Viswamitra uses these words to wake them up, asking the princes to get ready to face the Sometime last year, Parthasarathy Venkatesh was having coffee with a close friend in a restaurant in Jayanagar. Rama and Lakshmana are with their guru, the sage Viswamitra, and are asleep in his ashram. According to the temple website, “This ritual is performed at Sayana Mandapam inside sanctum sanctorum to wake up the Lord from His celestial sleep, amidst the rhythmic chanting of vedic hymns.” The first of the hymns begins with the words “Kausalya Supraja Rama…” The famous opening verse of the Suprabhatam comes from Valmiki’s Ramayana, chapter 23 of the first section, the Balakaanda. The Suprabhata seva is the first seva of the day at the temple. And in the early hours of the next day, the idol is brought back to the Garba Griha, to listen to the prayers of the devotees who come to Tirumala for a glimpse of the deity. Suprabhatam Every night, the Bhoga Srinivasa Murthy – the silver replica of the main deity at the temple – is laid to bed. All over South India, and in many parts of the north, the recital of the Suprabhatam marks the dawn of a new day, and nowhere more so than at the temple of Lord Venkateswara at Tirumala. And if you listen hard enough, you can hear the sound of MS Subbulakshmi’s Suprabhatam. After all, how many hymns are sung to wake a sleeping God? If you take a walk through the streets of some of Bengaluru’s residential areas, a little before dawn, when birdsong is just beginning, you will see the occasional house with the lights on in the kitchen.

Composed around 1430 AD, the Suprabhatam has retained its hold on the minds of devotees all over India, not least because of MS Subbulakshmi ’s iconic rendition.

Sri venkateswara suprabhatam audio