LIFE SKETCH In August 1856 when a child was born in a humble cottage in the pretty hamlet of Chempazhanthi near Trivandrum, no one knew it marked the dawn of the most remarkable epoch in the social evolution of Kerala. This child was to blossom forth as the great sage Sree Narayana, the most revolutionary social reformer Kerala has produced.
To have proper appreciation of the magnitude of Sree Narayana’s achievements, it is necessary to understand the background of the social conditions in which he was born and brought up. Kerala, reputed for its natural beauty and richness of life, was alas, the accursed land of caste tyranny at that time; to such an extent that it was really a “lunatic asylum” as Swami Vivekananda branded it. The non-caste Hindus, the “Avarnas” were groaning under the terrible weight of social, economic, religious and political oppression imposed upon them by caste Hindus or “Savarnas”. Not only temples of God but temples of learning were also shut against them by twin weapons of untouchability and unapproachability. They had to toil hard for their caste-Hindu masters with hardly any reward. They had to suffer a multitude of disabilities that broke the very backbone of their life.
Numerically Ezhavas or Thiyyas are the largest non-caste Hindu community in Kerala. Sree Narayana was born into a middle class family of this community. His parents, ‘Madan Asan’ and ‘Kutty Amma’ endearingly called him ‘Nanu’. At the age of five, he began his education in the neighboring school in the old “Gurukula” model. After his elementary education in this school, he became the disciple of a great Sanskrit scholar ‘Raman Pillai Asan’ of Puthuppally in Central Travancore. Under his master’s tutelage, he became well versed in Sanskrit classics. For some time he too functioned as an ‘Asan’, a teacher of infant pupils. Thus he came to be known as ‘Nanu Asan’. Nanu, even from his boyhood had an ascetic bent of mind. When he was on the threshold of his youth, he had to undergo the ceremonial of a marriage due to parental pressure. But he never led a married life. Sree Narayana’s mind was always agitated by a spiritual urge that induced him along with a fellow-spiritualist renowned as ‘Chattampi Swami’, to become the disciple of a man named Ayyavu, the then Superintendent of the British Residency in Trivandrum from whom he learned Yoga. At the age of twenty-three he left his family, renounced the pleasures of his world and wandered about as an “avadhutha” or mendicant, keeping his body and soul together by the alms he received from all sorts of people. Soon human eyes detected the “Sanyasin” and devotees began to gather around him at Aruvippurm, the seat of his meditation.
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LIFE SKETCH
In August 1856 when a child was born in a humble cottage in the pretty hamlet of Chempazhanthi near Trivandrum, no one knew it marked the dawn of the most remarkable epoch in the social evolution of Kerala. This child was to blossom forth as the great sage Sree Narayana, the most revolutionary social reformer Kerala has produced.
To have proper appreciation of the magnitude of Sree Narayana’s achievements, it is necessary to understand the background of the social conditions in which he was born and brought up. Kerala, reputed for its natural beauty and richness of life, was alas, the accursed land of caste tyranny at that time; to such an extent that it was really a “lunatic asylum” as Swami Vivekananda branded it. The non-caste Hindus, the “Avarnas” were groaning under the terrible weight of social, economic, religious and political oppression imposed upon them by caste Hindus or “Savarnas”. Not only temples of God but temples of learning were also shut against them by twin weapons of untouchability and unapproachability. They had to toil hard for their caste-Hindu masters with hardly any reward. They had to suffer a multitude of disabilities that broke the very backbone of their life.
Numerically Ezhavas or Thiyyas are the largest non-caste Hindu community in Kerala. Sree Narayana was born into a middle class family of this community. His parents, ‘Madan Asan’ and ‘Kutty Amma’ endearingly called him ‘Nanu’. At the age of five, he began his education in the neighboring school in the old “Gurukula” model. After his elementary education in this school, he became the disciple of a great Sanskrit scholar ‘Raman Pillai Asan’ of Puthuppally in Central Travancore. Under his master’s tutelage, he became well versed in Sanskrit classics. For some time he too functioned as an ‘Asan’, a teacher of infant pupils. Thus he came to be known as ‘Nanu Asan’.
Nanu, even from his boyhood had an ascetic bent of mind. When he was on the threshold of his youth, he had to undergo the ceremonial of a marriage due to parental pressure. But he never led a married life. Sree Narayana’s mind was always agitated by a spiritual urge that induced him along with a fellow-spiritualist renowned as ‘Chattampi Swami’, to become the disciple of a man named Ayyavu, the then Superintendent of the British Residency in Trivandrum from whom he learned Yoga. At the age of twenty-three he left his family, renounced the pleasures of his world and wandered about as an “avadhutha” or mendicant, keeping his body and soul together by the alms he received from all sorts of people. Soon human eyes detected the “Sanyasin” and devotees began to gather around him at Aruvippurm, the seat of his meditation.
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