Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma

You have already heard of the installation of the photos
of Bhagavan and his parents in Sundara Mandiram in
Tiruchuli where Bhagavan was born. That was done some
time in June or July 1944 when, with the help of devotees,
the building was acquired and taken possession of by the
Ashram authorities. With a view to repairing the house, the
Sarvadhikari started with some devotees on 17-1-1945 for
Tiruchuli. Before he actually left, he invited us all to
accompany him, saying that there would be several travel
facilities for the occasion. Alamelu Amma, Bhagavan’s sister,
and some other women and men also went. Though I was
unwilling to leave Bhagavan’s presence, who is to me the
personification of God, I was prevailed upon to go with them.

As we were about twenty devotees for this journey, it was
interesting in its own way.

To go to Tiruchuli, one has to get down at Madurai
and go by bus for about thirty miles via Aruppukottai. As
the Sarvadhikari had some work to do at Madurai, we had to
halt there for two days. We were put up in the house of
Krishnamurthy Iyer. At night, all of us who came with the
Sarvadhikari, offered worship at the Meenakshi Temple and
also saw the idols of the sixty-three saints before whom
Bhagavan, in his boyhood, overwhelmed with devotion, used
to stand frequently, with eyes full of tears. The next morning,
some of us went to the temple of Perumal (Vishnu) where in
the three storeys of the building, Lord Varadaraja reigns in
three different poses, and we offered worship. Thereafter
we began enquiring about the holy house where Bhagavan
attained jnana (knowledge of the Self). A devotee of Bhagavan
and his boyhood friend joined us and took us that evening
to the house, No. 11 in Chokkanatha Street on the western
side. We entered that old house and went into the upstairs
room which was by the side of the staircase. “This is the
room where Bhagavan realised his Self,” said the people
there. They also pointed out the place where he sat at
11 o’clock in the morning of the day he left Madurai, where
he had to write an imposition from Bain’s Grammar given
to him as a punishment by the teacher and where Bhagavan
got immersed in meditation. My heart was filled with
devotion, my eyes with tears and my voice got choked. I was
in a state where I could not know whether it was grief or
happiness that overcame me. In the eleventh verse of the
“Supplement to the Forty Verses on Reality” Bhagavan had
written as under:
Who is born? Know that he alone is born who, enquiring
‘Whence am I born?’ is born in the Source of his being.

The Supreme Sage is eternally born, again and again, day
after day.

As Sri Ramana was born in the way described above for
the welfare of the world, how holy and blessed that place
must be!
It is from this small house that Bhagavan started,
renouncing everything, after leaving in the almirah by his
side a note which he wrote after a hearty meal, and sitting in
an easy chair. The provocation was a remark made by his
elder brother which was by way of a reprimand, saying, “Why
all these things (writing and study) when a person is like this
(sits still)?” Bhagavan was at the time deeply immersed in
meditation. It looked as if Lord Arunachala did not wish
him to remain for more than six weeks in the place where
he attained jnana. Lord Buddha attained jnana after living
in a forest for six years and doing penance day and night. It
is that place which is known as Buddha Gaya and is now a
place of pilgrimage. In the case of Ramana Bhagavan,
however, he attained jnana without any effort in an ordinary
house in a narrow lane in the centre of a city and in a small
room surrounded by all his relatives. How strange!
I was grieved to find such a holy place remaining
unknown, though it was here that Bhagavan changed from
a young boy into an Atmananda Ramana (a Ramana who
enjoys the bliss of Self-knowledge); the place wherefrom he
started with the Brahmastram known as ‘Who am I?’, to go to
Arunachala and vanquish the myth about the greatness of
pandits who go on arguing but have no practical experience.

However, I felt confident that, with Bhagavan’s grace, this
place also would become a place of pilgrimage like the
Sundara Mandiram in Tiruchuli. I prostrated with devotion
in the room, went on to the terrace at the side and went
down the staircase. There I met an old woman. Her name is
Subbamma, aged seventy-five. She told us that she was there
in the same street when Bhagavan went away on his travels
and told us some stories about his boyhood. We took leave
of her in due course and came back to our lodgings.

Next morning we started by bus, passed through
Aruppukkottai and, as we were approaching Tiruchuli, we
first saw the Gopuram of the temple of Bhuminatheswara.

After passing by the temple and its compound wall, we
reached Sundara Mandiram where the bus stopped. We all
got down, entered the house where Bhagavan was born and,
on seeing the picture of Sri Ramana seated in the padmasana
pose in between the pictures of his parents we prostrated
before it with emotions of great joy. We and the people that
had come to see us, numbering about forty, had our meals
in that house. Several others who came later while we were
taking rest began saying that the house used to be full like
that during the days of Sundaram Iyer.

During the three days that we were there we bathed in
the Koundinya River, had the darshan of Kaleswara,
worshipped Bhuminatha with his consort Sahayavalli, went
round Pralayarudra, prostrated before Bhairavi and saw all
those places where Bhagavan had spent his boyhood days.

Subsequently among those who came from Tiruvannamalai,
some went to Rameswaram on pilgrimage; the Sarvadhikari
with his associates stayed back on account of some work;
and I alone neither stayed there nor went to Rameswaram
but came to Madurai by the night of the 22nd, started again
the next day and so reached the lotus feet of Bhagavan.

Even before I came, people here came to know about the
house in the Chokkanatha Street through a letter written by
Krishnamurthy Iyer. All the devotees enquired about it and
were pleased on hearing the details from me. It is only after
that, that the Ashram purchased the house with the financial
help of the Wanaparti Raja. The joy I felt when I related the
details of my journey was beyond description, even much
greater than what I felt when I actually saw them. What is
more, Bhagavan, while enquiring whether I had seen this
and that place, told me a number of events about his
boyhood. I noted down some of them as they were not in
the biography. I shall write to you about them in another
letter.