Bhagavan Ramana and Vasishtha Ganapati Muni

The divine light that emanated from Bhagavan Ramana at Tiruvannamalai, competing with the effulgence of the Holy Beacon of Arunachala, attracted men and women of different levels of spiritual calibre but the most outstanding scholar and seer who was irresistibly drawn towards that divine radiance was Kavyakantha Ganapati Sastri, otherwise known as Vasishtha Ganapati Muni. His long association with Ramana Bhagavan at Tiruvannamalai is a saga that deserves to be inscribed in letters of gold in the spiritual history of India.

Ganapati Sastri’s ancestors were Tamil Smartha (Vadama) Brahmins from Valangaiman near Kumbhakonam but they gradually migrated towards the Andhra country and when Sastri was born :; ( 1878) the family was at Kalavarayi village in Bobbili state. He was educated entirely at home and his precocity was such that he composed his first Sanskrit verse at the age of ten and was able to give predictions from horoscopes. At fourteen, he had studied most of the well-known Sanskrit classics and had become an extempore speaker and poet in that language. He even composed a long poem called the ‘Bhringa Dutam’ on the model of Kalidasa’s ‘Megha Dutam’. These achievements remind one of the great Vedanta Desika (1269-1371) who declared that ‘at the age of twenty I had mastered all the knowledge of my time’.

Spiritual Leanings

Although Ganapati Sastri was thus a literary genius, he had a predilection for the life spiritual and was particularly fond of performing ‘Tapas’ in lonely temples and secluded caves. He belonged to a family whose cult was ‘Sri Vidya’ and Sastri had mastered the Kundalini Yoga. His later disciple Kapali Sastri, in his Sanskrit work “Vasishtha Vaibhavam” written in Ganapati Shastri’s own words, recounts a number of miracles that occurred during his guru’s peregrinations in search of quiet spots for doing penance. When he was only 23, Ganapati Sastri proceeded to Navadwip in Bengal to compete for the title of ‘Kavyakantha’ which was being awarded by an academy of formidable scholars there. Sastri passed the difficult tests he was put to with an effortless ease that stunned his examiners who unanimously conferred the title on him forthwith. After visiting Varanasi and other holy centers in the North, Sastri proceeded to Tiruvannamalai with his brother as he had heard that it was eminently suited for spiritual exercises.

Their very first day in Tiruvannamalai started with a miracle. An aged Andhra couple in a certain house gave them food for the night. The brothers noted the street and the house carefully, including a Tulasi ‘Madam’ inside so that they could return there next morning. When they turned up in the morning the house and the Andhra couple had mysteriously disappeared and there was another house in its place! Sastri composed a thousand Sanskrit verses in praise of Arunachalesvara and called it ‘Harasahasram’. He took up a job as a Sanskrit Pandit in a local school, learnt Tamil within ten days and started teaching in that language.

First meeting with Bhagavan

At the instance of his friend Viswanatha Iyer, Sastri went up to the Virupaksha cave to see the ‘Brahmana Swami’ but not finding him there, they located him in the Ashram of Padmanabha Swami. Although Sastri was impressed by the serene countenance of the Brahmana Swami, who was observing silence, he admits that he was not drawn towards him at the time as he thought that the Swami had forsaken Varnashrama Dharma. Padmanabha Swami asked Sastri to give a short discourse on the Sloka ‘Suklambaradharam’. After explaining the meaning of the Sloka as applicable to Braham, Vishnu and Ganesa, Ganapati Sastri said that the verse could as well apply to the Brahmana Swami present there and gave an ingenious commentary to prove his statement. The Brahmana Swami smiled and nodded approval.

Sastri later performed ‘Ashtavadhanam’ at Madras and proved that his was a mind that worked in many dimensions at a given moment, attending to several subjects at a time. He exacted homage from even rationalist intellectuals and although himself without modern education, he had among his disciples and admirers many Masters of Arts, authors, professors and Pandits. During this period, he accepted the post of a Telugu Pandit in an English High School at Vellore but his mind was not in the routine life of a householder. The life divine was beckoning him and one day he suddenly resigned his job, proceeded to Tiruvannamalai and settled down in a hut constructed for him by one of his disciples. Living entirely on milk, he completed one crore ‘Japa’ of the Panchakshara Mantra.

