SWAMI RAMDAS: A Biography


SWAMI RAMDAS




A BIOGRAPHY


1884-1963


SWAMI RAMDAS was born in 1884 at Hosdrug, Kerala, India, and named Vittal Rao by his parents, Sri Balakrishna Rao and Smt. Lalita Bai, a devout Saraswat couple. He lived the ordinary life of a householder in and around his community until age thirty-six. During that time he experienced a variety of trials and tribulations from the worldly point of view, but in his case they caused him to enquire deeply into the true meaning of life. An intense spritual transformation occured in him basically out of nowhere and suddenly he was filled with an overwhelming wave of dispassion. In the process he came to realize the futility of worldly pursuits, and the need for real, everlasting peace and happiness. Inspired by the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda and Swami Ram Tirtha, he became convinced that God alone can give one eternal peace and happiness. The path of pure devotion and self-surrender shone forth for him with an irresistible appeal. All attachments to family, friends and business dropped away just as a fully ripened fruit falls from the tree. He was inwardly ready to give himself up wholly and unreservedly to God.

At that critical time, his father, noticing his son's waning interest in secular pursuits and his waxing love for and devotion to God, initiated him into the Ram mantram and assured him that by repeating it unstintingly he would, in due time, find the true peace and happiness he was thirsting for. As the mantram took hold of him, he found his life filled with Ram. It was then that he renounced the samsaric life and went forth in quest of God as a mendicant sadhu. This first year of his new life is described by him in his autobiography, In Quest of God.[1]

It was thus that on one morning in December 1922 he left home by train. He did not know where he was going, nor was he anxious about it. He only knew that he was obeying the divine command of his beloved Ram, and was therefore sure that He would guide him unerringly. The mantram "OM SRI RAM JAI RAM JAI JAI RAM" was ever on his lips and in his heart. Besides chanting the divine Name, his practice was to look upon everything in the world as forms of Ram--God--and to accept everything that happened as happening by the will of Ram alone.

Eventually he was directed to Srirangam. Here he bathed in the holy Cauvery and, after offering up his old white clothes to the sacred river, donned the ochre robes of a sannyasin and underwent spiritual rebirth. It was at this time, prompted by Ram Himself, Vittal Rao assumed the new name of Ramdas (servant of Ram) and took the inviolable vows of sannyasa, renunciation. Ramdas never referred to himself in the first person again.



With the name of God constantly on his lips, he continued his travels in the company of itinerant sadhus. The journey took him to Tiruvannamalai, where he met with Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi and prayed for his grace.

Sri Ramana had just moved out of the caves he had spent twenty-two years in on the holy mountain Arunachala and taken up residency at his newly constructed ashram at the base of the mountain along with his longtime attendant Palaniswami. In those days the ashram was not much more than a thatched shed or hut and, as Ramdas entered the ashram, seeing the saint for the first time, fell prostrate at his feet. Ramdas was told that the young swami knew English, so he addressed him thus: "Maharaj, here stands before thee a humble slave. Have pity on him. His only prayer to thee is to give him thy blessing."

About this experience Ramdas has said, "The Maharshi, turning his beautiful eyes towards Ramdas, and looking intently for a few minutes into his eyes as though he was pouring into Ramdas his blessings through those orbs, nodded his head to say he had blessed. A thrill of inexpressible joy coursed through the frame of Ramdas, his whole body quivering like a leaf in the breeze."

In that ecstatic state he left Maharshi's presence and went to spend nearly a month in a cave on the slopes of Arunachala in constant chanting of Ramnam. This was the first occasion that he went into solitude and during this period of solitude he never bathed, shaved, or cut his hair. When he ate, he only ate very little. After twenty-one days, when he came out of the cave he saw a strange, all-pervasive light: everything was Ram and only Ram.


