Saints of Arunachala · The alchemist Siddhar

Bhogar: the alchemist Siddhar of Palani

None of the eighteen Siddhars captures the imagination like Bhogar ~ alchemist, physician, yogi and traveller, said to have crafted the famous Palani deity from a mysterious amalgam of nine substances, and enshrined in jeeva samadhi at the heart of that great temple.

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Among the eighteen Siddhars, none captures the imagination quite like Bhogar (Boganathar) ~ the great alchemist-sage of Palani, master of the mysterious sciences, said to have travelled to distant lands and even, in some traditions, to China, and to have crafted the most famous deity-image in all of Tamil Nadu from a substance no ordinary hand could work. He is the Siddhar as scientist and wonder-worker: alchemist, physician, yogi and traveller, whose jeeva samadhi lies at the heart of one of South India’s greatest temples.

The alchemist-sage

Bhogar was a Siddhar of the first rank ~ a master of alchemy, medicine and yoga, one of the greatest adepts of the Tamil Siddha tradition. He is associated with the deepest and most secret branches of Siddha science: the transmutation of metals, the preparation of powerful medicines and rejuvenating substances, and the yogic mastery of the life-force. In the traditional accounts he is a disciple of Kalanginathar and connected in the lineage to Agastyar himself, and he counts among his own disciples the celebrated Korakkar (known in the north as Gorakhnath). Some traditions hold that Bhogar travelled widely ~ even that he journeyed to China and taught there, or came from there ~ marking him, in the lore, as a bridge between the wisdom-traditions of distant lands.

Alchemist, physician, yogi and traveller ~ Bhogar is the Siddhar as scientist and wonder-worker, whose greatest work still stands worshipped by millions.

The Navapashanam of Palani

Bhogar’s most celebrated feat ~ and the reason his name endures far beyond the circle of Siddha adepts ~ is the deity of Palani. At the great hilltop Murugan temple of Palani, one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Tamil Nadu, the presiding image of Lord Dandayudhapani (Murugan) is held by tradition to have been made by Bhogar from a mysterious amalgam called Navapashanam ~ “nine poisons,” nine mineral and herbal substances combined by his alchemical art into a single miraculous compound. The tradition holds that the abhishekam substances (milk, panchamirtham and the rest) poured over this image acquire, from contact with the Navapashanam, genuine medicinal and healing power ~ so that the very worship of the deity becomes a dispensing of Bhogar’s medicine to the multitudes. Whatever one makes of the account, it is a striking image of the Siddhar’s art: healing and the sacred fused into a single object, worshipped by millions to this day.

His jeeva samadhi at Palani

Bhogar is said to have attained jeeva samadhi at Palani, and his samadhi shrine is enshrined within the Palani temple complex itself ~ so that the alchemist-saint remains, in the tradition’s understanding, present at the very temple whose deity he made, watching over his own greatest work. Pilgrims to Palani honour both the deity and its maker. For the devotee of the Siddhar path, Bhogar’s presence at Palani is a living link to the age of the great adepts ~ one of the eighteen, enshrined and worshipped, at the heart of a temple that draws millions.

Bhogar and the Siddhar landscape

Though Bhogar’s great seat is Palani rather than Arunachala, he belongs wholly to the same tradition of the Tamil Siddhars that runs, like an underground river, beneath the whole spiritual landscape of the south ~ the tradition of which Arunachala’s hidden siddhas and the nearby Parvathamalai are part. To know Bhogar is to know the character of the Siddhars themselves: not world-renouncing ascetics only, but masters of body, matter and life, who turned the highest realisation to the transformation of the physical world ~ and left behind wonders, like the deity of Palani, that outlast the centuries.

Last updated 15 February 2026. Following the documented record preserved by Sri Ramanasramam and his devotees; where an account is traditional, it is told as such.