About

Why this guide exists

A small offering to the hill, and to everyone it calls ~ made by someone who found their way to Arunachala, and never quite left.

Like many who come to Arunachala, I arrived meaning to stay a little while, and found myself returning again and again until Tiruvannamalai simply became part of my life. Something about this hill holds people quietly, without fuss ~ one visit becomes many, and a life slowly arranges itself around the mountain. I have come to feel that living within its reach is less a choice one makes than an invitation one eventually stops refusing.

This website grew out of that gratitude. In finding my own way here ~ how to come, where to stay, how to walk Girivalam, what the festivals mean, who the saints of the hill were, how to sit quietly with the teaching of Ramana ~ I noticed how scattered and often unreliable the information was, especially for those coming from far away with little Tamil and a great deal of longing. I kept wishing someone had gathered it all, honestly and warmly, in one place. In the end I decided to try to be that someone.

What I have tried to make

So this is, simply, the guide I wish I had been handed on my first bewildered, wide-eyed arrival. Everything here is written to be accurate, generous, and honest ~ the practical alongside the profound, the facts checked, the traditions honoured as traditions, the crowds and the difficulties named plainly rather than smoothed over. Where I do not know, I say so; where something is sacred lore rather than history, I tell you. The one thing I have refused to do is pretend, because Arunachala deserves better than a brochure.

It is really just a way of holding the door open for the next person the hill calls ~ near or far ~ as it was once held open for me.

Who it is for

For the first-time visitor, nervous about the practicalities. For the returning pilgrim who wants to go deeper. For the seeker drawn by Ramana, or by the hill itself, or by something they cannot quite name. And for those who may never come in person, but who feel the pull of Arunachala across the miles ~ this is for you too. Everything on it is free, and always will be. It is my small seva ~ my service ~ to the mountain that gave me so much, and to the devotees, from near and far, who come seeking what I was once seeking.

— Arunachala Shiva