Samartha Ramdas

Samarth Ramdas

Ramdas (* 1608 in Jamb , Maharashtra , India , † 1682 in Sajjangad ) is considered one of the greatest saints in Hinduism .

Life

As a child he acquired knowledge of the Hindu scriptures and developed a predilection for meditation and religious scriptures. Samartha Ramdas' real name was "Narayan" . When he was seven years old, he experienced the sudden death of his father. The family had their own house and farming. When Narayan was twelve years old, his family wanted him to marry according to the custom of the time, and wedding preparations began. However, Narayan was inclined to spirituality from childhood . There was a partition between his bride and the wedding room and he secretly ran away and never came back to his family. Ramdas spent twelve years by a river in Nasik, getting up early in the morning, praying, studying Sanskrit and writing religious poems and songs ( kirtan ). His attitude was not to hate any other religion or nation. His main concern was the spread of the Hindu religion in India. Ramdas also observed and studied the social, political and economic conditions in India and their inadequacies in daily life.

Twelve years of childhood, twelve years of meditation and spiritual self-study in solitude, then traveling all over India and visiting the holy cities - So Narayan (Ramdas) spent 36 years of his life and then he reached the bank of the river " Krishna ". From now on people called him "Samartha Ramdas" (the mighty worshiper of God Rama ). Ramdas built over a thousand temples and ashrams across India. Ramdas later became very famous and his followers loved him and began to follow his life path and thoughts. Ramdas wrote a total of over 40,000 verses in various volumes.

According to Ramdas should

• man can also experience earthly joy.
• But he should build an inner distance to it and unfulfilled wishes should not hold him captive.
• He should live free from misery and pain, be internally stable and always be aware that everything temporal is also transient. “What you see with your eyes doesn't last forever” .

Ramdas often withdrew to seclusion because he could meditate better there. In his last days, however, he mainly took care of the systematic development of students and bases in the north and south of India. Ramdas had over 1,000 students, men and women. The female students were also excellent ministers and very virtuous. Ramdas sent his disciples all over India to spread the Hindu religion and it is ultimately thanks to Ramda's tireless efforts and patience that the Hindu religion was able to establish itself in India. It is for this reason that people called him Samartha (almighty). Ramdas died in 1682 in Sajjangad, near Satara , a fortress that he had received from the Shivaji (king) as a retirement home.

literature

• KO Schmidt: Bridges of the unity of East and West: Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Ramdas and Omkar as teachers of a new way of thinking . Drei-Eichen-Verlag, Ergolding 1990, ISBN 3-7699-0495-8

Web links

• About his life (German)
• Biography