People in the land he placed And in Friendship the good life, In destruction new creation And in kinship lastingness. Music he placed in peotry And for those who sing, grace, Lord Venkata, the exalted one Who placed in freedom bliss.
- Muruganar
‘Ramananjali’ is the power of the Name and the Word flowing as music. It is the musical embodiment of the names of Ramana and Arunachala. For more than three generations ‘Ramananjali’ has been a household name, music with which they awoke, they invoked, music with which they grew up and grew into devotion. Ramananjali has been the immediate connect to the words of Ramana, of Ganapati Muni, of Muruganar, Sadhu Om and many other saint poets who drank in the experience that is Arunachala Ramana and expressed it in unmatched poetry. Ramananjali has a song for every experience and every mood of the loving listener which takes them deeper into their own self.
In its explicit form ‘Ramananjali’ is the first and till date only professional music troupe completely dedicated to performing Ramana Music in a devotional format along with orchestral support. Ramananjali’s odyssey has been an amazing journey of grace with more than 500 performances across the globe under the leadership of Smt.Sulochana Natarajan. The troupe continues to give performances now as well.
Ramananjali has a song for every experience and every mood of the loving listener which takes them deeper into their own selfPerformances
Ramananjali is today a vast body of music of more than 2000 songs comprising primarily of all the poetic works of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi and on Bhagavan Ramana by various poets with translations by eminent poets into Kannada, Telugu, Hindi and English, and also a few in Gujarati, Marathi and Malayalam.
The purpose of Ramananjali is to make the 'Ramananubhavam' ('the Experience of Ramana') that is crystallized in these poems, available to more and more people. As the simplest way to convey a truth is through a song, that is why the greatest truths are found in poetic form.
Ramananjali actually covers all genres of Indian music. For purposes of easier communication and understanding, those compositions which are purely in the Karnatik classical tradition and eminently suited to being rendered in a Karnatik classical concert have been classified under ‘Ramana Sangitam’. While the whole body of music is included under the name ‘Ramananjali’, the emphasis here is on those compositions which are in the devotional and light classical genre.
Each of the works in Ramananjali and in particular every one of Bhagavan's poems, has potent mantras imbedded in it. These works have the power to transform life and bestow the highest good. So they have been introduced to the music world (both to singers, right from beginners, and to listeners as well). The surest way to remember something is to sing it. Therefore, what better way to communicate the highest truths in the poems of Bhagavan and on Him, rather than to sing them?
Smt.Sulochana Natarajan, Music director, RMCL, Bangalore was born in the family whose life breath was Karnatic classical music. She had a great opportunity to visit Ramanasramam in May 1949 as a girl of 13 years. She was initiated into Ramana Music by Manavasi Ramaswami Iyer in 1957, who lovingly insisted on teaching her his own composition 'Sharanagathi'. This set the mood of Supreme Surrender to all the songs of Ramananjali.
List of Ramananjali MP3s
‘Ramananjali’ is a vast body of music encompassing many streams and styles of the music of India
