The name of rev. ‘Babaji’ came to the limelight for the first time with the publication of ‘Autobiography of Yogi’, authored by Paramhansa Yogananda—a must-read book for everyone, young or old alike. In the spiritual circles, Babaji has come to be recognized as a world teacher who has retained his physical frame for the umpteen centuries. He is said to inhabit most of the time in the Badrinath region in the Himalayas.

Babaji had given personal initiation to Shyama Charan Lahiri, the grand-guru of Yoganandaji, in secret Raja Yoga techniques in 1861, and had numerous meetings with him thereafter until Lahiri Mahasaya gave up his body in 1895.

Babaji had met Swami Yukteswar Giri, the rev. Guru of Yoganandaji at Allahabad in January 1894 and again at Sreerampore, in West Bengal, and at Varanasi. Towards the end of the 19th century, Ramgopal Majumdar, a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya, had his long-cherished desire to see Babaji and his cousin sister fulfilled. In 1920, Babaji had come personally to bless Yoganandaji at the time of his departure for the United States. All these events described above have been covered in detail in Yoganandaji’s ‘Autobiography’.

Adi Shankaracharya (788-820 A.D.)—the famous redeemer of the Upanishads and other Vedic texts and reformer of the Hindu religion—had the octogenarian rishi ‘Govinda-Pada’ as his teacher for learning. However, it was ‘Babaji Nagaraj who was his Yoga guru and who had given the requisite ‘yoga’ initiation to the Master in the 9th century A.D.

Yoganandaji had come to know of this separately from four different disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya—all masters of sorts within their rights, all of whom testified that “Lahiri Mahasaya spoke of Babaji having given yoga initiation to Sri Sankaracharya in 9th century A.D.” The fact is reported to have been confirmed by Babaji to his disciple S.A.A. Ramaiah also.

Again, during the 15th century, ‘Babaji’ is credited with having initiated the great saint and poet, Kabir (1407-1518 A.D.), who sought to bring harmony between factional Hindus and Moslems.

According to Marshall Govindan, Babaji (Nagaraj) was born on the 30th day of November, 203 A.D. in a small coastal village now known as Parangipettai, in Tamilnadu in India where the Cauvery River flows into the Indian Ocean.

His birth coincided with the ascendancy of the star of Rohini. The birth took place during the celebration of Diwali, the Festival of Lights. His parents were Nambudri Brahmins who had migrated there from the Malabar Coast on the western side of South India. His father was the priest in the Shiva temple of this village. Govindan says that this account of Babaji Nagaraj’s birth and subsequent happenings was related by Babaji himself to Yogi S.A.A. Ramaiah and V.T. Neelakantan, his direct disciples in the 20th century. The place has since been identified by Govindan and his group.

At the age of 5, Nagaraj, who was very fair and handsome, was kidnapped by a trader from Baluchistan and taken on a sailboat to what is today known as Calcutta as a slave. There the trader sold him to a rich merchant, who shortly thereafter gave Nagaraj his freedom.

Nagaraj joined a small band of monks. He wandered from place to place with various ascetics for the next several years, studying the Vedas, the Upanishad, the Gita, and the epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata. With his sharp mind and keen intellect, Nagaraj soon became learned in the sacred scriptures of India, and his reputation as a scholar grew.

Even though very young, he was often invited to debate with other pundits and leaders belonging to various metaphysical schools of thought. The metaphysical discussions, however, were not bringing Nagaraj any much closer to the goal of enlightenment and the young scholar, of eleven years in age, was now looking for a Guru.

It was during this period that Nagaraj undertook a long and difficult journey on foot and by boat, with a group of ascetics, from Benares (Varanasi) to the sacred shrine of Kataragama in Sri Lanka. The year was A.D. 215 or probably 216 when Nagaraj met Siddha Boga Nath at Kataragama. Nagaraj soon became convinced of the teacher’s greatness and he approached him to be accepted as his disciple.