Overview
Sriram Rama Rameti — also written Rama Rameti Rameti — is a two-line Sanskrit verse built around a single claim: that repeating the name “Rama” carries the same weight as reciting the thousand names of Vishnu in full. It doesn’t recount Rama’s deeds or ask him for anything. It makes an argument about the name itself, addressed directly to a listener who is told why this one name is enough.
Origin and source
The verse is best known today as the closing verse of the Shri Rama Raksha Stotra, a Sanskrit hymn recited for protection. Both the verse and the wider stotra are also commonly framed as words spoken by Shiva to Parvati, in the course of explaining why saying “Rama” is equivalent to reciting the Vishnu Sahasranama in full. That framing is repeated consistently across sources that discuss the verse — though, as with many verses that circulate primarily through recitation and devotional memory rather than a single fixed manuscript, its precise place in a particular Puranic text is harder to pin down than its place in the Rama Raksha Stotra, where its wording and position are settled.
Word-by-word meaning
Tap a word to see what it means and where it sits in the verse.
Shri Rama — an honorific form of the name (śrī, "auspicious, glorious," + Rāma)
| Sanskrit | IAST | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| श्रीराम | śrīrāma | Shri Rama — an honorific form of the name (śrī, "auspicious, glorious," + Rāma) |
| राम | rāma | Rama, said again |
| रामेति | rāmeti | "Rama" — rāma + iti, a quotative particle marking the word as directly spoken, much like a closing quotation mark |
| रमे | rame | I delight, I take pleasure (from the root ram, "to delight in, rejoice") |
| रामे | rāme | in Rama (locative of Rāma) |
| मनोरमे | manorame | O one who is captivating to the mind (manas, "mind" + ramā, "delighting"; a vocative address to the listener) |
| सहस्रनाम | sahasranāma | the thousand names (sahasra, "thousand" + nāma, "name" — i.e. the Vishnu Sahasranama) |
| तत्तुल्यं | tattulyaṃ | equal to that (tat, "that" + tulya, "equal, comparable") |
| रामनाम | rāmanāma | the name Rama |
| वरानने | varānane | O one of excellent face (vara, "excellent" + ānana, "face"; a second vocative address) |
Meaning of the whole
Say the first line aloud and the argument becomes audible: śrīrāma, rāma, rāmeti — “Shri Rama,” “Rama,” and then rāma marked as a spoken word by the quotative iti — puts the name Rama before the listener three times before the sentence is even finished. Rame rāme manorame follows at once: “I delight in Rama, O Manorame” — manorame being a direct address to whoever is listening, “one who is captivating to the mind.”
The second line states the claim outright: sahasranāma tattulyaṃ rāmanāma varānane — “the name Rama is equal to that, the thousand names, O Varanane [one of excellent face].” Manorame and Varanane, the two vocatives across the two lines, address the same listener — traditionally read as Parvati, hearing this from Shiva. The verse doesn’t describe an effect that builds with repetition; it states the equivalence in the same breath as the naming itself.
How it is recited
Because it closes the Rama Raksha Stotra, this verse is heard by anyone who recites that stotra in full, commonly done once daily. It is also chanted on its own, independent of the stotra, repeated as japa in the same way as any other short verse naming Rama — its central claim, that the name itself equals the sahasranama, is part of why it lends itself to being counted on a mala rather than read once and set aside. It has no single fixed hour or ritual step attached to it the way some devotional verses do; it moves between formal recitation, kirtan, and private repetition depending on where it’s encountered.
