Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, the Sage of Arunachala, born in 1878, is one of the most famous and most recent of India's wealth of sages, Saints and spiritual Masters. As a young man of sixteen he had a spontaneous awakening. He left his home in Madurai and made his way to Tiruvannamalai and the holy mountain, Arunachala. He lived for many years, alone and in silence, on and around the mountain, which he never left.

In the 1920s the present ashram was constructed. Here he lived and taught until his death in 1950. Many of this Maha Rishi's (Great Seer) students and devotees, who, through him gained Self-realisation, passed on to their own students Sri Ramana Maharshi's practice of Self-enquiry, using the question, 'Who am I?'