Ganpati Muni - 1878-1938

Ganapati Muni was perhaps the chief disciple of Ramana Maharshi. Ganapati had first discovered Ramana as a young boy then realising his spiritual mastery, made Ramana his guru. Although Ganpati had studied the Vedanta (Upanishads), he had not clearly understood what tapasya meant. The simple explanation that Ramana gave cleared a big doubt that tormented him. Ganapathi Muni was the one to first call him Ramana and Maharshi. Ganapati wrote several important Sanskrit works on the Maharshi and also put Ramana’s teachings into Sanskrit.

Ganapati was a Vedic scholar, a Tantric yogi, an Ayurvedic doctor and a Vedic astrologer, as well as an active social thinker and reformer. He even researched the history of the Vedas and the Mahabharata. He was probably the greatest Sanskrit poet and writer of this century. His greatest work, Uma Sahasram, has a thousand verses and forty chapters each down flawlessly in a different Sanskrit meter. He preserved some of the deepest spiritual secrets at the heart of Hinduism and was like an ancient sage of the Vedic era. His intense sadhana (spiritual seeking/efforts) led him to evolve many paranormal abilities, which culminated in a very rare spiritual experience of "skull cracking", in which his skull cracked during his meditation and an visible light surrounded his head from then onwards. Henceforth Ganpati Muni resided in a higher state of consciousness in contact with the spiritual energies and beings of the subtle plane of existence.

In the modern era, David Frawley (Vamadeva Shastri), one of the most important figures in the Hindu world, has taken inspiration from several of Ganpati Muni's works. Therefore Ganpati's Muni's legacy continues to inspire many minds towards an integral Hindu renaissance.