Ramanaiah garu of Nellore

India gave birth to several devotees of god and spiritual stalwarts and sacred souls. There have been
innumerable great persons, who evolved and propagated different methods of worshipping god.
They removed the ignorance of the people of treating the worldly enjoyments as the final goal of life
and helped them to get salvation or the realization of supreme self or god.

The family of Ayilavajjhala of Bhaaradwaaja gotra in Paatakoduru village in Nellore district of Andhra
Pradesh was well known for several great men who were experts in the Shakta cult of worshipping
Mother Goddess. In this family was born in 1917, Shree Venkataramanayya. He became a great
expert in the tradition of worship of Shakti or Mother Goddess. He was blessed by the Goddess
Mukkantamma, who was the family deity and also the village deity. He was a great scholar in
Ayurveda, Astrology, Telugu, Sanskrit, Vyaakarana and others. He was also a poet and was an expert
in Avadhaanam, a specific process of poetry requiring miraculous memory power and high and
remarkable poetic skill. For a decade he traveled throughout the country from Kashmir to
Kanyakumari. He spent one year in Srishailam, the abode of lord Mallikarjuna and goddess
Bhramaramba, everyday bringing water in a pot from Paataalaganga- river Krishna about one
thousand steps deep below- and perform Abhishekam to goddess Bhramaraamba. His life style, food
habits, dress and others were so simple that no one would believe that he was such a great person.
He was called as Ayyagaaru by the disciples with great respect and affection.

Ayyagaaru started a group called Sri Chamundeshwari Seva Samithi Shaaktamandal in 1968. From its
inception onwards a programme of worship of Sri Chamundeshwari is performed once in a month of
Telugu calendar, with the name Samaavesham. In this program the deity is worshipped in the form
of a photo and a holy vessel.-Kalasham-and Shreechakram. Recitation of holy scriptures, Homam
(fire sacrifice) of Saptashati, Kumaripooja and Mahapooja in the night are performed. Some
celebrations were performed for three and five days and some were held at many holy places like
Kashi, Rameshwaram, Kanyakumari, Badarinath Pushkarraj and others. Members of the Samithi
attend all the celebrations with their own expense and render service. Five days program at
Alampur-the abode of goddess Jogulaamba- with the lighting of one lakh lamps and another five
days program at Feelkhana in Hyderabad for the installation of Shri Tripurasundari were held in an
unparallel grand scale.

Ayyagaaru used to lay more stress on the clean and pure mind rather than traditionally prescribed
practices and on the Annadanam feeding-than the Tantric practices which are popularly followed
by many stalwarts of Shakta cult. Treating all women as mother is the most important requirement
for a Shakta devotee, in his view. He joined the goddess on Jan 31, 1988. After him his son Shree
Subrahmanya Shastry is managing efficiently the Samithi and the temple.
While the monthly celebrations were going on for several years, Ayyagaru thought of establishing a
temple for Sri Chamundeshwari Devi. He visited several places and selected the eastern bank of
Manjeera near Jogipet in Medak district. The land was first purified by ploughing and by performing

sacred rites. The stone for the idol was selected from the rocks near Dharmapuri in Karimnagar
district of Andhra Pradesh. The idol of Sri Chamundeshwari Devi was carved by the sculptors of
Tamilnadu. The nine feet high idol with eighteen arms and a flamy crown is very attractive and
impressive. The idol was consecrated on Jan 2, 1983 corresponding to Ananda year Pushya month
and seventh day black fortnight. Thousands of people thronged for the installation ceremony,
though it was in the night.

Normally the temple is fully constructed and then the idol is installed. But here the idol was installed
initially and then the work of construction of temple and other facilities is still going on. The pace of
work of different buildings, the continuation of arrangement of free food to the visiting devotees
and the increasing number of devotees day by day are surprising. The statement of Ayyagaaru that it
would become a second Varanasi is to become true very shortly,the developments show.
Opposite the Chamundeshwari devi, three other idols of Braahmi, Kaali and Vaishnavi are installed.
Devotees get their desires fulfilled by worshipping the goddess in different ways. Taking bath over
head and directly circumambulating, without wiping the body and without changing the dress, the
temple eleven to more number of times according to ones capacity or tying a coconut in a cloth and
offering it as mudupu are some methods to get the desires fulfilled.