Ramalingam was born as the fifth son of Ramayya Pillai and Chinnammai in the small village of Marudhur in Southern India. One day, when Ramayya Pillai was away from home, a saffron-clad saint came to their house. The guest was treated courteously and fed with good dishes. Pleased immensely with the courtesy given to him, the saint at the time of his departure, blessed Chinnammai with some sacred ash and uttered the following words, ‘You will beget a son, who will be able to deliver the art of deathlessness, which will be a boon to the entire world.‘ So saying the saint disappeared. Soon Ramalingam was born, and when the child was five months old, the parents took him to Chidambaram temple to offer their grateful prayers. As usual, the priest lit the camphor and offered it to the Lord at the Sanctum Sanctorum. No sooner had the vision appeared, the child laughed loudly and gazed at it for a few seconds. This pleasant experience has been expressed in some of the poems edited by the saint subsequently. 

‘No sooner the Light was perceived, happiness prevailed on me.‘

‘The sweet nectar was tasted by me as soon as the great Grand Light (Arutperunjothi) became visible.‘

Unfortunately, only one month after this event, when Ramalingam was six months old, his father, Ramayya Pillai, passed away. Chinnamai was heartbroken and under swollen grief since she did not know what to do with no breadwinner in the family. This worried her so much that she decided to leave Marudhur and settle at Chinnakavanam, a village in Chengalpattu district, her mother’s place, thinking she could lead the family with the help of her relatives. With this intention, she left the village with all her five children. After some years, when the elder brother had grown up, he showed some interest in looking after the family. Because Chennai was considered a place where he could find work, the family moved to Chennai. Ramalingam was taught elementary education from age five to nine by his elder brother Sabapathy Pillai. The young boy showed little interest in the formal education by his brother; instead, he used to go to the nearby temple of Lord Muruga, known as Kandakottam, and prayed to Lord Muruga to teach him the art of meditation.

On an auspicious day, a room upstairs was provided to the boy to carry on his studies without any disturbance. But instead of collecting books on literature and concentrating on the same, Ramalingam collected things for performing pooja, lit a lamp, and placed a mirror in front of it within the room. Sitting before it, he concentrated on a specific spot in the mirror where the brilliance of the lamp fell and used to become lost in deep meditation. As providence would have it, Ramalingam beheld the glorious vision of Lord Muruga, whose Grace and Divinity engulfed the entire mirror space. Ramalinga was filled with divine ecstasy, and such joy overpowered him to make him sing ethereal songs in praise of the Lord. By Divine Grace obtained this way, Ramalingam was blessed with the knowledge of all arts and skills and gifted with the ability and talent to perform miracles and Siddhis (wondrous deeds). Without the little boy’s knowledge, his elder brother’s wife witnessed the occurrences with awe and amazement. 

Ramalingam continued to do meditation in front of the mirror for about three years, from 1832 to 1835. Lord Muruga appeared through the mirror and taught him the path of Wisdom, as narrated in the following poem of the Saint:

You taught me the Vedas

Your grace helped me to rise up.

You prevented me from going to unworthy Preceptors

You took me as your disciple for a short period. – Thiruvarutpa 5B/40:4

ACCEPTED AS A DISCIPLE BY LORD SHIVA

When Ramalingam was a boy of twelve years old [1835], while playing on the street with friends, Lord Shiva appeared in the form of a Saint. The Saint called him, took a garland of Rudraksha beads with a pendant in the shape of a Shivalingam with a flame at the centre [Shivamaalai], and put it around the neck of Ramalingam. He told him in a low voice that he would meet him in the night and went away. This event is described in the Thiruarutpa:

One evening when I was playing on the Street

with my friends as a boy of 12 years,

you put Sivamaalai around my neck. – 6B/11:9

It is difficult for me to explain how much effort was taken by me

from my age of twelve till this midday in the path of wisdom. – 6A/13:126

THE TEACHER SHOWS HIMSELF

With the eloquence he had in Tamil literature, his elder brother Sabapathy gave lectures in some rich people’s houses at their request. For this, he used to receive some remuneration, which provided for his family. Thus, Sabapathy entered into a contract with a rich man in Chennai to give a series of lectures. This went on smoothly for some days. But one day, he was laid down with a high fever and could not keep up his commitment. He was rather puzzled, not knowing what to do. He did not want to disappoint the organiser and the audience. As his wife knew the talents of his young brother, and as these were not revealed to others so far, she pleaded with her husband to send his brother to the place and fulfill the engagement.

Sabapathy,  totally ignorant of his younger brother’s capacity, initially refused to accept her request, but as there was no alternative, at last, he agreed to send him on his behalf. He called on the boy and asked him to read out one or two stanzas before the audience and apologise before the organiser for his elder brother’s inability to keep up the engagements.

Even at the place of the sermon, where Ramalingam ventured to inform the news of his brother’s inability, the organiser was very disappointed. By that time, the hall was fully packed. To avoid any flutter from the audience, and as there was no one to continue the lecture, with much reluctance, the organiser asked the boy to say something. 

The first word ‘Ulagelam’ beginning in Periyapuranam was taken up for annotation, after which words gushed through his mouth like water flowing in a river after torrential rain. Pin drop silence prevailed in the assembly, and everybody was surprised to see the extraordinary eloquence the boy had even at this young age. There was a consensus among all that he is a God sent. It was midnight, yet he had hardly finished explaining just two lines from the very first stanza itself. The explanation for each word came in a torrent, and thus, the time constraint was not felt by any of them. There was a considered opinion among all that the boy himself should continue the discourse, and it was agreed by the organisers also. The information was conveyed to his brother Sabapathy at once.

