From about 1901 the young Ramana Maharshi, settled in a cave on the hill of Arunachala at Tiruvannamalai after his spontaneous awakening of 1896, teaches by silence and by the single question Who am I? His self-inquiry is Advaita Vedanta in its most direct modern form, and the visitors who carry it west are one channel by which non-dual teaching enters the Western synthesis.
Tagged: Eastern Pantheistic Monism
The Event
- Date
- 1901 (exact)
- Era
- The Theosophical Synthesis; Periodization of the construction and its sources
- Location
- Tiruvannamalai; today Tiruvannamalai, India
- Traditions
- Eastern Pantheistic Monism
- Streams
- Eastern Pantheistic Monism
- Key figures
- Ramana Maharshi
- Key texts
- Who Am I? (Nan Yar)
Primary Sources
- Ramana Maharshi. Nan Yar? (Who Am I?). Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam (the teaching as recorded by Sivaprakasam Pillai, 1901).
Secondary Sources
- Clarke, J. J. Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter Between Asian and Western Thought. London: Routledge, 1997.
- Halbfass, Wilhelm. India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
- King, Richard. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and 'the Mystic East'. London: Routledge, 1999.
Provenance: HIST-1377; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.
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