He was very deeply devoted to His Guru and served Him with dedication, His Guru loved

Him dearly and even regarded Him as God incarnate. This has been brought out in the
chapter, “Unique Bond.” The Mahāsamādhi of His Guru and His coronation as a pontiff
are described in the next chapter.

He was multifaceted. The chapters, “Technical Acumen” and “All-round Administrator”

throw light on some of His facets. His role as a Guru is highlighted in the chapter titled,
“He Graced All.” His interactions with the young and with animals are covered in the
chapters, “At Home with the Young” and “Love for Animals” respectively. He was deeply
patriotic and the chapter, “Nation First” deals with this. The next chapter, “Admired
Personage” has for its content His interactions with different spiritual and religious
leaders. His giving saṁnyāsa to and choosing as His successor a disciple, the present
pontiff, Jagadguru Śrī Bhāratī-tīrtha Mahāsvāmin, is described in the chapter, “Chosen
Successor.”

His teachings are given thereafter under the heads, “Enriching Stories”, “Cogent
Elucidations” and “From His Pen.” The content of the next chapter is patent from its title,
“His Scientific Insight.” The chapter that follows, “Beyond Embodiment” describes His
Mahāsamādhi and continued presence.

Following His becoming a pontiff, He toured extensively, spreading dharma, expounding

the Truth and uplifting thousands upon thousands. During His pontificate of 35 years, He
toured for over 17 years, the total number of tours, long and short, being 35. The details
of His tours have been presented in tabular form; this big chapter is titled, “Journal of
Journeys.”

For easy readability, only the translations or the imports of the Sanskrit quotations have
been provided in all the chapters as has been done in this preface. The interested reader
may refer to the Appendix for the Devanagari text of those quotations tabulated chapter-
wise, along with their references.

It is only due to His grace that it has been possible to ready this book, which has over
1000 pages and around 1000 photographs, in around two months itself so as to meet
the deadline of the book’s release on 18th October, 2017, which marks the completion of
His birth centenary.

But for Sri G. Ramasubramanian, this book could not have seen the light of day. All I
did was to pen some material; the rest was essentially done by him. Working night and
day, unmindful of his poor health, he collected and collated much of the information that

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has been incorporated in several chapters, gathered and processed the photographs,
cross-checked and tabulated the data pertaining to His Holiness’s tours, typeset the
book and coordinated with the press. He was ably assisted by a dedicated team, which
included Sri P. Parimala Rangan, Sri Sridhar Sathi, Smt. Sujatha Sridhar, Ms. S. Sharada,
Sri K. Parthasarathy and Sri V. Rajesh Kumar.

Dr. H. N. Shankar and Dr. B. R. Vidyashankar gave valuable suggestions and not only
checked but also contributed significantly to the contents of this book.
Sri V. Subrahmanian, Smt. Sumita Vidyashankar and Sri K. Suresh Chandar proofread the
material.

The primary sponsors of this publication are Sri Venkataramanan Krishnan, Sri Suresh
Krishnamoorthy and Sri A. Ramaswamy.

Sri N. Subramanian of Sudarsan Graphics, Chennai, printed this book with personal
interest and in a short time.

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 Table of Contents

Dedication
Śrīmukha of Jagadguru Śrī Bhāratī Tīrtha Mahāsvāmin
English Translation of the Śrīmukha
Author’s preface

1. The Advent 16
2. Meeting His Master 30
3. Young Ascetic 48
4. Haṭha-yoga Mastered 72
5. Everything unto God 90
6. Contemplating the Self 96
7. Meditation on God – Start to Finish 104
8. Headway in Kuṇḍalinī-yoga 120
9. An Extraordinary Blessing 140
10. Blossoming of Enlightenment 148
11. Ever in the Supreme 168
12. A Unique Bond 178
13. Becoming the Pontiff 224
14. Technical Acumen 234
15. All-round Administrator 266
16. He Graced All 306

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 Table of Contents

17. At Home With the Young 384

18. Love for Animals 392
19. Nation First 402
20. Admired Personage 428
21. Chosen Successor 450
22. Enriching Stories 468
23. Cogent Elucidations 584
24. From His Pen 634
25. His Scientific Insight 660
26. Beyond Embodiment 674
27. Journal of Journeys 692
Appendix – Sanskrit Quotations and Their References 990

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 Key to Transliteration

Note on use of Diacritical Marks in this Book

Sanskrit words have been spelt in English with diacritical marks to enable them to be
correctly pronounced. Examples: prāṇāyāma, pūjā.
Names of divinities and of monks have been written with diacritical marks. Examples:
Śāradāmbā; Candramaulīśvara, Śrī Nṛsiṁha Bhāratī.
Names of buildings and institutions have generally been written without diacritical marks
even when the names are clearly of Sanskrit origin. Examples: Shankara Krupa (not
Śaṅkara-kṛpā), Sandhya-mandapa (not Sandhyā-maṅḍapa); Shankar Math (not Śaṅkara-
maṭha); Sharada Peetham (not Śāradā-pīṭha).

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