Books by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James

  1. Introduction
  2. Tamil books by Sadhu Om
  3. English translations of Sadhu Om’s Tamil books
  4. Books by Michael James
  5. English translations by Sadhu Om and Michael James
  6. Transliteration, transcription and pronunciation

Introduction

This section is intended to contain, as far as possible, HTML and/or PDF copies of all the published and unpublished books written or translated either by Sri Sadhu Om or by myself. At present it contains only some of these books, but I hope to be able gradually to add more of them.

For each book listed on this page, I give a bullet point containing a link both to a page introducing it, in which I give links to any HTML or PDF copies of it and to any site where printed copies of it can be purchased.

Tamil books by Sadhu Om

I hope to gradually post here HTML copies of all the previously printed and unprinted Tamil writings of Sri Sadhu Om both in prose and poetry, but at present the only one available here is:

English translations of Sadhu Om’s Tamil books

  • Sādhanai Sāram, the ‘Essence of Spiritual Practice’, an English translation of a collection of Tamil verses composed by Sadhu Om, in which he gives many valuable clues to help and guide us in the practice of self-investigation and self-surrender.
  • The Path of Sri Ramana, an English translation of ஸ்ரீ ரமண வழி (Śrī Ramaṇa Vaṙi), a Tamil book written by Sadhu Om, in which he explains in great depth and detail the philosophy and practice of the spiritual teachings of Bhagavan, with emphasis on the practice of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) and self-surrender.

Books by Michael James

English translations by Sadhu Om and Michael James

  • Śrī Aruṇācala Stuti Pañcakam, the ‘Five Hymns to Sri Arunachala’, a collection of the devotional songs composed by Bhagavan, with a word-for-word meaning and English translation by Sadhu Om and Michael James.
  • Śrī Ramaṇōpadēśa Nūṉmālai, the ‘Garland of Sri Ramana’s Texts of Spiritual Teachings (upadēśa)’, a collection of the principal philosophical poems composed by Bhagavan, with a word-for-word meaning and English translation by Sadhu Om and Michael James.
  • Guru Vācaka Kōvai, the ‘Series of Guru’s Sayings’, an English translation Sadhu Om and Michael James of the most comprehensive and reliable collection of the sayings of Bhagavan, recorded in 1255 Tamil verses composed by Muruganar, with an additional 28 verses composed by Bhagavan.

Transliteration, transcription and pronunciation

In most of the older books in this website, the transliteration of Tamil and Sanskrit words is not entirely consistent. For example, in the early editions of Happiness and the Art of Being I used a simple system of transliteration without diacritics, because at that time I did not have any suitable font with all the diacritics required for precise transliteration.

In many other books such as Guru Vācaka Kōvai and older editions of The Path of Sri Ramana a similar system of transliteration without diacritics was used, and though diacritics have been used in Śrī Aruṇācala Stuti Pañcakam and Śrī Ramaṇōpadēśa Nūṉmālai, the transliteration in these books contains many inconsistencies and inaccuracies.

However, I now have suitable fonts, so in all future books and future editions of the existing books I will use an accurate and consistent system of transliteration, which I have described and explained in:

Transliteration, Transcription and Pronunciation of Tamil and Sanskrit

As I explain there, the transliteration scheme that I describe in it is based upon several closely related schemes, including the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST), the scheme used in the Tamil Lexicon and the more recent international standard known as ‘ISO 15919 Transliteration of Devanagari and related Indic scripts into Latin characters’.