"And it came one morning apocalyptically - when, lo, the entire landscape changed: All was Rama, nothing but Rama - wherever Ramdas looked! Everything was ensouled by Rama - vivid, marvellous, rapturous - the trees, the shrubs, the ants, the cows, the cats, the dogs - even inanimate things pulsated with the marvellous presence of the one Rama. And Ramdas danced in joy, like a boy who, when given a lovely present, can't help breaking out into a dance. And so it was with Ramdas: he danced with joy and rushed at a tree in front, which he embraced because it was not a tree but Rama Himself! A man was passing by, Ramdas ran towards him and embraced him, calling out: 'Rama, O Rama!' The man got scared and bolted. But Ramdas gave him chase and dragged him back to his cave. The man noted that Ramdas had not a tooth in his head and so felt a little reassured: at least the loony would not be able to bite him!"

FROM: The Mountain Path


In the late 1920s a young traveler from America inadvertently bumped into Swami Ramdas one night in the Meenakshi Temple in Madura after the two of them met previously in the caves of Elephanta three years earlier. It was there at the Meenakshi Temple Ramdas told the young American to go and see the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi saying, "He will give you what you are looking for."



THE MEENAKSHI TEMPLE IN MADURA
(please click image)

Taking Ramdas' at his word the young American eventually gained fame anonymously, in The Razor's Edge, written by the astute British playwright and author William Somerset Maugham --- who, by the way, also met the Maharshi albeit at a later date. Given the name Larry Darrell in the book by Maugham, that same American, in real life, totally and fully following Ramdas' advice, went to see Sri Ramana. Through the grace and light of the Maharshi the anonymous American Awakened to the Absolute.[2]

Below the anonymous American personally relates his Awakening experience as found in the source so cited. Notice the parallels to the previous quote regarding Ramdas' experience:


"After a year of studying, meditating, and working at stoop labor in and around the fields near the ashrama, he took to taking long solitary pilgrimages into the mountains. One morning high in the mountains he was waiting in his usual spot to watch the sunrise. That morning when the very first glint of light pierced the very top edge of the distant mountains the rays fell across his eyes and shot straight through his pupils directly into his brain. His mind exploded. He actually thought he had physically blown to bits in a brilliant flash of light, that the whole back of his head had been blown off and opened to eternity. The initial sensations abated in a series of bodily contractions and convulsions, leaving him shaking and trembling. Rubbing his arms he could see he was still alive and whole. Never was he so exhilarated, like walking on air, his insides bursting with pleasure. He wanted to yell to the whole world how wonderful he felt, and although there wasn't a fellow human being around for miles to hear his exuberance, he ran down the mountain path toward the forester's hut where he stayed yelling and screaming like a crazy man."

FROM: THE RAZOR'S EDGE: True or False?


Following his experience in the caves of Arunachala, Ramdas continued his travels for nearly eight years, travels which took him to many parts of India many times, including the caves of Elephanta, the southern temple city of Madura, the sacred shrines of the Himalayas, the city of Bombay, as well as Mangalore, where he spent three months in the Panch-Pandava Caves at Kadri. It was here that he had his first experience of nirvikalpa samadhi. About this experience it has been written:


"For some days his meditation consisted of only the mental repetition of the Ram-mantram. Then, the mantram having stopped automatically, he beheld a small circular light before his mental vision which yielded him thrills of delight. This experience having continued for some days, he felt a dazzling light like lightning flashing before his eyes, which ultimately permeated and absorbed him. Now an inexpressible bliss filled every pore of his physical frame. When this state was coming on, he would at the outset become oblivious of his hands and feet and gradually his entire body. Lost in this trance-state he would sit for two or three hours. Still, a subtle awareness of external objects was maintained in this state.

"For two years from the time of the significant change which had come over him, Ramdas had been prepared to enter into the very depths of his being for the realization of the immutable, calm and eternal spirit of God. Here he had to transcend name, form, thought and will--every feeling of the heart and faculty of the mind. The world had then appeared to him as a dim shadow--a dreamy nothing. The vision then was mainly internal. It was only for the glory of the Atman in His pristine purity, peace and joy as an all-pervading, immanent, immortal and glowing spirit.

