A mighty emperor once marched his army to the gates of Navaragarh, ready for war. His generals sent word: 'Give us permission to attack. No messenger can even reach this raja.' Curious, the Badshah came in person to see what manner of king this was.
The raja's advisors grew anxious. After much deliberation, they told the emperor: 'Enter the mandira alone.' Trusting their word, he stepped inside. There on the stone floor lay Shri Askaranji, face down in sashtanga pranama, lost in prarthana to his Prabhu. He had not risen for a king. He had not risen for an emperor. He had not risen for the threat of war.
When at last he completed his worship, Askaranji drew a curtain before Prabhu's shrine, turned, and found the Badshah standing behind him. He offered a calm and proper greeting. The emperor stood silent. He had seen something no battlefield could teach him: a man whose niyama could not be broken by any power on earth.
Then the Badshah did something no one expected. He began asking questions about bhava-bhakti. Hearing the answers from Askaranji's lips, something softened in the emperor's hridaya. He left that day deeply moved.
Shri Askaranji was of the Kachhvaha lineage, a lamp of the kula of Shri Prithirajji, son of Bhimsinghji, shishya of Shri Swami Kaulhdevji. He was dharmasheela to his core, a maha-bhagavata raja-rishi. Shura and dhira, supremely udara, devoted to vinaya and sadachara. He composed padas filled with Prabhu's suyasha in the most vimala vani. His hridaya held the twin flames of devotion to both Mohans: Shri Janaki-mohana and Shri Radhika-mohana.
And here is what reveals the depth of that emperor's transformation. When Shri Askaranji later departed for Bhagavat-dhama, the Badshah was struck with grief. Learning that proper puja and raga for Askaranji's beloved Prabhu had fallen into neglect, he personally assigned villages from the rajya to the brahmanas who performed the seva. He instructed them: 'Perform the true pujana of Shri Askaranji's Prabhu with prema, lada, and pyara.' The brahmanas continued the worship faithfully, and the emperor was most pleased.
A raja who would not rise from pranama for any worldly power. An emperor who learned bhakti at his feet. And a devotion so radiant that even after the bhakta's departure, it compelled a foreign ruler to become its guardian.
The Niyama That Holds Everything Together
Shri Aaskaranji was a raja, a ruler of men, carrying all the weight that office brings: armies, councils, decisions, crises. And yet each morning he entered the mandira and did not come out until his daily worship of Shri Sitapati and Shri Radhavar was complete. This was not occasional piety. It was a niyama, a firm vow held in the heart, that no appointment, no emergency, no sovereign power could dissolve. The Bhaktamal holds him up not as a renunciant who escaped the world, but as one who held the world in his hands and still kept Prabhu at the center. The teaching is this: the niyama does not weaken when life presses hardest. That is precisely when it must hold. A bhakta is measured not by the quality of worship on peaceful days, but by whether the worship happens at all on the difficult ones.
Bhaktamal, Chhappaya 69, Tika by Priyadasji
When the Mind Is There, the Body Knows Nothing Else
An emperor stood behind Aaskaranji with an army at the gates. An impatient general struck his heel with a blade. Blood came. And Aaskaranji's brow did not furrow. No sound escaped him. No interruption broke his sashtanga pranama before Prabhu. The Bhaktamal's own chaupai explains this plainly: the mind was where Raghubara and Vaidehi dwelt, and when the mind is truly there, who in the body is left to feel pain or pleasure? This is not a miracle in the sense of something supernatural. It is a description of where the mind goes when devotion runs deep enough. The body remains in the world. The mind, the real seat of experience, has gone home to Prabhu. What the world considers suffering barely registers, because the one who would suffer has already left the room.
Bhaktamal, Mool doha and Tilak, Chhappaya 69
The Curtain Before Prabhu
When Aaskaranji finished his pranama and rose from the floor, the first thing he did was draw a curtain across the inner sanctum so that the uninitiated gaze of the Badshah would not fall directly upon the murti of Prabhu. Only then did he turn to greet the emperor. This single gesture speaks volumes. Even in the sudden shock of finding a sovereign standing behind him, his first thought was not for himself. It was not for diplomacy or safety. It was for the protection of the sacred space. The teaching here is about priority: what comes first in the heart shapes every reflex action. Aaskaranji's whole being had been reorganized around Prabhu. So when the moment of surprise came, what his hands did first, automatically, was protect what was most dear. True bhakti reorganizes the entire person, including the instincts.
Bhaktamal, Tika by Priyadasji, Chhappaya 69
The Conqueror Who Became a Student
The Badshah came to Narvargarh with a large army, ready for war if needed. He left with a question about bhava-bhakti burning in his chest. What changed him was not argument or eloquence. It was witnessing a man who had just bled from a wound and felt nothing, because his mind had been somewhere else entirely. When Aaskaranji then answered the emperor's questions about devotion, every word carried the weight of lived proof. The Bhaktamal records that the Badshah's heart became sras, softened, like iron that has met the right fire. And after Aaskaranji passed from this world, this same emperor arranged for villages to be granted to the brahmanas so that the seva of Aaskaranji's beloved Prabhu would continue with love, tenderness, and affection. A bhakta's life, when it is genuine, does not only transform the bhakta. It transforms everyone who comes near enough to really see it.
Bhaktamal, Tika by Priyadasji, Chappays 603-604
Holding Rama and Krishna in One Heart
The Tilak tells us that Aaskaranji's name itself carries meaning: he was one who longed for the feet of both Mohanas, Janakimohana and Radhikamohana, Rama and Krishna together, worshipped as a single unbroken stream of prema. He composed vimala padas, pure compositions, in praise of both. This was not theological compromise or diplomatic balance between two sects. It was the natural expression of a hridaya that had grown wide enough to hold the whole of Prabhu. The Bhaktamal tradition consistently points to this: bhakti at its root is not sectarian. When love of Prabhu truly opens the heart, it does not narrow into one name and close itself to another. It opens further. The two flames of Sita-Rama and Radha-Krishna burned together in Aaskaranji's heart because love, when it is real, does not divide. It expands.
Bhaktamal, Tilak commentary, Chhappaya 69
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.