A dead man appeared before a living one and changed his life forever.
Shri Shrirang Ji was born in the village of Devla near Jaipur, in a bania family following the Jain tradition. One day, a former household servant who had died and become a great Yamaduta in the court of Dharmaraj appeared before him. The Yamaduta said: "O bania, see these banjaras who have come here to buy grain. I have come to take the life of one among them. Without bhakti to Shri Sitaram Ji, the death of all people occurs in just such a lowly manner. If by the grace of Hari you awaken, take refuge with Shri Anantanand Swami."
Shrirang watched as the banjara was gored to death by his own bullock's horns, exactly as foretold. True fear, jnana, and vairagya arose in him at once. He renounced the customs of his clan, went to Shri Anantanand Swami, received the Shri Ram mantra and pancha-samskara, and while remaining in grihastha ashram became a great mahatma.
Connected to this lineage is Shri Payhari Ji, of whom it is said: "He upon whose head Shri Payhari Ji placed his hand never extended his own hand beneath the hand of another for receiving alms." The king of the entire country bore witness to his power of bestowing bhakti and mukti.
One more story belongs here. At a bhandara for saints, a few jalebis meant as Bhagavad-bhog fell from a tray. The young son of a bhakta king ate them before they could be offered to Bhagavan. The king, in the anguish of his devotion, took up a sword to kill his own child. The saints intervened. They claimed the boy as their own and demanded the king name his price before they would return the child.
The doha that seals this entry speaks to every seeker: "The guru should be such that he takes nothing from the disciple. The disciple should be such that he offers body, mind, and wealth entirely."
The Guru Who Takes Nothing
The doha that opens Shrirang Ji's entry declares the entire principle of a true guru-shishya relationship in two lines: the guru should take nothing from the disciple, while the disciple should offer body, mind, and wealth completely. Shri Krishnadas Payahari Ji, the great saint whose lineage this entry celebrates, embodied this standard without exception. He placed his hand of blessing on the head of every shishya who came to him, yet never stretched out his own hand in return to receive anything from them. Those he touched were freed from sorrow and given liberation. The teaching is not that the disciple should hold back, but that the guru's freedom from taking is precisely what creates the space in which real giving becomes possible.
Bhaktamal, Doha 1 of the Shrirang entry; Vachanik Tilak of Shri Payahari Ji
A Moment of Death as the Door to Bhakti
Shrirang Ji was a comfortable householder in Devla village near Jaipur when a former servant, now serving as a yamaduta in Dharmaraj's court, appeared before him and offered him a rare gift: a direct, unobstructed view of mortality. The servant showed him how a grain-trader died in that very moment, gored by his own bull, with no bhakti and no inner shelter to receive the departing soul. What arose in Shrirang Ji was not abstract philosophy but three simultaneous awakenings: bhaya (genuine fear of what awaits an unprepared soul), jnana (clarity about the nature of this life), and vairagya (the turning away from what had seemed important). He did not wait. He went to Shri Anantanand Swami and took initiation. Genuine dispassion does not need years of argument. A single clear sight of impermanence is enough.
Vachanik Tilak, Shrirang entry, Bhaktamal
Bhakti from Within the Householder's Life
After his awakening, Shrirang Ji did not abandon household life. He received the Shri Ram mantra and the pancha-samskara, the five initiatory rites of the Ramanandi sampradaya, from Shri Anantanand Swami, and then continued as a grihasthi, a person living fully within family and community. The text calls him a great mahatma and a supreme bhakta, not in spite of remaining a householder but as one. This is a recurring insistence of the Bhaktamal: the conditions of liberation are inner, not outer. Vairagya does not require abandoning the world. It requires a reorientation so complete that the world is no longer what holds the center of gravity in a person's life. Shri Sitaram Ji holds that center instead.
Vachanik Tilak, Shrirang entry, Bhaktamal
The Seriousness of Bhagavad-Arpan
At a great bhandara feast, a child from a devotee family picked up a few jalebis that had fallen from the tray being carried to the temple of Shri Sitaram Ji as an offering. The child did not know the food was consecrated to Bhagavan. The child's father, a bhakta king whose devotion ran to a severe and total depth, saw it and reached for his sword. The saints present intervened immediately, declared the child theirs, offered to ransom him, and prevented what the king's fierce love for God had set in motion. The episode is not presented as a cautionary tale about excess. It is presented as evidence of the seriousness with which this lineage understood every act of arpan. When something is offered to the Lord, its status changes completely. The teaching is about the reality, not merely the symbolism, of consecration.
Kavitt 116, Vachanik Tilak, Bhaktamal
Shakti Moves Through the Lineage
Shri Krishnadas Payahari Ji, the great disciple in Shrirang Ji's lineage, came one night to the site of Galta near Amber, seeking shelter. The Kanphata yogis occupying the site drove him away. He gathered the fire from his dhuni into his cloth, moved, and set it down. The cloth did not burn. When the yogis' leader transformed himself into a tiger and lunged at him, Payahari Ji spoke a single phrase and the man became a donkey, stripped of all the powers he had cultivated, unable to restore himself. The ear-rings of all the other yogis left their ears and piled up at Payahari Ji's feet. King Prithviraj of Amber witnessed everything and became his shishya. From that day, Galta became the first major Ramanandi gaddi in northern India. The teaching here is not about miraculous power as an end in itself. It is about what genuine surrender to the Lord produces in a person: a stillness that cannot be disturbed, and a clarity that dissolves what opposes the path.
Vachanik Tilak, Payahari Ji section, Bhaktamal
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.