"In the earlier stages this vision was occasionally lost, pulling him down to the old life of diversity with its turmoil of like and dislike, joy and grief. But he would be drawn in again into the silence and calmness of the spirit. A stage was soon reached when this dwelling in the spirit became a permanent and unvarying experience with no more failing off from it, and then the still more exalted state came on: his hither inner vision projected outwards. First a glimpse of this new vision dazzled him off and on. This was the working of divine love. He would feel as though his very soul had expanded like the blossoming of a flower and by a flash, as it were, enveloped the whole universe, embracing all in a subtle halo of love and light. This experience granted him a bliss infinitely greater than he had in the previous state. Now it was that Ramdas began to cry out, 'Ram is all. It is He as everybody and everything!' This condition was for some months coming on and vanishing. When it wore away, he would instinctively go into solitude. When it was present, he freely mixed in the world, preaching the glory of divine love and bliss. With this externalized vision Ramdas' mission began. Its fullness and magnificence was revealed to him during his stay in the Kadri cave, and here the experience became more sustained and continuous. The vision of God shone in his eyes and he would see none but Him in all objects. Now wave after wave of joy arose in him. He realized that he had attained to a consciousness full of splendor, power and bliss."


He continued his travels around the breadth and width of India the next few years, finally settling down in a small ashram built by one of his devotees at Kasaragod, Kerala. Eventually God's will caused him to leave Kasaragod and settle down in Kanhangad, where the present Anandashram was founded in the year 1931. This Ashram became a field to put into practice the universal love he gained as a result of his universal vision.

Having realized his oneness with the Absolute, Ramdas maintained a subtle individuality to enjoy his relationship with the Divine as a child towards its mother or a servant towards its master. He had great reverence for all saints and sages. Whenever he referred to them, he would say that he was only a child of all saints. He had great respect and reverence for Bhagavan Sri Ramana. Of him he has said:


"Sri Ramana Maharshi was in all respects a remarkable saint. After realizing the Eternal, he lived in the Eternal. His advent was a veritable blessing on this earth. By his contact thousands were saved from the clutches of doubt and sorrow. He lived what he preached and preached what he lived. He exerted a wonderful influence and created in the hearts of ignorant men and women a consciousness of their inherent Divinity. He awakened the sleeping soul to the awareness of its immortal and all-blissful nature. By his very presence he rid the hearts of people of their base and unbridled passions. The faithful derived the greatest benefit by communion with him."


As Ramdas had attained realization by taking to uninterrupted chanting of the divine name Ram, coupled with contemplation of the attributes of God, he always extolled the virtue of nama-japa in sadhana. Based upon his personal experience, Ramdas assured all seekers that nama-japa would lead them to the supreme heights of realization of one's oneness with the Almighty. On the power of the Divine Name he has this to say:


"The Divine Name is pregnant with a great power to transform the world. It can create light where there is darkness, love where there is hate, order where there is chaos, and happiness where there is misery. The Name can change the entire atmosphere of the world from one of bitterness, illwill and fear to that of mutual love, goodwill and trust. For the Name is God Himself. To bring nearer the day of human liberation from the sway of hatred and misery, the way is the recognition of the supremacy of God over all things and keeping the mind in tune with the Universal by the chanting of the Divine Name."


On and off throughout the years there has been concern expressed by some regarding the discrepancies between how Swami Ramdas is typically seen in photographs dressed in full length white dhoti and how Maugham describes the holy man Darrell met in the temple, intimating by inference that the person so suggested as being Swami Ramdas may in fact might not have been.

It should be noted that in the beginning of his book Maugham makes it clear that, "I have invented nothing. To save embarrassment to people still living I have given to the persons who play a part in this story names of my own contriving, and I have in other ways taken pains to make sure that no one should recognize them." Why Maugham did not chose to take pains in regards to Ramdas is not known. It is quite clear by Maugham's description of the holy man in the temple and how Ramdas presented himself later that he changed his appearance quite dramatically over the years. If you remember from the above, when he went into the caves near the Ramana ashram that he went into solitude, and during that period of solitude he never bathed, shaved, or cut his hair. How long he remained like that is not known. It is not known either if the transformation remained by the time of publication of The Razor's Edge or not, and even if it were so, that Maugham would be privy to the information. [3]


"Two years later I was down south at a place called Madura. One night in the temple someone touched me on the arm. I turned around and saw a bearded man with long black hair, dressed in nothing but a loincloth, with the staff and the begging bowl of the holy man.

