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