The Spirit of Auroville

Somebody from Auroville gave me a clipping about Kaduveli Siddha—the legend of Irumbai temple. Several Aurovilians put together the following matter which was based on a tape-recorded conversation with a Brahmin of the Temple at Irumbai, a little away from the borders of Auroville.

When the Mother came to know that the villagers wanted to ask the Government to let the Aurovilians manage the area of the land close to the temple, she said:

It is all right.

Legend of Irumbai Temple

Wandering the barren canyon lands of Auroville or down the dusty village roads past crumbling temple ghats, one cannot help but wonder about an ancient culture that outwardly has been relegated to ruin, yet inwardly still haunts us with a hidden sense of epic grandeur and of might. Who were the priests, saints and rishis of these temples? What were their aspirations? What were the stories and traditions of these villages we pass through every day?

Our daily contacts with the villages through work, through disputes over land and grazing rights, if not more serious ones, through brief glimpses caught as one passes by, of temples, of crowds in the evening dusk, of people staring silently, of tea-shops, and low dark huts, gives one the strange impression of two cultures hurtled together to find something at what is, perhaps, the end of an Age.

The villages of Irumbai, Kottakarai, and Edayanchavadi, sites of continual daily contact between Auroville and the Tamil reality, have temple traditions going back millenia. They tend to have a strong devotion to the god Shiva and among their stories and traditions, Auroville, as the legend of Kaduveli and temple of Irumbai will show, is not absent.

The temple of Irumbai represents an important cultural and historical site, its sanctum sanctorum dating back more than two thousand years. It is mentioned in the collection of songs called the "Thevaram" of the famous Shaivite saint of the South, Thirugnana Sambanthar, who lived some twelve to fourteen hundred years ago, and who composed songs on the presiding deities and the geographical locality of almost all the early Shiva temples in the South. He sang of the presiding deity of Irumbai temple, Mahakaleswara, as well as the goddess Kuilmorhli Ammai, which means: "Mother with the sweet voice of the kuil birds." He depicts the Irumbai temple and its surroundings in beautiful language, mentioning the lotus pond, the green fields around the temple and the thick forests surrounding Irumbai village, which are today non-existent.

The temple was renovated under the Cholas and the Pandyas, whose kings donated hundreds of acres of land to the temple, and it had at one point perhaps as many as seven outer walls. A large statue of the god Ganesh, once part of the temple, now stands in the village itself.

Today, the temple sits at the entrance of Irumbai village beside the large crumbling stones of the lotus pond ghat where villagers bathe in the lazy afternoon, and despite its urgent need of repairs, still commands that ancient sense of power which in India overrides the ruins and ravages of time. It is the courtyard of the first of the seven walls that still exists and stands facing the west pillar of the Matrimandir across the rice paddies a couple of kilometers away.

The temple is particularly associated with the legend of Kaduveli Siddha, a famous yogi who lived in the area some four to five hundred years ago. He is remembered for his songs on how to control one's anger (Ref: "Songs of the Siddhas" in Tamil) and his wooden Samadhi is to be found on the road from Edayanchavadi to Pondy, close to the community of Forecomers. It is around him that the legend of Irumbai temple is based.

According to the legend, Kaduveli Siddha was performing a harsh penance. Sitting under a peepal tree in yogic poise for days, the heat of his body was so intense that the rain Gods suffered, no rains came, and the people were exposed to hardship and drought. The situation was so bad that it finally came to the ears of the King, who ruled from Edayanchavadi village, the region of which Irumbai was an important cultural centre, and Kottakarai, today a village adjoining the Auroville settlement of the same name, was one of his forts (Kottakarai in fact means: "End of the fort").

No one dared disturb Kaduveli in his penance as he chanted the mantra of Eswara, and soon an anthill started to rise up around him. Finally a temple dancer, named Valli, devoted to the Lord Shiva, decided to do her best to get the attention of the yogi, and to rescue the King and his people from the adverse effects of his tapasya. She observed that occasionally the Siddha would, with his eyes shut, put out his hands to catch and consume the falling, withered peepal leaves. So she prepared some thinly fried apalam (a flat salty wafer made out of green gram dhal) and started placing them into the yogi's outstretched hands as he tried to catch the falling leaves. Soon he started eating the apalams and getting his taste back. Slowly he grew fatter until finally the anthill broke and fell, and he was once more exposed to the rays of the sun. Finally he opened his eyes. Valli was extremely happy and was able to take him back to her house where she kept him in his best moods, dancing for him and learning songs from him. Meanwhile the God of Rain was relieved from the torture induced on him by the heat of the yogi's tapasya, the rain fell in plenty, and the people were happy once again.

In order to celebrate this event the King ordered a big Puja to be held at Irumbai temple, which was to be followed by a classical performance by Valli of one of the highest orders of classical dance, in which she would act out the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva, in the form of Nataraja. During the performance however one of her anklets fell off, and she started suddenly to lose her balance and rhythm. Kaduveli, who saw the Lord Shiva in Valli, picked up the anklet and put it back upon her foot. This exposed him to the ridicule of King and court for having touched the feet of a dancing girl, and he was heckled and jeered. Furious, he invoked Lord Shiva to come out of his temple and prove his innocence in a rain of stone. Immediately the lingam in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple exploded, and wherever its fragments fell suddenly became desert. No greenery will grow around these spots, including a crater at a distance of three kilometers from the village, and they are still to this day known as `Kaduveli'

The King was suddenly frightened and begged the pardon of the Siddha, bowing down to him with all his entourage and pleading with him to quench the effects of his anger and curse. This appeased Kaduveli, who, repenting of his anger, said that what was done was done, but that in the future people from far-off lands would come and make the desert land green and fertile again. Today there are villages who feel that the Aurovilians are the people from far-off lands mentioned by the Siddha, and that the curse is now beginning to leave them.

Whatever one's interpretation of the legend might be, it is in any case an interesting tale, and the next time one passes through what was once the kingdom of Edayanchavadi, one might well wonder about this story of the dancer, the Siddha and the people from far-off lands, that occurred some five hundred years ago.