Closer contact with Bhagavan

His austerities, however, did not give Sastri the results he expected and one day he decided to see the Brahmana Swami once again. It was Brahmotsavam time at Tiruvannamalai and he feared that the Swami’s cave would be crowded by visitors. Strangely enough, there was none when he went and the Swami was sitting outside the cave. Ganapati Sastri prostrated himself before the Brahmana Swami, caught his right foot with his right hand and the left foot with his left hand and prayed for his grace for realizing what his penance had failed to secure for him. The Swami broke his silence and speaking in Tamil in a whisper said “Penance is the realization of the self and the discovery of who that ‘I’ (Naan) is. Find out where the sound of the Mantra you are repeating emanates from. That is real penance.” Sastri sat in meditation before his newly-found Guru and later when he came to know that the Swami’s original name was Venkataraman, he rechristened him as ‘Ramana’. Thenceforth, the Brahmana Swami came to be known as ‘Ramana Swami’ and in course of time as ‘Bhagavan Ramana’ to the world.

Sastri composed a Stotra of five verses on the Bhagavan and dedicated it to him. On the Bhagavan’s advice, he decided to perform ‘Tapas’ in the ‘Amra Guha’ (Mango Cave). As an act of gratitude to Goddess Parvati for getting a Sadguru, he decided to compose a thousand verses in praise of Goddess Uma and this was tacitly approved by the Bhagavan. Sastri took a vow that he would complete the thousand in twenty days and started. But he had a trying time of it as he was afflicted by whitlow on the fingers of his right hand and on the last day, he had yet to compose more than 200 Slokas. Resolutely facing the situation, he engaged five scribes and started dictating the Slokas feverishly in the evening. Bhagavan came there and sat by his side with his eyes closed. It was midnight when Sastri completed the ‘Uma Sahasram’ when the Bhagavan opened his eyes slightly and asked “Have you written down all that I said?” “With your abounding grace, I have completed the task” replied Sastri who, only then, realised that he owed to the Bhagavan the sudden inspiration that seized him at the time of the completion of his magnum opus.

After this, many miracles happened in Sastri’s life. He was able to predict the names of unknown visitors long before they came to see him. He once saw in a dream the Bhagavan looking like Lord Subrahmanya and decided that he was an ‘Amsa’ of Kartikeya. While once at Tiruvottiyur near Madras, he saw the Bhagavan sitting by his side although later enquiries showed that he was at Tiruvannamalai.

Sastri returns to Arunachala

Sastri then went on a tour visiting Gokarna, Mandasa, Mathura, Mahendragiri, etc., and was away for quite some time. He was anxious to see the Bhagavan again and returned to Tiruvannamalai, with his wife, son and disciples. On the way, he stayed with Mr. S. Doraiswami Iyer (whom he called ‘Sudhanva’) and gave Tantra Diksha to him and others. Sending his family elsewhere, he stayed with the Bhagavan and composed ‘Sutras’ (aphorisms) for the ten Maha Vidyas. He also composed the ‘Ramana Gita’ (300 Slokas) based on the Tamil teachings of the Bhagavan. During this period, he suffered from an excess of Kundalini Sakti in his body and consulted the Bhagavan who advised him to rub almond or castor oil on his scalp.

Sastri’s wife, Visalakshi, passed away in 1926. Returning to Arunachala, he was, as usual, immersed in ‘Tapas’ and composing of new works like the unique ‘Indra Sahasranamam.’ He had a Darshan of Sri Aurobiodo and The Mother at Pondicherry and went on a tour to Sirsi in North Caoara where his disciples gave him a royal reception. While staying at Sirsi (1931) he was writing a weekly letter in Sanskrit to the Bhagavan at Tiruvannamalai, reporting his activities at Sirsi. No less than 13 such letters have been reproduced in Kapali Sastri’s book ‘Vasishtha Vaibhavam.’ From the names by which Sastri has addressed the Bhagavan in these letters, it is clear that he treated the latter as God in human form. Guhavatara, Visvaguru, Karanaguru, Parasarya, Daharasaya, Sarvantara, Karunamaya, Mayamanusha, Dinabandhu, Lilamanava, Mahasena, Punyasloka and Bhaktavatsala are some of the appellations used by Sastri in addressing the Bhagavan. It was at Sirsi that his disciple Kapali Sastri composed his ‘Bhashya’ on ‘Saddarsanam’, a Sanskrit work by Ganapati Sastri explaining the teachings of Ramana Bhagavan.

Sastri did not return to Tiruvannamalai after this. He paid a last visit to his village Kalavarayi and knowing that his end was nearing proceeded to Khargpur where some of his disciples built an Ashram for him at Nimpura. Predicting the date of his end, the Acharya shed his mortal coil at Nimpura on 25-7-1936. Thus ended the association of Kavyakantha Ganapati Sastri, the polymath and seer, with Bhagavan Ramana whom he considered as God Himself in flesh and blood.