Ratnagiri Balamurugan Temple

Tamils say every hill belongs to Murugan, and Ratnagiri is a fine example. A five-tiered rajagopuram crowns a small hill you can see from the highway. There is a Vinayaka shrine at the foot; about 150 steps later there is a second Vinayaka at the top, and then the sanctum of Balamurugan. The sanctum is granite, built in the Chola manner, and the main image stands within a granite setting shaped like a chariot. Murugan is worshipped here in two forms: in the Thirukkolam with Valli and Deivanai, and in the Guru Kolam as the teacher. On the enclosing wall of the shrine you will find small carved panels: Ganesha, Dakshinamurthy, Brahma, Durga, Chandikeswarar.

The story of this temple is not a purana but the life of a man of our own time. On the morning of 20 March 1968 a 27-year-old clerk named Satchidanandam climbed up for his usual worship and found the main shrine dark: no lamps, no flowers, no puja. The priest, unpaid for three months, had stopped work. The young man's own father, Kandaswami Mudaliar, had begun the 156 steps up the hill in 1936 and organised the temple's consecration in 1938. Troubled, he walked round the shrine and stood before Murugan, then swooned against a pillar; Murugan flashed before him like lightning and was gone. When he came to, he had one resolve: he would not leave the hill until the temple was restored. The people of Kilminnal began calling him Balamurugan Adimai, "Balamurugan's servant", or simply Swamiji, and he has given arul vakku, spoken blessings, to devotees ever since.

The tiny shrine of 1968 has grown to a complex of over 30,000 sq ft, much of its stone hauled up the slope by the people of the village. Swamiji did not stop at the temple: he built Kilminnal a school, a hospital, roads, wells, water tanks and a post office. Worship here is conducted in Tamil rather than Sanskrit, the temple's most distinctive feature.

The temple dates to the 14th century, when Arunagirinathar sang of "Murugan who dwells at Ratnagiri" in the Thiruppugazh. For centuries it stayed a small hilltop shrine among open fields. Work on the 156 steps began in 1936, and the temple was consecrated in 1938. Balamurugan Adimai Swamigal's work began in 1968. A main mandapam on the hill and a Ganesha shrine at the foot came in 1970, two more mandapams and a wedding hall in 1973, an ornamental entrance arch and electric lighting in 1974, and the five-tiered rajagopuram in 1975, and Swamiji carried out a major renovation in 1980, with expansion continuing after that. The HR&CE Department lists it as the Subramaniaswamy, or Balamurugan, temple.