Word: acharya
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...handsome Hindu named Narayan Acharya left a wife, a five-year-old child and a promising political career, to follow "an inner urge to do penance and bring peace to the world." Wandering through the Himalayas, he practiced the mystic arts of yoga, learned to do without food and water for long periods at a time. According to one admirer, Narayan even mastered the trick of levitation, and once flew for three miles through a Nepalese jungle. In the same jungle Narayan had himself buried alive for 24 hours, and survived to tell newsmen of the milky white "soul light...
...nine days, sophisticates in New Delhi's clubs and coffee houses argued over whether Narayan was a fake or not. There was probably a secret tunnel leading into the tomb, said some. But in a hut near the pit, Narayan's sole disciple, faithful Wamana Acharya, sat praying day after day. Last week, as the tenth day of the ordeal dawned, sightseers from all over New Delhi streamed to the burying place afoot and on camelback to watch Narayan's disinterment. Cymbals and harmoniums clanged and wheezed, hucksters did a land-office business...
Like men elsewhere, a thin little Indian with sparkling eyes is deeply worried about the state of the world. He is 34-year-old Acharya Sri Tulsi Ramji, head of the Terapanthi sect of the Jains, a religious group that believes in nonviolence. In a campaign to improve humanity, Tulsi Ramji in 1948 founded the Anuvrati Sangh (Atomic Vows Society). Its members take 148 vows, renewable yearly...