"He asked me what I'd been doing and I told him; he asked me where I was going and I said to Travancore; he told me to go and see Sri Ganesha (Sri Ramana Maharshi). "He will give you what you are looking for.'"


In 1954 Swami Ramdas was traveling in the United States, eventually finding himself in the Los Angeles-Hollywood area of Southern California to meet up with his friend, the renown interpretive dancer, Ruth St. Denis. It was during that visit Ramdas was once again able to meet up with the person he met in the Meenakshi Temple so many years before, re the following from the source so cited:


"In 1954 I received my first drivers license, which is something a teenager never forgets. It was during the days, before I got a car, that my mentor first met my godfather and started calling him Papa Ramdas. It was only AFTER I received my driver's license, which was several years after my mentor first met my godfather, that he had me drive him from the small southern California beach community where we both lived to the Hollywood/Los Angeles area to see a friend of his, a onetime modern interpretive dancer turned instructor by the name of Ruth St. Denis. She in turn took us to Ramdas, who was visiting the city at the time. Although I have hardly forgotten anything about obtaining my drivers license that year I am unable to recall many of the specifics surrounding my meeting with Ramdas to speak of."

Larry Darrell, The Holy Man, and Swami Ramdas


Ramdas attained mahasamadhi in 1963.


LARRY DARRELL, THE HOLY MAN, AND SWAMI RAMDAS


MAP AND HISTORY OF THE RAMANA ASHRAM


SRI RAMANA AND SOMERSET MAUGHAM
THE HOLY MAN, LARRY DARRELL, AND THE RAZOR'S EDGE


AN IMPROMPTU RUTH ST. DENIS AT MORRO BAY, 1916
(please click image)

OM SRI RAM JAI RAM JAI JAI RAM


Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where
we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience
and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.


(PLEASE CLICK)


HOW TO ACHIEVE ENLIGHTENMENT


ZEN ENLIGHTENMENT IN A NUTSHELL


30 MINUTES TO ENLIGHTENMENT



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HERE FOR
ENLIGHTENMENT

ON THE RAZOR'S
EDGE


SEE:
SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI: THE LAST AMERICAN DARSHAN
RECOUNTING A YOUNG BOY'S NEARLY INSTANT TRANSFORMATION INTO THE ABSOLUTE DURING HIS ONLY DARSHAN WITH THE MAHARSHI

THE MEETING: An Untold Story of Sri Ramana


THE RAZOR'S EDGE: TRUE OR FALSE?


WHEN INFINITIES COLLIDE



E-MAIL
THE WANDERLING
(please click)


MAJOR HISTORICAL BUDDHIST MASTERS, ZEN ANCESTORS AND ZEN PATRIARCHS

Bodhidharma, Hui'ko, Hui Shen, Hui Neng, Shih-t'ou Hsi-ch'ien, Zhaozhou, Moshan Liaoran, Mugai Nyodai,
Nagarjuna, Ganapati Muni, Kuan Yin, Miao Shan, Tung-Shan, Lin Chi, Te Shan, Dogen


It should be noted the contents of the above Ramdas page has been recaptured from archived pages of the original that showed up on the internet as early as October 2002 under a now defunct Angelfire page, then updated and re-edited by the original author for our purposes here. Portions of this article researched from the December 1993 issue of The Mountain Path, the Ramdas autobiography In Quest of God and remembrances from a personal meeting with the Swami in 1954.(see).



















