Birth

Madurai, the famous city in Tamil Nadu, has held immense importance in the history of India. Called the ‘city of temples’, it stands immaculately surrounded by legends and stories of great saints and rulers of the bygone era. It was the center for ancient Tamil intellectuals and proved to be a bustling conglomerate of learning and higher knowledge.

The small village of Tiruchhuzhi stood about thirty miles from Madurai. It is also considered as one of the sacred places of Lord Shiva as sung by His disciples like Sundar Murty and Manikkavasagar in their immortal hymns wherein they have described the place. The nearest railway station, Virudhunagar was at a distance of about eighteen kilometers from Tiruchhuzhi.

In the small village inhabited by a meager population residing in about 500 houses, lived a Brahmin called Sundaram Aiyyer. He belonged to the Parashar Gotra (Gotra is a classification of caste according to Hindu religion). By profession, he was a lawyer and practiced law. His wife’s name was Azhagamma. He was pious and religious by nature.

According to a legend, someone in his ancestry denied to give alms to an ascetic. When the ascetic didn’t get anything, he got enraged and cursed the family. He denounced that an ascetic would take birth in every generation of the family and he would have to wander for alms as he did. And everything happened just as the ascetic proclaimed. Sundaraiyya’s uncle became a saint. His elder brother renounced everything and left home. Later on, he was called Shivanand Yogi.

Sundaraiyya wouldn’t have imagined even in his wildest of dreams that of the three sons, Nagswami, Venkatraman and Nagsundaram, Venkatraman would emerge as the forerunner in the field of spiritualism and extend the tradition of saints in his family.

Venkatraman took birth after midnight on the 29^th of December in the year, 1879. The clock struck 3:36 A.M. when this small baby boy was born.