My Life with Anirvan Part - II from 1954 March to August 1955, I to Digress

Hiranyagarbha Vol. 2 No. 3–45 Final 12.09.09 My Life with Anirvan Part - II From 1954 March to August 1955, I To digress. The same thing happened again maintained contact with Sri Anirvan by at the end of his studies. After finishing his correspondence. two,year course, he did not want to go back Apart from being immediately to the Guru’s Ashram in Jorhat, a saint, Anirvanji Assam. He wanted to go to Kanyakumari, to was a great the temple of Goddess Parvati, a form of his scholar of the Ishta Haimavati. The goddess Kanyakumari is Vedas, and of depicted standing with a garland to receive Her Indian and consort Lord Siva. Western The temple of Kanyakumari is situated at philosophy, the southernmost tip of India, surrounded by psychology and three seas, the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea literature. He and the Indian Ocean. This was the place from collected a large where Swami Vivekananda swam to the number of books southernmost island and had his vision of for his library. Regenerated Mother India. When Anirvanji Sri Anirvan Till now his went to the Railway Office in Kolkata to younger brother Bimal Sankar Dhar was his purchase the ticket for Kanyakumari or main supplier of books. Whatever money he Madras from where he would travel to received from his friends he would invest it Kanyakumari, instead of Madras he asked for mostly in books. After he came to know us, he a ticket to Jorhat. That too was a miracle would write to us as well, especially when the enforced on him by his guru Swami books were to be purchased from Bombay Nigamananda. Well, to return to the topic. (now called Mumbai). Most of the books he When Nirvana Chaitanya filled up his form for ordered were on Zoroastrianism, preserved and the Vedas M.A, course, another problem arose. translated into Gujarati by the Parsi The Brahmin professors would not teach community of Gujarat. Professor Vedas to a non-Brahmin boy. Chaitanya was a Taraporewala, a Zoroastrian, was his teacher in Kayastha. He had to approach Sri Ashutosh Calcutta University where Anirvanji, as Mukerjee, then Chief Justice and Vice- Nirvana Chaitanya Brahmachari, did his M.A. Chancellor of the Calcutta University, himself during 1916-1918 with the Vedas as his main a Brahmin. Sri Ashutosh said, “All right, if subject. He was very much interested in they do not want to teach you the Vedas, I will Sanskrit literature, in Vyasa, Valmiki, in get teachers from South India to teach you the Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti and Banabhatta and Vedas.” In fact, he did invite two Vedic other Sanskrit poets. While filling up the forms scholars from South India who had no he was going to write Sanskrit literature as his objection to teaching the Vedas to a non- main subject but something within him Brahmin boy. When they came to Kolkata, the impelled him to write Vedas instead. Later he other Bengali professors too came humbly told me that it was his Guru Swami down from their high pedestal, and from then Nigamananda who used his spiritual powers to onwards non-Brahmin students were admitted make him choose the Vedas as his main to the Vedic Department of the University. subject of study in M.A. Thus the ground for Anirvanji’s writings on Hiranyagarbha a Volume 2 No. 3 a 15th October, 2009 45 ø˝ı˛Ì…·ˆ«ìrnh„gdCooo¬ Hiranyagarbha Vol. 2 No. 3–46 Final 12.09.09 the Vedas was prepared. In his M.A. classes with Dharma Sangha, he would do whatever Anirvanji had read portions of Zend Avesta, possible to help and take forward the cause of the scripture of the Zoroastrian religion. The Dharma Sangha as the ideas and ideals of Zoroastrians or Parsis, as they are known in Bandhu were the same as his own. He also India, had developed their scriptures in Gujarat informed me that when he comes next to after they migrated to Gujarat from Persia Kolkata in November he would stay with us. (now called Iran) in the 8th century, when the The Divine Mother had already prepared the Arabian Muslims conquered Persia and ground for the shifting of his Haimavati to destroyed most of their fire temples and Kolkata, as Sri S.R. Roy, with whom he religious scriptures. Anirvanji could easily usually stayed in Kolkata, was transferred to read printed Gujarati, Marathi, Assamese, Delhi. Oriya and Hindi languages. Thus he knew Thus Anirvanji came from Shillong to stay almost all the languages of northern India, with us for the first time at 6H, Keyatala Rd, including Kashmiri. Unfortunately he did not Kolkata-700029, on 18th November 1955. He learn the Southern