FOOTNOTE [1]


For a complete, free, online PDF version of the Ramdas autobiography In Quest of God please go to the following link, then scroll down the page to the link:


LARRY DARRELL, THE HOLY MAN, AND SWAMI RAMDAS
























FOOTNOTE [2]:


The young American so mentioned as having met Ramdas was the same person who was to become the Wanderling's Mentor. His to-be mentor, following the war, after seeing his best friend die for no apparent reason, threw himself into a series of menial jobs during the day and studying books all night long while traveling all over Europe searching for an answer to it all. Following the suggestion of the Benedictine monk Father Ensheim he met during his quest, he traveled to India seeking the answers to life. The summer of the year 1925 found him getting off a boat in Bombay on his way to the Hemis monastery in Tibet in search of the Hemis Manuscripts, a set of ancient texts said by the good Father as indicating Jesus traveled in India and Tibet between the ages of 12 through 30. On his way to Hemis, just before leaving Bombay he went to see the caves at Elephanta and while there met Swami Ramdas.

As mentioned, Ramdas was on a spiritual pilgrimage throughout India, traveling the width and breadth of the country, top to bottom, side to side, a pilgrimage that started in 1922 and not ending until 1931 and just happened to be at Elephanta at the same time as the Wanderling's mentor.

In the process of those travels, one of the many holy places Ramdas sought out and stayed was a small cave in Himalayas overlooking the upper reaches of the Ganges River called Arundhati's Cave, also called 'the Jesus Cave' because through legend it is said Jesus of Nazareth stayed there for a time in meditation during his so called 'missing years of the bible.' In the book, In The Vision of God, by Ramdas, the following is found:


"It was on the fifth day, maybe after midnight; the nights were pitch dark. Ramdas usually sat up the whole night in the cave. The cave was suddenly lit up by a strange light. Ramdas saw seated before him, on the floor about three or four feet from him, the figure of a man. His face was dazzling with a heavenly splendor. The features were fine, regular and beautiful. There was a short, black, glossy beard and moustache on the face. The lips were crimson red, revealing milk-white, lustrous teeth. Soft shining black curls flowed down his shoulders. He wore a long, dark, chocolate colored robe or gown with wide, loose sleeves. What fascinated Ramdas were his eyes. They were scintillating like twin stars. The rays they were emitting were filled with tenderness, love and compassion. Ramdas gazed on them, charmed and delighted. It struck him: 'This is Jesus Christ.' There was another beside him, but Ramdas' eyes were not for him, although he was aware of his presence. He might be a disciple. Now Christ's lips moved. He was speaking. Ramdas listened, but could not make out what he said. The tongue sounded strange and unknown to him. For perhaps a minute he spoke; then the vision vanished, while the glow of light remained in the cave for some minutes more. Ramdas was completely immersed in ecstasy and only came to external consciousness after broad daylight."


My mentor, out of pure coincidence, during his travels, stayed at the 'Jesus cave' as well, although he reported no such experiences as Ramdas. If it was before or after Ramdas' visit is not known, however, to my knowledge they did not meet or bump into each other there in the classical sense.

JESUS IN INDIA: PROS AND CONS


BHARATI KRISNA TIRTHA


The Hemis Manuscripts, said to exist in at least two monasteries high in the Himalayas, are not the only substantiating "proof" of Jesus being in India during his so-called missing years as found in the bible. There are it seems, ancient records in the Jagannath Temple archives in Puri, clear across the sub-continent from the Buddhist temples of the Himalayas to the Hindu temples along the coast of India, independent of those said to be at the Hemis monastery that say the same thing about Jesus being in India.

In the Hemis Manuscripts it is stated that Issa (Jesus) spent six years in Jagannath (now Puri) and other holy cities of the Hindus, before going to live for a further six years in the Himalayas. In relation, Chapter V and VI translations are said to reveal the following:


CHAPTER V
5) He passed six years at Juggernaut (i.e., Puri), at Rajagriha, at Benares, and in the other holy cities. Everyone loved him, for Issa lived in peace with the Vaisyas and the Sudras, whom he instructed in the holy scriptures.

