Greatness Of Ramana Maharshi devotee Kandaswami

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Kandaswami was the devotee who single handedly raised an Asramam for Sri

Bhagavan on the south-eastern slopes of Arunachala. In gratitude for

Kandaswami’s labours Sri Bhagavan named the Asramam after him as

Skandasramam. Sri Bhagavan stayed here from 1916 to 1922 before moving

permanently to the present Ramanasramam at the foot hills of Arunachala.

 

At Virupaksha cave besides Pazhaniswami, others like Perumalswami and

Kandaswami began to attach themselves permanently to the Sri Bhagavan and to

live with Him. ‘Share and share alike’ was always Sri Bhagavan’s motto;

and

food had to be found for all of them. Since they could not feel sure of

feeding all the visitors,Pazhaniswami and other dependants would start from

the Hill and go to the town to beg food. They used to go about begging in

the streets for food and bring it up the Hill and everyone used to share it.

Sometimes there used to be just rice,sometimes a mixture of everything from

sweetmeats to savouries, but the Swami used to make it so tasty that

whatever they got, they used to be extremely satisfied with. Perumalswami

and Kandaswami used to blow in concert on the conch.When leaving thus they

would blow a long blast on their conches. This was an announcement to the

townspeople that Swami’s party had left the cave on their begging mission.

They would give another blast when they reached the foot of the Hill, a

third call would be sounded at the entrance to the street. All the residents

of the street would be ready with their offerings and the party would march

along the street singing Siva namavalis and collecting the offerings. This

would suffice to feed the Swami, his attendants, visitors and all the

monkeys, both day and night.

 

Kandaswami was anxious to build a separate Asramam for Bhagavan. The number

of visitors had also begun to increase. There was no water facility near the

cave at that time. There was not enough room to cook or for people to stay.

Some of the visitors were ladies and Virupaksha was too small to accommodate

all of them, hence Kandaswami’s decision to build a new Asramam.In fact, as

Bhagavan had mentioned in his deposition to the commission, the work on

Skandasramam began as early as 1902.Kandaswami inspected various places on

the Hill and in the forests to select a site.

 

To the west of Virupaksha Cave, there is a black rock. Once when Bhagavan

went towards the rock,he saw some water oozing from under the rock.Bhagavan

showed the moist area to Jadaswami and said there might be a spring there.

Jadaswami had the place dug, and out came pure, sweet water. Whenever

Bhagavan went there, he used to collect the pure water in his Kamandala for

use later. Kandaswami finally suggested this site for the new Asramam and

with Sri Bhagavan’s approval he began work on the new Asramam single

handedly.

 

Kandaswami began converting what was a thick forest of prickly pear on the

Mountain slope. He removed the stones around the spring and cut down the

thorny shrubs and leveled the ground.The result of his labour & great

self-sacrifice,unaided by any at the time, is the Skandasramam we see now.

Regarding this Sri Bhagavan has said,

 

“You cannot imagine the state the site was in originally. Kandaswami worked

with almost superhuman effort, achieved by his own hands what even four

people together could not have done. He removed all the prickly pear,

reduced stone and boulder to level ground created a garden and raised the

Asramam. We got four coconut trees for planting. To plant them properly

Kandaswami dug huge square pits about ten feet deep. That would give you an

idea of the amount of labour he put into the work he took on hand. He was a

strong, well-built man.†He put up a structure and planted mango, jackfruit,

coconut trees and some plants in front of it. Since that Asramam was

constructed in a spirit of service to Ramana, in a quiet manner and without

any self advertisement, it came to be called Skandasramam in memory of his

name.

 

Later, with the help of Perumalswami, he completed the present brick

building and requested Sri Bhagavan to come and stay there. Sri Bhagavan

stayed at Skandasramam from 1916 to 1922.Kandaswami spent some time with Sri

Bhagavan and later returned to his birth place. Kandaswami never returned to

Tiruvannamalai. There was no further news of him.

 

Once, in later years after moving down to live in Ramanasramam, Bhagavan

showed devotees a group photo in which Kandaswami,

Perumalswami,Pazhaniswami, Sivaprakasam Pillai, Narayana Reddi,Iswara Swami,

etc., are sitting with Sri Bhagavan.The photo was taken on a rock behind

Virupaksha Cave. He then added, “Kandaswami looks like a weak and lean man

in this photo. That is because he went away from us for more than a month

and was doing tapas at Ezhu Sunai (Seven Springs) and was purposely

underfeeding himself. Before that,he was a muscular, well-built man.

 

Kandaswami’s humble offering to Sri Bhagavan,Skandasramam is still looked

after by Ramanasramam and is a place of pilgrimage for the devotees of Sri

Bhagavan.

 

Sources:

 

1) Arunachala's Ramana Volume 1 Book

2)

http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/pdf/Saranagathi_eNewsletter_July_2009.pdf

 

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