languages, Tamil, Telugu or stayed with us till 15th December. He left for Kannada. Had he learnt them it would have Ranchi, a hill resort in Bihar, now the capital been easier for linguists to link the ties of the Jharkhand state; which was then part of between the southern and northern languages, Bihar. Anivanji’s college friend Sri Biren Sen, almost all of which had come from the Vedic Accountant General of Eastern India, was Chandas Bhasha, Pali and Prakrit. Smt Gouri posted there in his early forties. Almost every Dharmapal is trying to do this, though she too year after his leaving his Guru Nigamananda does not know much of Tamil, Telugu etc. She Saraswati’s Ashram in Jorhat, Anirvanji would had almost united them through her study of visit Biren Sen wherever he was posted, Panini’s Ashtadhyayi (grammar of Chhandas Ranchi or Delhi. Before 1945, he would stay and Bhasha) in her book “The Linguistic Atom for long periods in Sen’s house. He tutored and the Origin of Languages.” Sen’s son and daughters for sometime, Then came 6th August 1955. A bolt from especially when Sri Sen was in Delhi. It was the blue, like an atom bomb that fell on during one of his visits to Ranchi that Hiroshima on 6th August 1945, fell on the Anirvanji was discovered by a group of Dharmapals. Bandhu Dharmapal, the founder devotees of Sri Aurobindo. One day in August and leader of Dharma Sangha had an attack of 1942 Anirvanji was going to Ranchi from apoplexy, a cerebral haemorrhage. The attack Kolkata by Ranchi Express. Due to storm and came at 3.00 pm on 6th August, Saturday, and floods in the river Rupanarayan, the bridge he passed away the same night at about 11.30 was damaged and the train detained for three pm. A dark cloud of despair and depression nights on the Kolkata side of the river, after descended on us. Under the circumstances, I Bagnan. Very early in the morning, Anirvanji wrote to Sri Anirvan to come to mitigate our would get out of the train and, after taking his sorrow, and requested him to come and stay bath in the river, sit below a big tree in with us for sometime in Kolkata if possible. meditation or read a book. Some devotees of Anirvanji immediately replied, conveying his Sri Aurobindo who were also going to Ranchi grief at the passing away of Bandhu by the same train were attracted towards him Dharmapal and appreciating his ideas and and sat beside him and heard his satsanga. ideals. He assured us that his help and support They asked some questions about Sri to our cause would be always there. He said Aurobindo’s philosophy, especially about The that though he would not be directly connected Life Divine- Sri Aurobindo’s magnum opus, Hiranyagarbha a Volume 2 No. 3 a 15th October, 2009 46 ø˝ı˛Ì…·ˆ«ìrnh„gdCooo¬ Hiranyagarbha Vol. 2 No. 3–47 Final 12.09.09 which appeared serially in the Arya Magazine name Haimavati. I had become a friend of and just published. Extremely impressed by Pierre when we were together at Pathalipam on Anirvanji’s deep knowledge of Indian the river Subansiri in Lakhimpur District, Philosophy, Vedas and Upanishads, they Assam, where we were working for relief invited him to talk to them on Life Divine at activities during 1950-52. Since 1960, Tapas their class in Ranchi at one Sri Saikat Babu’s visited us whenever she came to Kolkata, first garden house. There the seeds of the at Keyatala Road and then at Fern Road. translation of Life Divine in Bengali were Another place Anirvanji would always visit sown. It was there in Ranchi that Tapas, then a during his travels in the winter was Allahabad, disciple of Maa Anandamayi met him and later home of another friend of his from his college arranged for Anirvanji’s stay at Almora, where days in Dacca, Sri Dhiren Dasgupta. Dhiren, he finished his translation of Life Divine; Biren and Naren (Drirendra, Birendra and where he established his first Haimavati; Narendra (later Nirvanananda/Anirvan) were where Lizelle Reymond had joined him later in great friends during their college days in 1949-50. Tapas not only arranged for his stay Dacca, and remained great friends till the end in Almora, she herself stayed with him and of their lives. served him as his cook, his personal secretary This was the itinerary of Anirvanji during and servant. Anirvanji gave her sannyas and his first visit to our place in Kolkata, 18th th named her Chinmayi. It was in fact, Tapas November to 15 December; Ranchi from 16th who suggested the name Anirvan, when they December to 7th January 1956; Patna from 8th were thinking of a name for the author of January to 14th January.

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