Arunachala Cave-Dwellers and Sadhus

This is how Bhagavan described Keeraipatti and her years on the hill:

[A] devotee asked, ‘When exactly did Keeraipatti come to this place?’

With a smile Bhagavan began telling us her history.

‘I myself do not know. Even when I was in the Arunachaleswara Temple [in the 1890s] she was staying on the hill and was visiting me now and then. But it was only after I went to Virupaksha Cave that she began coming to me frequently. She was then living in the Guhai Namasivaya mantapam. At that time the mantapam was not as well maintained as it is at present. It had only a wooden door and a wooden latch. She had no other articles apart from an earthen pot. She used first to prepare hot water in it, bathe and then cook vegetables and rice in it. She had only one pot for preparing whatever she wanted. She used to go out before sunrise, wander about the hill and bring back some special leaves that were useful for cooking as vegetables. She used to cook them tastefully, bring me about a handful and persuade me to eat. She never failed to do so even once. Sometimes I used to help her in cooking by going to her place and cutting the vegetables. She had great confidence in me. She used to go to town daily, obtain rice, flour, dhal and the like by begging at various houses. She would store them in a big open-mouthed earthen jar.

‘Once in a while she used to prepare gruel with that flour and dhal and bring it with the vegetable curry saying, “Swami, swami, yesterday one good lady gave me a little flour. I have made some gruel, swami.”

‘She believed that I knew nothing. When she was not there I used to open the doors of that mantapam and find several varieties of foodstuffs in the jar. But then she had absolute confidence in me. She did not allow anyone else into that mantapam. When she could not find any vegetables, she used to sit there depressed. On such occasions I used to climb the tamarind tree, pluck some tender leaves and give them to her. She was thus somehow supplying me food every day. She never used to take anything herself.

‘She used to bring all sorts of curries, saying, “Swami likes that”.

‘She had great devotion and attention. Even at eighty years of age she used to wander about all over the hill. She was living there on the hill even before I went there.’

‘Was she not afraid of anything?’ I [Suri Nagamma] asked.

Bhagavan said, ‘No, what had she to be afraid of? You know what happened one day? I went to Skandashram and stayed for the night. Palaniswami was in Virupaksha Cave. At midnight a thief got into her place and was trying to get away with things when she woke up and cried out, “Who is that?”

‘The thief put his hand over her mouth but she somehow managed to shout at the top of her voice, “O Annamalai! Thief! Thief!”

‘Her cries could be heard even at Skandashram where I was.

‘I shouted back, “Here I am! I am coming! Who is that?”

‘So saying, I ran down as quickly as I could. On the way at Virupaksha Cave I asked Palaniswami about it and he said, “I heard some shouting from the cave of the old woman but I thought she was mumbling something”.

‘Some people were living at Mango Tree Cave and Jadaswami Cave but no one appears to have heard her cries.’

‘The cries were heard by the one that had to hear them and Arunachala himself responded to her call,’ I said.

Nodding his assent, Bhagavan continued: ‘Hearing my shouting, the thief ran away. We both [Bhagavan and Palaniswami] went to her, asked her where the thief was and, as there was no one there, we laughed, saying that it was all imagination.

‘She said, “No, swami. When he was removing things I challenged him and so he put his hands over my mouth to prevent me from shouting. I somehow managed to shout at the top of my voice. It was perhaps you who said that you were coming. He heard that and ran away.”

‘There was no light there, so we lit a piece of firewood and searched the whole place. We found the jar. Around it several small odds and ends were scattered about. We realised then that it was a fact.’

I [Suri Nagamma] said, ‘Her belief in God was profound. Hers is not an ordinary birth, but a birth with a purpose.’

Bhagavan merely nodded his head and was silent. (Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma, letter 51, 25th July, 1948)

Bhagavan also narrated Keeraipatti’s history in 1946, including a few extra details that are not included in Suri Nagamma’s account:

Keeraipatti was already living in the big temple in the town when I first went there. She stayed at the Subramaniam shrine in the temple and used to feed the sadhus. Later she began bringing food to me from a Kammala [blacksmith caste] lady, but after some time the Kammala lady began to bring the food herself instead of sending it through Keeraipatti. At that time Keeraipatti had matted locks. Later, when I went to live in the Virupaksha Cave, she was staying in Guhai Namasivaya temple and had shaved off her hair. She lived in the mantapam and she used to worship the image of Namasivaya and other images carved on its walls and pillars. The priest would come and do puja to the image in the temple, but she used to worship the images on the walls of the mantapam where she stayed and offer food to them.

When she got up in the morning she would go out for a walk on the small hill and from there to where our ashram is now and then on to Skandashram and back to where she was staying. On the way she would collect fuel and cow dung and carry them on a bundle on her back and hip. She would also gather all kinds of green leaves for cooking… She would offer the food to the images on the walls and pillars and then come and give it to me, and only afterwards would she go and eat some herself. In the evening she would go into the town to beg and there was not a house in the town she did not know.

…She was very much attached to me. I sometimes used to go with her and help her gather her leaves and vegetables, for instance from the drumstick tree. Sometimes I also helped in cleaning and preparing the vegetables for cooking, and then I would stay and eat with her. She died before we came here, that is before 1922. She was buried just near here, under a tamarind tree, opposite the Dakshinamurti Shrine.

This account has been taken from The Cow, Lakshmi, by Devaraja Mudaliar, pp. 12-14. An almost identical account can be found in Day By Day With Bhagavan, 26th January 1946.

There was much speculation in Ramanasramam that Lakshmi the cow was the reincarnation and final birth of Keeraipatti. Bhagavan himself never publicly confirmed or denied that Lakshmi was the reincarnation of Keeraipatti, but he was happy to pass on this theory to visitors and devotees. Writing in 1930, when Lakshmi had not yet moved to Ramanasramam, B. V. Narasimhaswami wrote: ‘Maharshi sometimes informs those present of her history and quotes with evident approval the theory of his devotees that Lakshmi is the present incarnation of Keeraipatti.’ (Self-Realization, by B. V. Narasimhaswami, 1993 ed., pp. 165-6)

After Lakshmi’s liberation in 1948, Devaraja Mudaliar wrote a short pamphlet that became the official ashram history of Lakshmi the cow. It was read and approved by Bhagavan prior to its publication. This is what Mudaliar had to say about the link between Lakshmi and Keeraipatti:

Lakshmi’s great devotion and the possessive way in which she would always approach Bhagavan, along with the great kindness and attention he showed her, convinced many of the devotees that there was some special bond between them. Many of us felt that although Lakshmi now wore the form of a cow, she must have attached herself to Bhagavan and won his grace by love and surrender in her previous birth. It seemed hard to explain in any other way the great solicitude and tenderness that Bhagavan always showed in his dealings with her. Because, although he was all love and kindness and had solicitude for all, he was normally very undemonstrative. The open expressions of his grace that Lakshmi used to receive from him were quite exceptional …

Bhagavan never definitely stated that Lakshmi was Keeraipatti. Nevertheless, the belief was supported by various remarks he made spontaneously or in unguarded moments when the circumstances gave rise to them … No one can quote any open statement by Bhagavan about Lakshmi and ‘the old lady of the greens’ [Keeraipatti] although many who heard Bhagavan refer to the two on various occasions felt almost certain that they were the same. They felt that the great devotion of the old lady had caused her to return in this humble guise to work out her remaining karma at the feet of Bhagavan. (The Cow, Lakshmi, by Devaraja Mudaliar, pp. 11-12)