We can see many instances in Bhagavan’s life that may be seen as the seeds of this gigantic tree of ‘Ramananjali’.

• Mother Azhagamma served the senior ladies of Tiruchuzli and learnt spiritual songs that were couched in the symbolism of cooking. Surely Sundaram mandiram would have resounded with these songs as she tirelessly cooked to serve every comers all through the day and sometime even at night and the child Ramana too must have spontaneously heard and learnt these songs right from the cradle.
• Immediately after his enlightenment on 17th July 1896, Bhagavan equates his steady abidance in the Self to ‘sruti’ in music. ‘Other thoughts may come and go but the ‘I’ continued like the unbroken sruti note…’
• At the request of Palaniswamy, Bhagavan spontaneously composed the ‘Arunachala Aksharamanamalai’ for devotees to sing as they went to seek bhiksha for Bhagavan and others staying with him. The words of the other four of ‘Five Hymns on Arunachala’ came to Bhagavan and “insisted” that he ‘put them down’.
• Bhagavan composed ‘Appalam song’ for Mother as she would sing other spiritual songs (Vedantic songs) in the symbolism of ‘cooking’.
• Bhagavan would tap ‘talam’ (keep time) with two small sticks on an iron coal brazier when Tiruppugazh was sung in his presence at Skandasram.
• When Bhagavan was residing at Virupaksha Cave, on 18th November, 1907 Ganapati Muni surrendered to Bhagavan, got from him the first spoken upadesa and announced to the whole world that this was no ordinary sage. He hailed him as ‘Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi’. Thus the Muni gave to the world the sweet name ‘Ramana’ by which to sing the glory of Bhagavan. Soon thereafter, in gratitude at having obtained the rarest of Sadgurus, the Muni composed ‘Uma Sahasram’ (thousand verses in praise of Goddess Uma). In this poem Ganapati Muni has penned a few verses in praise of Bhagavan Ramana. These are perhaps the first poetic works on Bhagavan that are available to us today.
• Not much later, a person who called himself ‘Satyamangalam Venkatarama Iyer’ came and composed five beautiful hymns on Bhagavan called ‘Ramana Stuti Panchakam’. Of these ‘Ramana Sadguru’ was sung regularly in Bhagavan’s presence and he too would join in the singing.
• Manavasi Ramaswami Iyer was miraculously cured by Bhagavan. Compositions on Bhagavan came to him spontaneously along with musical scores. Thus he became the first ‘Vaggeyakara’ or musical composer of ‘Ramana Sangitam’ and may be called ‘Ramana Sangita Pitamaha’. Bhagavan himself corrected the metre and rhyme of the first composition and guided Ramaswami Iyer.
• Siva Prakasam Pillai, Ramana Dasa Sadananda and even the unassuming Ramanatha Brahmachari composed lilting poetry on Bhagavan Ramana that was eminently suitable to be sung.
• Muruganar Swami composed tens of thousands of poems on Bhagavan. The whole of one work the ‘Ramana Sannidhi Murai’ is in the Tamil classical ‘Pan’ style.
• Shuddhananda Bharathi, Sadhu Om Swami and many others were graced by Bhagavan to write the most fascinating poetry on him. Thus an ocean of the choicest poetry on Bhagavan came into being, almost waiting to be sung! This appears to have no parallel in spiritual history. Nowhere else do we have such a huge body of spiritual literature on a jivan mukta, and that even contemporaneously to his sojourn on earth.

• Soon after the birth of ‘Ramananjali’, in March 1979 Ramana Maharshi Centre for Learning was formed in Bangalore and Ramana Music became one of its major wings.
• A stream of Ramana Music recordings, productions and programs followed with many eminent music directors setting the music for the poems and with many new translation especially in Kannada and Telugu.
• By the immense power of Bhagavan, and the affectionate encouragement of Sri Ramanasramam, Ramananjali has recorded more than 200 productions, given more than 400 live programs and currently has about 2000 songs in its repertoire.

