Saints of Arunachala · The beggar saint

Yogi Ramsuratkumar: the beggar saint of Tiruvannamalai

His radiant face in rags, palmyra fan in hand, is on a thousand walls in Tiruvannamalai. The beggar-saint who called himself ‘this beggar’, named Ramana one of his three fathers, lived hidden on the streets for years, and became one of modern India's great saints.

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Walk the streets of Tiruvannamalai today and you will see his face everywhere ~ in the shops, on the auto-rickshaws, garlanded on a thousand walls: a radiant old man in rags, holding a palmyra-leaf fan. This is Yogi Ramsuratkumar, who called himself, always and only, “this beggar,” and who is loved in this town second perhaps only to Ramana himself. He is proof that Arunachala's power to draw and to transform did not end with Bhagavan's passing ~ for this beggar-saint came to the hill, sat before Ramana, and became, in time, one of the great saints of modern India in his own right. His ashram on Chengam Road is now one of the town's living hearts.

The beggar with three fathers

He was born Ramsurat Kumar on the 1st of December, 1918, in a village in the north of India, near the Ganges ~ far from the Tamil south that would become his home. From boyhood he burned with longing for God, and as a young man he set out to find those who could satisfy it. He found not one master but three, and he honoured all of them, saying with his characteristic humility that “this beggar has three fathers.” They were three of the greatest spiritual figures of the age: Sri Aurobindo of Pondicherry; Ramana Maharshi of Arunachala; and Swami Ramdas (Papa Ramdas) of Anandashram in Kerala.

Under Ramana's gaze

His connection to Ramana is tender and direct. In his years of seeking, the young Ramsuratkumar came to Sri Ramanasramam and sat before Bhagavan ~ and under Ramana's silent, compassionate gaze he had, by his own account, deep spiritual experiences. Ramana was one of the three fathers who shaped him. But the final fulfilment did not come at Arunachala, not yet; it came a little later, in Kerala, at the feet of his third father. The seed, though, had been sown under the gaze of the sage of the hill ~ and it was to Arunachala that he would ultimately return to live out his life.

“Go and beg”

The transformation came at Anandashram. His guru Swami Ramdas initiated him with the great mantra ~ “Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram” ~ and asked him to chant it ceaselessly. After days of unbroken repetition, something in Ramsuratkumar broke open, and he passed into a profound ecstasy from which the ordinary ego never returned. He would later refer to this simply as his “death” ~ the death of the separate self. And then Ramdas gave him a hard and beautiful instruction. “Under a big tree,” he said in effect, “another tree cannot grow. Go, and beg.” Yogi Ramsuratkumar accepted it completely, and from that day he was a beggar ~ owning nothing, claiming nothing, calling himself nothing more than “this beggar.”

The hidden years on the streets

He wandered for seven years, and in 1959 he arrived at Tiruvannamalai, drawn ~ as he had told Ramdas he would be ~ to Arunachala. And there, for many years, he lived as a “hidden saint” on the dirt streets of the town: near the temple chariot, at the corners of the roads, under the trees, sleeping rough, enduring rain and sun and hunger and the mockery of those who took him for a mad tramp, subsisting entirely on what kind village women and a slowly growing band of admirers gave him. Dressed in rags, a palmyra fan in his hand, chanting the Name, he was for years unrecognised ~ a beggar whom almost no one knew to be a jewel. Only slowly did his radiance draw people, until a devoted community formed around him and, in the mid-1970s, he was at last persuaded to accept the shelter of a small house.

“Under a big tree, another tree cannot grow. Go, and beg.” And so he did ~ owning nothing, claiming nothing, for the rest of his life.

“This beggar has only friends”

His teaching was as simple as his life: surrender to the Divine Father, and chant His Name. He gave the mantra of Ram, and pointed people not to complex philosophy but to the ceaseless remembrance of God in the heart. And he refused, always, the role of guru in the ordinary sense. “This beggar has no disciples or devotees,” he would say; “this beggar has only friends.” It was not false modesty but the plain expression of a soul that had genuinely dissolved the self that could own a following. Thousands came ~ from across India and, in his later years, from around the world ~ and found in the presence of this beggar in rags a love and a power that changed their lives.

His ashram today

In 1994, in his last years, the Yogi Ramsuratkumar Ashram was established on Chengam Road, and there he spent his final period, receiving the multitudes who now sought him. He attained mahasamadhi on the 20th of February, 2001. The ashram remains one of the great living centres of devotion in Tiruvannamalai ~ larger and more overtly devotional in flavour than Ramanasramam, with soul-stirring bhajans morning and evening, the air thick with the chanting of the Name he loved. For the visitor who wishes to feel the bhakti ~ the path of the heart, of love and song ~ that runs alongside Ramana's path of silent inquiry, an evening at the Yogi Ramsuratkumar Ashram is unforgettable. See our guide to the ashrams of Tiruvannamalai.

Last updated 16 October 2026. Following the documented record preserved by Sri Ramanasramam and his devotees; where an account is traditional, it is told as such.