Heritage Sites: Skandasramam, Heritage Sites: The Ashram Vedapatasala, The Old Ashram Dispensary, The Ashram Vedapatasala

It is said that Bhagavan used to work in the kitchen as a background for spiritual training and that he only ever sat at two places in the Ashram—the Old Hall and the Old Dining Hall—and thus it is these two that have acquired a special sanctity.

In the very early years of the Ashram until the mid-1920s, it was the shed just in front of Mother’s shrine where Bhagavan lived that served as the dining hall. Plans were laid for the construction of a kitchen and dining hall but before the new building was completed, it was decided that a more urgent need was a hall for Bhagavan to receive the growing number of devotees and visitors who came to see him. So the new dining hall/kitchen became what was later called, ‘the Old Hall’, completed in 1926. A thatched shed was then constructed adjacent to the new building in the area of the present-day Samadhi Hall. This served as the dining hall and kitchen for the next twelve years.

As no visitor was allowed to go without food, the kitchen and dining hall grew in size until plans were laid for a spacious, fully-serviceable kitchen and dining hall. Construction commenced in 1937 and was completed a year later. In 1938 a new building of granite stone was inaugurated, large enough to cook for the many hundreds that invariably came for Bhagavan’s Jayanthi celebrations and other special days.

By the late 1960s the numbers of guests on special function days grew to the point where spillover crowds had to be served food in temporary thatched structures outside the dining hall. By the mid-1990s, the Dining Hall was no longer able to serve the growing numbers of visitors on ordinary weekends except by multiple sittings and so the decision was taken to make an extension. Abutting the Old Dining Hall on its northern side, the new annex was completed in the middle of 1998.