acharyas/gyansagar.jpg · 1000×1250Born Bhuramal Chhabra in Ranoli village near Sikar, Rajasthan, he studied Sanskrit and Jain philosophy at the Syadvad Mahavidyalaya in Varanasi and lived for years as a lay scholar, teaching and writing. His Sanskrit epics — the Jayodaya, Viroday and Sudarshanoday among them — were composed at a time when new Sanskrit poetry had become rare. Moving step by step into renunciation, he took kshullak diksha from Acharya Veersagar in 1955 and muni diksha from Acharya Shivsagar at Jaipur in 1959.
In 1968 at Ajmer he gave muni diksha to a young man from Karnataka who became Vidyasagar. Gyansagar was made acharya in 1969 at Nasirabad. On 22 November 1972, aging and unwell, he did something rare: he gave the acharya seat to his disciple Vidyasagar and accepted him as his own guide for his final vows. He took sallekhana and attained samadhi at Nasirabad on 1 June 1973. In 2013 India issued a postage stamp in his memory.
