Ramana Maharshi

• Date, time, zone and coordinates are exactly as in PVNR's Lesson 15 ("December 30, 1879, 1:00 AM, IST … 78E15, 9N50"; Lagna Virgo 26°36′). The compiled lesson labels the place "Pondicherry", which does not match its own coordinates — 78°15′E, 9°50′N is the Madurai–Tiruchuli country where he was born (Pondicherry is ~79°50′E, 11°56′N). The place name above is the public birthplace; the coordinates are PVNR's. PVNR's Virgo 26°36′ lagna is reproduced only by reading the time as IST (5h30m east); as local mean time the lagna crosses into Libra.
• Chart pointers (PVNR): Virgo lagna 26°36′; Atmakaraka Moon in Gemini, in a kendra (10th) from lagna, conjoined Ketu; Saturn in Pisces, 10th from the AK. In Navamsa, Ketu in the 12th from the AK (in Taurus), aspected by Venus and Mercury (benefics) and Mars (malefic) — "90% of the definition for Moksha."

• Kind of work: none in the worldly sense — a realised sage who stayed in one place, answered questioners, and taught by presence and silence. A handful of short works and hymns, written at devotees' request.
• Fame: began as an unknown boy-ascetic; by the 1930s known across India and the West (Paul Brunton, Somerset Maugham, Jung's circle); today one of the most cited Indian sages of the modern age.
• Position / power: held no office, took no sannyasa orders, initiated no one formally, founded no order. The ashram grew around him; his brother ran it.
• Wealth: owned a loincloth, a water pot and a walking stick. Never handled money.
• Legal / negative: no scandal. Disgruntled former attendants brought lawsuits over the ashram's management in the 1930s, and he was examined on commission; robbers beat him in 1924.
• Health: years of total bodily neglect in youth (insect-bitten sores in the temple vault); a seizure-like episode in 1912; asthma and rheumatism in later life; sarcoma from late 1948, four operations, borne without complaint.
• Death: conscious and calm at 8:47 PM on 14 April 1950; a slow bright meteor was widely reported crossing the sky toward Arunachala at that moment.

• 1879-12-30 — born Venkataraman Iyer at Tiruchuli on the night of the Arudra Darshanam festival, second son of Sundaram Iyer, an uncertified pleader, and Alagammal.
• 1891 — sent to Dindigul for schooling.
• 1892-02-18 — father dies; the family breaks up and he moves to his uncle's house in Madurai; studies at Scott's Middle School and the American Mission High School.
• 1895-11 — hears from a relative that "Arunachala" is a real place, Tiruvannamalai; soon after reads the Periya Puranam.
• 1896-07 — the death experience (mid-July) in his uncle's upstairs room: a sudden fear of death, he lies down, enacts dying, and knows himself as the deathless Self. He was sixteen. The state never left him.
• 1896-08-29 — leaves home with three rupees and a note ("I have set out in quest of my Father…").
• 1896-09-01 — reaches Tiruvannamalai, enters the Arunachaleswara temple, throws away his remaining money and sacred thread, has his head shaved.
• 1896–1897 — sits absorbed in the temple, for weeks in the Patala Lingam vault where vermin eat into his thighs; Seshadri Swami protects him.
• 1897-02 — moves to Gurumurtam shrine outside the town; later (1898) to the adjacent mango grove.
• 1898 — his uncle, then on 25 December his mother, find him and beg him to return; he writes that what is destined not to happen will not happen.
• 1899-02 — moves onto the hill; settles in Virupaksha Cave (to 1916).
• 1900–1902 — answers the written questions of Gambhiram Seshayya (Self-Enquiry) and Sivaprakasam Pillai (Nan Yar? — "Who am I?").
• 1907-11-18 — the Sanskrit scholar Kavyakantha Ganapati Muni comes to him, receives his teaching on tapas, and proclaims him "Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi."
• 1911-11 — Frank Humphreys, a British police officer, becomes the first Western visitor and writes of him in the International Psychic Gazette (1913).
• 1912 — a second "death experience" at Tortoise Rock: circulation and breathing stop for some minutes.
• 1914 — composes Akshara Mana Malai (the Marital Garland of Letters) for his begging devotees.
• 1916 — his mother comes to live with him; he moves up to Skandashram. His younger brother Nagasundaram follows, takes sannyasa as Niranjanananda (Chinnaswami).
• 1922-05-19 — his mother dies with his hands on her head and heart; he declares her liberated. She is buried at the foot of the hill.
• 1922-12 — comes down to live by her samadhi; Sri Ramanasramam grows up on the spot.
• 1924-06-26 — robbers break into the ashram and beat him on the thigh; he tells the devotees not to retaliate.
• 1927 — composes Upadesa Saram. 1928 — Ulladu Narpadu (Forty Verses on Reality); the Old Hall is built.
• 1930 — Chinnaswami becomes manager (sarvadhikari) of the ashram.
• 1931 — B. V. Narasimha Swami's biography Self-Realization; Paul Brunton's first visit.
• 1934 — Brunton's A Search in Secret India makes him known in the West.
• 1935–1939 — the conversations later published as Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi are recorded.
• 1936 — examined on commission in the ashram in a suit brought by a former attendant.
• 1938 — Somerset Maugham visits (January); he executes a will settling the ashram's management on his brother's line (March).
• 1946-09-01 — Golden Jubilee of his arrival at Arunachala.
• 1948-06-18 — the cow Lakshmi dies; he gives her a samadhi and declares her liberated.
• 1948-11 — a small growth appears on his left elbow.
• 1949-02 — first operation; it recurs. Second operation in March; diagnosed as sarcoma. Third in August; fourth and last on 19 December 1949. He refuses amputation.
• 1949-03-17 — kumbhabhishekam of the Matrubhuteswara temple over his mother's samadhi.
• 1950-04-14 — dies at 8:47 PM as devotees chant Arunachala Siva outside his room.

