Anandamayi Ma (1896–1982) was one of the most revered Hindu saints of the twentieth century — a woman teacher without formal training or a male guru, whose name means “Joy-Permeated” or “Bliss-Permeated Mother”. Paramahansa Yogananda devoted a whole chapter of Autobiography of a Yogi to her, and when they met she greeted him with words about rebirth: “I am meeting you for the first time in this life, after ages!” She is one of the women who led a spiritual movement in a world where such roles were almost always held by men — a story we follow in Women in Religion.
Who was Anandamayi Ma?
Anandamayi Ma was born Nirmala Sundari on 30 April 1896 in the village of Kheora in Bengal, now in Bangladesh, and died on 27 August 1982 in Dehradun, India. She was a mystic and spiritual teacher in the Hindu devotional tradition. Her followers saw her as the embodiment of bliss and as an incarnation of the goddess — Durga or Kali. Her shrine (samadhi) in Kankhal, Haridwar, is venerated today, an honour that in India was usually reserved for male masters.
Early life: Nirmala Sundari of Kheora
Nirmala grew up in a devout Brahmin family in rural Bengal. From childhood she was known for long states of inner absorption. Many of her later sayings describe this as a continuity rather than a change: she did not “become” a saint at some moment — she felt she had always been the same.
Marriage to Bholanath
At the age of 12 years and 10 months, as was the rural custom of the time, she was married to Ramani Mohan Chakrabarti, whom she later renamed Bholanath. The marriage was never consummated. According to the account she gave Yogananda, when her husband first approached her as a wife he felt a shock “as if struck by lightning”, knelt before her, and vowed to become her disciple — “a celibate follower, ever caring for you in silence as a servant”. Bholanath remained at her side as one of her chief disciples. The story is often retold as one of the clearest examples of a husband becoming his wife’s disciple in Indian spiritual history.
The self-initiation of 1922
In 1922, at the age of 26, she initiated herself. Without a teacher, she performed the full rites of initiation herself, including mystical diagrams (yantra) and a fire ceremony (yajna). She later described it as being both master and disciple at once: as the guru she revealed the mantra, and as the disciple she received it and began to recite it. In a tradition where initiation passes from teacher to student — almost always from man to man — this was extraordinary.
Dhaka and the name “Joy-Permeated Mother”
In 1924 she moved with her husband to Shahbag in Dhaka, where he was appointed caretaker of the gardens of the Nawab of Dhaka. She fell into ecstasies during kirtan, devotional singing, and people began to gather around her. An early disciple, Jyotiscandra Ray, known as “Bhaiji”, was the first to suggest the name Anandamayi Ma. Her first ashram was built in 1929 at Ramna in Dhaka. Later she travelled across India for decades, and ashrams in her name were founded in many cities; from the 1950s Dehradun became her main base.
Anandamayi Ma and Paramahansa Yogananda
Chapter 45 of Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), “The Bengali ‘Joy-Permeated Mother'”, is the account through which most Western readers first heard of her. Yogananda describes their first meeting in Calcutta: she stepped out of her car, embraced him and said:
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“Father, I am meeting you for the first time in this life, after ages! Please do not leave yet.”
Yogananda wrote that he had met many men of God-realization in India, “but never before had I met such an exalted woman saint.” When he asked her to tell him about her life, she answered:
“Father, there is little to tell. My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body. Before I came on this earth, Father, ‘I was the same.’ As a little girl, ‘I was the same.’ I grew into womanhood, but still ‘I was the same.’ … And, Father, in front of you now, ‘I am the same.’ Ever afterward, though the dance of creation change around me in the hall of eternity, ‘I shall be the same.'”
What did Anandamayi Ma teach?
She never prepared lectures and never wrote or revised her words; what we have was recorded by devotees from her conversations. Several themes run through it:
- Self-realization first. The highest calling of every human being, she taught, is to seek realization of the Self; all other duties come second. Only actions that awaken a person’s divine nature truly deserve to be called actions.
- Not everyone must renounce. She did not tell her listeners to leave their families; she taught people to bring their daily life into remembrance of God.
- All paths. People of different faiths came to her; the Muslim villagers of her birthplace still call her “our own Ma”.
