Ramana's devotees · The poet
Muruganar: Ramana's poet and foremost devotee
The scholar-poet who laid his brilliant gifts at Ramana's feet and became the vessel of his teaching ~ it was Muruganar's asking that drew out the Forty Verses on Reality, and his love that sang Bhagavan in an ocean of Tamil verse.
The short version
- Who
- Muruganar (1890–1973) ~ great Tamil poet-scholar, Ramana's foremost devotee.
- His service
- Drew out the Ulladu Narpadu (Forty Verses on Reality) by his questions and prompting.
- His poetry
- Tens of thousands of verses; the Guru Vachaka Kovai records Ramana's teaching.
- His meaning
- Living proof that in Ramana the way of knowledge and the way of love were one.
← Part of Who Was Ramana Maharshi
Every great teacher, it is said, needs the devotee who can receive the teaching whole and give it back as beauty. For Ramana, that devotee was Muruganar ~ a scholar and poet of the first rank who came to Arunachala, laid his brilliant gifts at Bhagavan's feet, and became, in effect, the vessel through which much of Ramana's most precious teaching reached the world. If you have ever been moved by Ramana's Forty Verses on Reality, you have Muruganar to thank, for it was his questions and his prompting that drew those verses out. He is sometimes called Ramana's foremost devotee, and the poetry he poured out in his master's praise runs, by tradition, to tens of thousands of verses.
The scholar who found his master
Muruganar (born Sambamurthi, 1890–1973) was already a distinguished Tamil scholar and poet, steeped in the classical Shaiva devotional tradition, when he first came to Ramana around 1923. The meeting undid him in the best way. He had spent his life mastering the poetry of divine love; now, before the silent sage of Arunachala, he met the living reality that poetry had only pointed to. He surrendered utterly, took Ramana as his guru and his God, and never really left. His formidable learning did not make him proud before Bhagavan; it made him the perfect instrument ~ able to catch the subtlest turn of the teaching and set it in flawless Tamil verse.
Drawing out the teaching
Muruganar's greatest service was this drawing-out. Ramana taught most deeply in silence and spoke sparingly; left to himself he might have written very little. It was Muruganar who, again and again, created the occasion for the teaching to take written form. The Ulladu Narpadu ~ the Forty Verses on Reality, one of the central texts of the whole teaching ~ came into being because Muruganar asked, and arranged, and prompted. Much of what we have of Ramana in his own words exists because this one devotee knew how to ask. It is a quiet lesson in devotion: sometimes the greatest service is to make room for the master to give what he would not otherwise have given.
An ocean of praise
And then there was his own outpouring. Muruganar's love for Ramana overflowed into verse on a scale that is hard to comprehend ~ by tradition, some tens of thousands of stanzas. The greatest collection, the Guru Vachaka Kovai (“The Garland of Guru's Sayings”), gathers and versifies Ramana's teaching with a precision and beauty that make it one of the most valued records of what Bhagavan actually taught ~ Ramana himself is said to have gone over it and endorsed it. Other collections, like the Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai, are pure devotional rapture, the songs of a man drunk on the presence of his guru. It is a body of work that stands with the great devotional poetry of the Tamil saints ~ a modern continuation, at Arunachala, of the very tradition of the Nalvar a thousand years before.
Sometimes the greatest service a devotee can give is simply to know how to ask ~ to make room for the master to give what he would not otherwise have given.
The devotee's gift
Muruganar outlived his master by twenty-three years, and spent them as he had spent the years before ~ absorbed in Ramana, still singing. To read him is to see the teaching of self-inquiry refracted through a heart of pure devotion, and to understand that in Ramana the two great paths, the way of knowledge and the way of love, were never opposed. The dry, precise inquiry ~ who am I? ~ and the melting devotion of the poet were, at Arunachala, one thing. Muruganar is the living proof of it, and much of the treasure of Ramana's teaching is, quite simply, his gift to us.
Muruganar shows how the way of love completes the way of knowledge in Ramana. For the teaching he helped record, see Ramana's teaching in depth; for the whole life, Who was Ramana Maharshi; for the ancient poets he stands in line with, the Nalvar.
Frequently asked questions
Who was Muruganar?
Muruganar (1890–1973) was a distinguished Tamil poet and scholar who became Ramana Maharshi's foremost devotee after meeting him around 1923. He surrendered his considerable gifts to his master and became the vessel through which much of Ramana's teaching was drawn out and recorded, while composing an enormous body of devotional poetry in Bhagavan's praise.
What did Muruganar contribute to Ramana's teaching?
His questions and prompting drew out the Ulladu Narpadu (Forty Verses on Reality), one of the central texts of Ramana's teaching. He also composed the Guru Vachaka Kovai, a versified record of Bhagavan's sayings that Ramana himself is said to have reviewed, making it one of the most valued accounts of what Ramana actually taught.
How much poetry did Muruganar write?
By tradition, tens of thousands of verses. His major works include the Guru Vachaka Kovai (a record of Ramana's teaching in verse) and the Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai (devotional songs), placing him in the great line of Tamil devotional poets.
What does Muruganar show about Ramana's path?
He shows that in Ramana the way of knowledge (self-inquiry) and the way of love (devotion) were never opposed but one. Muruganar's precise recording of the teaching and his rapturous devotional poetry are two faces of a single realisation.
Last updated 9 October 2026. Following the documented record preserved by Sri Ramanasramam and his devotees; where an account is traditional, it is told as such.