Sunday, August 26, 2018

Me and my Stotra Translation as in 2010


Me  and my Stotra  Translation



Dear Friends,

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.

P.R.Ramachander

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Its wonderful reading the translations of so many stotras by you. Thank you. Can you please translate guruvayurpuresha sahasranamam stotram.

Unknown said...

Sir, can you please translate deepa durga kavacham. From rudrayamala tantra.

Unknown said...

Very great service you have done in kilipattu and so many scriptures. I am following yr works closely. Thank (you ) god