View source for Purohit Swami

{{Short description|Indian Hindu teacher}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2017}}
{{Use Indian English|date=April 2017}}
[[Shri]] '''Purohit Swami''' ({{Birth date|1882|10|12|df=y}} – 1941) was a [[Hindu]] teacher from [[Maharashtra]], [[India]].

== Biography ==
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Purohit was born '''Shankar Gajannan Purohit''' in [[Badnera]], then in [[British Raj|British India]]'s [[Bombay Presidency]], to a wealthy [[Marathi people|Marathi]] [[Brahmin]] family.

As a child he became proficient in Marathi, English, and Sanskrit. He was well educated, obtaining a B.A. in philosophy at [[Calcutta University]] in 1903 and a law degree from Deccan College and Bombay University.

As a teenager, he decided to be [[celibacy|celibate]] (as a ''[[brahmacharya]]''), but in 1908 he accommodated his parents' wishes and married Godu Bai. After the birth of daughters in 1910 and 1914, and a son in 1915, he resumed his vow of celibacy.

A year or two before his marriage, he met a young man four years older than himself named Natekar. Purohit says this meeting "was love at first sight," and Natekar, who later took the monastic name Bhagwan Shri Hamsa, became Purohit's guru.

In 1923 his guru directed him to embark on a mendicant pilgrimage the length and breadth of India. Begging bowl in hand, he passed several years in this way. He travelled to Europe on an extended visit in 1930.

== Friendship with Yeats ==

In 1931, [[Thomas Sturge Moore]] introduced Purohit to the Irish poet [[W. B. Yeats|William Butler Yeats]]. The two men struck up a friendship which lasted until Yeats's death, collaborating on a number of literary projects.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dutta |first1=Sanjay Kumar |title=The Meeting of a Saint and a Poet: W.B. Yeats and Purohit Swami |journal=The Creative Launcher |date=30 April 2021 |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=174–180 |doi=10.53032/TCL.2021.6.1.20 |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/0e67a52f50d771438f1b99b30ce8fe38/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y |access-date=7 February 2024 |issn=2455-6580|doi-access=free }}</ref>

Yeats wrote an introduction to Purohit's 1932 book, ''The Autobiography of an Indian Monk: His Life And His Adventures''. In 1934, Purohit was mentioned in Bhagwan Shri Hamsa's book ''The Holy Mountain'', supplemented with an introduction by Yeats. He worked with Yeats during 1935 and 1936, in [[Majorca]], on the translations to ''The Ten Principal Upanishads'' (1938, [[Faber and Faber]]), and in 1938 published his own version of [[Patanjali]]'s ''Aphorisms of Yoga'' with a handful of illustrated yoga exercises and postures. Yeats included him in the ''[[Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892–1935]]''.

He translated the ''[[Bhagavad Gita]]'' into English. Unlike most translations, Purohit Swami's translates every word into English and avoids the use of Sanskrit concepts that may be unfamiliar to English-speakers, for example translating the word ''[[yoga]]'' as "spirituality". He also avoids mentioning the [[Varna (Hinduism)|Varna (caste) system]]; where the original ''Gita'' mentions the different ''varnas'' he interprets this as different occupations within society.

== Legacy ==
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He represents a very important but largely unremembered link between the generation of [[Swami Vivekananda]] and the post-World War II society in which Eastern thought has become an accepted element of spiritual life.

Purohit is known in the West principally for his work on translations of major Hindu texts. During his state visit in June 2023 to the US, Indian prime minister [[Narendra Modi]] presented the Bidens with a first edition print of the book ''The Ten Principal Upanishads'' (1937), translated from Sanskrit by Purohit Swami and Yeats.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Sengupta |first1=Arjun |title=PM Modi gifts Biden Yeats' 'Ten Principal Upanishads': What are Upanishads and why was Yeats interested in them? |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-culture/pm-modi-biden-yeats-ten-principal-upanishads-8680613/ |access-date=7 February 2024 |work=The Indian Express |date=22 June 2023 |language=en}}</ref>

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{W. B. Yeats}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Swami, Shri Purohit}}
[[Category:Writers from Maharashtra]]
[[Category:20th-century Hindu religious leaders]]
[[Category:1882 births]]
[[Category:1941 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Amravati district]]
[[Category:University of Calcutta alumni]]

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