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Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam
- Introduction
- About this translation of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam
- Printed edition of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam
- E-book copy for free download
- Spanish translation of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam
- Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam – commentary by Sri Sadhu Om
Introduction
ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல ஸ்துதி பஞ்சகம் (Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam), the ‘Five Hymns to Sri Arunachala’,
which is a collection of the principal devotional songs composed by Sri Ramana, is the
first section of ஸ்ரீ ரமண நூற்றிரட்டு (Sri Ramana Nultirattu), the Tamil
‘Collected Works of Sri Ramana’. The following
are the five main songs that comprise it:
- ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல அக்ஷரமணமாலை (Sri Arunachala Aksharamanamalai), the
‘Bridal Garland of Letters to Sri Arunachala’, is a song composed in the
metaphorical language of bridal mysticism or madhura bhava (the
affectionate attitude of a girl seeking union with her lover, the lord of her
heart) and consists of 108 couplets, each of
which begins with a consecutive letter of the Tamil alphabet and ends with a
vocative case-form of the name ‘Arunachala’.
In the title of this song,
akshara is a Sanskrit word that means both ‘imperishable’ or ‘immutable’ and
a ‘letter’ of an alphabet, manam is a Tamil word that means ‘union’,
‘marriage’ or ‘fragrance’, and malai is a Tamil form of the Sanskrit word
mala, which means a ‘wreath’ or ‘garland’, particularly one made of
flowers, so the compound word akshara-mana-malai means the ‘marriage
garland of letters’, the ‘garland of immutable union’, the ‘fragrant garland of
letters’ or the ‘garland of imperishable fragrance’.
In these 108 verses, Sri Ramana pours out his intense love for God in the form
of the sacred hill Arunachala, praising his boundless grace and praying to
him for the imperishable state of absolute oneness with him, which can be gained
only by means of true self-knowledge, since the true form of God or Arunachala
is nothing other than our own essential self, the pure consciousness of being
that we always experience as ‘I am’.
Though Sri Ramana had actually surrendered himself and merged completely in the
egoless
state of true self-knowledge at the age of sixteen, on the day in 1896 that he
was overwhelmed by an intense fear of death, which was about eighteen or
nineteen years before he composed Sri Arunachala Aksharamanamalai, in
many of these verses he sings from the perspective of a devotee who is still
struggling to overcome his ego and its finite desires and thereby to surrender himself entirely
to the infinite love of God.
However, though many of these verses are therefore prayers, in some of them Sri
Ramana clearly praises the grace of Arunachala for destroying his mind or ego
and thereby absorbing him completely in the non-dual state of immutable union or
true self-knowledge.
- ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல நவமணிமாலை (Sri Arunachala Navamanimalai), the
‘Garland of Nine Gems to Sri Arunachala’, consists of nine verses composed in
different metres at various times, which were later collected together to form
this song.
The first three of these nine verses are praises, in the first two of which Sri
Ramana reveals certain aspects of the spiritual significance of the form and
name of Arunachala, and in the third of which he assures us that if in our
search for the clarity of true self-knowledge we long for the grace of
Arunachala, we will certainly attain his grace and thereby drown forever in the
ocean of infinite happiness. The next four verses are heart-melting prayers for
the grace of Arunachala and for the blessed state of ever-increasing love for
him, and in the last two verses Sri Ramana reveals his own personal experience
of his grace, which had bestowed upon him ‘his own state’ (or the ‘state of
self’) and thereby saved him from drowning in the deep ocean of worldly maya or
delusion.
- ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல பதிகம் (Sri Arunachala Patikam), the ‘Eleven Verses
to Sri Arunachala’, was composed by Sri Ramana after the opening words of the
first verse, கருணையால் என்னை யாண்ட நீ (karunaiyal ennai y-anda ni), had
been persistently arising in his mind for several days. Finally he composed a
verse beginning with these words, which mean ‘you who by [your] grace accepted
[took possession of, ruled over or cherished] me [as you own]’.
