What we're building

Shiva Skanda Vel is two things held together: a retreat house at the foot of the mountain, and the service the trust offers to the people and animals around it. The house gives a quiet place for prayer; the service is how that prayer meets the world.

The land is a plot of just over 400 square metres near the Aadhi Annamalai Temple, on the western side of Arunachala, registered to the Shiva Skanda Vel Charitable Trust in 2025.

The plan is to build a retreat house at the back of the plot — a few rooms, a kitchen, a small reception, a shrine. Modest in scale, with room to extend later if the project asks for it. We expect the first phase of building to cost in the region of £30,000.

We want to build in keeping with the place — using traditional Indian methods rather than modern concrete construction. Compressed mud bricks, lime renders, natural materials, local craftsmen. The buildings of this region were made this way for many centuries before cement, and they belong here in a way that a concrete building would not. The architects we have engaged work in this tradition.

Before any building work, we sought the blessing of the Aadhi Annamalai Temple. The first water from the borehole was offered at the feet of Lord Ganesha there. The land is prepared, the borehole is in, the power supply is connected.

Service — seva — is not something added once the house is finished. It began before the building did, and it is as much the purpose of this place as the house itself.

The trust provides annadanam, the giving of free food, to those who are hungry — offered in partnership with the Ammucare Charitable Trust and other local organisations. It supports poor families and schoolchildren, helping with the things that ease a hard year. It supports a nearby home for elders with water and food. And it cares for the animals of the area — cows, and the monkeys and wild deer who struggle to find food and water in the dry season, when we offer them annadanam too. This work is steady, done in the place where it is needed, and it will grow as the trust grows.

The building itself will follow as funds allow. The service continues either way.