Our activities

Cultural Preservation

Festivals, poojas, classical dance and music, and guided heritage tours that keep Melukote's traditions in daily practice.

Young Bharatanatyam dancers in full costume standing with palms joined in the temple street at dusk, the adults of the programme behind them

What this work involves

Melukote's calendar is its living archive. The foundation supports the poojas and festivals of Sri Cheluvanarayana Swamy Temple and organises classical dance and music programmes that give young artists a stage rooted in tradition.

Most of this runs through the Sri Sthanikam Nagaraja Ayyangar Sanskritika Vedike, the cultural platform the house founded in his name while he was still alive.

For twenty years now it has held a folk arts mela at Rathasaptami that draws performers from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and honours artists from the state and beyond it — alongside a fancy-dress competition for children and a rangoli competition for the women of the villages around the hill.

Educational tours bring school and college groups to the kshetra, so that the temple's history is taught where it happened rather than out of a textbook. Lessons and discourses are also given to students and scholars from abroad who come for the Veda, the Agama texts, the temple architecture or the history itself.

At a glance

Poojas and festivals at Sri Cheluvanarayana Swamy Temple
A Rathasaptami folk mela, twenty years running
Performers from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala
Heritage tours for school and college groups
Taught at the kshetra, not from a textbook

In pictures

What it looks like

Select any photograph to see it full size.

Keep reading

Our other work

Vedic Education

A residential gurukulam where students study the Vedas, Agama, Jyothishya and Sanskrit.

Gurupeeta — the Pooja Mandira

The Gurupeeta's own shrine, where the Sri Varadaraja Swami that Sri Ramanuja worshipped in person receives his daily aradhana.

Annadana — Daily Free Meals

A hot, freshly cooked meal served every single day to pilgrims, students and villagers, with no questions asked.

Goshala — Care of the Cows

Twenty and more desi cows — Malenadu Gidda, Punganur and Hallikar — kept at the kshetra, cared for through old age, their milk offered in the temple's own worship.

Temple Pratishtha — Vastu and Consecration

Vastu guidance for a temple being built, and the pratishtha that puts it into worship — both to the Agama.

Workshop — Training Priests

A residential apprenticeship where priests learn to conduct poojas by standing at real ones, in the tradition kept here.

Samashrayanam — Dasappa Deekshe

The formal initiation in which the acharya transmits grace, transcendental knowledge and the energy behind them to a disciple.

Jyothishya — Astrology

Jyothishya as this family has read it across generations, and a sitting any devotee can ask for.

Environmental Care

Tree planting, upkeep of the groves and water bodies, and agri-tourism that brings visitors onto the land itself.

Would you like to help?

The gurukulam teaches free of cost and the kitchen serves whoever arrives — both carried entirely by what devotees give.

Give now by UPI or bank transfer, with an 80G certificate if you need one. Or write to the office to sponsor a particular day of annadana, offer time during a festival, or ask what is needed most — those take a date and a person rather than a payment.

Give to the kshetra Write to the office