This first verse ended with the word அன்பே (anbe), a vocative case-form
of அன்பு (anbu), which means ‘love’, and the next day the words
அன்புரு வருணாசல (anburu v-arunachala), which mean ‘Arunachala, the
form of love’, began to arise persistently in his mind, so with them as the
opening words he composed the second verse, which ended with the word
இறையே (iraiye), a vocative case-form of இறை (irai), which means
‘lord’ or ‘God’. The next day a series of words beginning with இறை (irai)
began to arise persistently in his mind, so with them as the opening words
he composed the third verse, which ended with the word ஊழி (uzhi),
which means ‘aeon’ or ‘world’.
In this way for nine consecutive days he composed one verse each day, and on the
tenth day he composed two verses. Each of these eleven verses began with the
last word (or more precisely, the first metrical syllable of the last foot) of
the previous verse, thus forming a song in a style of concatenation that is called antadi
or ‘end-beginning’.
In this patikam or poem of eleven verses that thus poured forth from the
heart of Sri Ramana, the first nine verses are beautiful prayers, and the
last two are powerful assurances, in which he reveals how Arunachala will
unfailingly destroy the soul or separate selfhood of anyone who is attracted to
him, thinking him to be the supreme reality, by drawing his or her mind
selfwards and thus subduing all its mischievous activity and making it
motionless like itself.
- ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல அஷ்டகம் (Sri Arunachala Ashtakam), the ‘Eight Verses
to Sri Arunachala’, was composed by Sri Ramana as a continuation of Sri Arunachala Patikam.
On the day that he composed the last two verses of the patikam, he
started for giri-pradakshina (circumambulation of Arunachala hill)
accompanied by a devotee, who took with him a piece of paper and a pencil,
thinking that he may compose some more verses, and on the way round the hill Sri
Ramana composed the first six verses of this ashtakam or poem of eight
verses.
Soon after this, when a devotee decided to publish these seventeen verses, Sri Ramana
composed two more verses to form two separate poems, one of eleven verses and
the other of eight verses. Whereas the eleven verses of the patikam are composed in a metre
that consists of four lines with seven feet in each line, the eight verses of
the ashtakam are
composed in a metre that consists of four lines with eight feet in each line.
Like the patikam, the ashtakam is composed in the antadi style
of concatenation, and not only does each verse begin with the first metrical
syllable of the last foot of the previous verse in the same poem, but even
the first verse begins with the first metrical syllable of the last foot of the
final verse of the patikam, namely அறி (ari), which is a verbal root that
means ‘know’.
Though the ashtakam is composed in the outward form of a hymn praising
God in the form of Arunachala, most of its verses are actually a clear and
extremely profound expression of the philosophy and practice of the non-dual science of
true self-knowledge.
- ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல பஞ்சரத்னம் (Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam), the
‘Five Gems to Sri Arunachala’,
is the only song in Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam that was not
originally composed in Tamil. Sri Ramana composed it first in Sanskrit, and
only later in Tamil.
One day in 1917 a devotee asked Sri Ramana to compose a Sanskrit verse in the
arya vritta metre, in answer to which he composed the verse ‘karunapurna
sudhabdhe …’ in flawless arya vritta. Soon afterwards this verse was
shown to Kavyakanta Ganapati Sastri, a Sanskrit poet and scholar, who on
seeing it at once requested him to compose another verse in the same
metre. Sri Ramana accordingly composed the verse ‘tvayarunachala sarvam
…’, on seeing which Ganapati Sastri asked him to compose three more verses on
the subject of the four yogas — one on jnana yoga (the path of
knowledge), then one on raja yoga (the path of mind-control), and lastly
one on karma and bhakti yoga (the paths of unselfish action and
devotion) — in order to form a poem of five verses. Accordingly in continuation
of the ideas expressed in the first two verses, Sri Ramana wrote the next three
verses.
Five years later, in 1922, when a devotee was printing the first four songs of
the present Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam, someone asked Sri Ramana to
translate Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam into Tamil, so he did accordingly.
