Nayana and the Ramana Gita

Yesterday afternoon at 2-30, there was a talk about the sloka, “Hridaya kuhara madhye”. A devotee asked Bhagavan whether it was written while living at the Skandasram. Bhagavan: “Yes, it was written while I was there. In 1915 I had to write it on account of Jagadiswara Sastri.

Yesterday afternoon at 2-30, there was a talk about the sloka, “Hridaya kuhara madhye”. A devotee asked Bhagavan whether it was written while living at the Skandasram.

Bhagavan: “Yes, it was written while I was there. In 1915 I had to write it on account of Jagadiswara Sastri.”

The Devotee: “Is that the reason? In the Sri Ramana Gita it is indicated that Bhagavan himself wrote it.”

“No, No,” said Bhagavan. “In 1915 Jagadisa was in Skandasram during Chaturmasya1 and one day he wrote down on a piece of paper ‘Hridaya kuhara madhye’, held it in his hand and sat down. When I asked him what it was, he said that he wanted to write a sloka, but when he actually began it, only that much he could write. And when I asked him to write the rest, he said he was unable to do so however much he tried. After a time, he went out somewhere, leaving the paper under my seat. Before his return, I completed the sloka, wrote underneath it the word ‘Jagadisa’ and showed it to him as soon as he returned. He asked me why I had put his name to it. I said that it was because Jagadisa had begun it. He said that if that were so, he should have the paper for himself,

1 The Chaturmasya period begins in the month of Asadha (June- July) from the day of Ekadasi called Sayana-ekadasi, in the fortnight of the waxing moon. The period ends in the month of Kartika (October-November) on the Ekadasi day known as Utthana-ekadasi, in the fortnight of the waxing moon. This four-month period is known as Chaturmasya. During the four-month period of Chaturmasya one should practice giving up all food intended for sense enjoyment.

and took it away from me and carefully kept it with him. He was very young at that time.

“Some time afterwards, I wrote down that same sloka. I was sitting on a big stone slab near the Ashram and all gathered round me and wanted me to tell them the meaning of the sloka. I acquiesced and explained it to them for some two or three hours. Taking advantage of this, Jagadisa recently wrote a long commentary on it in the same style as had been done on a sloka of Sankara’s. The manuscript has apparently been lost somewhere. When Nayana2 wrote the Ramana Gita, he took this sloka as the opening sloka for the second chapter. That is the whole story. I have not written anything unless for a good reason.”

“Did you write this sloka at about the same time as Nayana wrote the Ramana Gita?” asked someone.

“No,” said Bhagavan, “it was some time later; he wrote in July 1917. But there is an interesting thing about it. In 1913, he asked me some questions and learnt something. When what he had learnt became fully implanted in his mind, he used, whenever he gave a lecture, to recite a sloka extempore and say that it was from chapter so and so, sloka number so and so, in the Ramana Gita. And that was long before he began to write the Ramana Gita. When he bluffed thus, no one dared to call his bluff, for he was a powerful personality, full of resourcefulness. Reciting thus from time to time, he finally wrote the Ramana Gita.”

Someone asked, “Had anybody asked where the Ramana Gita was, what would he have done?”

Bhagavan laughed: “Who had the courage to challenge him like that? That was his strong point. Even after writing

2 Kavyakantha Ganapathi Sastri who used to be addressed and referred to as ‘Nayana’.

the Ramana Gita, do you know what he used to do? He used to quote some slokas which were not in the Gita and cite them as examples. If any one had the courage to say that they were not in the printed book, he would say that they were in the Maha Ramana Gita, an enlarged version of the original. He had planned to write that also, but was finally unable to do so. He used to say that he would write a commentary on the “Arunachala Pancharatna”, and thereby show off all his knowledge, but that too was never done.”

“It seems that Nayana once spoke in the same way on the ‘Saiva Siddanta’,” said another devotee.

“Yes,” answered Bhagavan. “That was in the early days of his coming here. At that time, he knew nothing of Saiva Siddhanta. The Association of Saiva Siddhantis decided to hold their conference in this place and invited Nayana to preside over it. They also published that he, being a great pandit, would speak at length and authoritatively on Saiva Siddhanta. He was informed of the exact date only four or five days before the conference. On the very morning of the conference he came to me and said, ‘These people have asked me to attend Saiva Sabha and speak, but I do not know what that Siddhanta is and what really is its nature.’ I thereupon took out a Tamil book, the Siva Jnana Bodha, selected twelve aphorisms from it, explained their purport and then briefly told him the essence of that Siddhanta. That was enough. Being very intelligent he grasped the fundamentals in no time and went to the conference. Able to compose slokas extempore, he recited them with great confidence and then lectured in Tamil so authoritatively that everyone present was surprised at the profundity of his thought and erudition. When Nayana returned from the Conference he said, ‘It was not out of my knowledge or capacity that I spoke today. It was all due to Bhagavan’s grace. The Saiva Siddhanta which

I have never read appeared to me as though I had had it in my mind all these years’. Such was his intellectual power.”

Said one devotee: “It seems that even for the Umasahasram he did not get ready until the evening before the day fixed for its reading.”

Bhagavan replied, “Yes. Invitations had been sent out to several people saying that the Umasahasram would be read out at the Apeetha Temple on a certain day, and so many people came even the day before. It was to be read the following morning, and still 300 slokas had to be written. Nayana came to me and said, ‘These 300 slokas have to be written before daybreak. How can it be done?’ ‘Why worry?’ I said. ‘It will be all right if we sit up after food.’ ‘Then you must come there,’ he said. All this happened when I was still living on the hill. As desired, I went to the Mango Cave and sat down in a corner, keeping my eyes open all the time. Nayana sat down opposite me, kept four disciples by his side to write and, giving them extempore, each a part of a sloka, finished all 300 slokas by midnight.”

The devotee said, “Is it a fact that Bhagavan kept intently looking on until all 300 slokas were finished, and as soon as they were done, sat up and said, ‘Have you taken down all that I said?’ ”

Bhagavan nodded: “Yes, it was so. I felt that I had dictated all those slokas.”

The devotee further asked, “Is it also a fact that Nayana changed the other slokas several times but never touched even one of the 300 slokas?”

Bhagavan nodded his head in assent and was once more silent.