Narayana Guru
Indian spiritual leader and social reformer (1856–1928)
Sree Narayana Guru (IPA: [nɑːrɑːjɐɳɐ guˈru]) (20 August 1856 – 20 September 1928) was a philosopher, spiritual leader and social reformer in India. He led a reform movement against the injustice in the caste-ridden society of Kerala in order to promote spiritual enlightenment and social equality. A quote of his that defined his movement was "one caste, one religion, and one god for all human beings". He is the author of the Advaita poem Daiva Dasakam, which is one of the most used poem in Kerala for community prayer.
French philosopher and Nobel prize laureate for literature, Romain Rolland described Narayana guru as 'Jnani of Karma', noting that he exemplified how faith could be used to bring about social change.
Biography
Narayanan, né Nanu, was born on 20 August 1856 to Madan Asan and Kuttiyamma in an Ezhava family of ayurvedic physicians, in the village of Chempazhanthy near Thiruvananthapuram, in the erstwhile state of Travancore. Unlike other Ezhavas who confined their Sanskrit reading to ayurvedic works, Narayana guru studied religious texts as well. His early education was in the gurukula way under Chempazhanthi Mootha Pillai during which time his mother died when he was 15. At the age of 21, he went to central Travancore to learn from Raman Pillai Asan, a Sanskrit scholar who taught him Vedas, Upanishads and the literature and logical rhetoric of Sanskrit. A year later, he married Kaliamma but soon disassociated himself from the marriage to commence his public life as a social reformer.
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This entry incorporates text from “Narayana Guru” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.