Unlike the last three of these five verses, which he composed on the
subjects specified by Ganapati Sastri, the first two verses were composed
by Sri Ramana without his being asked to write on any particular subject.
In the first verse he prays to Arunachala, the light of self-consciousness,
to make his heart-lotus blossom fully, and in the second verse he then
reveals that the word ‘heart’ is a name for Arunachala, our own real self,
which ever shines in our heart as ‘I’.
As Sri Sadhu Om explains in the introduction to his commentary on Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam,
when we carefully consider the meaning of these two verses, we can
clearly see that in both of them Sri Ramana is drawing our attention only
to the clear light of self-consciousness, which is the true form of Arunachala and which is ever shining within us as ‘I’. From this we can
understand that when he was asked to write or say
something on no specific subject, he would talk only about the clear shining
of our real consciousness ‘I’.
After understanding the meaning of the first two verses in this light, if we
consider the meaning of the last three verses, we will clearly see that even when
he was asked to write on various specified subjects, he would always connect
each of those subjects to the one subject that alone really interested him, namely
knowing the real light of self and merging in it.
That is, in the third verse he says that when we turn our mind inwards to face
self alone and thereby scrutinise the source from which our false ‘I’ has risen,
we will clearly know the true form or nature of ‘I’ and will thereby merge in Arunachala,
ceasing to exist as anything other than him, like a river that merges and is
lost in the ocean. Then in the fourth verse he
says that when a yogi gives up knowing external objects and meditates
only upon Arunachala, who shines in the heart [as ‘I’], he or she will see the
light [of true self-knowledge] and thereby attain greatness [by merging] in Arunachala.
And finally in the fifth verse he says that when we surrender our mind to
Arunachala and thereby see him always and love everything as his form without
any sense of otherness [that is, without experiencing anything as other than
‘I’, which is his true form], we will drown in him, the form of true happiness.
Besides these five principal songs, several other verses are also included in Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam,
among which are two groups of verses that form a preface to it, namely the two verses
of Sri Arunachala Tattuvam and Deepa-Darsana Tattuvam
and the seven verses of Sri Arunachala Mahatmyam.
ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல தத்துவம் (Sri Arunachala Tattuvam), the ‘tattva
[truth, reality or inner significance] of Sri Arunachala’, was composed by Sri
Muruganar, but records an explanation that was given by Sri Ramana. Since he composed this verse on 24th November 1931, which was the day on which
the festival of karttikai deepam was celebrated that year, he asked Sri Ramana
to compose another verse explaining the tattva
or truth signified by deepa-darsana, seeing the light that is lit on the
summit of Arunachala every year on that day, so in the same metre Sri Ramana
composed தீபதர்சன தத்துவம் (Deepa-Darsana Tattuvam), the ‘tattva of deepa-darsana’.
This verse composed by Sri Ramana is deeply meaningful, because [as I explain
in more detail in a separate article, The
truth of Arunachala and of ‘seeing the light’ (deepa-darsana),
in which I discuss the meaning of these two verses] in it he reveals the
profound spiritual significance of an act of seemingly dualistic devotion —
namely deepa-darsana, reverentially seeing the light that is lit on the
summit of Arunachala — explaining that it signifies the absolutely non-dual
experience of ‘seeing’ or knowing the மெய் அக சுடர் (mey aha-cudar) or
real light of ‘I’, which is our own essential self-consciousness.
ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல மாகாத்மியம் (Sri Arunachala Mahatmyam), the ‘Greatness of
Sri Arunachala’, is a collection of seven verses that Sri Ramana composed at
various times, each of which is a translation of one or more verses from
Sanskrit texts (such as Siva Mahapurana, Skanda Mahapurana and
Siva Rahasya) that contain accounts of the greatness of Arunachala.
In the introduction that I wrote for this English translation of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam,
which is contained in the printed book and in the e-book copy of it
(and also in a separate article in my blog,
Sri
Arunachala Stuti Panchakam – English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James),
I have explained how these five hymns and the seemingly dualistic devotion that
is expressed in many of the verses in them are relevant to the non-dual practice of
atma-vichara or self-investigation, which is the principal teaching of Sri
Ramana.
