ABSTRACT
Maharshi was born on 31st December, 1879, in a village near Madura in South India. He was named Venkataraman; he belonged to a respected but not affluent Brahmin family, his father being a pleader. He and his elder brother were educated at the local High School; at sixteen he was preparing for matriculation at Madras University. Up to that time there was nothing to make anyone suspect that a spiritual genius was here in embryo. Venkataraman was a beautiful healthy boy, loving sport and physical exercise, but not over keen on study. There was a legend in his family that, from every generation, one of its sons would leave home and discard the worldly life. The only spiritual books which had made an impression on the boy were the Life of Kabir, and descriptions of the lives of sixty-three Saints of Shiva’s cult. Maharshi later said that when he read the latter, a strange desire arose in him, a yearning to be one of those Saints. Finally, when listening to his uncle speaking about pilgrimage to Arunachala, a holy hill some hundred miles from Madura, the very word ‘Arunachala’ struck a responsive chord in the heart of the youth. He asked his uncle to tell him about this Mount Arunachala.
