For K N Venkatanarayana, the belief in certain spiritual leaders has taken him to passionately pursue a collection of their footwear (paduka). The significance. Well he says that the energy in these spiritual leaders rests in their feet and this energy is held by their padukas! He is so much into this pursuit that his collection now has 50 padukas of different swami’s from different parts of the country, especially Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
His collection includes Padukas of Shiradi Sai Baba, Sri Sri Sridhara Swami, Sri Chandrashekhar Bharathi Mahaswami, Sringeri; Sri Narayana Theertha Swamy, Oudumbara; Sri Tembe Maharaj, Maharashtra among other. Today, these Padukas are found in Sri Sadguru Chaithanya Mandira in Bharath Housing Colony near Uttarahalli.
According to Venkatanarayana, the scriptures state that even after his death, the guru is the supreme power. “We collected them from 50 religious centres and general public were allowed to witness it. There are instances when we could not find the padukas of the spiritual leaders during the ancient times like Shankaracharya, Madhvacharya and Ramanujacharya. In those circumstances, we have accommodated their tomes and now we are preaching their principles.”
He said that the response from the people was beyond expectation. “We even got appreciation from spiritual leaders of different religious centres. Then we decided to start this centre where public can witness the padukas of different spiritual leaders under one roof. This centre was started in 2010.” When asked about his difficulty in collecting the padukas, he said, “We never got a negative response from any religious centres. We have padukas which are over 200 to 300 years old.”