About this translation of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam
Before 1976, when I first met Sri Sadhu Om, he had already translated all the verses of Sri Arunachala Stuti
Panchakam into English for the benefit of other friends. However, because I
often asked him about the various meanings that he had explained for these
verses, I was able to help him to improve the expression of these meanings in
English, and also to note down certain fresh meanings that he explained to
me.
Almost every day I heard from him a great wealth of profound
explanations and insights into the teachings of Sri Ramana, so I was able to
note down only a fraction of what he explained to me. Unfortunately, therefore,
I did not make a note of all the meanings of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam that
he explained to me, but the insights that I gained by listening to him often
come back to me, and when I think about them I am now able to understand what he
told me with fresh clarity.
Some of the explanations that I heard from him were incorporated in a
Tamil commentary on the first forty-four verses of Sri Arunachala
Aksharamanamalai, which I helped one of my Tamil friends to compile from various
sources that recorded his explanations. I hope that one day I may be able to
complete compiling this commentary on the remaining verses, and that it may be
published in both Tamil and English.
Though this present book does not contain detailed commentaries on the verses of
Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam, it does contain word-for-word meanings for each
verse, which will help readers to reflect more deeply over these words of Sri
Ramana. If we think deeply and repeatedly about the meaning of his writings,
we will each not only be able to understand his teachings with increasing
clarity, but will also be able to cultivate and reinforce our love to practise
what we have understood. This is the true fruit of manana or musing upon the
teachings of our sadguru, Bhagavan Sri Ramana.
Although I (and before me other friends) helped to phrase the translations
contained in this book, their principal translator was Sri Sadhu Om, because his
role in their translation was to explain (first to other friends and later to
me) the meaning of each verse as a whole and of each individual word within each
of them. My role in their translation was just to question him in detail about the
meanings that he gave me, to express them in clearer English, and to transcribe
them in notebooks. I did all this primarily for my own benefit, but I also hoped
that one day these translations would be published, because I knew that they
would benefit many of Sri Ramana’s devotees who do not know Tamil.
No translation can be perfect, because it is impossible to convey in one
language all the subtleties and shades of meaning that are expressed by the
words of another language. This inevitable inadequacy of any translation is even
greater in the case of a translation from one language into another language
whose syntactical structure and manner of expressing ideas is completely
different, as is the case with translations from Tamil into English. Therefore
for those who do not know Tamil, a word-for-word translation of each of Sri
Ramana’s verses is a very valuable aid to a better understanding of the depth
and subtlety of meaning which he conveyed through each and every word that he
wrote.
However, a mere literal translation of each of his words cannot adequately
convey the meaning that he intended, because in Tamil as in any other language
the same words can be understood and interpreted in different ways. This is
particularly true of words that express extremely subtle truths, as the words of
Sri Ramana do. Therefore, to understand his words correctly and adequately, we
should understand not merely the vachyartha or literal meaning of each of them,
but more importantly their lakshyartha or intended meaning.
Because Sri Sadhu Om had surrendered himself entirely to Sri Ramana, who
shines within each one of us as the absolute clarity of thought-free
self-conscious being, ‘I am’, by the grace of Sri Ramana his mind had merged in and
been consumed by that clarity, and hence from his own experience of true
self-knowledge he was able to explain the true lakshyartha of Sri Ramana’s
words — the meaning that he actually intended to convey through them.
Moreover, because Sri Sadhu Om was himself a great Tamil poet, and because he
spent many years working closely with Sri Muruganar, preserving, editing and
classifying all his then unpublished verses, he had a thorough understanding
both of the rich classical style of Tamil in which Sri Ramana composed his
verses, and of the unique manner in which Sri Ramana expressed the truth in
words which, though seemingly very simple, actually convey much deeper and
richer meaning than they superficially appear to convey. Hence not only from the
perspective of his own true spiritual experience but also from a literary
perspective, Sri Sadhu Om had an extremely deep and clear insight into the
wealth and depth of meaning that Sri Ramana conveyed through his verses.
