Girivalam · The inner way
The Siddha way of Girivalam: walking as living meditation
More than a pilgrimage ~ the Tamil Siddhas knew Girivalam as a yoga in motion, a way of turning a long walk into living meditation and offering. The inner way of walking Arunachala: the seven rules, the visions, and the practice open to all.
The short version
- What
- The inner, Siddha way of walking Girivalam ~ pradakshina yoga, walking as meditation.
- The heart
- Circling the hill is spiralling inward toward your own centre; movement becomes stillness.
- Open to all
- The simplest yoga ~ no posture, no training; it asks sincerity, not ability.
- The seven rules
- Intention, bare feet, clockwise, breath, silence, the full moon, gratitude at each shrine.
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Most guides tell you the practical shape of Girivalam ~ the fourteen kilometres, the clockwise direction, the hours to allow. This page is about something else: the inner way of walking, as the Tamil Siddhas understood it. For them, circling Arunachala was never mere exercise or even mere ritual ~ it was a practice, a yoga in motion, a way of turning a long walk into a living meditation and an offering. You do not have to accept every claim of the tradition to be moved and helped by its wisdom. Here is the Siddha way, told plainly.
More than a walk around a hill
The Siddhas ~ the perfected yogis of the Tamil tradition ~ saw Arunachala not as a hill of stone but as the very form of Shiva, a column of fire and consciousness. To circle it, then, was not to walk around an object but to spiral inward toward one’s own centre. They spoke of Girivalam as pradakshina yoga ~ the yoga of circumambulation ~ and held that walking the circuit with awareness could quiet the mind, soften the grip of old habit and karma, and open the walker to the grace they believed saturated every inch of ground around the hill. The great saints and Siddhas ~ Ramana in his silence, Bhogar and Agastyar in theirs ~ walked this path in deep absorption, and the tradition holds that their presence lingers in the land itself, so that to walk here is to move through their company.
To walk around the flame is to walk within it. As you go around Arunachala, the Siddhas say, Arunachala goes around you.
The yoga open to everyone
Here is what the Siddhas found most beautiful about this path: of all yogas, it is the simplest and most open. It asks no special posture, no initiation, no years of training. If you can walk, you can do it; and the tradition holds that even one who cannot walk, and is carried around the hill with devotion, receives the same grace. What it asks is not ability but sincerity ~ a real longing of the heart. In an age when so much spirituality is made complicated and exclusive, Girivalam remains radically simple: put the hill on your right, and walk, with love. That is the whole of it, and it is enough.
The seven inner rules of the Siddha way
The tradition distils the inner practice into a handful of simple principles ~ not rigid commandments, but ways of turning an ordinary walk into a sacred one. Take from them what speaks to you.
Begin with intention
Before you set out, pause at the Arunachaleswarar temple, take darshan, and offer a silent prayer ~ then start from the east-facing gate, at dawn or at dusk. The walk begins not with the first step but with the turning of the heart toward the hill.
Walk barefoot, if you can
The tradition sees bare feet on the earth as a way of grounding ~ of letting the body meet the hill directly. It is not required, and hot or rough ground makes it hard for unaccustomed feet; walk shod if you need to. The devotion matters more than the state of your soles.
Move clockwise
Always keep the hill on your right, circling clockwise (pradakshina). This is the ancient direction of reverence ~ the way one circles anything held sacred, from a temple deity to a holy fire.
Breathe with awareness
Let the breath find the rhythm of your steps, and the walk becomes a kind of moving meditation ~ what the Siddhas called turning walking into pranayama. You need no technique; simply let breath and step fall into an easy, unforced rhythm, and the mind grows quiet of itself.
Keep silence
Talk less. Let the outer quiet invite an inner one. Many walk repeating a simple inner refrain ~ Om Arunachala, or Arunachala Shiva ~ letting the name turn softly through the miles. Silence is where the walk does its deepest work.
