Ramana Maharshi

Born Venkataraman Iyer at Tiruchuzhi in Tamil Nadu, Ramana Maharshi underwent, at about sixteen while living in Madurai, a spontaneous and overwhelming confrontation with death that resolved (he later said) into a permanent realization of the deathless Self. Soon afterward, in 1896, he left home for the sacred mountain Arunachala at Tiruvannamalai, and he never again left its vicinity for the remaining fifty-four years of his life. Living first in temples and caves on the hill and later at the ashram that grew around him, he taught — largely through silence and through the practice of self-enquiry (ātma-vicāra), the persistent question 'Who am I?' — a direct path to the realization of the non-dual Self. Western seekers and writers (Paul Brunton among them) spread his reputation internationally. He died of cancer at Tiruvannamalai in 1950. His life is unusually well documented for an Indian sage, through devotees' records and his own brief writings.