Ramatirtha

Ramatirtha (born 1873, Miraliwala, Punjab province, India [now in Pakistan]—died Oct. 17, 1906, Tehri, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh [now in India]) was a Hindu religious leader known for the highly personal and poetic manner in which he taught what he styled “Practical Vedanta,” using common experiences to illustrate the divine nature of man. For Ramatirtha, any object whatever could be approached as a “mirror to God.”

Educated at the Foreman Christian College and Government College, Lahore, in 1895 Tirath Rama was appointed a professor of mathematics at Foreman Christian College. A meeting with the Bengali ascetic Vivekananda strengthened his inclination toward religious study and the desire to spend his life in the propagation of the monotheistic system of Advaita Vedanta. He helped to found an Urdu journal, Alif, in which many of his articles on Vedanta appeared.

In 1901 Tirath Rama left his wife and children and went into seclusion in the Himalayas, returning to travel to Japan and to the United States. Ramatirtha (the name by which he then became known) advocated a “wholesale liberation of mankind, beginning with the personal liberation of the individual.” His uniqueness was in the joy with which he propagated the otherwise traditional teachings of Vedanta. Often he would answer religious queries with prolonged laughter. His mystical leanings were coupled with an appreciation of Western science and technology as a means of solving India’s social and economic problems, and he never failed to support public education in all forms. He died by drowning in the Ganges; whether by accident or design is still a matter of conjecture among his followers.