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The CIRS Archive
Explore the people, decisions and milestones behind CIRS.
011970s
Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda conceived an international school in India, and the idea met with an overwhelming response from around the world. Bangalore, Lucknow, the Andamans and Himachal Pradesh were weighed before Coimbatore was chosen.
1984
One rupee,
from each person.
02From 1984
To buy the land, Swami Sahayanandaji travelled the length and breadth of India on foot, making the first collection: one rupee from each person.
The marks stand for many people taking part. They are not a count of those who gave.
3 August 1993
Gurudev attains Mahasamadhi.
Founder chronology
1994
Pujya Guruji makes the vision concrete.
The school’s published history
031993 – 1994
Gurudev attained Mahasamadhi on 3 August 1993 and did not see the school open. In 1994, as the school’s own account records, Pujya Guruji Swami Tejomayananda set about making the vision concrete, and the work progressed by leaps and bounds.
6 June 1996
Grades V–VIII
046 June 1996
Inaugurated by Pujya Swami Chidanandaji, President of The Divine Life Society. The first staff were headed by Dr. Jaya Venugopal, with Brahmacharini Sumati Chaitanya and Brahmachari Samahita Chaitanya as spiritual guides.
051996 – 2010
Within weeks of opening the State cleared the way to CBSE affiliation. In 2007 thirty-two students met President Kalam at Rashtrapati Bhavan, and by 2010 the students were writing and laying out newsletters of their own.
062011 – 2026
The International School Award, the CCMT Education Cell’s Vision Award for 2012, and by 2019 a school of 580 students from 22 states and 18 other countries. Examination results and honours are kept in full on their own pages.
Read more about The CCMT Education Cell Vision AwardOur ResultsOur Laurels
The complete archive
27 records in date order, each with its source. Choose one to read it in full.
(open the full image)The idea of starting an international school in India was conceived by Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda, and it met with an overwhelming response from all over the world. Bangalore, Lucknow, the Andamans and Himachal Pradesh were each evaluated before Coimbatore was chosen.
Source The school’s published history, cirschool.org
Swami Sahayanandaji travelled the length and breadth of India on foot, making the initial collection towards the purchase of the land: one rupee from each individual.
Source The school’s published history, cirschool.org
Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda attained Mahasamadhi on 3 August 1993. He did not see the school he had conceived open its doors.
Source The chronology of Gurudev’s life on this site’s Founder page
Pujya Guruji Swami Tejomayananda proceeded to concretise the vision of Pujya Gurudev with unfailing vigour and energy, and the work progressed by leaps and bounds.
Source The school’s published history, cirschool.org
Many devotees around the world contributed generously. Swamini Vimalanandaji and Dr. G. S. Keshawamurthy played a significant role in guiding and executing the project to its completion.
Source The school’s published history, cirschool.org
The Chinmaya International Residential School was inaugurated by Pujya Swami Chidanandaji, President of The Divine Life Society. The plaque at the main building records that he did so in the presence of Swami Tejomayananda, Head of Chinmaya Mission, on Thursday, 6 June 1996.
Source The school’s published history, cirschool.org; the inauguration plaque at the main building
CIRS started with 96 students from Grade V to Grade VIII and 11 academic staff, headed by Dr. Jaya Venugopal, with Brahmacharini Sumati Chaitanya and Brahmachari Samahita Chaitanya as spiritual guides.
Source The school’s published history, cirschool.org
(open the full image)The Director of School Education, Government of Tamil Nadu, wrote to the Central Board of Secondary Education that the department had no objection to the syllabus of the middle classes at CIRS being affiliated to the Board, subject to one condition: Tamil should be taught as a second language.
Source No Objection Certificate, published on School Information · Open the PDF
Pujya Guruji appointed Swami Swaroopanandaji as Resident Director of CIRS.
Source The school’s own account, supplied for this website
(open the full image)Thirty-two students from Classes VI to XII, with one alumnus, four teachers and Principal Anurag Sangal, met President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam in the Committee Room of Rashtrapati Bhavan. The invitation grew out of a vacation assignment set in November 2006 on the President’s ‘Vision for India 2020’, which the school had recast for its students as ‘My Vision for Myself, my Family, my School and my Country – in 2020’. Selected projects were sent to the President, and led to his interest in meeting them.
Source The school’s account of the interaction, kept from its former website
(open the full image)Chinmaya Sakshi, the school’s e-newsletter, was put together by the students’ editorial team: they gathered the news, edited it and designed the layout, ‘with a minimal assistance and guidance from the teachers’, as the Principal’s note in the October–November 2007 edition puts it. The summer special of May 2008 opens on the campus beneath the hills and a portrait of Gurudev.
