Pingali Surya Sundaram was born in Chennai on Oct 17, 1930. At the time of his birth, his father, Sri Pingali Lakshmi Kantham, was doing Sundara Kanda Parayana. The boy was therefore named Surya Sundaram. True to his name, he was a lifelong devotee of Sri Anjaneya and performed Parayana of Sundara Kanda for the greater part of his adult life.  Further, like his father he was deeply devoted to Lord Venkateswara. 

Sri Sundaram was educated in Guntur and Visakhapatnam, and served in the Central Government, mostly in Tamil Nadu; he was in Southern Railways for a major part. As an officer of the Indian Audit and Accounts Service, he served in Kolkata and Hyderabad, and
eventually retired as the Deputy Accountant General in Hyderabad in 1988. As an administrator, he was punctilious and maintained uncompromising integrity. It was during his service in Chennai that he became interested in the teachings of Sri Jiddu Krishnamurti and
attended numerous lectures at the Theosophical Society of India, Adayar. His interface with Sri Krishnamurti had a dramatic ending. He was transferred to Kolkata in 1984, and attended one last lecture. At its conclusion, as he stood amidst a group of people, with his hands folded, Sri Krishnamurti abruptly walked towards him and holding his shoulders, looked
deeply into his eyes for a full minute. They did not meet again. 

In Kolkata, a neighbour gave him a picture of the South Indian saint, Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Sri Sundaram got it framed, and thus started his association with Bhagavan. Post his retirement, he settled down in Hyderabad and wrote several works related to spirituality on Satya Sai Baba, Adi Sankaracharya, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Kanchi Paramacharya, Sri Aurobindo, Yogi Ram Surat Kumar, and a biography of his father, Pingali Lakshmi Kantham.

Interestingly, at the time of his retirement, a colleague of his presented him with two works: The Bible and Periya Puranam, the very works that Bhagavan Ramana had read before he left for Arunachala. It was also during this time that he sought out the Ramana Kendram in Hyderabad to further his knowledge of Bhagavan’s teachings and made the acquaintance of Prof. K. Subrahmanian. Rapidly, this association led to the launch of his astounding writing phase, marked by the translation of several books on Bhagavan. It commenced with the 1994 publication of Sri Bhagavan Visishtatha, a translation of Prof. Subrahmanian’s book, Uniquenesss of Sri Bhagavan.

He visited the Ashram for the first time in 1993 on a trip which included Pondicherry and Tirupati. He was deeply drawn to Bhagavan and the Ashram during this trip. He made several trips to the Ashram subsequently and during one of those early visits, he categorised the Telugu works in the Ashram archives. From then on, his life was wholly dedicated to Bhagavan, as he translated one book after another into Telugu, either about Bhagavan, or ones recommended by Him for reading by His devotees. Numerous health problems, including a serious heart ailment, did not deter him.

In 1996, he translated David Godman’s Be as you are as Nee Sahaja Sthithiloo Undu. This translation has drawn wide praise from his Telugu audience, especially for the chapter on The Guru. In 1998, he translated and summarised the Ribhu Geeta (Ribhu Geetha Saram) using fuller English and Sanskrit versions for clarity. The entire process of selecting 700 verses out of 2000, and summarising them in cogent Telugu prose took a total of just three weeks! As Sri Sundaram himself remarked on more than one occasion, “I wrote like one possessed, during those three weeks”.

During 1999, he wrote a Telugu translation of Kavyakanta Ganapati Muni’s Chatvarimsat. This book was very popular and nearly 20,000 copies were distributed, free of cost. In 2002, he was awarded the Central Sahitya Akademi award for his Telugu translation Atma Sakshatkaram, a work on the life and teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, the English original being Self-Realisation by B.V. Narasimha Swami. During 2002, he translated Krishna Bhikshu’s Telugu biography of Bhagavan, Sri Ramana Leela, into English.  He wrote Ramaneeyam (2012), a Telugu biography incorporating facts that are not available in any other Telugu book on Bhagavan. Among his several works is also Sri Ramana Maharshi to Mukhamukhi (2007), a translation of Prof. Laxminarayan’s Face to Face with Bhagavan. His last, and favourite, work was Mahayoga Saaram (2015), a Telugu summary of the English classic, Mahayoga, by Lakshman Sharma (WHO?). Most of these works have been published by Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannmalai, and Sri Ramana Kendram, Hyderabad. Telugu readership is ever-growing, as attested by the fact that there is continuing demand for his books, some of which are out of print. Apart from his books, he wrote numerous articles in Telugu and English that were published in different forums. He also gave many talks on the radio and television. Even during 2018 he wrote a series of articles on spiritual masters for the Telugu daily Andhra Jyothi. He was fully active to the end.

Sri Sundaram was a naturally-gifted musician. Despite being totally untrained in music, he composed music for several songs and sang melodiously. Many devotees of Ramana Kendram would request him to sing at the satsangs. Additionally, he was a popular public speaker and spoke mostly on Bhagavan.

Sri Sundaram maintained an unfailing daily routine of meditation, prayer, exercise, and writing, to the extent that his health permitted. He had a constant stream of visitors from all walks of life. Spiritual aspirants and literary figures were among these visitors, all of whom spent considerable time discussing various issues. Significantly, a number of modern spiritual leaders also chose to visit him: Sadguru Sivananda Murthy, Tridandi Chinna Jeer Swami, Jinnuru Nannagaru, and others. While people generally desire to have darshan of spiritual leaders, they came to him instead.

In January 2019, Sri Sundaram organized an event in Ravindra Bharati, Hyderabad, to mark the 125th birth anniversary of his father. The well-attended event was conducted under the aegis of the Telangana government’s language and culture division. Many literary personalities spoke on this occasion. Sri Sundaram’s health deteriorated rapidly after this event. He merged in Arunachala on 25 May 2019 at his residence in Hyderabad.