CHAPTER VI
2) But Issa, warned of his danger by the Sudras, left the neighborhood of Juggernaut by night, reached the mountain, and established himself in the country of Gautamides, the birthplace of the great Buddha Sakyamuni, in the midst of a people worshipping the one and sublime Brahma.

4) Six years after, Issa, whom the Buddha had elected to spread his holy word, had become a perfect expositor of the sacred writings.

5) Then he left Nepal and the Himalayan mountains, descended into the valley of Rajputana, and went towards the west, preaching to diverse peoples the supreme perfection of man.



THE JAGANNATH TEMPLE IN PURI, THE MOST MYSTERIOUS TEMPLE IN ALL OF INDIA

Not long after I was drafted into the Army and becoming firmly established member of the military as a private slick-sleeve and master code sender par excellence, I basically woke up one morning to find myself nowhere near anything I recognized. After being usurped into a series of mitigating circumstances I wasn't able to untangle or sidestep quickly enough, including a couple of warlords, followed by the downstream outflow from those warlord encounters, encounters of which were put into place by others well beyond my control, found me even farther away, high in the mountains of the Himalayas beyond the confines of any warlord or tentacles of a military hierarchy.

In the first I ended up sitting in a near Nirodha state outside the one time entrance of an ancient and dilapidated monastery, the ruins of which were perched precariously high up on the side of some steep Chinese mountain situated somewhere along the southern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. The second found me still sitting , except now in Darshan in the old hall of the ashram of the venerated Indian holy man the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in Tiruvannamalai, South India hundreds and hundreds of miles away from any monastery and the Himalayas.

It was me going to the U.S. Consulate in Madras after leaving the Ramana ashram in an attempt to get back to the monastery and eventually my unit, is what put me in Calcutta, the consulate having sent me there for a flight --- a flight that turned out to be a major disaster literally, and I mean literally. In more ways than one, my return involved a good number of areas of war torn Southeast Asia, the WWII Japanese Invasion of India, the crash of a C-47 high in the rarefied air in the Tibetan area of the Himalayas after being lost on a flight from Calcutta, a CNAC mechanic, and an otherwise not involved U.S. Army captain on R & R who wrote A Soldier's Story and got involved after he flew over the mountains of Tibet from China only to end up visiting the Ramana ashram at the same time I was there.



CHINA NATIONAL AIR CORPORATION (CNAC) DOUGLAS C-47 SKYTRAIN CIRCA 1944

A a few years before I was drafted, in 1959 or shortly thereafter, my mentor met with Sri Daya Mata. As I have related elsewhere on this page, Sri Daya had gone to India in 1959 and during her travels met with Sri Bharati Krishna Tirtha, the Shankaracharya of Puri, who had seen her in California the year before.

While visiting Sri Bharati in Puri she discussed Jesus having been in Puri during the time of his "missing years," telling Sri Bharati that Paramahansa Yogananda had told her many times that Christ spent a great deal of those missing years in India. Sri Bharati replied with:


"That is true. I have studied ancient records in the Puri Jagannath Temple archives confirming these facts. He was known as 'Isha,' and during part of his time in India he stayed in the Jagannath Temple. When he returned to his part of the world, he expounded the teachings that are known today as Christianity."


.

Sometime later, but still prior to me being drafted, my mentor told me Sri Daya had shared information with him regarding the Jagannath Temple in Puri and the ancient records that Sri Bharati had studied regarding Jesus being in India. My mentor told me had he had that same information beforehand, he may have never gone to the Hemis monastery, but to Puri instead. Besides he said, the Jagannath Temple is said to have secreted away in one or all of the four idols within the temple what is known as Brahma Padartha, life substance or life material, the substance or material in this case being a so called "tooth relic" of the Buddha. Re the following from the source so cited:


"Brahma Padarthas are core materials in the four wooden deities of Sri Jagannath temple. These core materials are transferred from the old idols to the new in a metaphor of immortality of soul and its reincarnations.