Sabapathy was very much perturbed to hear the news that there was a mass appeal for continuing the lectures by Ramalingam himself. His pride was pricked, and he wondered how a boy who had not stepped into a school could give such astounding lessons. However, he allowed Ramalingam to continue the lectures.

To verify the truth, Sabapathy himself went to the scene in a corner of the hall without the knowledge of others and his brother and listened to the lectures. He first thought that it was a dream. But second thought brought him to conclude that it was a fact and not a dream. The lecturer was none other than his younger brother Ramalingam. After returning home, he narrated the incident to his beloved wife, as she used to plead more about the young boy. Both averred that Ramalingam was not a mere boy but representative of God fully vested with His Divine Grace. Ramalingam returned home after finishing his discourse.

Having much regret and feeling sorry for all his discourteous behaviour shown towards Ramalingam, Sabapathy embraced him with affection and requested him to pardon him for all the trouble he had given in the past. Ramalingam stood easy as if he was not aware of difficulties as posed by his brother but kept quiet and was praising the Almighty inwardly as he was sailing along with the current with His Grace. 

The news spread like wildfire to all places in the vicinity, and people began to surround Ramalingam to have a glimpse of the young boy and hear the divine voice emanating from his lips. Eminent scholars and religious heads became his students and disciples. Velayudha Mudaliar of Thozhuvur, the head of Tamil literature in the Presidency College, Chennai, was the first to step in. Several others also followed suit, and they used to address him as ‘Ramalinga Adigalar.’

Ramalingam undertook regular pilgrimages to holy shrines in the southern part of Chennai. He used to offer his prayers to the Deity enshrined there by way of songs. The poems swelled into thousands, and all have been compiled in two volumes and presented to the world at a later stage as ‘Thiru Arutpa,’ a composition of thousands of poems, with a small number in the prose form. It includes the letters written by Adigalar to his disciples to reply to their letters and prayers made before the Almighty in prose form. 

At last, he settled in a village called Karunguli, which is now about ten kilometres from Neyveli. He continued to live there for about nine years.

Family Life

According to the principles of the Siddhas, family life is considered beneficial to meditation since it allows for balancing biological energies. Accordingly, Ramalingam married Dhanakodi, the daughter of his second elder sister. Ramalingam lived with his wife in Chennai for about seven or eght years, but the pressure of family life and having to care for his wife and mother eventually became too much for him, and he prayed to Lord Shiva for relief. Finally, after some time, both his wife and mother passed away, and Ramalingam was relieved of family worries and obligations.

Personal Appearance and Habits

In personal appearance, Ramalingam was a moderately tall, spare man – so spare, indeed, as to virtually appear a skeleton – yet a strong man, erect in stature, and walking very rapidly; with a face of a clear brown complexion, a straight, thin nose, large, fiery eyes, and with a look of constant sorrow on his face. Towards the end of his life, he let his hair grow long. He wore shoes, and his garments consisted of only two pieces of white cloth.

His habits were excessively abstemious. He was known to hardly ever take any rest. A strict vegetarian, he ate but once in two or three days and was then satisfied with a few mouthfuls of rice. But when fasting for two or three months at a time, he literally ate nothing, living merely on warm water with a bit of sugar dissolved in it.

He was a great alchemist. Frequently he changed a carnivorous person into a vegetarian; a mere glance from him seemed enough to destroy the desire for animal food.

As seen in the next section, Ramalingam faced hardship and opposition. He was described as having a look of constant sorrow on his face. During the latter part of his life, he often expressed his bitter sorrow for the sad state of things.

Controversy and Opposition

It is a well-known historical fact that the lives of Saints can at times be very hard, often because they meet opposition from religious orthodoxy. Ramalingam’s life was no exception, and the difficulties weighed heavily on him. The root cause occurred during his stay in Karunguzhi and Vadalur in the period from 1864 to 1869. Saiva religious people, led by Arumuga Naavalar, developed enmity because of differing scriptural interpretations and a lost debate. He criticised Ramalingam’s poetry, assassinated his character, and maliciously sued him in court.

Over time Ramalingam’s opponents developed a large following and even tried to poison him with arsenic. On one dark night, a large crowd of agitators came to his house in Vadalur and dashed the door forcibly. Ramalingam wept, holding the bolt of the door, and prayed to Lord Siva to rescue him. His suffering and agony were expressed by him in his poems:

Oh Lord! I cannot tolerate the words of abuse any longer. I am unable to take my food and go to sleep. – 6B/11:3

If you safeguard me, I will remain in this world; otherwise, I will die. – 6B/13:130

I cannot tolerate the fear, the troubles, and the sufferings; I can’t live! I can’t live! I can’t live! – 6B/13:133

When Ramalinga cried out for help while the mob was at his door Lord Shiva appeared there for his rescue:

Oh, Lord! You came in a double horse chariot with the Supreme Mother – 6C/16:4

In the dark night, the noise of the hard hoofs of two horses and the wheels of a chariot made the miscreants believe that a large crowd was rushing to the spot, and they ran away. Lord Shiva then consoled Ramalingam and left.

Oh, my son! Don’t be exhausted. – 4/2:4

Oh, my son! Don’t be perturbed by the cruel deeds of the people. 

Oh, my son! You remain here itself with a stubborn mind – 4/2:6

You remain with full liberty in the building constructed by you. – 4/2:7

Finally, one day, a supporter of Ramalingam, Muthiah Padayachi, who was the Village Headman of the adjacent village of Mettukuppam, heard the news that the Saint’s life was in danger and rushed with some residents to rescue him. He made him stay safely in a separate, thatched house in Mettukuppam, which became the Saint’s residence from 1870 until the end of his life in 1874.