#062: The Mystical Arunagiri Hills
The other day, instead of taking my usual path back home, I decided to loaf around the little streets of JP Nagar, which I usually miss when I’m going from Point A to Point B. A right here, a left there, a few turns skipped- I managed to get myself to a spot from where I had to think to find my way back. During this leisurely walk is when it occurred to me that I should pen down my thoughts about my recent trip to Tiruvannamalai.
GMaps decided to take us through this village, instead of the normal main road to Tiruvannamalai
H was born in Tiruvannamalai. As we enter the town, she plays an old Ilaiyaraja song called “Sorgamey Endraalum, Adhu Nammoor Pol Varuma?“, where they wonder if even heaven could offer what their hometown does. The objective of this trip was to do two things: walk the Girivalam, a 14 km circumambulation around the mystical Arunagiri hill, home to saints such as Ramana Maharshi, Virupaksha Deva, and even Manikkavasagar in the 5th to 10th century. The other objective was to visit the magnificent temple named after the same hill.
As we enter the town, the first thing I noticed was how hot it was around here. We see pilgrims devoutly walking on the even hotter tar roads, determined to complete their Girivalam. Ramana Maharshi maintained that the 14km clockwise walk of the sacred hill is bound to turn one’s attention inward, towards the Self. It is a laborious task to do so bare-foot, especially for a city dweller such as myself whose feet are often comfortably cushioned by whatever the engineers at Skechers have managed to produce that year.
More importantly, following H’s ACL tear, her grandmother had prayed to Annamalaiyar- the deity of the temple- that H would do the Girivalam after her recovery. At the time, it seemed a ridiculous proposition to both of us, and I recall thinking how superstitious grandmothers can be. Now that I revisit her prayer, I cannot help but wonder if the universe didn’t have a hand in creating the circumstances that made this possible. I have come to believe that it always does.
Many people are said to have found God, insight, realization or whatever you want to call it here. I must be truthful as I write this essay in my notebook – I must only report what I myself have experienced.
We begin our journey at about 8 pm, from a street near the Esanya Lingam and begin walking in the clockwise direction. I am clothed simply in a comfortable dhoti and polo, backpack loaded with water and other essentials that we might need for our walk. For about 4 km, the effect of walking barefoot does not sink in at all, and quickly, we get a glimpse of the beautiful towering gopuram. The temple as we see it today is said to have evolved over a thousand years or so. Apparently, it all starts with a mother tree which still exists in the temple premises. The many gopurams that we see today were built at different points of time by rulers who were patrons. Thus, there are contributions made by Cholas, Vijayanagara Empire, Nayakas, Pallavas and others. The Cholas, with their infamous love for art and architecture have built the first gopurams that we see today. I do a quick prayer looking at the gopurams and go on with our walk.
A map showing the eight sacred lingams forming the Girivalam path
The pain kicks in. I focus my attention by repeating “Saravana Bhava Om” or “Om Nama Shivaya”. As the skin peels off my feet, I feel a sense of separation from the body, the mind and whatever the two have managed to accumulate over the years. In the sense that in order to overcome the sheer pain with every step, I needed to separate myself from the mind and the body. It is in times like this that I experience the will. I feel a sense of atonement. At many points, we held hands and walked quietly. At some points, we paused and sat under trees, with H telling me some stories or with me telling her about wonders that crossed my mind. As she was wearing a pair of “Girivalam socks”, she was high on spirits and pacing faster than I was. It would have been a cake walk with a shoe – doing the whole thing barefoot is a different beast altogether.
A spotted deer who was happy to eat the cucumbers pilgrims fed him
I look around and I see old grandmothers doing the same loop around Arunagiri with piousness and faith, barefoot. There were also a lot of people doing the whole loop listening to cinema music, staring at their phones etc. Inspired by the devotion that the older people seem to have, and with embarrassment about how my feet are so soft, I decide to slug it out one feet at a time.
An auto rickshaw was following pilgrims, often selecting out the ones who seemed to be moving the slowest. He stops and asks us if we want a ride – suggesting that we give up. My feet hurts, but my ego was hurt harder. We ignore and continue our walk. A few kilometers later, he asks us again and H being the feisty one that she is, walked up to him and asked him why he was demotivating people doing the Girivalam. They both laugh, and then he non-chalantly replies saying that he does not target people who are walking briskly. He revs his auto and storms, perhaps thinking that not all who move slowly are going to give up, or not – he had a business to run. H stares at me, I stare at my feet, slowly shedding all the pain and bubbling. “Let’s walk faster” she seems to decide. It is enough to say that for a while, my “Om Namah Shivaya” got a little louder.
On our way, we come across a Murugan temple. When someone asks me for my “Ishta Deivam”, I always say Murugan. Perhaps because he is quite literally my surname. Perhaps because he is the deity of my people. Perhaps because he is the embodiment of courage, fairness and wisdom. It takes a lot of courage to face the different manifestations of things within yourself. I have for a long time started to believe that he gives me that strength and reminds me to act with clarity and courage. We pray – the deity was wonderfully garnished/adorned. We see a group of who looked like priests come by, they sang songs in praise of Murugan with such beauty that I was mesmerized for a moment. It filled me up with rejoice and as we continued our walk, we both noted that moment. Who am I? Who is the thinker of these thoughts? Where does the next sentence come from? Like Rumi’s reed flute, do we pass on what is spoken into our minds? The following verses come to mind:
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.— Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
As we finish up our walk, I drop H at her grandparent’s home, drive back to my Airbnb too tired to think of anything. I just existed about for a while, awake, letting the weight of everything be washed off of me as I showered. I don’t know the answers to anything. What I do know is that I am part and parcel of something that is extremely beautiful, and that I will choose to be present and enjoy it for as long as I can.
Thirumanjana Gopuram in the southern entrance to the temple
Altars at the temple courtyard
The next day, we visited the temple, prayed, meditated/journaled and sat by the altars outside the temple. She told me many stories about how she used to be able to roam around the temple freely many years ago, how the sudden influx of pilgrims has been a blessing for local businesses but a bane for residents, and so on. H then decided to go visit a certain cave/pond at the temple, I was done asking more of my feet at this point. Later that evening, we went to the Dream Tree cafe. Seeing my pastries arrive one after the other, after I placed a bulk order directly at the counter, she noted that it was a mistake to leave me unsupervised.