Sri Shri (; , ) is a Sanskrit term denoting resplendence, wealth and prosperity, primarily used as an honorific. The word is widely used in South and Southeast Asian languages such as Assamese, Meitei ( Manipuri), Marathi, Malay (including In ...

Anirvan (8 July 1896 – 31 May 1978), born Narendra Chandra Dhar, was an Indian

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

monk A monk (; from , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...

, writer and philosopher.''Buddhiyoga of the Gita and other Essays''. by Anirvan. Samata Books, 1984 (paperback 1991).
at Bagchee.com, accessed 1 June 2008
and Widely known as a scholar,''To Live Within: A Woman's Spiritual Pilgrimage in a Himalayan Hermitage''. By Lizelle Reymond. (Translated from the French original ''La Vie dans la vie'' by Nancy Pearson and Stanley Spiegelberg.) Morning Light Press, 2007.
Gurdjieff-internet.com, accessed 1 June 2008
/ref> his principal works were a Bengali translation of

Sri Aurobindo Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose; 15 August 1872 – 5 December 1950) was an Indian Modern yoga gurus, yogi, maharishi, and Indian nationalist. He also edited the newspaper Bande Mataram (publication), ''Bande Mataram''. Aurobindo st ...

's ''The Life Divine'' and the three-volume treatise ''Veda Mimamsa''.

Early life and sannyas

Sri Anirvan was born on 8 July 1896 in the town of

Mymensingh Mymensingh () is a metropolis, metropolitan city and capital of Mymensingh Division, Bangladesh. Located on the bank of the Old Brahmaputra River, Brahmaputra River, about north of the national capital Dhaka, it is a major financial center ...

, then a part of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

and now in

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

. His birth name was Narendrachandra Dhar. He was the son of Rajchandra Dhar, a doctor, and Sushila Devi.''Antaryoga'' (). Kolkata: Sri Goutam Dharmapal, Haimavati Prakashani, 1997 (Bengali year 1404), 3rd edition. He was a spiritually and intellectually inclined child, who by age 11 had memorised the ''Astadhyayi'' of

Pāṇini (; , ) was a Sanskrit grammarian, logician, philologist, and revered scholar in ancient India during the mid-1st millennium BCE, dated variously by most scholars between the 6th–5th and 4th century BCE. The historical facts of his life ar ...

and the

Bhagavad Gita The Bhagavad Gita (; ), often referred to as the Gita (), is a Hindu texts, Hindu scripture, dated to the second or first century BCE, which forms part of the Hindu epic, epic poem Mahabharata. The Gita is a synthesis of various strands of Ind ...

. He was named Baroda Brahmachari after going through the sacred thread ceremony. He also won a state scholarship as a teen and completed university IA and BA degrees at the

University of Dhaka The University of Dhaka (), also known as Dhaka University (DU), is a public university, public research university located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Established in 1921, it is the oldest active university in the country. The University of Dhaka w ...

and an MA from the

Sanskrit College Sanskrit College and University (erstwhile Sanskrit College) is a state university located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It focuses on liberal arts, offering both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Ancient Indian and world history, Be ...

of the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta, informally known as Calcutta University (), is a Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Kolkata, Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate c ...

. At 16, he joined the Assam Bangiya Saraswata Math (the ''

ashram An ashram (, ) is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery in Indian religions, not including Buddhism. Etymology The Sanskrit noun is a thematic nominal derivative from the root 'toil' (< Jorhat Jorhat ( /) is a major city in Upper Assam division, Upper Assam and among the fastest growing urban centres in the state of Assam in India. Etymology Jorhat ("jor" means twin and "hat" means market) means two hats or mandis - "Masorhaat" and ...

in Assam. He was a disciple of the ashram's founder, Paramahansa Srimat Swami Nigamananda Saraswati Dev, who initiated him into sannyas. Anirvan's new monastic name was Nirvanananda Saraswati. He taught at the ashram school and edited its monthly magazine ''Aryyadarpan''.

Scholar and writer

Some time after 1930, Nirvanananda changed his name to Anirvan and ceased to wear the ochre

swami Swami (; ; sometimes abbreviated sw.) in Hinduism is an honorific title given to an Asceticism#Hinduism, ascetic who has chosen the Sannyasa, path of renunciation (''sanyāsa''), or has been initiated into a religious monastic order of Vaishnavas ...

's robes. He travelled widely in North India, eventually returning to Assam and establishing an ashram in Kamakhya near

Guwahati Guwahati () the largest city of the Indian state of Assam, and also the largest metropolis in northeastern India. Dispur, the capital of Assam, is in the circuit city region located within Guwahati and is the seat of the Government of Assam. Th ...

. However, he continued to travel. In the 1940s, he lived in Lohaghat and

Almora Almora ( Kumaoni: ') is a municipal corporation and a cantonment town in the state of Uttarakhand, India. It is the administrative headquarters of Almora district. Almora is located on a ridge at the southern edge of the Kumaon Hills of the ...

. Madame Lizelle Reymond documented some of this period in ''My Life with a Brahmin Family'' (1958) and ''To Live Within'' (1971). During this time, Sri Anirvan translated

's ''The Life Divine'' into Bengali (as ''Divya Jeevan Prasanga''); this book, his first, was published in two volumes between 1948 and 1951. In 1953, Sri Anirvan moved to

Shillong Shillong (, ) is a hill station and the capital of Meghalaya, a Indian state, state in northeastern India. It is the headquarters of the East Khasi Hills district. Shillong is the list of most populous cities in India, 330th most populous city ...

in Assam. His reputation as a

Vedic upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas ( or ; ), sometimes collectively called the Veda, are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed ...

scholar grew; and he wrote both in Bengali (chiefly) and in English (he was also fluent in French) on various aspects of

Hindu philosophy Hindu philosophy or Vedic philosophy is the set of philosophical systems that developed in tandem with the first Hinduism, Hindu religious traditions during the Iron Age in India, iron and Classical India, classical ages of India. In Indian ...

(particularly

Samkhya Samkhya or Sankhya (; ) is a dualistic orthodox school of Hindu philosophy. It views reality as composed of two independent principles, '' Puruṣa'' ('consciousness' or spirit) and '' Prakṛti'' (nature or matter, including the human mind a ...

, the

Upanishad The Upanishads (; , , ) are late Vedic and post-Vedic Sanskrit texts that "document the transition from the archaic ritualism of the Veda into new religious ideas and institutions" and the emergence of the central religious concepts of Hind ...

s, the

Gita The Bhagavad Gita (; ), often referred to as the Gita (), is a Hindu scripture, dated to the second or first century BCE, which forms part of the epic poem Mahabharata. The Gita is a synthesis of various strands of Indian religious thought, ...

and

Vedanta ''Vedanta'' (; , ), also known as ''Uttara Mīmāṃsā'', is one of the six orthodox (Āstika and nāstika, ''āstika'') traditions of Hindu philosophy and textual exegesis. The word ''Vedanta'' means 'conclusion of the Vedas', and encompa ...

) and the parallels between

Rigvedic The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from ऋच्, "praise" and वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the ...

Puranic Puranas (Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature
(1995 Editio ...

, Tantric and

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

thought. His

magnum opus A masterpiece, , or ; ; ) is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, skill, profundity, or workmanship. Historically, ...

, ''Veda Mimamsa'', was published in three volumes in 1961, 1965 and 1970. This work won him the Rabindra award. Though Sri Anirvan was a saint, he studied subjects such as

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

and gardening; yet he called himself a simple

baul The Baul () are a group of mystic minstrels of mixed elements of Sufism and Vaishnavism from different parts of Bangladesh and the neighboring Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam's Barak Valley and Meghalaya. Bauls constitute bot ...

. Sri Anirvan made his final move, to

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

, in 1965. He died on 31 May 1978, after a six-year illness.

Works

# Aditi (Bengali: অন্তর্যোগ). Kolkata: Sri Gautam Dharmapal, Haimavati Prakashani Trust. # Anirvan Aloya Patanjala Yoga-Prasanga; Edited & Translated by Sudipta Munsi; Calcutta: Prachi Publications. (Bengali). Published 2006. # Antaryoga (Bengali: অন্তর্যোগ). Kolkata: Haimavati Prakashani Trust, 1997 (Bengali year 1404), 3rd edition. # Aranyak (Bengali: অারণ্যক). Writings as Editor of Nagamananda Ashram magazine. Halishar: Assam Bangyiya Saraswat Math. # Bichitra (Bengali: বিচিত্রা). Kolkata: Smt Ramaa Choudhury, Haimavati-Anirban Trust, 1993. # Buddhi Yoga Of The Gita And Other essays.(Original in English.) Biblia Impex Pvt. Ltd. 1991, Madras, Samata Books. # Dakshinamurti (Bengali: দক্ষিণামূর্তি). 1969. Sreerampore, Hooghly: Sri Rabindranath Bandyopadhyay,. # Divya Jeevan (Translation Into Bengali Of "The Life Divine" by Sri Aurobindo. দিব্য জীবন প্রসঙ্গ).Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram (Originally published 1948–51). # Divya Jeevan Prasanga (Bengali: দিব্য জীবন প্রসঙ্গ). Kolkata: Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir, 2000 (fourth edition). (Originally published 1958). # Gayatri Mandala Volumes 1–6. (Bengali). Undated. # Gitanuvachan (Bengali: গীতানুবচন). Vol I – 1968, Vol II – 1969, Vol III – 1970. Sreerampore, Hooghly: Sri Rabindranath Bandyopadhyay. # Inner Yoga (English) Translated by Simanta Narayan Chatterjee from "Antar Yoga." New Delhi: Voice of India. # Kaveri (Collection Of Poems) (Bengali: কাবেরী).1976. Kolkata: Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir # Lecture On the Immortality Of the Body in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga (Bengali:).1970. Kolkata: Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir # Letters From A Baul, Life Within Life. (original in English). 1983. Kolkata: Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir. # Pather Katha (Bengali). Published 2008. # Pather Sathi (Bengali: পথের সাথী). Halishar: Srimat Swami Jnananada Saraswati, Assam Bangyiya Saraswat Math, 1980. (Three volumes). Kolkata: Haimavati Anirvan Trust. # Patralekha (Bengali: পত্রলেখা). Vol I – 1968, Vol II – 1969, Sreerampore, Hooghly: Ritambhara. Vol III – 1980, Kolkata: Haimavati Anirvan Trust. # Patram Pushpam. 1982. Kolkata: Haimavati Prakashani Trust. # Prashnottari (Bengali: প্রশ্নোত্তরী). 1973. Sreerampore, Hooghly: Sri Rabindranath Bandyopadhyay. Halishar: Srimat Swami Jnananada Saraswati, Assam Bangyiya Saraswat Math, 2001 (Bengali year 1408), 2nd edition. # Pravachan (Bengali: প্রবচন). Vol I – 1962, Vol II – 1963, Vol III – 1966, Vol I – 1961, Vol IV – 1973. Sreerampore, Hooghly: Sri Rabindranath Bandyopadhyay. Later – Halishar: Srimat Swami Jnananada Saraswati, Assam Bangyiya Saraswat Math, 2002 (Bengali year 1409). # Pururava (Bengali). Published 1989. # Sahitya Prasanga (Bengali: সাহিত্য প্রসঙ্গ). 1980. Kolkata: Haimavati Prakashani Trust # Shiksha (Bengali: শিক্ষা). Vol I – 1962, Vol II – 1974. Assam Bangyiya Saraswat Math. # Snehashish (Bengali: স্নেহাশীষ). Vol I – 1971, Vol II – 1971, Vol III – 1972. Sreerampore, Hooghly: Ritambhara. # Upanishad Prasanga – Commentary on Aitareya Upanishad (Bengali: উপনিষৎ প্রসঙ্গ : ঐতরেয় উপনিষদ্). 1969. Burdwan University. # Upanishad Prasanga – Commentary on Ishopanishad (Bengali: উপনিষৎ প্রসঙ্গ : ঈশোপনিষদ্). 1967. Burdwan University. # Upanishad Prasanga – Commentary on Katha Upanishad — (Bengali: উপনিষৎ প্রসঙ্গ : কেনোপনিষদ্). 2009. Kolkata: # Upanishad Prasanga – Commentary on Kaushitaki Upanishad — (Bengali: উপনিষৎ প্রসঙ্গ : কেনোপনিষদ্). 2009. Kolkata: # Upanishad Prasanga – Commentary on Kenopanishad — (Bengali: উপনিষৎ প্রসঙ্গ : কেনোপনিষদ্). 1969. Kolkata: Haimavati Prakashani Trust # Upanishad Prasanga – Commentary on Mandukya Upanishad — (Bengali: উপনিষৎ প্রসঙ্গ : কেনোপনিষদ্). 2009. Kolkata: # Upanishad Prasanga – Commentary on Taittireya Upanishad — (Bengali: উপনিষৎ প্রসঙ্গ : কেনোপনিষদ্). 2009. Kolkata: # Uttarayan (Bengali: উত্তরায়ন). Kolkata: Smt Ramaa Choudhury, Haimavati-Anirban Trust, 1995. # Vedamimamsa (Bengali: বেদ মীমাংসা). Vol I – 1961, Vol II – 1965, Vol III – 1970. Winner of Rabindra Puraskar award. Kolkata: Government Sanskrit College. # Vedanta Jijnasa (Bengali: বেদান্ত জিজ্ঞাসা). Sreerampore, Hooghly: Sri Rabindranath Bandyopadhyay, 1965 (Bengali year 1372). # Yogasamanvaya Prasanga (Bengali: যোগসমন্বয় প্রসঙ্গ). 1967. Kolkata: Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir.

