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Narayana Guru Punyadina

Narayana Guru (28 August 1855 – 20 September 1928) was a philosopher, spiritual leader and social reformer in India. He was born into a family that belonged to the Ezhava caste. He led a reform movement against the injustice in the caste-ridden society of Kerala in order to promote spiritual enlightenment and social equality.

Birth and Early Days

Narayana Guru, ne Nanu, was born in the village of Chempazhanthy near Thiruvananthapuram. His early education was in the gurukula during which time his mother died when he was 15. At the age of 21, he went to central Travancore and was taught Vedas, Upanishads and the literature and logical rhetoric of Sanskrit. He returned to his village in 1881and started a village school where he taught local children. A year later, he married but soon disassociated.

Leaving home, Guru traveled through Kerala and Tamil Nadu and he learned meditation and yoga. Later, he continued his wanderings until he reached the Pillathadam cave where he set up an hermitage and practiced meditation and yoga. In 1888, he visited Aruvippuram where he meditated for a while and during his stay there, he consecrated a piece of rock taken from the river, as the idol of Shiva, which has since become the Aruvippuram Shiva Temple.

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. The Sharada Mutt was built in 1912 and also temples at Thrissur, Kannur, Anchuthengu, Thalassery, Kozhikode, and Mangalore.  He made his final visit to Sri Lanka in 1926. On his return to India, he was involved in a number of activities.

Soon after the meeting at Pallathuruthy, which was the last public function he attended, Guru became ill and underwent treatment. He returned to Sharada Mutt and it was here, he died on 20 September 1928.

Legacy

Casteism was practised in Kerala during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Guru performed consecrated Siva idol at Aruvippuram in 1888. Overall, he consecrated forty five temples. 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.

The social protest of Vaikom Satyagraha was an agitation by the lower caste against untouchability with the support of Mahatma Gandhi which influenced the Temple Entry Proclamation of 1936.

Writings and philosophy

Guru published 45 works in Malayalam, Sanskrit and Tamil languages which include Atmopadesa Shatakam, a hundred-verse spiritual poem and Daiva Dasakam, a universal prayer in ten verses. He also translated three major texts. It was he who propagated the motto, One Caste, One Religion, One God for All. He furthered the non-dualistic philosophy of Adi Sankara by bringing it into practice by adding the concepts of social equality and universal brotherhood.

All Religions' Conference

Guru organized an All Region Conference in 1923 at Alwaye Advaita Ashram, which was reported to be first such event in India.

In 1916, Ramana Maharshi hosted Narayana Guru at his Tiruvannamalai ashram. Rabindranath Tagore met Narayana Guru at the latter's ashram in Sivagiri in November 1922. Three years later, Mahatma Gandhi visited Guru during his 1925 trip to Kerala to participate in the Vaikom Satyagraha.

On 21 August 1967, Narayana Guru was commemorated on an Indian postage stamp and another by Sri Lanka Post on 4 September 2009. The Reserve Bank of India issued two sets of commemorative coins depicting Guru's image.

The first of the several statues of Narayana Guru was erected at Jagannath Temple. The Government of Kerala observe the birthday, the Sri Narayana Jayanthi, and the date of death (Sree Narayana Guru Samadhi/Punyadina) of Narayana Guru as public holidays.