Five Hymns to Arunachala and Five Hymns to Sri Ramana (The Poetic Works of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi)

Aksharamanamalai, Sri Ramana Maharshi’s 108-verse hymn to Arunachala, is being chanted twice daily in the ashram as part of centenary observance. As more and more visitors join the chant, the need for a lightweight pocket-size edition of Five Hymns to Arunachala together with Five Hymns to Sri Ramana was felt. This handy booklet is being introduced to help non-Tamilians access the sacred treasure of knowledge gifted to humanity by Sri Ramana Maharshi.

The ‘Guide to Tamil Pronunciation’ (p. V), based on the ‘Pronunciation Guide’ in Arunachala Ashrama’s Tamil Hymns from Sri Ramanasramam, will serve as an aid to familiarize readers with Tamil phonetics. The strict rules of Tamil prosody have been relaxed in order to give emphasis to phonetics and ease of elocution for those not conversant with South Indian languages. We would like to acknowledge Kanvashrama Trust’s Tamil Recitations (1998) and the above mentioned work from Arunachala Ashrama, New York, on which the transliteration in this volume is based as well as countless devotes who made generous suggestions for the completion of this handsome edition.