Nobody knows where he was from; nor what his origins were.
    He was simply called Namasivaya and he was from the Kannada land. He was initiated
into the subreligion known as Vira Saivism.
    There was a burning urge within him - a call. Something or someone was beckoning to
him.
    So he got the permission of his guru to follow his urge to wheresoever it took him to.
    He got up one morning and waited for dawn and set forth towards the direction of the sunrise.
    Thus he walked on. He took his stringent food only whenever it was available.
    Everyday, the reddish orange golden rising sun was his guide. And towards it he would
walk. That colour fascinated him so deeply - the colour known as aruna, named after the charioteer of the Sun God.
    One day, he got up and waited for the sun. The sun was rising in the horizon. But against the golden orb of the sun, he saw something. He saw the silhuette of a pyramidal shape.
    It was a mountain in the distance.
    The sun was behind it and was seen to be rising from it.
    Something lit up in his mind.
    Yes. This was the obsession that was beckoning to him.
    In a few days time, he reached the mountain. It had already been known to him. It was
the Arunachala - the Reddish Orange Golden Mountain, known as Thiruvannamalai. It was
the one which was calling forth to him.
    He settled there in a cave and worshipped the Lord Arunachalesvara. Because, he rarely
left his cave asramam, he was known as Guhai Namasivayar.
    By and large, a host of disciples adhered to him.
    Among them was another Namasivaya - but he was Namasivaya Thevar.
    Let us call him by a nick-name - 'The Disciple' will do, for the time being.
    One day, The Disciple was massaging the legs of his guru. He had a far away look in
his eyes.
    Suddenly he laughed out aloud.
    Everyone was startled and the guru asked him what the reason was.
    The Disciple said that a Devaradiyar who was dancing in front of the Chariot of
Thiruvarur, slipped and fell. Everyone laughed and so he also joined in.
    On another occassion, The Disciple was fanning his guru. Suddenly he dropped his
hand fan and took his upper garment and started rubbing frantically against it.
    The guru asked what was the matter, now.
    The Disciple said that the lamp wick inside the garbha griha of Nataraja of Chidhambaram, was pulled off by a mouse and dropped onto the curtain cloth there. And it caught fire.
So he was putting it out by rubbing the cloth and smothering it.
    A few days later, some visitors came from Chidambaram and told them about a mysterious fire which appeared in the curtain cloth of the Nataraja shrine a nd as mysteriously as it had appeared, it smothered itself and went out by itself.
    The guru was astounded.
    He put a final test to The Disciple.
    He ate some porridge and the vomited it out.
    He gave the vomittus to The Disciple to throw where no man's foot will tread.
    The Disciple, without any thought, swallowed the vomitus.
    The guru asked him and The Disciple said that his stomach was the only place which
could not be trodden by any man's foot.
    Therupon the guru told him,
    "You have far surpassed your guru. You are the Guru of gurus. Henceforth, you will
be known as 'Guru Namasivaya' and will go straight to Chidhambaram. Your services to
that temple are badly needed there".
    Thus The Disciple became The Guru.