Buddhiyoga of The Gita and Other Essays

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Shri Anirvan was born on July 8, 1896 in the town of Mymensingh (now in Bangladesh). At the age of eleven he knew the Astadhyayi of Panini by heart and daily recited a chapter from the Gird. He went for his college studies to Dhaka and later on to Calcutta. After completing his studies, Sri Anirvan took sanyasa and became Nirvanananda Saraswati. But a few years later he dropped the ochre robes and changed his name to Anirvan, by which name he became known to the world at large.

His first book was a Bengali translation of Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine which was published in 2 vols. during 1948-51. But the centre of his studies was the Vedas on which subject he acquired a rare mastery over the years. His great work, Veda Mimamsa, was published in 3 vols, in 1961, 1965 and 1970. Meanwhile, several other works on the Upanisads, the Gro, Vedanta and Yoga had also been published and translated into Hindi and English.

Shri Anirvan was born on July 8, 1896, in a small Mymensingh, now in Bangladesh. Most houses there had the roofs, palm, mango and banana trees, beyond, skirting the town, were sprawling rice-fields, nearby, flowed the mighty Brahmaputra. Thus from his infancy, the child imbibed love of nature which lasted throughout his life. Shri Anirvan had almost a botanist's knowledge of flowers, plants and trees.

The parents belonged to a Bengali, Käyastha family. The father.Raj Chandra Dhar, practised medicine; the mother's name was Sushili Devi. Both were affectionate and pious. Thus the child grew in an environment of love, harmony and wholesomeness.

At the age of eleven, the boy knew Pänini by heart and daily recited a chapter from the Gita. Except for the precocity of the boy there was nothing unusual in this-it was part of the traditional teaching at home for most boys of his age and caste. There was also a school, part of the newly-established system of education introduced by the British Government in India. Here too, the boy did very well and excelled fellow students.

Even at an early age, Shri Anirvan had a markedly spiritual bent of mind. He was different from the boys of his age. He loved solitude, and even while he was in the company of his playmates, he had his own 'problems' and thoughts. One night, when he was only nine, he had a spiritual experience: the sky with its myriad stars entered into him. He fell into a swoon. This experience persisted throughout his life, and Sri Anirvan became a sadhaka of the Void, of freedom, of detachment, all symbolized by the sky.

Even earlier, on another occasion, when he was only seven, he saw a small girl of great beauty. Was it a real object or a spiritual vision? Whatever it was, it must have had a deeper source, for it lived with him throughout his life as a symbol of higher things, as a mystery waiting to be solved, as a benign influence entering into various phases of his sādhanā, a force drawing him onwards and upwards, a presiding deity of his life. 'Her grace was the light of my life for many years, Shri Anirvan told his biographer, Madame Lizelle Reymond. Later on in his life, he recognized in this vision 'the Divine Mother, born of perfect wisdom', the Uma Haimavati of the Kenopanișad, Prajñā or Atman of the Hindu scriptures.