikipedia account credits the meeting with sharpening Gandhi's campaign against untouchability; Gandhi called it a great privilege to have had the sage's darshan.
- Historical linkRabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore met Narayana Guru at his Sivagiri ashram in November 1922, three years before Gandhi's visit. Tagore later said he had never come across anyone spiritually greater than Narayana Guru, or anyone his equal in spiritual attainment. The meeting joined two poet-founders of schools: Tagore, who had built his own at Santiniketan, and a Malayali saint whose settlement on the Sivagiri hill had itself begun with a school for children of excluded castes.
- Historical linkAruvippuram
Aruvippuram and Sivagiri mark the beginning and the end of Narayana Guru's institution-building. The Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam was founded at Aruvippuram on 15 May 1903 through the efforts of Padmanabhan Palpu, with the Guru as founder president; the next year he moved his base to Sivagiri near Varkala, where his order of disciples, the Sree Narayana Dharma Sangham, is headquartered and where his samadhi has stood since 1928.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Sivagiri, Kerala" and "Narayana Guru".
Open Sivagiri, Varkala in the repository →