Baba Loknath

A child promised to God

According to tradition, he was born in 1730 on Janmashtami, the festival of Krishna's birth. His biographer Dr Asimbaran De gives the date as 18 Bhadra 1137 in the Bengali calendar, which is 29 August 1730. Two villages in present-day North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, claim his birthplace: Chakla and Kachua.

His mother was Kamala Devi. Sources differ on his father's name, giving Ramnarayan Ghosal or Ramkanai Ghoshal. The Lokenath Divine Life Mission describes him as the fourth child. Dr De writes that the couple, devout Brahmins, had wished for a son who would become a sannyasi (a renunciate).

The Sanskrit scholar Acharya Bhagaban Ganguly of Kachua named the boy Loknath. The mission explains the name as "lord of the worlds".

Leaving home at eleven

At eleven, Loknath received the upanayana (the sacred thread ceremony) from Bhagaban Ganguly. He then left home as a brahmachari, a celibate student of the spirit. His friend Benimadhab was initiated with him and went too.

The guru first took the two boys to the jungles around the Kali temple at Kalighat, in Kolkata. Later, Dr De writes, they practised in the forests west of the Ganga.

Decades of discipline

According to the mission, Loknath spent more than thirty years in ashtanga yoga (the eight-limbed path) and hatha yoga (the yoga of posture and breath) under his guru. He kept his vow of celibacy and practised fasting. Tradition places his realisation in the Himalayas. The mission records that he attained nirvikalpa samadhi, the deepest state of meditative absorption, at about ninety.

Devotees also believe that he later travelled far beyond India. The mission names Mecca, Afghanistan and Persia among the places he is said to have visited. These journeys belong to devotee tradition, not recorded history.

Chandranath Hill and the road to Baradi

Before he settled, tradition places him at Chandranath Hill, in present-day Bangladesh. Dr De writes that he met the Bengali saint Vijaykrishna Goswami there, and devotees count Goswami among those he blessed.

Around 1270 in the Bengali calendar, about 1863, he came to Baradi, a village in Sonargaon, in the Narayanganj area. The man who brought him was Dengu Karmakar, a local resident. Devotees recount that Dengu had been cleared of a false criminal charge after receiving the yogi's blessing.

Dengu's family was uneasy about keeping an unclothed ascetic at home. A local landlord, known as Nag Babu, then gave a plot of uncultivated land beside the cremation ground. A simple thatched hut went up, and this became the ashram.

Twenty-six years at Baradi

Baba Loknath lived at Baradi for about twenty-six years. A widowed cowherd woman, remembered as Gowalini Ma, looked after the ashram. Animals lived there too: Dr De mentions an ox named Kalachand.

Devotees recount that he once appeared as a witness in a court at Narayanganj and gave his age as over 150. Devotees hold that he lived to 160. These figures are part of his tradition, and they are best read in that spirit.

The final day

On 19 Jyaishtha 1297 in the Bengali calendar, which the mission gives as 2 June 1890, Baba Loknath left the body at the Baradi ashram. Dr De writes that he sat in gomukhasana (the cow-face posture) and passed in meditation shortly before noon. According to the mission, his eyes stayed open and his body remained seated.

He had told his devotees how his body was to be treated. A sandalwood pyre was built at the ashram, and Ramkumar Chakraborty performed the rites. His samadhi stands at Baradi today.