Siddhars of Pondicherry - Guru Siddhananda

Pondicherry is a place of fun to many, but inherently it had been a place of salvation since ancient times. Not many people know or realize that all in all there are 30 siddhars who attained jeeva samadhi in and around Pondicherry. I seek the support and blessings of all the siddhars to help me write about them, in this blog. The first and foremost among them is Guru Siddhananda. Siddhars are not Gods. But these are people who actually lived in this world and performed miracles. Guru Siddhananada lived 175 years ago. He is said to have possessed powers to convert water to gold. But please don't go here for Gold. You land here for inner peace.

The temple is right at the entrance of Pondicherry when one comes from Chennai. The first stop (if the buses go via bye pass) is Sivaji Silai/Siddhananda koil. When one enters the temple, on the left there are two trees intermingled on to one another. One is the neem tree and the other banyan. Its very rare for these two trees intermingle and it stands testimony to divinity of the site. The trees stood the thane cyclone. There were lot of trees in the Siddhananda temple which got uprooted in the Thane cyclone but they stayed there strong. Its said that the roots of these trees actually go right below the jeeva samadhi of Guru Siddhananda.

The temple has a lingam inside the sanctum sanctorum which is on the samadhi of Guru Siddhananda. The temple has a beautiful pond (please dont pollute it, for God's sake). Since people come here in search of inner peace, there is a meditation hall in the temple. Please maintain silence and reflect on your inner self.

Poet Bharathi composed the Kuyil Pattu within the farms of this temple though a small extent of is what is left out now. He has a small statue erected in memory of him.

I could find only one picture of Guru Siddhanada over the web. Om nama sivaya!

Courtesy: Agasthiyar.org