Rambhadracharya

Jagadguru Ramanandacharya Swami Rambhadracharya (born Pandit Giridhar on 14 January 1950) is an Indian Hindu spiritual leader, educator, Sanskrit scholar, polyglot, poet, author, textual commentator, philosopher, composer, singer, playwright and Katha artist based in Chitrakoot, India.

He was born on Makara Sankranti day, 14 January 1950.

He was named Giridhar by his great aunt, a paternal cousin of his paternal grandfather, Pandit Suryabali Mishra.

The great aunt was a devotee of Mirabai, a female saint of the Bhakti era in medieval India, who used the name Giridhar to address the god Krishna in her compositions.

Shree Giridhar Ji lost his eyesight at the age of two months.

On 24 March 1950, his eyes were infected by trachoma.

There were no advanced facilities for treatment in the village, so he was taken to an elderly woman in a nearby village who was known to cure trachoma boils to provide relief.

The woman applied a paste of myrobalan to Giridhar's eyes to burst the lumps, but his eyes started bleeding, resulting in the loss of his eyesight.

His family took him to the King George Hospital in Lucknow, where his eyes were treated for 21 days, but his sight could not be restored.

Various Ayurvedic, Homeopathic, Allopathic, and other practitioners were approached in Sitapur, Lucknow, and Bombay, but to no avail.

Rambhadracharya has been blind ever since.

He cannot read or write, as he does not use Braille; he learns by listening and composes by dictating to scribes.

In June 1953, at a juggler's monkey dance show in the village, the children—including Giridhar—suddenly ran away when the monkey began to touch them.

Giridhar fell into a small dry well and was trapped for some time, until a teenage girl rescued him.

His grandfather told him that his life was saved because he had learned, that very morning itself, the following line of a verse in the Ramcharitmanas (1.192.4), from the episode of the manifestation of the god Rama:

यह चरित जे गावहिं हरिपद पावहिं ते न परहिं भवकूपा ॥

yaha Carita je gāvahı̐ haripada pāvahı̐ te na parahı̐ bhavakūpā ॥

"Those who sing this character (of Rama), they attain to the feet of Hari (Vishnu) and never fall into the well of birth and death."

Even after he fell into the well, Giridhar was confident that Rama will somehow rescue him from this "kupa" (well).

Thereafter, Giridhar's grandfather asked him to recite the verse always, and from then on, Giridhar has followed the practice of reciting it every time he takes water or food.

Giridhar's initial education came from his paternal grandfather, as his father worked in Bombay.

In the afternoons, his grandfather would narrate to him various episodes of the Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, and devotional works like Vishramsagar, Sukhsagar, Premsagar and Brajvilas.

At the age of three, Giridhar composed his first piece of poetry—in Awadhi (a dialect of Hindi)—and recited it to his grandfather.

In this verse, Krishna's foster mother Yashoda is fighting with a Gopi (milkmaid) for hurting Krishna.

At the age of five, Giridhar memorised the entire Bhagavad Gita, consisting of around 700 verses with chapter and verse numbers, in 15 days, with the help of his neighbour, Pandit Murlidhar Mishra.

On Janmashtami day in 1955, he recited the entire Bhagavad Gita.

He is one of four incumbent Jagadguru Ramanandacharya, and has held this title since 1988.

Rambhadracharya is the founder and head of Tulsi Peeth, a religious and social service institution in Chitrakoot named after Saint Tulsidas.

He is the founder and lifelong chancellor of the Jagadguru Rambhadracharya Handicapped University in Chitrakoot, which offers graduate and postgraduate courses exclusively to four types of disabled students.

Rambhadracharya has been blind since the age of two months, had no formal education until the age of seventeen years, and has never used Braille or any other aid to learn or compose.

Rambhadracharya can speak 22 languages and is a spontaneous poet and writer in Sanskrit, Hindi, Awadhi, Maithili, and several other languages.

He has authored more than 240 books and 50 papers, including four epic poems, Hindi commentaries on Tulsidas' Ramcharitmanas and Hanuman Chalisa, a Sanskrit commentary in verse on the Ashtadhyayi, and Sanskrit commentaries on the Prasthanatrayi scriptures.

He is acknowledged for his knowledge in diverse fields including Sanskrit grammar, Nyaya and Vedanta.

He is regarded as one of the greatest authorities on Tulsidas in India, and is the editor of a critical edition of the Ramcharitmanas.

He is a Katha artist for the Ramayana and the Bhagavata.

His Katha programmes are held regularly in different cities in India and other countries, and are telecast on television channels like Shubh TV, Sanskar TV and Sanatan TV.

He is also a leader of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP).

Jagadguru Rambhadracharya was born to Pandit Shri Rajdev Mishra and Shrimati Shachidevi Mishra in a Saryupareen Brahmin family of the Vasishtha Gotra (lineage of the sage Vasishtha) in Shandikhurd village in the Jaunpur district, Uttar Pradesh, India.

He released the first Braille version of the scripture, with the original Sanskrit text and a Hindi commentary, at New Delhi on 30 November 2007, 52 years after memorising the Gita.

When Giridhar was seven, he memorised the entire Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas, consisting of around 10,900 verses with chapter and verse numbers, in 60 days, assisted by his grandfather.