Ramalinga Swamigal (5 October 1823 – 30 January 1874) also called as Ramalinga Adigal and Vallalar was born at Marudur near Chidambaram on 1823 and was one of the most popular tamil saint and also one of the greatest poet. He was the founder of Sathya Gnana Sabha which was opened on 1872. His main principle is : By doing service to living beings, we can attain moksha(Salvation).This Sabha is not a temple and here no fruits and flowers are offered and blessings are not given. Here all types of people are allowed without any difference in caste, but except meat eating people. They are allowed to worship only from the outside of the temple. According to him, God is one and he was worried very much about caste discrimination. After his father’s death, he and his family settled at Ponneri for some time and then they again relocated to Seven Wells,Chennai.
He was very much attracted with providing annadanam and started an annadan choultry on 1867. Free food offered to all the people in this Dharma Sala.. On the inaugural day he lit the fire of the stone stove, with a declaration that the fire be ever alive and the needy shall be fed forever. Even now, annadanam is provided in this Dharma Sala and provision like rice, dhall,sugar etc are provided by the devotees. Thousands of people are benefited by this Dharma Sala. Those who are below 12 years or those who are above 72 years alone are expected to enter Gnana sabai and to do poojas. The oil lamp lit by him is kept burning.The land for the facility was donated by kind, generous people and those registered documents are available for seeing by the visitors. The free facility continues its service till the present time. Ramalinga disliked people eating non vegetarian food.:His main place is in Vadalur, but his followers are there all over the world.
He has got lot of talents. He was a publisher,Siddha Doctor, Founder of Dharma Sala, Writer, Preacher etc. During his period, he understood that all the religions truth is one and same only and started Sanmarkam. He is against casteism. He considers all are one and there should not be any difference between castes and all should be treated as equal and must be given equal justice.
He has written several books, and Thiruvarutpa Songs. He is against non vegetarian. He strictly insisted on eating vegetarian food by the people. His popular saying is: ‘Whenever I find a crop in drought condition, I also suffered similar to that crop’. He went to Chennai Kanda Kottam, Kandasamy Temple and there he spent lot of his time. The locality where he lived, has been renamed in his name as ‘Vallalar Nagar’.
In several temples, his statue has been installed. He was a poet as well a musician and composed several songs. It was on Thai Poosam in 1874, he was disappeared from his locked room and merged with light. He is the one who transformed his physical body into a body made of light. During his life time, he visited Kandasamy Temple, Kandakottam,Thituthani Murugan temple, Thiruvottiyur Vadiyudaiyamman temple and Chidambaram Natarajar temple.The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu released postage stamps depicting Ramalingam on 17 August 2007.
