When was Guru born?

We have received the following letter:

To: guruforum@homemail.com
From: "sugathan"
Subject: year of Gurujayanthi
You have mentioned that people give 1854 and 1856 as year of birth of the Guru. I suggest that you accept what is given by Kumaaran Aashaan , his beloved desciple and biographer. Aashaan wrote the Guru's biography when the Guru was alive and the Guru would have corrected the date if it was wrong. The sixtieth birth anniversary of the Guru was celebrated in 1916 and the 53rd birth anniversary in 1909. So there should not be any confusion about the year of birth of Sreenarayanaguru. We must take it as 1856.
---- Dr.K.Sugathan, Calicut

Having said that, during this year's Guru Jayanthi, both KeralaKaumudi and Mathrubhumi repeatedly reported Guru's 146th birth anniversary. They seem to base on 1854 as the the date of birth We got a detailed explanation from Dr Sugathan again. It looks like the damage has been done none other than Natarajaguru in his book "The Word of the Guru". Text of Dr Sugathan's reply follows:

There should not be any doubt about the date of birth of Guru. Kumaaran Aasaan puts it as 7th of Chingom,1032 M.E. which corresponds to 22-08-1856 A.D. Murkkoth Kumaran, K. Damodaran and Pandit K.K.Panikker who wrote Guru's biography before Natarajaguru accept the date given by Aasaan. The doubt raised by C V Kunhiraman was ignored by these biographers.

But Natarajaguru gave the date as 1854 on flimsy grounds. He mentioned that the exact date is under dispute. He does not give sufficient reasons to contradict the earlier biographers. Even though he puts the year as 1854 initially, he mentions that on astrological calculations it would be 1855 and the error is only by one year.

There is no reason to believe that Aasan has made a wrong statement. He had more than 20 years of close contact with Guru. Natrajaguru had only less than two years of close contact with his Guru. He started writing the biography of his Guru twenty years after the samadhi and while he was touring America. Kumaaran Aasaan wrote the biography when Guru was alive. There was no confusion about the year till 1916 when the 60th birth anniversary was celebrated. Natarajaguru prolongs the life of his Guru by two years (and later corrects it as one year) on the basis of a statement of the Guru " how do you know I am 60 ? my 60 th birth anniversary is over long ago" Natarajaguru says that this statement of his Guru is in a philosophical sense - Sanyasis have no birth anniversary since they are never born. They are as old as the universe.

We must take the statement of the Guru in a philosophical sense because he never objected to the celebration of his birth days for about 20 years ( from 1909 onwards) on the basis of his birth in 1856. I can enumerate a dozen wrong statements by Natarajaguru, and the statement about the year of birth of his Guru is only one among them.

One Caste - an explanation

Dr Sugathan has also given a very good explanation on "caste" in one caste. This is relevant when some people are explaining "One Caste, One Religion, One God" as if Guru believed in caste and religion!

" One Caste, One Religion, One God for Man " is the most important message of Guru. Unless explained well people will not understand the greatness of Guru. Guru defined the word 'jaathi' or caste as 'species ' . All human beings belong to the species " Homo Sapiens " and so all are one caste. People should not be discriminated on the basis of religion, nationality etc. Guru did not belong to any religion. All religions were same to him. Hope your website will come to full shape soon. --- Dr.K.Sugathan.

Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 23:02:38 +0530
from: "sugathan"
The short biography of the Guru is a partially corrected version of the one written by Narayan Murthy. Mr.Murthy has copied many mistakes from the biography of the Guru written by Natarajaguru, which happens to be the first one in English.You have filtered out many of the mistakes but some more remain. I can make a list of them and send it to you. I can say your website one of the best on the Guru. Congratulations .
Dr.K.Sugathan

Not High Caste and Low Caste - Savarnar and Avarnar!

It is unforunate that people talk about low caste and high caste. The vertical system existed in Hinduism. This was the Chaathurvarnya system. But the system which existed in Kerala prior to the arrival of Hinduism was not vertical. All castes were equal in status. Parayas, Pulayas, Cherumars, Billavas and Arayas were rulers in Kerala. According to Chaathurvarnya system the Sudras are the low castes. But in Kerala they are not low castes. The grouping of castes in Kerala is into Savarnas and Avarnas. Savarna is the Malayalam word for Caste-Hindu and Avarna for Non-caste Hindu. Avarnas are not low caste people. They are people who do not believe in the classification of men into four varnas - brahmana, kshathriya, vaishya and sudra. They are against the system of Chaathurvarnyam. How can they be inferior to those who do not consider all men as equal in status. Gauthama Buddha said 2600 years ago that " Nobody is a brahmin by birth, Nobody is an outcaste by birth". The avarnas should shed their inferiority complex. ---- Dr.K.Sugathan