01The column of fire
Here, the Puranas say, Brahma and Vishnu disputed who was greater, and Shiva appeared between them as an endless column of fire. Vishnu as a boar dug down and Brahma as a swan flew up, and neither found its end. At their prayer the fire cooled into the hill Arunachala. Every year on the full moon of Karthigai (November–December), as the evening lamps are lit in the temple, a beacon fed with ghee in a huge cauldron is kindled on the summit and burns for days, visible across the plain.
02Walls, gopurams and saints
The temple covers about 10 hectares inside four walls. Its eastern rajagopuram, eleven storeys and about 66 m high, was begun under Krishnadevaraya and finished by Sevappa Nayak of Thanjavur. Arunagirinathar sang his Thiruppugazh here in the 15th century. In 1896 a sixteen-year-old boy from Madurai arrived and sat in the temple’s underground Patala Lingam shrine in silence; he became Ramana Maharshi. Pilgrims walk the 14 km girivalam around the hill barefoot, most of all on full-moon nights.
The life of this place
- 16th centuryThe eastern rajagopuram is raised, begun under Krishnadevaraya.
- 1896The young Ramana arrives and begins his tapas in the Patala Lingam vault.
Walk the girivalam at night, barefoot, keeping the hill on your right. Ramanasramam is on the southern side of the path.
