I retired from service as a scientist in a national institute in the year 2000. My research life spanning 36 years was very productive and fruitful. Once I retired I decided that I should do some thing which is entirely different from what I was doing till then . I started with very many activities. Of them, one was the translation of stotras in to English verse. I wanted to do this because I thought that we should give a chance to our youngsters not well versed in their mother toungue or Sanskrit, to understand the meaning of the majestic Hindu prayers. I started the work in the year 2002. By 2005 I had completed translation of 41 great books which included Sundara Kandam, Devi Mahatmyam, and Abhirami Andathi and so on. Sri Bhagyam Ramaswami who is running a web site called www.appuswami.com agreed to publish my translation of Abhirami Andathi in his web site. Since it attracted lot of attention, I wanted to have a web site of my own. My daughter in law Sangeetha taught me rudiments of web site building and also a template. Sri Achalam of Mumbai, whom I consulted, encouraged me to upload all my translations. Thus in 2005, I uploaded my translations (41 in number) in my web site www.geocities.com/ramya475 . This was an instant hit. But once the initial enthusiasm faded, the number of new visitors per day was about 10-20.It was at this time that I decided to set apart a considerable time per day for translations of stotras. As of today, I have translated 253 stotra rathnas. The break up is as follows:- Addressed to Sanskrit Tamil Malayalam Hindi Total Vishnu 34 1 4 1 40 Rama 10 10 Krishna 19 2 21 Shiva 33 1 1 35 Goddess 48 3 6 57 Ganesa 9 9 Subrahmanya 6 2 8 Ayyappa 3 1 4 Planets 7 7 Rivers 6 6 Hanuman 7 1 8 Philosophy 15 15 Daily prayer 1 1 Other Gods 19 1 20 Vedic Hymns 9 9 Puranas 3 3 Total 229 7 8 9 253
In this collection there are stotras from Vedas like the Rudram and Purusha Suktham to the composition called Janaki Panchakam by my young friend Sri.Animesh. Translations of very many stotras like Shyamala Dandakam, Abhirami Andathi, Mariamman Thalattu, Kamakshi Suprabatham etc have been for the first time in English. Having just crossed the mile stone of 250, I would like to thank all the people who directly and indirectly supported my venture. I firmly believe that all this is not my contribution but that of God, who has blessed me and using me as his instrument. I really do not know how to thank him for his grace except doing pranams to him. I had depended for my translation efforts on legendary Anna's Tamil translations published by Sri Ramakrishna Mutt, Chennai, Sri Bapu Rao's great compendium in Malayalam called Stotra Rathnakaram, The great Hindi publication called Stotra rathnavali by Gita press Gorakhpur, Sri Animesh's translations in his web site www.stutimandal.com, translations by Dr.Sadagopan and Sri Anbil Ramaswamy in the oppiliappan archives as well as the great collection of e-books appearing in the web site www.sundarasimham.org, consultations through e-mail with Dr.Saroja Ramanujam, Dr.S.N.Shastri, Dr Sundar Hattangadi , Dr.Sadagopan and several others. I want to thank each and every one of them .I would like to thank my daughter in law Smt.Sangeetha for the initial web site construction as well as guiding me in the preliminary stages. I would like to Thank Sri Achalam, who was the first one to instill confidence in me for undertaking this great venture. My daughter Smt Meera Venkatesan has been a great source of inspiration in whatever I do and I also want to thank her.
I want to thank the members of Pattars Group, Iyer123 group and 4- brahmins group for the constant encouragement by publication of several of my translations and also for extending helping hand in terms of crisis.
I want to thank Sri Lakshmanan of the www.celextel.org for encouraging me by publishing all my translations in his great and popular web site. I would like to thank www.chennaitimes.com for reproducing some of my translations in their popular web site. Several web sites including that of Ramana Ashram, Sathya Sai foundation, Karunamayee foundation, www.kaumaram.com, etc have used few of my translations and this has helped me a lot in gaining confidence in the work that I am doing .My thanks to all of them. One young gentleman called Sri Vinay Yadav has started a web site called www.stothrarathnas.com exclusively for my translation efforts. My thanks to this young man.
Sometimes a pat on the back , whether you deserve it or not becomes a great source of inspiration. Many people have just done that several times among them is Sri Vaidyanathan Pushpagiri an inveterate blogger in Sulekha, who has told several good things about what I have been doing . Though I know that ,I do not deserve such praises, my thanks to him.