Svāmi Trigunātitānanda
By Swami Harshananda
Svāmi Trigunātitānanda lived in A. D. 1865-1914. The depression brought about by the loss of a gold watch led the young Sāradāprasanna to Dakṣiṇeśvar, seeking peace. Master Mahāśaya, the celebrated author of "The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna" who was his teacher, led him to his future guru. The first visit itself forged strong links between them. Fearing that his religious inclination and frequent visits to the Saint of Dakṣiṇeśvar might ultimately induce him to become a monk, his relatives tried hard to change his mind, taking recourse to, in the process, religious rites and charms. But nothing worked. Śāradāprasanna became ‘Svāmi Triguṇātītānanda.’
The Svāmi had a strong constitution and was a dare-devil. During his itinerant days he had often been on the brink of disaster but was miraculously saved. It is said that he once underwent surgery for fistula without anesthetics. He never cared for his personal comforts but was ever eager to serve others. The famous relief work he organized at Dinajpur, now in Bangladesh, bears testimony to this.
At the behest of Svāmi Vivekānanda, Svāmi Triguṇātītānanda started the Udbodhan, the Bengali Monthly of the Rāmakṛṣṇa Order, and assiduously built it up. When Svāmi Turīyānanda returned to India from San Francisco, it was Triguṇātītānanda who was entrusted with the responsibility of organizing the Vedānta work there. He built the first temple in the West. The great life came to an abrupt end as a result of a mad man’s act of throwing a bomb. He breathed his last on the 10th January 1914.
References[edit]
- The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore