The following is Bhagavan explaining the origins of 'The Eka Sloka' in 'Letters from Sri Ramanasramam' 185:

"In 1915 Jagadisa was in Skandasram during Chaturmasya and one day he wrote down on a piece of paper ‘Hridaya kuhara madhye’, held it in his hand and sat down. When I asked him what it was, he said that he wanted to write a sloka, but when he actually began it, only that much he could write.

 And when I asked him to write the rest, he said he was unable to do so however much he tried.

After a time, he went out somewhere, leaving the paper under my seat.

Before his return, I completed the sloka, wrote underneath it the word ‘Jagadisa’ and showed it to him as soon as he returned.

He asked me why I had put his name to it.

I said that it was because Jagadisa had begun it.

He said that if that were so, he should have the paper for himself, and took it away from me and carefully kept it with him.

He was very young at that time."


"Some time afterwards, I wrote down that same sloka.

I was sitting on a big stone slab near the Ashram and all gathered round me and wanted me to tell them the meaning of the sloka.

I acquiesced and explained it to them for some two or three hours.

Taking advantage of this, Jagadish recently wrote a long commentary on it in the same style as had been done on a sloka of Sankara’s.

The manuscript has apparently been lost somewhere.

When Nayana wrote the Ramana Gita, he took this sloka as the opening sloka for the second chapter.

That is the whole story.

I have not written anything unless for a good reason."

Sri Ramana Maharshi