Virupaksha Cave, Arunachala, Tiruvannamalai
Tamil Nadu, India · c.1948–1949
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12.23170°N, 79.06760°E
Key Facts
- ◆ The Virupaksha Cave is where Ramana Maharshi lived for seventeen years before moving to the ashram below.
- ◆ Named after the sage Virupaksha, whose shrine is inside; the earlier Gurumurtham cave is nearby.
- ◆ Sangharakshita and Satyapriya lived here for an extended period after attending darshan at Ramana Maharshi's ashram below.
- ◆ He received a personal blessing from Ramana Maharshi in the hall of the ashram.
- ◆ One night in the cave, out of meditation, he experienced the figure of Amitabha Buddha: 'a deep, rich, luminous red, like that of rubies, though at the same time soft and glowing, like the light of the setting sun'.
- ◆ This was a vision of such clarity that nearly a quarter of a century later 'the figure of the red Buddha is as clear to me, in recollection, as it was the next morning in the Virupaksha Guha'.
“One night I found myself as it were out of the body and in the presence of Amitābha, the Buddha of Infinite Light… The colour of the Buddha was a deep, rich, luminous red, like that of rubies, though at the same time soft and glowing, like the light of the setting sun.”
— The Rainbow Road
“Nearly a quarter of a century later, the figure of the red Buddha is as clear to me, in recollection, as it was the next morning in the Virupaksha Guha.”
— The Rainbow Road
Source: The Rainbow Road
Other sites in Tamil Nadu
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