Source Chinmaya Sakshi, October–November 2007 and May 2008 editions, kept from the school’s former website
Smt. Shanti Krishnamurthy became Principal of CIRS.
Source The school’s introduction on Leadership
(open the full image)Reflections, the newsletter of the school’s IB Diploma students, reached its fourth issue with a special on the first-year students’ tour of Sri Lanka in August 2010 — ‘a blend of the experience of a new culture and service to humanity’, in the words of the IB Diploma Coordinator.
Source Reflections, Volume 1, Issue 4, kept from the school’s former website
(open the full image)The Junior School’s December 2010 holiday assignment was set as part of the British Council’s International School Award programme, which CIRS had taken up to bring an international dimension into its curriculum. Class V studied tourist attractions across the world, Class VI music across the globe, Class VII national games, and Class VIII agricultural practices.
Source The assignment sheet, kept from the school’s former website
CIRS received the British Council’s International School Award, which recognises good practice in bringing an international dimension into the curriculum.
Source The school’s own account, supplied for this website; its former website carried a gallery titled ‘CIRS Receives ISA Award’
(open the full image)The Education Cell of the Central Chinmaya Mission Trust presented its Vision Award for 2012 to CIRS, Coimbatore.
Source The inscription on the award
From February 2014 a CIRS class worked with an upper-secondary and technical college in Poland on a shared project, ‘Trends in advertising: the impact of language and culture on advertising’, exchanging videos, worksheets and advertisements of their own.
Source The school’s newsletter page on the partnership, May 2014, kept from its former website
(open the full image)Brainfeed’s School Excellence Awards named CIRS among the Top 500 Schools of India 2017–18, in the category Best International Boarding / Happiness Quotient Index / Influential School Brand School, and among the best international schools of Tamil Nadu. The award was presented in Bengaluru.
Source The plaque itself, photographed for the school
Smt. Shanti Krishnamurthy became Director — Academics and Administration.
Source The school’s introduction on Leadership
(open the full image)In its 24th year the school reported 580 students — 345 boys and 235 girls — from 22 Indian states and 18 other countries, with 67 faculty members and 68 members of the administrative team. That year the CBSE selected CIRS as one of its Lead Schools, to guide five other CBSE schools, and Sanskrit became a compulsory subject, beginning in Class V.
Source Annual Report, 15 October 2019, published on School Information · Open the PDF
In Education World’s 2019 survey, conducted by the Delhi-based C fore, CIRS moved from fourth to second place in the country among co-educational boarding schools, and kept first place in Tamil Nadu for the eighth consecutive year.
Source The school’s Annual Report, 15 October 2019 · Open the PDF
All 45 students who sat the Class XII examination secured above 80% in the aggregate, and 41 of them above 90%. The Science stream averaged 92.06% and the Management stream 94.23%.
Source The school’s Annual Report, 15 October 2019 · Our Results
36 NCC cadets from CIRS took part in the Annual Training Camp at Kalaignar Karunanidhi Institute of Technology, winning medals in the drill test, quiz, relay, shot put and football, and CIRS received the overall Best Cadets award.
Source The school’s Annual Report, 7 October 2025 · Open the PDF
Forty CIRS students took part in Harvard Model United Nations from 14 to 17 August 2025, where two received Outstanding Delegate awards; over the same dates, 34 students represented nations at the IIMUN Championship Conference in Mumbai.
Source The school’s Annual Report, 7 October 2025 · Open the PDF
In its 29th year the school reported 596 students — 378 boys and 218 girls — from 16 Indian states and 16 countries, with 70 faculty members and 71 members of the administrative team, and remained one of the CBSE’s Lead Schools. Education World ranked CIRS second in the country among co-educational boarding schools and first in Tamil Nadu and Coimbatore for the 14th consecutive year; Brainfeed ranked it third in the country and first in the state and the city.
Source The school’s Annual Report, 7 October 2025 · Open the PDF
In the 2026 CBSE Class XII examinations the highest score in the Management stream was 99.0%, and the stream averaged 94%.
Source The school’s results brief on News
All 24 candidates in the May 2026 IB Diploma examination earned the diploma, with an average of 39.4 points. Two students scored the maximum, 45 out of 45.
Source The school’s results brief on News
The complete record of examination results and honours is kept on Our Results and Our Laurels.
In the school’s own words
The school’s silver jubilee film, made from its own archive: the campus, the classrooms and the faces that carried CIRS from 1996 onwards. It plays only when you ask for it.
YouTube
C.I.R.S — Through the Years · plays here
Photographs, documents and recollections from any year are welcome at info@cirschool.org. The school reads everything it is sent and decides what is added; nothing is published automatically.
