A musician and a mystic

The serene Cauvery flowing between wide sandy stretches. Not a soul in sight. 

 Indeed, an ideal location for meditation and quiet communion with the divine. No wonder that Nerur Agraharam was the chosen place of Sadashiva Brahmendra for his spiritual pursuits. This village houses the Samadhi - the final resting place of this great sage and mystic. This divine soul lived during the latter half of the seventeenth century.
Born in Madurai to an erudite father well versed in Vedic literature, Shivaramakrishnan displayed a remarkable spiritual tendency at a very young age, renounced the material world and came under the tutelage of Paramashivendra Saraswati, the then reigning head of the Kanchi Kamakoti Math, who gave him the name Sadashiva Brahmendra. Possessed with a brilliant intellect, Sadashiva Brahmendra took a vow of silence early on in his life and spent his days wandering among hills and forests, lost in divine contemplation. His absorption in the divine consciousness became so intense that he became oblivious to the world around him as well as his bodily needs.

He would go for days together without food or water. Small wonder then that people labelled him as insane, a natural response of a society unable to understand the workings of a mind that had gone beyond all human limitations and which revelled in the highest realms of divine realisation.

Sadashiva Brahmendra wrote a number of Sanskrit treatises. One of his outstanding works, Atma Vidya Vilasa describes the qualities of a yogi. In one of the passages, he says "seeing nothing, speaking nothing, hearing nothing, the yogi sits on the ground, like an inert wooden log, lost in contemplation".

Ironically, this passage best describes his own state. Sadashiva Brahmendra has composed around twenty one songs , many of which are sung in Carnatic Classical music. Many miracles are attributed to him, though he never performed any of them for fame or gain. The song "Tunga Tarange Gange" is associated with a miracle in which the well in an acquaintance house gushed forth to absolve him of the perceived sin of feeding a hungry man before the priests partook of the food in his house on the day of his father's annual death ceremony.

This great soul decided to end his earthly sojourn at Nerur Agraharam. The Bilva Tree, which appeared at the spot miraculously and the Lingam in front, again brought from Varanasi  by a devotee as he had prophesied  is worshiped to this day. Peace, tranquillity and divinity rule at this sacred spot.