Some special compositions in Light-Classical style are

1. Ramana Nitya Seva (songs on Bhagavan’s worship through the day)
2. Ramana Akshara Malar Malai (on the lines of Bhagavan’s ‘Arunachala Akshara Mana Malai’)
3. Folks songs
4. Namavalis (simple lead-chorus songs)

Watching the growth of Ramananjali keenly and diving into it repeatedly, Smt.Sulochana Natarajan could suddenly see the pieces of the jigsaw fall into place and she began her indefatigable task of bringing them together. In the Semi-Classical area she began to consolidate the compositions according to each of the composers, filling in the blanks wherever she found them. So we now have in Ramananjali’s audio productions:

• Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi (all the poetic works)
• Vasishta Ganapati Muni (all poetic works on Bhagavan and Mother Azhagammal)
• Satyamangalam Venkatarama Iyer (all poetic works – ‘Ramana Stuti Panchakam’)
• Sivaprakasam Pillai (adaptation of ‘Ramana Pada Malai’ to Ramana Pada Pancharatnam)
• Muruganar Swami (coverage of every title in ‘Ramana Sannidhi Murai’, selections from ‘Ramana Deva Malai’, ‘Ramana Anubhooti’ and ‘Ramana Sharana Pallandu’)
• Sadhu Om Swami ( coverage of every title from ‘Ramana Geetham’, ‘Ramana Tiruvembavai’, and selections from ‘Ramana Varnangal and Other Songs’, ‘Ramana kilikkanni’ and ‘Guruvarul Andadi’)
• Jagadeeswara Sastry ( ‘Ramana Sahasranamam’ and selections from ‘Sri Ramana Stotra Ratnavali’)
• Shuddhananda Bharati (Selections from ‘Arul Aruvi’, songs from ‘Ramana Vijayam’ and stray poems)
• Ramana Dasa Sadananda (Selections from ‘Ramana Stuti Dasakam’)
• Meenakshi Sundaram (Selections from ’Sri Ramana Bhagavan Tottirapaamaalai’)
• Ramanatha Brahmachari (Selections from ‘Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi Stotra Anubhuti’)
• Viswanatha Swami (‘Ramana Ashtottaram’ and the poem ‘Ayi piba’)
• Ramachandran (Selections from ‘Mega sandesham’)
• Narendra Kesari Sharma Upadhyaya (Selections from ‘Ramana Lahari’)
• Shantananda Puri (‘Ramana Suprabhatam’ and ‘Azhagamma Ashtottara Shata Namavali’)
• Venkateswara Sastri (the poem ‘Ramana Vara Tudi’)
• Lakshmana Sharma (the poem ‘Ramana Dvadasha Akshara Stotram’)
• T.K.Sundaresa Iyer (the poem ‘Ramana Dhyanam’)
• Dr.Sarada (stray poems)
• Tamil Nambi (‘Kodattil Tanneer’ and other poems)

Kannada Poets in Ramananjali

1. C.N.Sastry (‘Sakala Graha Bala’ and other poems)
2. Pu. Th. Na. ( Selections from ‘Sri Ramana Prabha’)
3. Dr.A.S.Venugopala Rao (selections from ‘Ramana Poornima’, ‘Aruna Ramana’ and other compilations)
4. Dodda Range Gowda (selections from ‘Ramanana Kondadiro’)
5. Sant Keshav Das (‘Vairagya Chakravarthi’ and other poems)
6. Swami Virajananda (‘Entha Anandavaayite’ and other poems)
7. S.K.Narayana Rao (‘Yaavagalu’)

While the above have composed original poetry in Kannada, major translations have been done by

1. Dr.N.S.Lakshminarayana Bhatta
2. R.N.Jayagopal
3. J.H.B.Acharya
4. Vijaya Narasimha

Telugu Poet in Ramananjali

1. Y.V.Venkateswara Rao (all of ‘Ramana Gana Tarangini’ and ‘Sri Ramana Nitya Seva’ and stray compositions)

Hindi Poets in Ramananjali

1. G.Kameshwar (‘Chal Arunachal’)
2. P.S.Dixit
3. Saraswathi Kumar Deepak
4. Ramanatha Shastri