The fruits vanished overnight. In the Sambhar region, a king's gardener had forbidden the saints traveling with Shri Anantanand Ji from taking bihi fruits. The saints, distressed, reported it to their guru. By the next day, not a single bihi fruit could be found anywhere in the land. When the king heard the full account and understood the cause, he took refuge at Anantanand's feet. And in this way, the entire land became devoted to Bhagavan.
Nabhadas places Anantanand at the heart of the Ramanandi Sampradaya as one of the twelve principal disciples of Ramananda, the great founder of the Ram bhakti tradition. The mool verse says it plainly: "By touching the feet of Shri Anantanand, they all became like Lokapalas," guardians of the world. His disciples included Shri Yoganand Ji, Shri Gayesh Ji, Shri Karamchand Ji, Shri Alha Ji, Shri Payhari Krishnadas Ji, Shri Sari Ramdas Ji, and Shri Shrirang Ji, all of whom became oceans of noble qualities and great glory. From among their disciples arose Shri Narharidasa Ji, who by singing the praises of both Shri Raghubara and Shri Yadubara accumulated the wealth of pure kirti.
And then this: Shri Janaki Ji Maharani herself, pleased by Anantanand's bhajana, manifested and placed her gracious lotus hands upon his head.
Think of what that means. The Mother of the universe, drawn by the sound of one man's devotion, appearing to touch his head with her own hands. His disciples and their sub-lineages constitute a vast branch of the Ramanandi tradition. Through figures like Payhari Krishnadas and Narharidasa, his spiritual influence reaches all the way to Goswami Tulsidas. But before all of that came this single moment: Janaki's hands on his bowed head, and the silence that must have followed.
The Saint Who Needs Nothing from the World
When the royal gardener of Sambhar refused the hungry sadhus access to bihi fruit, Shri Anantanandaji offered no complaint, no curse, no petition. He simply listened and fell silent. That silence was not indifference. It was the stillness of a soul that has long ceased depending on the world to provide anything. The next morning, not a single bihi fruit could be found anywhere in the land. The trees stood, but the fruit was gone. The king, hearing what had happened, came directly to Anantanandaji and took refuge at his feet. The teaching is not about miraculous power. It is about what becomes available when a saint stops grasping: the universe quietly reorganizes itself around genuine vairagya (renunciation). One who needs nothing from the world holds more sway over it than one who demands everything.
Bhaktamal tikka, Sambhar episode
The Guru Whose Disciples Became Lokapalas
Nabhadas opens his verse on Shri Anantanandaji with a striking declaration: by touching the feet of this saint, those who came to him became like Lokapalas, the guardian-deities who protect the world in all directions. He then names them: Yogananda, Gayesh, Karamchand, Alha, Payhari Krishnadas, Sari Ramdas, Shrirang. Seven disciples, each of whom became a vast repository of qualities and glory in the bhakti tradition. The teaching embedded in this portrait is that the measure of a guru is not the depth of their own samadhi alone, but the transformation they catalyze in others. True guruhood is complete when the disciple becomes capable of protecting and nurturing the world. Anantanandaji did not merely teach bhakti; he transmitted the capacity to guard and sustain it across generations.
Bhaktamal mool verse 37, chhappay
The Shoreline of the Ocean of Devotion
The Bhaktamal verse describes Anantanandaji's disciples as becoming the bela, the shoreline, of the ocean of Hari bhakti. This is a precise image. The shoreline is not the ocean, but it is where the ocean becomes accessible to ordinary beings. It is the meeting-place of the boundless and the known. A saint who trains disciples capable of serving this function must themselves be something deeper still, more vast than the boundary they produce. The Tilak commentary notes the possibility that Anantanandaji composed a text called Bhaktisindhubela, meaning the shoreline of the ocean of devotion. Whether or not that text existed, the image names his life's work: he stood at the edge where the infinite grace of Ram bhajana could be received by human hearts and carried forward through time.
Bhaktamal mool verse 37 and Tilak commentary
Sita Mata's Grace as the Seal of Bhajana
The culminating image of Anantanandaji's portrait in the Bhaktamal is this: Shri Janaki Ji Maharani, Padmaja (born of the earth), pleased by his bhajana, manifested and placed her own lotus hands on his head. The tradition understands this as literal, not allegorical. Sita came because the quality of his singing drew her. This teaching points toward something the Ramanandi tradition holds centrally: in Ram bhakti, Sita is the shakti, the gracious power through whom all devotion is ultimately received and blessed. No effort of sadhana arrives at its full fruit without her bestowal. The fact that she appeared to Anantanandaji, drawn by the sound of his devotion to her Lord, is the tradition's way of saying his bhajana was so complete and so pure that even the Mother of the world could not remain at a distance.
Bhaktamal Tilak commentary, Rasik Bhaktamal kavitt
A Lineage Carried Forward: From Anantananda to the Ramcharitmanas
The spiritual genealogy that runs through Anantanandaji is one of the most consequential in the Hindi devotional world. Shri Ramanandacharya transmitted Ram bhakti to Anantanandaji. Anantanandaji transmitted it to Payhari Krishnadas, who established the great Ramanandi center at Galtaji in Rajasthan and initiated kings into Ram bhakti. Payhari Krishnadas transmitted it to Agradasji, who initiated Nabhadasji, the very author of the Bhaktamal. Through another branch, Anantanandaji's disciple Shrirangji transmitted the current to Narharidas, who became the guru of Goswami Tulsidas and gave the tradition the Ramcharitmanas. This is the teaching of parampara (lineage): bhakti does not remain private. It moves, it multiplies, it takes form in texts and teachers and lives across centuries. Anantanandaji sits at a hinge in that transmission where the entire architecture of Hindi Ram bhakti was quietly being assembled.
Ramanandi Sampradaya lineage records; Bhaktamal Tilak commentary
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.