His brothers said: "When you die, who will cremate you? We certainly will not." He answered at once: "The One whose servant I am, He Himself will cremate me."
In Chittorgarh-Udaipur, all four brothers were enrolled in the Rana's service and drew a monthly salary. Three brothers presented themselves for duty at court. The fourth, Shri Kamdhvajji, was an exclusive bhakta of Shri Sitaram Ji. He dwelt in the forest engaged in bhajan. He came home only to receive prasad, and after eating would return straight to the trees. The brothers told him: "At least come once and pay your respects to the Rana. We collect your salary as well. If you never go, how will it continue?" Kamdhvajji replied: "I am the servant of that Prabhu alone, and I remain ever near Him in His seva."
In the end, his body was shed in the forest itself. At that very moment, by the command of the compassionate Shri Sitaram Ji, Shri Kapinath Hanuman Ji came. He built a pyre of sandalwood. He performed all the prescribed cremation rites. And he escorted Kamdhvajji in a divine form to Shri Goloka Dham.
The many ghosts dwelling in the nearby trees were freed from their preta-yoni by the smoke of that funeral pyre and attained shubh gati. One preta was absent. Upon returning and finding all his companions gone, he learned the whole story, rolled in the ash of that very pyre, and was liberated from his ghostly state as well.
The Lord keeps His word. When His bhakta says "He Himself will cremate me," then He Himself comes, through Hanuman Ji's hands, with sandalwood and fire, and makes it so.
Ananya Bhakti: The Choice of One Master
Shri Kamdhvaj Ji was enrolled in the Rana's royal service alongside his three brothers, yet he gave his whole loyalty not to any earthly throne but to Shri Sitaram Ji alone. This is the meaning of ananya bhakti: undivided, exclusive devotion in which the heart genuinely has only one master. The three brothers served the Rana competently and collected their salary. Kamdhvaj Ji served his Prabhu completely and collected something the salary could never purchase. The Bhaktamal tradition does not present this as negligence toward the world. It presents it as the most precise form of clarity a human being can achieve: to know which relationship is the root of all other relationships, and to place that root first, without apology and without hesitation.
Bhaktamal, tilak on Shri Kamdhvaj Ji
The Forest as a Place of Seva
Kamdhvaj Ji did not go to the forest to escape life. He went there because that was the location where his seva to Shri Sitaram Ji could be performed without interruption. The forest was his court, his durbar, his place of continuous presence before his Lord. He returned home only once daily, only to receive prasad, the consecrated food first offered to his Prabhu, and then he returned immediately. This daily gesture of receiving prasad was itself an act of worship: a thread kept deliberately alive between the household and the divine, a confirmation each day that his life was organized entirely around his Lord. Renunciation in this tradition is not indifference. It is the careful removal of everything that pulls attention away from the One who matters.
Bhaktamal, tikaEn for Shri Kamdhvaj Ji
The Answer That Comes Without Calculation
When his brothers warned Kamdhvaj Ji that no one would perform his last rites if he died alone in the forest, his reply came without hesitation: the One whose servant he was would cremate him. This was not stubbornness or bravado. It was the response of a man whose faith had been tested quietly, day after day, in the solitude of the forest, and had been found solid. The Bhagavad Gita speaks of the bhakta who carries the Lord's burden and for whom the Lord carries the burden in return. Kamdhvaj Ji had lived inside that reciprocity for so long that the question of who would perform his antyeshti, his last rites, was simply another question about whether his Prabhu was real. He already knew the answer.
Bhagavad Gita 9.22; Bhaktamal, tikaEn for Shri Kamdhvaj Ji
Hanuman Ji as the Lord's Own Hand
At the moment of Kamdhvaj Ji's departure from the body, Shri Sitaram Ji did not send a human representative. He sent Shri Kapinath Hanuman Ji, who is himself the supreme exemplar of a servant's devotion, to build the pyre with chandan, sandalwood, and to perform every element of the antyeshti with complete ceremony. The teaching here is not merely about a miraculous event. It is about the nature of the relationship between the Lord and a true bhakta. Kamdhvaj Ji had given his Lord everything through his life. His Lord honored that totality by giving him everything in return through his death: the rarest wood, the most sacred care, performed by the most devoted servant in all of creation. What the Lord receives, He returns. What is given in full, is honored in full.
Bhaktamal, tikaEn for Shri Kamdhvaj Ji
Liberation That Flows From a True Bhakta's Departure
When Hanuman Ji lit the pyre of Kamdhvaj Ji, the smoke carried within it the accumulated spiritual force of a lifetime of pure bhajan. The pretas, wandering souls trapped in an in-between state, had been dwelling in the trees surrounding the forest for years, unknowingly benefiting from proximity to that continuous devotion. As the smoke of that sanctified pyre touched them, they were freed and granted shubh gati, an auspicious onward passage. Even one preta who arrived after the fire had gone cold was freed by rolling in the remaining bhasma, the sacred ash. This detail from the Bhaktamal carries a quiet teaching: a genuine bhakta does not only transform himself through his sadhana. The entire field around him is quietly changed. His departure, no less than his life, becomes an event of grace for others.
Bhaktamal, tikaEn for Shri Kamdhvaj Ji
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.