SAI SAVANT-1 SRI B.V. NARASIMHASWAMIJI

SRI NARSIMHA SWAWI

(a life-sketch)

Sri Narasimha Swamiji is appropriately known as the Apostle of Sri Sai Baba of Shirdi. It was he who discovered Sri Sai Baba and presented him to the world of seekers and aspirants.

As Sri Radhakrishna Swamiji says in the Preface, to his great regret (and to the regret of all true seekers) Sri Narasimha Swamiji refused to write his autobiography and did not leave a full record of the course of his own spiritual quest.


Thus the  biographer was left with no option but to collect information from various sources and the picture that has emerged is necessarily in the barest outline because of paucity of biographical material. Nevertheless, the personality of the Swamiji emerges with surprising clarity.


Sri Narasimha Swamiji was born on August 21, 1874 in Bhavani in Coimbatore District in a family of orthodox Brahmins.


His parents were Sri B. Venkatagiri lyer and Smt. Angachiammal. When Sri Narasimha Swamiji was still an infant, his father moved over to Salem and set up practice as second grade pleader.


Young Narasimha lyer had a brilliant career at school and in college. He passed his B. A. Examination from the Madras Christian College and his B. L. examination from the Madras Law College.


Sri Narasimha lyer started practice in the Salem Bar in 1895 and very soon reached the top of the profession where he remained till 1925, when he voluntarily gave up practice in response to an inner call for spiritual quest.


Among his prominent contemporaries were Justice Sundaram Chettiar, Sri C. Rajagopalachari and Sri Muthukrishna lyer.


Sri Narasimha lyer interested himself in all public activities and movements of the day. In politics he was considered an extremist, being an admirer and adherent of Bal Gangadhar Tilak. His popularity won him, for two consecutive terms, the membership of the Madras Legislative Council which he gave up in 1920 in response to the call to boycott the legislatures.


When Mrs. Annie Besant started the Home Rule League, Sri Narasimha lyer became an active member. He was one of the three members of a delegation deputed to go to Great Britain in 1917 to present India's case for home rule. This dele gation was, however, detained at Gibralter on the orders of the then British war cabinet and was forced to return to India.


It was when he was still at the peak of his powers, prestige and popularity that Sri Narasimha lyer decided, in 1921, follow ing a series of domestic calamities, to give up his lucrative legal practice, cease from political and social activities and seek spiri tual solace.


In his quest, Sri Narasimha lyer first went to Sri Ramana Ashram in Tiruvannamalai where he stayed for three years doing sadhana. Later, after intense search and seeking, he found his true master in Sri Sai Baba of Shirdi, though Baba had attained Nirvana many years before Sri Narasimha lyer discovered him.


Thereafter, in an extraordinary surge of energy and incessant activity lasting over two decades, Sri Narasimha Swamiji carried on Sai prachar work throughout India, establishing the All-India Sai Samaj at Madras and Sai Mandirs almost everywhere, carrying Baba's message of peace and love and bhakti.


If today in India there is hardly a town or city where Sri Shirdi Sai Baba is not known, it is entirely due to the remarkable zeal and selfless service of Sri Narasimha Swamiji.