Ramana Maharshi's Knowledge Of Other Languages

[Guest guest]

29th October, 1947

 

This afternoon at 2-30, Bhagavan was reading a Malayalam book and was

speaking to a devotee seated near him. The devotee was asking, “Did Bhagavan

learn to read Malayalam in his younger days?”

 

“No,” Bhagavan replied, “while I was staying in Gurumurtham, Palaniswami

used to be with me. He had a copy of the Adhyatma Ramayanam and was often

reading it aloud. Every Malayali who knows how to read, invariably reads

that book.

 

“Hence, even though he did not know how to read well,he somehow managed to

read it, albeit with many mistakes.

 

I was at the time observing silence, and so I used merely to listen. After

we shifted to the palmyra grove, I took the book and found it to be in

Malayalam script. Having already learnt that script, I easily learned to

read and write.”

 

“When did you learn Telugu?” asked someone.

 

“When I was in the Virupaksha Cave,” said Bhagavan,

 

“Gambhiram Seshayya and others asked me to write some stanzas in Telugu and

so I transcribed letter by letter from Sanskrit into Telugu script and

practised them. Thus I slowly learnt Telugu in the year 1900.”

 

I asked him when he had learnt the Nagari script.“That must also have been

about the same time,” said Bhagavan. “Muthurama Dikshitar and others used to

come frequently, as they had books in Nagari script, I used to copy the

letters and in that way got used to them.” Someone said, “We had heard that

you learnt Telugu only after Nayana came to you.”

 

“No,” said Bhagavan, “I learnt it much earlier, but I got used to speaking

it freely only after he came, that’s all.” “We had heard,” said another,

“that you learnt Telugu in your boyhood days.”

 

“I did not know how to write or read Telugu at that time,” said Bhagavan.

“My grandfather’s younger brother knew Telugu; he used to keep me by his

side on the cot and teach me Telugu alphabet. That was all. I learnt Telugu

only while writing the stanzas. Subsequently, when I wrote ‘Upadesa Saram’,

Yogi Ramiah wanted it in Telugu, so I wrote it in couplets (dvipada),

closely following the Tamil metre.

 

I then showed it to Nayana who said that it was not a correct Telugu couplet

and he taught me the metres (ganas) of the Telugu verses.

 

I wrote them down in Tamil script and then made the required alterations.

When I showed it to Nayana,he said it was correct and could be given to the

printers.

 

Later,when Balarama Reddy got me a copy of the Sulakshana Saram,I learnt the

metres of the other verses, copied them on two pages of paper and pasted

them in our copy of the Telugu primer.

 

That has been sufficient for my purposes. Now, if anyone reads a verse, I

can easily find out in what metre it is and what mistakes, if any, there

are. I learnt one language after another in the same way. I did not

purposely learn any language,” said Bhagavan.

 

Source: Letters from Sri Ramanasramam VOLUMES I, II & Letters from and

Recollections of Sri Ramanasramam By SURI NAGAMMA Translated by D. S. SASTRI

 

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Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram

 

Love And Love Alone