Dhanraj Giri (1811–1901) was the

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The ...

of Kailash Ashram, an ashram, which he established in 1880 at Muni Ki Reti, Rishikesh. It was one of the first large ashrams to be established in Rishikesh, prior to which it was mostly as a place for individual seekers, or pilgrims to stop over on way to Char Dham temples pilgrimage. He was a famous monk in Northern India and was a scholar in

Vedanta ''Vedanta'' (; sa, वेदान्त, ), also ''Uttara Mīmāṃsā'', is one of the six (''āstika'') schools of Hindu philosophy. Literally meaning "end of the Vedas", Vedanta reflects ideas that emerged from, or were aligned with, t ...

philosophy. He was well acquainted with spiritual luminaries of nineteenth century India like Swami Vivekananda.

Biography and legacy

Dhanraj Giri as part of his wanderings had come to Rishikesh from

Varanasi Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic t ...

and had put up in Surat Giri Bangla ashram in

Kankhal Kankhal is a small colony in Haridwar in the Haridwar district of Uttarakhand state in India. Mentioned in the Vayu Purana and the Mahabharata as ''Kanakhala'',Vedanta ''Vedanta'' (; sa, वेदान्त, ), also ''Uttara Mīmāṃsā'', is one of the six (''āstika'') schools of Hindu philosophy. Literally meaning "end of the Vedas", Vedanta reflects ideas that emerged from, or were aligned with, t ...

studies to which many students joined. In 1880, the king of

Tehri New Tehri is a city and a municipal board in Tehri Garhwal District in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of Tehri Garhwal District. This urban municipality area has 11 wards, from Vidhi Vihar to Vishwakarma P ...

region granted him a piece of land for setting up an ashram and a university for studying ancient Indian scriptures, especially Vedanta. This monastery came to be known as Kailash Ashram. Swami Vivekananda, as part of his travels in

North India North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central ...

, went to Rishikesh and also went to Kailash Ashrama. Giri was a prominent Advaita Vedantist of the period, and

Swami Abhedananda Swami Abhedananda (2 October 1866 – 8 September 1939), born Kaliprasad Chandra, was a direct disciple of the 19th century mystic Ramakrishna Paramahansa and the founder of Ramakrishna Vedanta Math. Swami Vivekananda sent him to the West to h ...

, another prominent monastic disciple of Ramakrishna studied Vedanta in Kailsha Ashrama under Dhanraj Giri as a resident student for many months. In the early part of twentieth century, when the two monastic disciples of Vivekananda,

Kalyanananda Kalyanananda (1874–1937) was a direct monastic disciple of Vivekananda, who had set up the Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama at Kankhal, near Haridwar. As a monk of the Ramakrishna Order, he took up service to the humanity as the most importa ...

and

Nischayananda Nischayananda (11 May 1865 – 22 October 1934) was an Indian monk who worked to help the poor and needy. He was a direct monastic disciple of Vivekananda. He, together with Kalyanananda was responsible for setting up and running the Ramakri ...

, had established the

Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Kankhal Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Kankhal (RKMS) is in its present form is a 210-bed multi-specialty charitable hospital in Kankhal, Haridwar in Uttarakhand. It is a branch of Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Ramakrishna Mission, and was establis ...

, they faced discrimination in the hands of local orthodox monks for their service to the sick and poor, as such activities were considered of low grade by orthodox monks. Dhanraj Giri, who wielded considerable influence among the monks and who regularly used to feed the monks from his Ashrama, provided full support to the service activities conducted by the two disciples of Swami Vivekananda and gave them special respect and importance in front of all other monks, which gradually ensured the acceptance of their work in the wider community. Today, the ashram he established continues to be a noted centre for

exegesis Exegesis ( ; from the Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Biblical works. In modern usage, exegesis can involve critical interpretation ...

of Hindu

shastra ''Shastra'' (, IAST: , ) is a Sanskrit word that means "precept, rules, manual, compendium, book or treatise" in a general sense.Monier Williams, Monier Williams' Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Article on 'zAstra'' The wo ...

s, and Vedantic study and scholarship.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Giri, Dhanraj 1811 births 1901 deaths Scholars from Varanasi Rishis Vedanta Indian Hindu monks 19th-century Indian philosophers 19th-century Hindu philosophers and theologians History of Uttarakhand People from Rishikesh