Malabar History journal

Biography

Vagbhatananda was born into a thiyya family to Vayaleri Cheeru Amma and Thenankandi Koran Gurukkal on 27 April 1885 in Patyam village near Thalassery. Owing to the progressive thinking of his father, he started questioning everything that was against reason from an early age. His quest for knowledge was such that he went onto train himself further in Sanskrit and logic, even after his initial introduction to the same. In many engagements on the Upanishads, he often left the traditional pandits defeated and spell-bounded by arguing against their ideas.

V K Gurukkal was schooled in traditional gurukula system where he gained knowledge in shastras, the traditional scriptures. Even though early on in 1906, he found the Sanskrit School in Calicut called Tattvaprakashika and briefly engaged with the activities of the Brahma Samaj, he later parted ways to form the Atmavidya Sangham. It was during his days with the Brahma Samaj that he found a mentor in Brahmanada Sivayogi, who gave him the name Vagbhatananda. It is believed that the Sangham’s activities were also crucial to advancing class organisations amongst the peasantry in Malabar region. The organisation’s motto was Awake-remember the creator, Arise and fight against injustice. It is believed that Vagbhatananda and the Sangham ctively associated themselves with the struggles of the karshaka Sanghams of that period. Atmavidya means self-knowledge/consciousness, which requires individual mental discipline in the search for knowledge and discarding unhealthy habits and negative behaviour. This self-improvement and spiritual transformation would, according to atmavidya lead to social change as it would usher in a society based upon harmony and peace. He believed that everyone, including ordinary people could pursue the path of jnana-marga (path of knowledge).

Meeting him was also instrumental for the young workers of the hamlet of Uralungal to form the Uralungal Koolivelakarude Paraspara Sahaya Yogam (Uralungal Wage Labour’s Mutual Aid and Cooperative Society) in 1925. Young workers who met Vagbhatananda in 1917 in Mahe invited him to their hamlet. This meeting was instrumental for the formation of the atmavidya sangham, which also created the aikya nanaya sangham (United Credit Cooperative) in 1925. An atma vidya lower primary school was started in 1924. The primary motive of the society was to find labour and life with dignity against the oppression of upper castes in the region. It is believed that a reformer like Vagbhatananda often pre-empted confrontational situation between Hindus and Muslims and worked towards promoting maitreyi.

References

Vagbhatananda Atma Vidya Sangham Official Website.

“Vagbhatananda.” Wikipedia.

Kannan, Divya. “Socio-Religious Reform in Twentieth Century Kerala: Vagbhadananda and the Atma Vidya Sangham, 1900–40.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Vol. 73 (2012): 1006–1011.

Arafath, P. K. Yasser. “Southern Hindutva: Rhetoric, Parivar Kinship and Performative Politics in Kerala, 1925–2015.” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 62, No. 2 (January 2021): 51–60.