SREE NARAYANAGURU – A SAGE WITH A DIFFERENCE

This paper tries to place Sreenarayana Guru in the context of Kerala modernity. Narayana Guru was one of the well-known social reformers in India. He was a philosopher, a poet, a mystic, and a social revolutionary. He desired to spread the message of the mystic experience and the presence of divine to one and all in society. When the divine has embraced him all kinds of ignorance and inequalities have been destroyed. Then his motive was to destroy inequalities injustice; on the earth. So, his motive was dual, one is to spread the divine message and the second is to destroy inequalities, injustice. When Narayana Guru came on the scene in the mid-19th century Kerala Society was under the clutches of an ugly caste system with all the evil effects, divisions, and sub-divisions based on caste hierarchy. Guru's philosophy generated great influence on marginalized people. His path and commandments discharged energy, which shifted the roots of the existing social order, marginalized stand against the dominant ideology, and ruled out its prohibitions. They demanded a better lifestyle and education. In the realm of the Kerala social reforms, his thoughts generated change which positively shaped masses towards freedom.