"The four "badagrahis" entitled to perform the transfer of Brahma Padartha get the chance to see and touch these secret core material kept within the four idols. Bound by a vow, they never disclose the identity of Brahma Padartha to anyone. Till date, generations of these daitapati servitors have steadfastly kept the identity of Brahma Padartha a closely guarded secret."(source)


Knowing such things through my mentor as well as being self learned on the same subject matter stemming from a curiosity-based need to know about such things, and since Puri was well within striking distance to where I was in Calcutta, especially considering a certain level of infrastructure available to me, I decided to visit the Jagannath Temple myself and see if I could become privy to any answers surrounding some of the mysteries I had heard so much about.

The Jagannath Temple lets Hindus and Buddhist into the interior grounds and temple, but not Christians and Muslims. Falling into a "you look more like Christian camp" I was immediately questioned and held in abeyance. It was only after I was able to forge past lower level guardians that things changed. The treatment afforded me upon seeing my necklace completely negated any questioning, actually escalating me into a more deeply accepted realm. However, like the generations of daitapati servitors have steadfastly kept the identity of Brahma Padartha a closely guarded secret I too am relegated to such status, thus no more can be said.


RETURN TO THE MONASTERY


BEFORE LEAVING CALCUTTA-----------------------------------------------------AFTER LEAVING CALCUTTA
-----























FOOTNOTE [3]:


In the text above, regarding how Ramdas may or may not have presented himself in how he dressed Maugham writes:


"Two years later I was down south at a place called Madura. One night in the temple someone touched me on the arm. I turned around and saw a bearded man with long black hair, dressed in nothing but a loincloth, with the staff and the begging bowl of the holy man."


It should be noted that Vijayananda (Adolphe Jacques Weintrob), a French doctor who at age 37, met Swami Ramdas in the Autumn of 1952. In In the Steps of the Yogis (First Edition 1978), Part III: Sages and Yogis of Contemporary India, Chapter III, Ramdas, Vijayananda writes, from a personal conversations with Ramdas himself, says the following:


"Ramdas was once a Sannyassi (a monk) and used to wear the orange robe. "I had a beard and long hair like you," he told me one day. But now he dresses simply in a white dhoti, "like everybody else," for he has transcended the monastic state and has become an ativarnashrami (one who has risen above social castes and stages of existence)."


As well, on the cover of his book In Quest of God Ramdas is depicted in a saffron robe --- which more or less should substantiate such attire.

A reader by the name Ken Jaegers contacted the author of the above Ramdas works and reported there is as well a photo of Ramdas found in an Anandashram publication titled "With My Master," that was probably taken sometime in the early 1930's, just when the Larry Darrell character was in India and Ramdas was on his pilgrimage, clearly showing Ramdas with a full beard and long hair --- albeit gray and not black.























The dimensions of the outside wall of the Meenakshi Temple complex is 847 by 792 feet. The temple has 12 large gopurams, or gates. The main entrance is on the eastern side of the temple. There are four huge gopurams with beautifully painted colored statues on the outer wall. The southern tower, built in the 16th century, is the largest one and is 170 feet high with a 108 by 67 foot base. It has over 1,500 sculptures on it. There are two huge yalis, which are like a combined lion and elephant, on both sides of the tower.

The inner sanctums are restricted to Hindus only, but everyone can go anywhere else on the temple grounds. About the temple Maugham has Larry Darrell say, "I stayed in Madura for some time. I think it's the only temple in India in which the white man can walk about freely so long as he doesn't enter the holy of holies. At nightfall it is packed with people. Men, women, and children." It is interesting to visit the temple both during the day and at night, as the dark corridors, with lamps burning here and there, are very impressive.


Temple Map Copyright 1990, Christopher Tadgell
The History of Architecture in India
Phaidon Press, Limited, Singapore


THE BEST OF THE MAUGHAM BIOGRAPHIES:


SPIRITUAL GUIDES, GURUS, AND TEACHERS INFLUENTIAL IN DARRELL'S LIFE OTHER THAN THE MAHARSHI: