1.10.08 It would have been easier to follow the next two letters if I had the copies of my letters to Sri Anirvanji. But unfortunately I did not keep copies of my letters then, and so we have to manage as it is!
OM Haimavati,
15.4.62.
My dear Gautam,
Your letter of the 5th reached here on the 9yh. I am anxious about Sharad’s health, Sandhya has written in the mean time. As there has been no further communication from you. I hope he is all right by this time. Please write.
I don’t know when Sudha Bose or Nivedita comes, but Gopikanta of Jadavpur University is expected to come in May when the University closes. I shall require these things:
1. cushion of pins for flower arrangements Rs. 3/12
2. Hindi dictionary (sudha’s school)
1. Watch (presented by Mohontosh)
1 waste paper basket of bamboo rods. In the shape of a basket?
You must make purchases later on when it is definitely known who comes when.I am glad to hear Narayani Bose is writing and completing the works of Sri (Atindra) Bose. I wish her all success.
The very same idea haunts me too. Only I have added Shiva to my pantheon. It is something like this.
The void of the Buddha (one or zero)
Shiva and Shakti in Kailash (the eternal two) Krishna (sporting with the many)
In Krishna I find the fulfillment. I think not only of the adolescent Krishna, but also of the philosopher, the patriot and the man of action. He dreamt of an India which is yet to come. May be inspire us always, as hard as a rock and as soft as a flower.
My love to you all……
ever yours …
A.
The next letter is dated 22.4.62.
My dear G.
Your P.C. of the 19th gave me great relief. I hope S. is progressing quite satisfactorily and will be all right in a few days.
Please keep me informed of his condition.
Dasgupta will be leaving next week. The Path Mandir bids henceforth to be a pure mandir, no establishment and hence no paying guest concern anymore. Gopi has come here, he will stay as long as circumstances are favorable to him, and he can go on with his studies without interruption. He will cook for himself and pay a small sum as seat rent. Things are in the melting pot now!
By Shiva I meant what is technically called the Mahashiva, the Para-samvit (the highest knowledge. Chit = consciousness.
Trinity = Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva or Maheswara.) or Chit- principle of the Shaiva Darshana, not the Shiva of the Trinity.
This, I added to make my idea clear to you. The rest is quite O.K.
Anyhow, I feel you are never to be defeated, and victory to Her.
With love to all of you,
Ever yours…….
A.
The next two letters are postcards----
OM. Haimavati,
4.8.62.
My dear Gautam,
Your P.C. of the 2nd reached yesterday evening. Sandhya was speaking of you the other day. She might have written to you. I shall enquire.
You are the standard bearers of Bandhu. His immortal spirit is the kindly light that is leading you on. Spiritual achievement is always measured by the calmness and depth that you have attained to. The Glory is within. May it shine unquenched in you all.
My love to you and to every one of yours and mine.
Ever yours…
A.
OM. Haimavati,
Shillong.
19.8.62.
My dear Gautam,
Your card of the 14th. I had a general attack of lumbago during the rains because of exposure ut it was not acute. It passed away in three or four days and I am all right now.
But from the middle of June, I could not work for six weeks or so. Physically, I felt very weak and was quite unable to bear any strain. I have been working at a stretch from the last twelve hours. Every ten or twelve years, I have got to go to seclusion; forget everything about the world. It was perhaps that mood which overtook me. I am all right now and working normally but am not at all hurrying with my work. Let it grow up naturally. No use forcing the pace. (Anirvan was now working on the 2nd Volume of Veda Mimamsa.)
I am glad that Sudha has taken to her studies seriously. Let her make hay when the sun shines. We are O.K.
With love for you all,
Ever yours….
A.
Sri Anirvan had begun planning for his next pilgrimage to Western India, to his dear river Narmada and to Dwarka, the capital of the Yadu race of Sri Krishna during the Mahabharata period. The four places of Pilgrimage at the four corners of India, which all Hindus desire to visit at least once during their lifetime since at least two thousand years, are Jagannath Puri in the East, Rameswar in the south, Dwarka in the west and Kedar-Badri in the North.
Jagannath Puri was visited quite a few times by Sri Anirvan since his Brahmachari days with Swami Nigamananda Saraswati, his Guru. Anirvanji visited Rameswar and Kanyakumari in January 1961. Now he was planning to visit Dwarka in January 1963.
Though I belong to Gujarat, I too had not visited Dwarka all this time, and so I decided to accompany Anirvanji in his next pilgrimage. This matter comes up in the next letter.
OM. Haimavati,
Shillong.
23.9.62.
My dear Gautam,
I did not answer your letter last week because I was waiting for some information from Calcutta.
Benoy Mukerjee of 18, Basanta Bose Road; will be coming to the Path Mandir after the pujas to stay for a month. Of course, he will be making his own cooking arrangements or if it is convenient for both, he may mess with Rao,* who has become a “self-cooker” like myself. I am writing to him today to bring with him the books that are lying there as luggage…. All expenses fully paid by me. I hope you will make the necessary arrangements when he contacts you.
Perhaps Jyoti will be soon going to Bombay. Is she all right now? Yes, Sudha must not be disturbed in her studies. How are Bablu and Kiki doing? Bablu must have found his line and what is Kiki going to do? Is she going to be a “Jane of all trades?”
We are having beastly weather here. There is hardly a few hours of sunshine and it is raining continuously, though not heavily but quite nastily enough to damp body and mind.
Are you keeping quite fit? The days must be very busy for you. But the nights? Are they quiet and smooth? Are you training yourself for a yogic sleep? It is a mere suggestion it would help you a lot.
I have not written to Dilip Babu yet (Sri Dilip Kumar Roy at Poona – Hare Krishna Mandir). I shall take up your idea of first going to Bombay, then taking up Saurashtra and Madhya Bharat. Next month, I mean to do a bit of book and map reading to prepare myself for the tour.
Hope you all are all quite O.K.
My love for you.
Ever yours…
A.
*Sri Rao was a permanent paying guest of the Path Mandir. He was a lecturer at the Lady Kean College, where Usha Bhattacharya was a principal. When Sri Anirvanji came down to Calcutta in 1965, he even stayed for some time in the house where A. stayed.
In October 1962, China attacked India from both western and eastern fronts. On the eastern front they almost came down upto Tezpur in Assam capturing the whole of the present Arunachal state. In the western front they captured some portions of Ladakh and North East Kashmir; which they never left. Thanks to the active help coming from the U.S.A. - John Kennedy was then the president of U.S.A.- and the spiritual intervention of yogis like the Mother of Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, the Chinese unilaterally withdrew from the eastern front, and the war was over, keeping the border issue burning till today.
As this situation in Assam was becoming more and more unstable and anarchic, both because of the Chinese aggression and the political movements of United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and other fronts as in Nagaland etc. I began requesting Anirvanji to come down to Calcutta, which materialised at the end of 1964, two years later, after the marriage of Sandhya to Benoy Lahiri, an old friend and comrade in December 1963 and his own severe illness in 1964.
We will talk about that later.
But just now Anirvanji is preparing his next pilgrimage to Dwarka and other places in western India.
OM. Haimavati,
Shillong.
11.11.62.
My dear Gautam,
Your inland letter of the 6th. I am sending by tomorrow’s post an M.O. for Rs. 20/- (perhaps I had written, “You need not send the M.O.)
The present circumstances have upset my program. Perhaps I shall be a few days late in going down: then I shall have to cancel my stay at Patna or squeeze it. The dates fixed for pilgrimage and the Calcutta program will most probably remain unchanged. I hope to know everything definitely by the end of this month.
I quite agree with you about the present crisis. Have you seen the Mother’s message regarding the emergency? Calcutta Path Mandir sent me a copy. It is wonderful.
We acquired freedom without paying any price for it (we should say “not enough price”). It was the freedom of a few political and economic profiteers to hoodwink and exploit the mass. This blow will be an eye-opener. Now we have to fight the external enemy as one man and so have to sink all ideological differences. Then we have to turn our forces
against the internal enemies and pull down those who in these fifteen years brought down the country to the verge of ruin.
But first of all, we have to purify ourselves.
There is no Dharma in the land, Dharma has to be established by wiping away the misdoers as the Gita says.
With love for you all,
Ever yours ….
A.
The last letter in 1962 frm Haimavati Shillong.
OM.
25.11.62.
My dear G.
Your two letters came one after another and also your wire. The friends from Venezuela stayed in a hotel here for four days, and left today at noon. They were very nice and I saw them every day.
The present crises have upset all my plans. I don’t know when I shall be able to leave Shillong. I have left everything in the Hands who brought me here. I am not working now. I am simply sitting calm and doing my little part that I have to do in this crisis. It is difficult to see into the future. The worst might happen or the best. I do not care. Let Her will be done. It is a joy to submit to it. Real work is done not through overt acts or words, but through deeper and deeper silence.
On the practical side, transport difficulties are increasing from day to day. There are other things also to consider which are not in our hands.
I shall keep you informed every week regarding the situation here. If I come down of course Sandhya will accompany me and I will bring the papers worth saving with me.
Please don’t worry about me I am quite all right in other ways. Only strange vistas are opening before me and I cannot but place myself in Her hands in utter passivity.
My love to you all.
Ever yours…..
A
3.10.08 Anirvanji and Sandhya came down from Shillong to Calcutta by plane on 15th December 1962 and left for Allahabad on 17th December to see his ailing friend Dhirender Chandra Dasgupta. Sri Dasgupta who had accompanied Anirvanji on his South India pilgrimage also accompanied him on this tour of western India as well Anirvanji, Sandhya and Dasgupta together arrived at Bombay on 14th January 1963 where Sharad and I received them.
Meanwhile I had gone to Ahmedabad, and leaving Calcutta on 1st January 1963, I went to my native place, Ahmedabad, after a lapse of long fourteen years. I had last gone there in 1948, when our first business concern, the Dharmapal Brothers, was being wound up. While leaving Ahmedabad I told my younger sister Kokila (who was then six or seven years old and asked for a great many presents from me) that I would come the next time with a lot of money to buy her all she wanted. It was fourteen years before I returned to Ahmedabad, and I could not keep my promise to my young sister Kokila, as meanwhile she had died of anemia in 1954. When I went to Ahmedabad in January 1963, my old father did not forget to remind me of my failed promise. I could only answer that I did not go to Calcutta to make money.
Before I reached Ahmedabad. on 3rd January, another tragedy had occurred. My friend Nanubhai P. Shah, elder brother of Kanti P.Shah who was intimately close to Bandhu Dharmapal, who was to become a Dharmapal and was to accompany Bandhu first to Calcutta instead of me, passed away on 1st January. He was suffering from cancer, and Kanti told me that he was remembering me at the time of his passing away, as he knew that I was coming to Ahmedabad. It was Nanubhai who was like my protecting angel during the 1942 movement, and even later in 1948 when I had come toAhmedabad. to wind up the business. But all that is another story.
After meeting and visiting all the friends and relatives in Ahmedabad after a long time, I went to Bombay to receive Anirvanji and company. Sharad was already there after completing his business tour of South India.
Anirvanji Sandhya and Dasgupta arrived at Bombay on 14th January. We had arranged for their stay at Vile Parle East at the spacious residence of our old friend Dahyabhai Patel.
Anirvanji’s pilgrimages were hectic, covering may places in a short span of time, and this tour was most hectic.
On 14th evening, we visited some places in Bombay city. On 15th morning we visited the famous Elephant Caves, which is situated on an island in the sea near Bombay, where there is the famous stone statue of Trimurti, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. In the evening, we visited the famous Hanging Gardens and enjoyed walking on the sea beach.
Next day on sixteenth January, our friend Dahyabhai Patel lent us his car to visit first Nasik and Trayambak, then to Poona for two days. On our return journey we visited Matheran, a beautiful hill station, with stony mountain at one side and jungles covering the other side.
Nasik is a place of pilgrimage on the bank of the river Godavari, that emerges out of the mountain just opposite, collecting in a small lake, and then flows out. On the way to Nasik and Tryambak are the famous Pandava Caves where the Pandavas, Yudhisthir and his brothers, with Draupadi are supposed to have stayed for some time during their twelve-year stay in the forest.
At Poona we stayed at Ananda Niketan, an Ashram of Swami Amarjyoti, and a friend of mine. Sri Dilip Kumar Roy, whom we visited next day at his Hare Krishna Mandir, mildly rebuked Anirvanji for not giving him an opportunity to serve him.
Any way we sat at the evening prayers of his Radha Krishna tenple and heard his celestial BhajanKirtan.
We also visited the famous of Mother Bhawani, the deity of Shivaji, who is supposed to have given Her sword to Shivaji
to fight against the Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb and free the motherland. The temple is situated on the small hill near the famous fort of Poona.
We left Poona on 18th morning and on our way to Matheran visited the famous Karta- Bhaje Buddhist Caves, reaching Matheran in the evening. It was pleasant to walk in the jungles of Matheran in the moonlit night. Next day morning, we climbed up to the Panorama and Monkey Points, returning to Bombay the same evening. We took the train to Ahmrdabad and reached there on 20th January morning.
20th and 21st January were spent in Ahmedabad. visiting the Sabarmati Ashram of Mahatma Gandhi and other places.
On 21st evening Anirvanji met devotees of Sri Aurobindo and gave a talk at the local Mother’s Centre at the Ellisbridge, Pritamnagar area.
We hired a taxi and toured the whole of Saurashtra in four days. Generally I sat in the front seat with the driver and Anirvanji, Sandhya and Dasgupta occupied the back seats.
We started very early in the morning of 22nd January, and reached Palitana, near Bhavnagar at about 11 am. Palitana is considered especially holy by the Jains, as one of the 24th Trithankars of Jains, Neminath the 22nd, a cousin of Krishna, was cremated here. In fact Parasnath hills in Bihar is the holiest place for the Jains, as the 22nd Trithankars including the 23rd Trithankar Parsvanath, are cremated at different places on this hill. About the same time Gautama Buddha was cremated at Pavapuri near Nalanda in Bihar. Thus Palitana is the third holiest places for the Jains, which should be visited by all Jains at least once in their lives.
The same evening we left Palitana and reached Junagadh at the foot of the famous Girnar Hills via Rajkot late at night.
Next morning on the 23rd January, we climbed the Girnar Hill up to the fifth peak where there is the temple of Mother Amba, another form of Durga. Regular steps are built up to this temple. One has to go up to the seventh peak, which isdedicated to Gorakhnath the greatest of the Nath- Yogis. We did not go up to that peak as there was no regular path to it and will take much time. We came down by 11am; saw the famous Ashoka Pillar where the message of peace is carved out in Brahmi script, which only Anirvanji could read. We read the Gujarat, Hindi and English translations. We also visited the famous Damodar Temple where the famous Gujarati Poet and Bhakta (devotee of Sri Krishna) Narasimha used to sing Bhajans (devotional songs). Thanks to Mahatma Gandhi, his (Narasimha’s) name is now famous the world over because of the singing of his Bhajan, “Vaishnava Jana to tene Kahiye.” He is called a Vaishnava, a devotee of Vishnu orKrishna.
Though extremely tired because of the climbing, we left Junagadh after lunch and a little rest, and reached Somanath Patana, the famous Somnath Temple, on the seashore. The present temple is newly built after the independence of India in 1947 on the ruins of the old temple which was first destroyed in 1040 A.D. by Mohammad Ghazni, the first Muslim invader from Afghanistan.
Next, we visited the temple at Prabhas Patana, the place where Sri Krishna is believed to have left his body after the selfmassacre of his Yadu-clan.
The same night of 23rd, we reached Rajkot via Junagadha and passed the night at the Ambassador Hotel.
Next day in the morning of 24th we left Rajkot, reached Jamnagar at about 10 in the morning; where patients are being treated with Sun-Rays. We left Jamnagar in the afternoon and reached Dwarka in the evening. We could not go to Bet-Dwarka the island where the actual Dwarka is supposed to have been situated, as no more boats were available. After visiting the local famous temple of Dwarkadhisha, watching the evening prayers, we returned to our Railway Waiting Room and passed the night there.
Next morning, that is on 25th Jan. we paid our obeisance to Dwarkadhisha and the Gomati River nearby. We left Dwarka; were back in Ahmedabad late at night, passing the whole day in the taxi. We were dead tired, Anirvanji the most, as he took the attack of the sun rays on his body all the day; would not exchange his seat with me or Dasgupta.
As the whole program till our return to Calcutta was so tightly fixed, and railway bookings etc. were made in advance, there was no time to relax. The penalty was paid at last at Jabalpore, but to that we shall come later.
On 26th morning we left for Abu by train. It is again a hill station, the highest in the Aravalli hills of Rajasthan. Abu is situated at the border between Gujarat (north) and Rajasthan (south) and exchanged suzerainty between the rulers of Gujarat and Rajasthan Kings.
The famous Jain temples of Dilwara and the cave temple of Goddess Ambaji, the Jain temples of Achalgadh, the highestpeak, Vasishtha Ashram, the beautiful Nakhi Lake and the Sunset Point, we visited all these in one day. We had a wonderful experience at the Sunset Point. We were all sitting on the top of a small hill enjoying the sunset on the far stretching valley below, when there was a rumbling sound from the ground. It was the sound that generally precedes an earthquake. And the crowd, except a few of us, ran pell-mell down the hill, some falling down in the process.
Fortunately nothing happened; we slowly came down; took our taxi and came down the mount Abu to the plains, to catch the train back to Ahmedabad where we reached on 27th morning. We did not go out anywhere; the whole day and night of the 27th was passed in rest. Of course, Anirvanji had to meet many people who came to see him, in the morning and evening, as we were to leave Ahmedabad the next morning.
We left Ahmedabad in the morning of 28th January. On our way to Bhopal we broke the journey at Ujjain on the river Shipra, where the famous Kumba-Mela is held once every twelve years (a great gathering of saints and pilgrims from all over India at four places on a particular day every twelve years. The four places are Haridwar on Ganga, Prayag (Ahmadabad) at the Junction of Ganga and Yamuna, Nasik on the bank of Godavari and Ujjain on the bank of Shipra. The four places are supposed to have been made very holy because of the falling of nectar from the pitcher of nectar being carried away by Jayanta, son of Indra. Ujjain is the place where the legendary king Vikramaditya once ruled, in whose cabinet called “Navratna,” the nine jewels, the famous poet Kalidasa and the famous astronomer Varahanuhir held prominent positions. Ujjain is a place of pilgrimage for the MahaKaleswar temple situated there: the whole day of the 39th January was spent in visiting all the important places in Ujjain, and in the evening we again took the train to Bhopal, where we arrived on the morning of 30th Jan.
In Bhopal Anirvanji and Sandhya stayed with Smt. Susmita Chatterjee, a student disciple of Anirvanji who was a professor in the local Government Girls’ College. As she had not sufficient accommodation, Dasgupta and and I stayed at the local Sri Aurobindo Centre, where a meeting was arranged for Sri Anirvan in the evening of 30th January. In Bhopal, we stayed for two days and left for Jabalpur on 31st night.
After arriving at Jabalpur in the morning of 1st February, Anirvanji fell ill, and we had to cancel our program of visiting the famous Khajuraho Temples. He could not even come with us to see the famous marble rocks in the river Narmada shining brightly in the moonlit night.
For four days, Anirvanji had high fever. Pranab Dhar, Abani Banerjee, Dr.R.K. Ganguly, all friends and devotees of Anirvanji took great care and served him with care and devotion. On 4th February Anirvanji was a little better and we left for Calcutta on 5th February, arriving there in the afternoon of 6th February 1963.
Though weak due to the high fever in Jabalpur, Anirvanji took his classes on Upanishads at Keyatala Road every day in the morning and on Savitri at Sri Aurobindo Path Mandir thrice a week in the evenings, he would meet people as usual.
During this time he was so much engrossed with the thoughts and visions of “Savitri” and Sri Krishna- the Dwarkadhish that some days he would fall down and remained unconscious for a length of time, and often we did not know it had happened.
Sandhya, who was very intimate with him during this period, saw and knew this very closely and was much worried.
Anyway, thus passed the month of February and Anirvanji and Sandhya left for Shillong on 1st March’ 63.
Immediately after Anirvanji reached Shillong, he wrote a P.C. to me. Before I could acknowledge, he wrote another letter.
OM. Haimavati;
5.3.63.
My dear G.
You must have received my p.c. by this time. I promised to write to you on Sunday but could not finish any mail. I started work yesterday, not yet with full speed. I am quite well now, physically but the mind has become a blank. And, I do not regret it. I can only say, God exists, and God is Existence: my existence does not matter at all. There is an “I” which is not mine. That I is Self-Conscious and that Self-consciousness is a pure colorless void. There is peace, which is a promise of bliss, but absolutely without any hedonistic complexion. With this background the world appears as a shimmering beauty. The appearance becomes reality. I don’t look behind appearances. There might be skeletons underneath, but Idon’t care. There is only the void and this sheer appearance of beauty- the mayavin Varuna and His maya. You all have become beauteous appearances clothing the void and I love to think you of all.
I don’t know whether I am moving but it is so full of peace. May this peace descend into you all.
Give your news in detail about everyone. Is Kiki trying to keep her promise?
My love to you, Sudha, Sharad, Jyoti, Bablu and Kiki.
Sandhya will write to you soon. His brother is going to be married on the 11th. So she is extremely busy with her schoolwork and this ceremony.
Hope this finds you all O.K
Ever yours………
A.
Again on 12.3.63, Anirvanji wrote from Shillong.
OM.
My dear Gautam,
Your two letters with the consignment notes reached all right. I shall enquire to-morrow if the air parcel has arrived. It was stamped “subject to delay”. I do not know that the charges had gone. Up by 50%. So that nowadays, it is cheaper to bring things as passenger luggage and no botheration too. By the way, can you tell me, where the office of the “Air Assam” is in Shillong? It becomes difficult sometimes to hunt up these offices.
I am glad to learn that you are all O.K. Sandhya is all right too. She will be extremely busy this week with the homecoming of the new bride. I feel quite all right now. But I have reduced my working hours from 10 to 6. The nights I have kept quite free.
The Sanskrit College is going to pay me handsomely for those summer lectures on the Vedas. So you have no cause for grudge against them any more.
I am passing my days in a dream as it were. Everything appears so simple and lucent. Just like sunlight. Is it not the simplest thing in the world? It is radiantly white. It suffuses all. Nothing can stop its radiation. But if you put a prism before it, it refracts into vibgyor. How wonderful and beautiful too. If you go to analyze it, you write volumes about its laws and properties. But is there any need of analysis, after all? Why not bask in the sunlight just like a tree and suck light, joy and power from it? And give it forth in many hued blossoms of good thoughts, good words and deeds, which are all the glory of the sun.
I had a wonderful vision this morning. I was returning to Calcutta from Jabalpur. With my open eyes, I saw the majesty of Dwarkadhish and the loving sweetness of His Rukmini. It stirred me to the depths of my soul. Nowhere have I seen that glory expressed in the figuration of the Lord. Somehow only Nandalal Bose seems to have caught a glimpse of it. But the vision has given me a deep faith in the future of India and the world. The Krishna consciousness is pressing on us. Let us open ourselves to it in the spirit of utter dedication. O Lord, let thy will be done. That will knows no failure. You cannot separate yourselves from Him and say, “Failures are ours, while victory is Thine”- No, No, it is all victory. His victory.
My love to you and Sudha, Sharad and Jyoti, Bablu and Kiki- ever yours……….
A…
(these letters show how close we are coming to one another almost becoming one. Anirvanji is taking interest in the whole Dharmapal family- he is becoming like the father- figure with me especially he was like a friend and father both)
G.D.
On the Bangla New Year Day- that is also my birthday Anirvanji writes:
OM. Haimavati,
Shillong.
15.4.63.
My dear Gautam,
Your I.T. of the 7th. I send you all my New Year’s Greetings.
I am glad Sudha has passed her examinations. Sudha passed her Montessori Teachers’ training course and got a job at
“Abhinava Bharti,” a children’s school. It will be a great opening in her life. It is not the extensity of work but its intensity that matters. In dedicating herself to the bringing up little children, she will be fulfilling the role of the Mother for which she had been intended by Bandhuji.
I am also glad to hear that Kiki is trying to keep her promise. If I don’t mention Bablu by name in my letters, it is not that I have not an eye on him. But he being a man does not require much poking. But Kiki is a woman- will you understand the rest. I am not going to express otherwise she will rouse a hue and cry. But she is a very very good girl is she not? By the way, the other day I was reading in the Bartika perhaps, that the Mother had a very naughty cat called “Kiki” whom she loved very much and was wondering who that cat might be. I would have easily placed him (where you know) the difficulty being that he was a male cat.
I hope this will reach before Sharad starts on his tour. I wish him sacks full of good luck.
I have told Sandhya about the scheme. I might have suggested that “Sandhya should come down to Calcutta and stay with us and I will be able to find some work as a teacher for her.” How nice it would have been if I had kept you suggested. She will surely give some thought to it. She has got your letter.
I have written to Bina about the Gopalpur proposition and am writing today too. It is a good idea for you too to visit the place. My nature is to drift. I cannot move immediately. So not this year, as I am now deep in my work writing the second volume of Veda Mimamsa.
I hope everything is O.K. with you. How is Jyoti?
My love to you all.
Ever yours………
A.
7.10.08 The next letter of Sri Anirvan from Shillong is dated 12.5.63.
OM.
My dear Gautam,
Your letter of the second. I don’t think anybody will be coming to Shillong now. So it is best to send the books by roadways before the monsoon starts, when the roads might become impassable.
I am glad to hear, Bablu and Kiki are giving more attention to their studies. Give them my blessings. I want them to grow up strong as their father. They must not be a burden to anybody, even to their mother. Bablu will understand these things and hope Kiki too.
It is good news Jyoti is going to become a mother. My blessings for her too. I hope Sudha will soon get engaged somewhere. Tell her I often think of her and I wish her a bright future.
I understand your position. In these years you have been several times away from home and this has done you good, though you have to come back. Maybe once you will go away for good. But don’t force circumstances. Let God pull you out. You will be delivered of the world, just as a child is delivered of the mother’s womb. But it is neither the child’s nor the mother’s choice. This will be your last act of surrender; when you place yourself completely in the hands of the Mother, with no will of your own- neither the will to stick to the world, nor the will to renounce it. A complete calm overcoming even this great inner stirrings- will break the last barrier and the highest will be revealed- whether at home or aboard. She alone knows!
My best wishes and love for you. To Sharad his ones! Sandhya sends you all her love.
With love
ever yours……….
A.
Hiranyagarbha Vol. 2 No. 3–45 Final 12.09.09
MY LIFE WITH ANIRVAN
PART – II
From 1954 March to August 1955, I maintained contact with Sri Anirvan by correspondence.
Apart from being a saint, Anirvanji was a great scholar of the Vedas, and of Indian and Western philosophy. psychology and literature. He collected a large number of books for his library. Till now his younger brother Bimal Sankar Dhar was his main supplier of books. Whatever money he received from his friends he would invest it mostly in books. After he came to know us, he would write to us as well, especially when the books were to be purchased from Bombay (now called Mumbai). Most of the books he ordered were on Zoroastrianism, preserved and translated into Gujarati by the Parsi community of Gujarat. Professor Taraporewala, a Zoroastrian, was his teacher in Calcutta University where Anirvanji, as Nirvana Chaitanya Brahmachari, did his M.A. during 1916-1918 with the Vedas as his main subject. He was very much interested in Sanskrit literature, in Vyasa, Valmiki, in Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti and Banabhatta and
other Sanskrit poets. While filling up the forms he was going to write Sanskrit literature as his
main subject but something within him impelled him to write Vedas instead. Later he told me that it was his Guru Swami
Nigamananda who used his spiritual powers to make him choose the Vedas as his main subject of study in M.A.
To digress. The same thing happened again at the end of his studies. After finishing his two,year course, he did not want to go back immediately to the Guru’s Ashram in Jorhat, Assam. He wanted to go to Kanyakumari, to the temple of Goddess Parvati, a form of his Ishta Haimavati. The goddess Kanyakumari is depicted standing with a garland to receive Herconsort Lord Siva.
The temple of Kanyakumari is situated at the southernmost tip of India, surrounded by three seas, the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. This was the place from where Swami Vivekananda swam to the southernmost island and had his vision of Regenerated Mother India. When Anirvanji went to the Railway Office in Kolkata to purchase the ticket for Kanyakumari or Madras from where he would travel to Kanyakumari, instead of Madras he asked for a ticket to Jorhat. That too was a miracle enforced on him by his guru Swami
Nigamananda. Well, to return to the topic.
When Nirvana Chaitanya filled up his form for the Vedas M.A, course, another problem arose.
The Brahmin professors would not teach Vedas to a non-Brahmin boy. Chaitanya was a
Kayastha. He had to approach Sri Ashutosh Mukerjee, then Chief Justice and Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University, himself a Brahmin. Sri Ashutosh said, “All right, if they do not want to teach you the Vedas, I will get teachers from South India to teach you the Vedas.” In fact, he did invite two Vedic scholars from South India who had no objection to teaching the Vedas to a non- Brahmin boy. When they came to Kolkata, the
other Bengali professors too came humbly down from their high pedestal, and from then
onwards non-Brahmin students were admitted to the Vedic Department of the University.
Thus the ground for Anirvanji’s writings on Sri Anirvan the Vedas was prepared. In his M.A. classes
Anirvanji had read portions of Zend Avesta, the scripture of the Zoroastrian religion. The Zoroastrians or Parsis, as they are known in India, had developed their scriptures in Gujarat after they migrated to Gujarat from Persia (now called Iran) in the 8th century, when the Arabian Muslims conquered Persia and destroyed most of their fire temples and religious scriptures. Anirvanji could easily read printed Gujarati, Marathi, Assamese, Oriya and Hindi languages. Thus he knew almost all the languages of northern India, including Kashmiri. Unfortunately he did not learn the Southern languages, Tamil, Telugu or Kannada. Had he learnt them it would have been easier for linguists to link the ties
between the southern and northern languages, almost all of which had come from the Vedic Chandas Bhasha, Pali and Prakrit. Smt Gouri Dharmapal is trying to do this, though she too does not know much of Tamil, Telugu etc. She had almost united them through her study of Panini’s Ashtadhyayi (grammar of Chhandas and Bhasha) in her book “The Linguistic Atom and the Origin of Languages.”
Then came 6th August 1955. A bolt from the blue, like an atom bomb that fell on Hiroshima on 6th August 1945, fell on the
Dharmapals. Bandhu Dharmapal, the founder and leader of Dharma Sangha had an attack of
apoplexy, a cerebral haemorrhage. The attack came at 3.00 pm on 6 he passed away the same night at about 11.30
pm. A dark cloud of despair and depression descended on us. Under the circumstances, I
wrote to Sri Anirvan to come to mitigate our sorrow, and requested him to come and stay
with us for sometime in Kolkata if possible. Anirvanji immediately replied, conveying his grief at the passing away of Bandhu
Dharmapal and appreciating his ideas and ideals. He assured us that his help and support to our cause would be always there. He said that though he would not be directly connected with Dharma Sangha, he would do whatever
possible to help and take forward the cause of Dharma Sangha as the ideas and ideals of Bandhu were the same as his own. He also informed me that when he comes next to Kolkata in November he would stay with us.
The Divine Mother had already prepared the ground for the shifting of his Haimavati to
Kolkata, as Sri S.R. Roy, with whom he usually stayed in Kolkata, was transferred to
Delhi.
Thus Anirvanji came from Shillong to stay with us for the first time at 6H, Keyatala Rd,
Kolkata-700029, on 18th November 1955. He stayed with us till 15th December. He left for
Ranchi, a hill resort in Bihar, now the capital of the Jharkhand state; which was then part of
Bihar. Anivanji’s college friend Sri Biren Sen, Accountant General of Eastern India, was posted there in his early forties. Almost every
year after his leaving his Guru Nigamananda Saraswati’s Ashram in Jorhat, Anirvanji would
visit Biren Sen wherever he was posted, Ranchi or Delhi. Before 1945, he would stay for long periods in Sen’s house. He tutored Sen’s son and daughters for sometime, especially when Sri Sen was in Delhi. It was during one of his visits to Ranchi that
Anirvanji was discovered by a group of devotees of Sri Aurobindo. One day in August
1942 Anirvanji was going to Ranchi from Kolkata by Ranchi Express. Due to storm and
floods in the river Rupanarayan, the bridge was damaged and the train detained for three nights on the Kolkata side of the river, after
Bagnan. Very early in the morning, Anirvanji would get out of the train and, after taking his
bath in the river, sit below a big tree in meditation or read a book. Some devotees of Sri Aurobindo who were also going to Ranchi by the same train were attracted towards him and sat beside him and heard his satsanga.
They asked some questions about Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy, especially about The Life Divine- Sri Aurobindo’s magnum opus,th August, Saturday, and which appeared serially in the Arya Magazine and just published. Extremely impressed by Anirvanji’s deep knowledge of Indian Philosophy, Vedas and Upanishads, they invited him to talk to them on Life Divine at
their class in Ranchi at one Sri Saikat Babu’s garden house. There the seeds of the
translation of Life Divine in Bengali were sown. It was there in Ranchi that Tapas, then a
disciple of Maa Anandamayi met him and later arranged for Anirvanji’s stay at Almora, where
he finished his translation of Life Divine; where he established his first Haimavati; where Lizelle Reymond had joined him later in
1949-50. Tapas not only arranged for his stay in Almora, she herself stayed with him and
served him as his cook, his personal secretary and servant. Anirvanji gave her sannyas and
named her Chinmayi. It was in fact, Tapas who suggested the name Anirvan, when they were thinking of a name for the author of “Divya Jivana,” the Bangla translation of “The Life Divine.” It was in 1949 that the first volume of this translation was published under the name of Anirvan as author. Till then, after leaving the Guru’s ashram in 1930, Anirvanji
was using different names, sometimes Nirvanananda, sometimes Barda, sometimes
Sachchidananda, etc. Tapas left Anirvanji in 1949, when Lizelle came to Sri Anirvan to stay with him. By then Tapas was attracted towards J.D. Krishnamurti. Towards the end of her life in 1973, she almost came back to Anirvanji. In fact, it was through me that she came back to Anirvan. I first met Tapas in August 1960 in Almora, where I had gone for a spiritual retreat
and was staying at Haimavati, then occupied by Pierre Oppliger, the Swiss friend of Lizelle, with his American wife Mary. During the period when Lizelle and Anirvanji were staying at Almora, Pierre and his friends of S.C.I. (Service Civil International, a social service organization) used to visit Haimavati as guests. Later when Pierre decided to settle in India, he purchased the house and kept the name Haimavati. I had become a friend of Pierre when we were together at Pathalipam on the river Subansiri in Lakhimpur District, Assam, where we were working for relief activities during 1950-52. Since 1960, Tapas visited us whenever she came to Kolkata, first at Keyatala Road and then at Fern Road.
Another place Anirvanji would always visit during his travels in the winter was Allahabad,home of another friend of his from his college days in Dacca, Sri Dhiren Dasgupta. Dhiren, Biren and Naren (Drirendra, Birendra and
Narendra (later Nirvanananda/Anirvan) were
great friends during their college days in Dacca, and remained great friends till the end of their lives.
This was the itinerary of Anirvanji during his first visit to our place in Kolkata, 18th November to 15th
December; Ranchi from 16th
December to 7th January 1956; Patna from 8th January to 14 used to stay with Sister Pushpa, Principal of Nivedita Girls’ College. She was a friend of
Tapas, and visited Haimavati at Almora, during her summer or October puja vacations.
She too had taken up sannyas, but continued with her college work till she passed away.
From Patna Anirvanji went to Allahabad, 15th January. At Patna, Anirvanjith January to 28
th January; then to Delhi from 29th January to 6
Almora and Loharghat near Mayavati, in the Himalayas, for the last time. He stayed there till 12th February and returned to Allahabad where he again stayed till 22
Anirvanji returned to Kolkata on 23 and stayed with us till 29
left for Shillong by plane up to Gauhati and from there by bus to Shillong by the first week of March.
When Anirvanji was with us in December 1955, Swami Chinmayananda, a sannyasi
sadhu, connected previously with Sri Ramakrishna Math and Mission, who too was introduced to us in December 1954 by our
astrologer friend Jitendra Kumar Bhattacharya, th February. From Delhi he went tond February.rd Februaryth February when he came to stay with us. Swami Chinmayananda, after leaving Sri R.K. Math and Mission, also lived in Almora, and knew Anirvanji very well. Though Chinmayananda talked much about Anirvanji, even criticized him for staying with Tapas and Lizelle, Anirvanji never spoke anything for or against him. He always kept silence, the silence which we came to know later as
remaining ever quiet and aloof like the peaceful sky, unperturbed in all circumstances.
Though this was Swami Chinmayananda’s second and last visit to our house in Keyatala
Road, in December 1955, it became a difficult problem for us how to accommodate two
Swamijis together. Fortunately for us, the problem was automatically solved as
Chinmayananda according to his extrovert nature preferred the small front room and Anirvanji was happy to stay in the inner larger room, like a cave, where Bandhu lived.
As to satsanga, we first sat with Swami Chinmayananda who read the Gita without interpreting it, according to the Bhashya of Shankaracharya following his
uncompromising monistic Advaitism. After his class was over, we sat with Anirvanji, who during that first visit talked to us on Ishopanishad in his way of synthesis.
Anirvanji then spoke in English, as many friends who joined the classes could not understand his Bangla commentary properly.
However, from his second visit on in 1957, he talked in his natural beautiful Bangla. In the afternoon and evening, visitors came to meet both the Swamijis. As there were separate entrances for both the rooms, there was not much difficulty. A greater number of
visitors came to meet Anirvanji as he had already become popular in Kolkata, especially in the Aurobindo circle because of his Bangla translation of The Life Divine. Anirvanji had also started lecturing at Sri Aurobindo Path
Mandir at their Saturday evening meetings.
During the fifties he talked there on The Life Divine and The Synthesis of Yoga of Sri
Aurobindo. He himself wrote down the lecture notes, which were published in “Bartika,” a quarterly magazine of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, entitled “Divya Jivana Prasanga” and “Yoga Samanvaya Prasanga,” the best
commentaries on Sri Aurobindo’s “Life Divine” and “Synthesis of Yoga.” From 1961 onwards, Sri Anirvan began his talks on “Savitri,” the epic poem of Sri Aurobindo.
These continued till the first week of August 1971, when he fell ill and could not continue further. His notes were so extensive that by then he had not finished even the first volume of “Savitri.”
“Savitri” had taken so much hold on him, that whenever he would read “Savitri” for the classes he would go into a trance. One morning, he even fell down during a trance. Fortunately, I saw him slowly slipping down, trying to catch hold of the door, and immediately ran and helped him to the bed.
That was on a Saturday morning in January or February 1962.
This first visit of Sri Anirvan to our home at 6H, Keyatala Road was like an elixir to all the three remaining members of the
Dharmapal family; Sudha Dharmapal, wife of Bandhu Dharmapal with her two children,
myself and Sharad Dharmapal, the only two Dharmapals who had remained with Bandhu
Dharmapal out of the ten Dharmapals who had taken vows of a Dharmapal for dedicating their lives for the cause of Dharma, according to the
principles, ideas and ideals of Dharma Sangha.
Sri Anirvan’s presence strengthened our determination to continue with the work of
Dharma Sangha. We were assured of Anirvanji’s help and guidance on our path. He
became our Acharya in the Vedic sense.
Akasha Bhavna,
To be continued...
-Sri Gautam Dharmapal
Replies