Therefore Sri Sadhu Om was perfectly qualified to interpret the many meanings
contained in these verses, though he never claimed to have expressed all the
possible meanings. In fact, he sometimes used to tell us that a new meaning for
a certain verse had suddenly struck his mind, so this book certainly does not
contain all the meanings that he ever saw in any particular verse.
During the lifetime of Sri Sadhu Om, he and I had written all these
word-for-word meanings, translations and a few explanatory notes in some
notebooks, and we intended to revise them later, because what we had written was
only an unpolished draft. Unfortunately, before his passing away in March 1985,
we did not have time to do this or many of the other similar works that we
intended to do, and after that I was busy with other work, so I not yet had time
to undertake our intended revision of this unpolished draft.
Therefore in 2007, when Sri N. Sankaran and other friends of mine in Tiruvannamalai decided to publish
this draft translation as a book, they arranged for it to be copied from our
notebooks and typeset for printing. Unfortunately I was not involved
with the copy-editing, typesetting or proofreading, so in the printed book there are many copying, editing and
printing errors, particularly in the transliteration and some of the word-for-word meanings, which I
hope to rectify later if I ever have time to revise, polish and improve this old
draft.
Printed edition of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam
This translation of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam has been published by Sri
Ramana Kshetra, and it can be obtained from Sri
Ramanasramam Book Stall, Sri
Arunachalaramana Nilayam, Sri
Ramana Kshetra or the Buy
Books page of David
Godman’s website, as explained in more detail in the How
to buy books by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James section
of the Books page of this website.
E-book copy for free download
Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam is also available here for free download as
a PDF e-book. In order to download
this PDF version, you can either left-click on the following link to open
it in your web browser, after which you can save a copy of it, or you can
right-click on this link and select ‘Save Target As…’ from the pop-up menu:
Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam – e-book
When I first received this PDF copy of the printed book from the press that printed
it,
it contained many defects, because on account of some technological error
certain characters in it were displayed wrongly. Fortunately my friend John Manetta
was able to correct most of the Latin characters and punctuations that were
wrongly displayed, but neither he nor I were able to correct any of the Tamil
characters that were wrongly displayed. For example, the frequently occurring character ந் (n)
in the printed book appears in this PDF copy as மூ (mū), and the less
frequently occurring character மூ (mū) in the printed book appears in
this PDF copy either as void or as a box surrounding the following character [as for example in
the first foot of verse 81 of Sri Arunachala Aksharamanamalai, which
should be மூக்கிலன் (mūkkilan) but which appears as க்கிலன் with a box
surrounding the letter க்].
I would like here to express my gratitude to all those friends who helped me to
make this PDF copy of the printed book available here, especially N. Sankaran,
who supervises the publication of most of the Tamil and English books of Sri
Sadhu Om; S. Pandurangan of Aridra Printers, who printed the book and created
this PDF copy of it; M. V. Sabhapathy and Vasuki Seshadri, who encouraged him to
create it; and John Manetta, who rectified many of the technological defects in it.
Spanish translation of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam
This English translation of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam has been translated into Spanish by Pedro Rodea, and his translation is available
on his website, AtivarnAshram,
both as a
PDF e-book
and as a printed book (listed along with other books on the Sri
Ramana Maharshi page of the Ignitus section).
Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam – commentary by Sri Sadhu Om
During the lifetime of Sri Sadhu Om, I compiled with his help and guidance a
detailed commentary in English containing many of the explanations that I had
heard from him about Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam, and this was first published in five
issues of The Mountain Path from September 2003 to September 2004.
An e-book copy of
this commentary is currently available on David Godman’s website, and can be
accessed there from the Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam page.
This commentary has also been translated into Spanish by Pedro Rodea, and his translation is included at the end of the
PDF e-book
containing his translation of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam.
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