- “This body”. She usually spoke of herself in the third person, as “this body” or “this little girl” — a way of showing that she did not identify with the physical form.
Her teaching sits within the Hindu understanding of karma and rebirth. To see how that understanding compares with Buddhist and other traditions, read Reincarnation Beliefs Across World Religions and Cultures and Dharma vs Karma.
Anandamayi Ma on rebirth: “I was the same”
Anandamayi Ma did not give lectures on reincarnation; there is no treatise of hers on past lives. Her view of rebirth shows in how she spoke. “This life” in her greeting to Yogananda implies other lives; “before I came on this earth, I was the same” points to a consciousness that exists before birth and is not limited to one body. In the Hindu framework of her devotees this is the classic idea of the atman, the Self that passes through many births but is itself unborn.
The same thought — that something in us existed before this life and remembers — is what people meet in past-life regression, and what researchers of children’s memories have tried to document. How does the soul choose its next life, according to modern regression research? Read Michael Newton’s Destiny of Souls. And for an Indian case of a woman’s claimed second life, see the Uttara Huddar case.
Her last years and her shrine in Kankhal
Anandamayi Ma died on 27 August 1982 in Dehradun. Two days later, on 29 August, her samadhi shrine was built in the courtyard of her ashram in Kankhal, near Haridwar, on the banks of the Ganges. Among those who came to her during her life were the Sanskrit scholar Gopinath Kaviraj, the dancer Uday Shankar and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. A European disciple, initiated by her in 1962 under the name Atmananda, helped translate her teachings for Western readers.
Why Anandamayi Ma matters for women in religion
She had no male guru, initiated herself, was followed by her own husband as a disciple, and became one of the best-known Hindu teachers of her century. Her shrine is venerated as the shrines of male masters are. Few women in any tradition broke so many patterns at once. Two other women who founded or led spiritual movements in modern times are Helena Blavatsky, who brought reincarnation into Western speech, and Nakayama Miki of Tenrikyo — read their stories in Women Who Founded Religions. And where do women lead in Buddhism, where the question of female rebirth is still alive? See Women in Buddhism.
Frequently asked questions
What does “Anandamayi Ma” mean?
“Joy-Permeated” or “Bliss-Permeated Mother”. The name was given to her by devotees in Dhaka in the 1920s; her birth name was Nirmala Sundari.
Where is Anandamayi Ma’s samadhi?
In the courtyard of her ashram in Kankhal, Haridwar, on the Ganges. It was built on 29 August 1982, two days after her death.
Did Anandamayi Ma believe in reincarnation?
She lived and taught within the Hindu understanding of karma and rebirth, but did not lecture on it. Her best-known words on the subject are her greeting to Yogananda — “I am meeting you for the first time in this life, after ages!” — and “Before I came on this earth, I was the same.”
Who was Anandamayi Ma’s guru?
She had none. In 1922 she initiated herself, describing herself as both the guru who revealed the mantra and the disciple who received it.
Which book introduced Anandamayi Ma to the West?
Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), chapter 45, “The Bengali ‘Joy-Permeated Mother'”.
Sources
- Paramahansa Yogananda. Autobiography of a Yogi. New York: Philosophical Library, 1946. Chapter 45, “The Bengali ‘Joy-Permeated Mother’ (Ananda Moyi Ma)”.
- Alexander Lipski. Life and Teaching of Sri Anandamayi Ma. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1977.
- Lisa Lassell Hallstrom. Mother of Bliss: Ānandamayī Mā (1896–1982). Oxford University Press, 1999. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195116489.001.0001
- Sri Anandamayi Ma. Matri Vani (sayings recorded by devotees). Shree Shree Anandamayee Sangha.
- Robin Rinehart. “Review of Orianne Aymard, When a Goddess Dies: Worshipping Ma Anandamayi after her Death”. Religions of South Asia 9(2), 2016, 240–241. doi:10.1558/rosa.v9i2.29906
- Antoinette E. DeNapoli. ““Everyone Drinks from the Same Well”: Charismatic Female Gurus as “Religious Feminist Influencers” in South Asian Hinduism”. Religions 14(6), 2023, 785. doi:10.3390/rel14060785