Walk the full moon
The Siddhas especially treasured walking under the Pournami, the full moon ~ when, they held, the hill's grace and the moon's cool light are most abundant. The monthly full-moon Girivalam remains the great communal walk to this day.
Offer gratitude at each shrine
The path is threaded with shrines ~ the eight directional lingams, the temples, the samadhis. Pause at them. Where lamps may be lit, light one. Let the walk be punctuated by small acts of reverence rather than hurried past.
An infinity of visions
One of the loveliest teachings of the Siddha lineage is that the hill never shows the same face twice. Every stretch of the path offers a different darshan ~ a different vision of Arunachala’s form and mood: here a peak, there a shoulder, here wrapped in cloud, there blazing in the evening light. The tradition catalogued these as an endless series of sacred views, each said to carry its own blessing, and taught that no one ever “masters” Girivalam ~ it is meant to be walked again and again, each time unveiling a new layer. This, perhaps, is why those who live at the hill walk it not once but hundreds of times, and never tire of it: the walk is inexhaustible, because the hill is.
Movement becomes meditation
Strip away the more marvellous claims, and a simple, testable truth remains at the heart of the Siddha teaching: that walking, done with awareness, becomes meditation. The steady rhythm of the feet, the breath falling into step, the great silent presence of the hill, the miles that leave no room for hurry ~ all of it draws the restless mind, almost without effort, toward stillness. You set out full of thought and, somewhere on the far quiet side of the hill, notice that the thinking has thinned to almost nothing, and there is just the walking, the breath, the mountain. That is the yoga the Siddhas pointed to. Whether or not you accept the talk of energy meridians and consciousness portals, this much you can simply try, and see for yourself: walk the hill slowly, silently, with an open heart, and notice what happens to the mind.
The teachings here belong to the living Siddha and devotional tradition of Arunachala, and we relate them as such ~ reverently, but as tradition rather than proven fact; the marvellous elements (energy meridians, the manuscripts, the infinite darshans) are the poetry of the path, and each walker is free to take them as literally or as loosely as they wish. For the practical details of walking ~ how to reach the start, timings, safety, barefoot or shod ~ see the complete Girivalam guide, the route in detail, and the barefoot question. For the Siddhas themselves, see the 18 Siddhars.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Siddha way of Girivalam?
The Siddha way is the inner, meditative practice of walking Girivalam ~ not as exercise or mere ritual, but as what the Tamil Siddhas called pradakshina yoga, a yoga in motion. Circling Arunachala with awareness, breath and silence is held to quiet the mind and open the walker to the grace of the hill, turning a long walk into a living meditation and offering.
What are the seven rules of walking Girivalam the Siddha way?
The tradition distils it into seven simple principles: begin with intention (prayer at the temple, starting at dawn or dusk); walk barefoot if you can; move clockwise with the hill on your right; breathe with awareness so walking becomes pranayama; keep silence, perhaps with an inner refrain like 'Om Arunachala'; walk especially on the full moon (Pournami); and offer gratitude at each shrine along the way. They are gentle guides, not rigid rules.
Why do the Siddhas call Girivalam the easiest yoga?
Because it asks no special posture, initiation or training ~ if you can walk, you can do it, and the tradition holds that even one carried around the hill with devotion receives the same grace. What it asks is not ability but sincerity, a real longing of the heart. It is radically simple: keep the hill on your right, and walk with love.
Does walking Girivalam really work as meditation?
At its simplest, yes ~ and you can test it yourself. The steady rhythm of the feet, the breath falling into step, the silence and the great presence of the hill, and the miles that leave no room for hurry all draw the restless mind toward stillness. Many find that they set out full of thought and, on the quiet far side of the hill, notice the thinking has thinned to almost nothing. That is the meditation the Siddhas pointed to, whatever one makes of the tradition's more marvellous claims.
Last updated 24 February 2026. Following the documented record preserved by Sri Ramanasramam and his devotees; where an account is traditional, it is told as such.