Nature & personality

Utterly still, simple, equal to all — maharaja, sweeper, monkey, cow. Humorous and practical in daily things (he cut vegetables in the ashram kitchen every morning and wasted nothing). His replies could be razor-sharp in logic and then tender. He claimed nothing, gave no initiations, and insisted the body's doings were not his.

Spiritual path & realisation

No guru, no practice, no scripture beforehand: realisation came whole in July 1896 and was only afterwards found to agree with Advaita. He taught that the Self alone is; the direct means is the enquiry "Who am I?" tracing the "I"-thought to its source, and for those who cannot, surrender. His highest teaching was silence. He regarded Arunachala hill itself as Shiva and his guru, and walked around it for decades.

Work, teaching & institutions founded

Founded nothing deliberately. Wrote only when asked: Nan Yar?, Upadesa Saram, Ulladu Narpadu, Five Hymns to Arunachala, and translations of Shankara. Sri Ramanasramam, with its hall, dining room open to all, cowshed, Veda school and dispensary, formed around his presence.

Fame & influence

Spread by word of mouth among Tamil devotees, then by Ganapati Muni's circle, then to the world through Brunton. Visitors included Paramahansa Yogananda, Maugham, Rajendra Prasad and many Western seekers. Modern "non-dual" teaching outside India descends largely from him.

Renunciation / wealth

Complete. From the day he threw his coins into the temple tank he never touched money. All gifts went to the ashram; he ate what everyone ate and refused special treatment even while dying.

Legal troubles / controversies

Perumal Swami and others who had served him on the hill claimed rights over the ashram and sued in the 1930s; the courts dismissed the claims. The 1938 will was made to end such disputes.

Health

Extreme austerity in youth without lasting damage; asthma, rheumatic knees and failing sight later. The sarcoma of 1948–50 caused great pain, which he neither denied nor dwelt on: "They say I am going away — where can I go? I am here."

Death & legacy

Mahanirvana on 14 April 1950, aged 70. Sri Ramanasramam continues at Tiruvannamalai.

• Lagna Virgo 26°36′; AK = Moon. Moon (AK) in a kendra from lagna → what he does physically is in step with what his Atma wants; the AK can be read as lagna. Ketu directly with the Moon (AK) in Rasi → the moksha-karaka with the soul.
• Saturn in the 10th from the AK, in Pisces (sign of the Maharshis) → "disciplined yoga, sadhana, meditation — that is what his Atma wants."
• Navamsa: 12th from the Moon (AK) is Taurus with Ketu there; rasi-drishti on it from Venus (Cancer) and Mercury (Capricorn), both benefic, and from Mars (Libra), malefic → "90% of the definition for Moksha is there… Ramana Maharshi either got Moksha or something very similar to it." "This is as close as I get to the definition that Parasara gave."
• Lesson 16: the dispositor of the 12th-from-AK sign is Venus, placed in the 12th from lagna → very moksha-oriented, a tapasvi on a deep inward path — "on his final march towards moksha."
• Lesson 53 (against Sathya Sai Baba): "Ramana's 10H has AK + Ketu + Moon in a parivartana. No strong 8H emphasis — he was not a man of miracles and mystic powers. But Moon+Ketu in 10H = compassion and detachment from karma. AK in 10H = soul's purpose is manifested in his work."

PVNR SJC Lessons 15, 16, 53. Life events from the public record.