Biographies

# Section on Sri Anirvan in "Adhyatmavada Samskritite Acarya Satyananda" by Prof. Gita Haldar in Bengali. Undated. # Kathaprasange Sri Anirvan by Ayacaka in Bengali. Undated. # Mahajana Samvada by Prof. Govindagopal Mukherjee in Bengali. Undated. # Rishi Anirvan, biography of Sri Anirvan by Prof. Gita Haldar in Bengali. Published 2008. 5. Smriticarane Mahayogi Anirvan by Dilip Kumar Roy in Bengali. Undated.

Books on Sri Anirvan and his philosophy

# Akasabrahma by Ayacaka in Bengali. Undated. # My Life In A Brahmin Family by Lizelle Reymond. Translated from the French by Lucy Norton. Rider and Co. London. 1958. # To Live Within by Sri Anirvan and Lizelle Reymond, introduction by Jacob Needleman. Morninglight Press. 2007.

References

External links

*
Assam Bangiya Saraswat Matha
* ''J.L. Mehta on Heidegger, Hermeneutics, and Indian Tradition''. By Jarava Lal Mehta, William J. Jackson (editor). Brill Academic Publishers, 1992.
Google books version, accessed 1 June 2008
* Sri Anirvan Rachanavali ( Complete Works ) : http://www.haimavati-anirvan.org. Online e-library (Bengali) including most important works : Veda Mimamsa, Rig-Veda Samhita, Upanishad Prasanga * Sri Anirvan Rachanavali ( Internet Archive Community texts ) : https://archive.org/details/@shri_anirvan_rachanavali {{DEFAULTSORT:Anirvan, Sri 1896 births 1978 deaths 20th-century Indian philosophers 20th-century Bengalis 20th-century Hindu philosophers and theologians Indian male essayists Indian Hindu yogis Recipients of the Rabindra Puraskar University of Dhaka alumni The Sanskrit College and University alumni University of Calcutta alumni People from Mymensingh District Bengali Hindus 20th-century Hindu religious leaders 20th-century Indian essayists Scholars from Kolkata