Seshadri Swamigal

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Sri Seshadri Swamigal, well known as the "Saint with a golden hand", is one of the greatest Indian saints who lived Thiruvannaamalai. He is worshipped as a religious guru by many Hindus throughout the world.

Sri Seshadri Swamigal was born on January 22, 1870 in a small village near Kanchipuram in South India in the renowned family of Kamakoti. He studied Vedas (Hindu religious literature) at a very young age. An incident in his childhood reveals the greatness of his power when his mother took him to a temple fair and he touched an idol from a seller who had all the idols sold out like hotcakes, which were not getting sold out earlier. This gave him the name "Thanga Kai" (golden hand). His parents died when he was still in his teens. Just before his mother died, she asked him to sing 'Ambe Sive' (a composition of his grandfather's) and then, in the moments before she died, she called out, "Arunachala! Arunachala! Arunachala!" The word Arunachala struck a deep cord in Sheshadri Swamigal. Though he had never been to Arunachala, he sketched the five peaks of the holy hill on a board and from then on worshipped Arunachala every day. Having no worldly attachments, he became a sanyasi (ascetic) and came to Tiruvannamalai in 1889 at age nineteen and remained there for forty years until he died in the year 1929.

When Ramana Maharshi came to Tiruvannamalai seven years after Seshadri Swamigal's...
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