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Shivabalayogi: Tapas Photos
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Photo taken in 1996 of the bodhi tree (ficus religiosa, known in South
India as the ravi tree) where Shivabalayogi was to have sat for his twelve year
tapas.
A small shrine set on a short pillar marks the spot.
About two days after being initiated into tapas, Shivabalayogi received divine
instructions to move his meditation some 600 feet west under this bodhi tree.
This place is where the village street (then only a dirt road) ends at the
Godavari River canal. Devotees set up a wooden platform and a rough
shelter made of palm leaves.
This place is also where the villagers came to bathe and wash. The young
yogi was harassed and abused so many times that he felt forced to abandon this
place. Finally he settled in a field a couple of hundred feet west where
the villagers used to bury children who died at an early age.
That field is now the Adivarapupeta ashram.
The bodhi tree is no longer there. A few years after this photo was taken, a typhoon knocked over and killed the
tree.