Trailinga Swami

Trailinga Swami

The Trailinga Swami was a naked yogi known throughout India for his miraculous powers and longevity. A latecomer to spiritual life, he was initiated by his guru at the age of 78 and thereafter began a long pilgrimage throughout India, during which time it is said that he showed no signs of aging due to 

his extreme austerities. Finally, he settled down in Benares, where he lived for the next 150 years as a renunciate. During this time he never spoke, rarely ate food, and wandered on the banks of the Ganges (or floated stationary in midstream). Sri Ramakrishna, another Indian saint, met Trailinga Swami shortly before his death in 1887 at the age of 247 years, calling him a true incarnation of Lord Siva himself.

Trailinga Swami born to Narasingh Rao and Bidayabati in 1601, was a great Indian Saint who did tremendous sadhana for over 250 years and attained to the heights of spiritual knowledge. Swami is said to be the incarnation of Lord Shiva. His initial name was Shivaram.Shivaram was always a profound and seriously introspective child. For the most part he avoided regular childhood past times, preferring instead to spend his time in solitude. He was quite indifferent to the demands of the society around him. Rather his great joy was to listen to religious stories told by his mother. He spent 52 years of his life serving his parents and at the age of 52 when his mother left her earthly body, Shivram moved out of his house and started his search for the guru. He started his sadhana in the local cremation grounds, where he remained seeking wisdom for 20 years. After that he went to many places including Nepal and finally settled in Banaras (Kashi) where he stayed for about 150 years.

The Swami, rarely eating earthly foods, was said to have gained a pound of body weight for each of his earthly years and finally reaching over 300 pounds.

The Swami was consistently seen to drink deadly poisons and remain unaffected by it. Thousands of people have seen Trailanga floating on the Ganges for days on end. Many who witnessed this are still living today. Swami was seen sitting on the top of the water and other times remaining hidden under the waves for hours and days. Frequently the Swami was seen on the extremely hot stone slabs at Manikarnika Ghat under 

the blistering heat of the Indian sun, yet no ill affect resulted to his body. 

Trailinga Swami was known to eat very little, often observing long fasts. A group of wicked men wanted to test his truthfulness and poisoned him with lime water, a concoction that looks like milk. The wicked men followed him to find out his reaction, which was not as they had expected. He urinated.

Rich visitors liked to decorate him with gold and gems. Attired like this he would lose consciousness and thieves would remove the jewels. For him, it was as if someone was giving and someone was taking. An incident occurred in which a King had beckoned him with beautiful jewels and robbers took away everything. When the robbers were brought to Trailinga Swami, he dismissed the whole incident saying, "I am still the same with or without the jewels."

 

Many Saints met him in his lifetime. One day he announced to his disciples that he would like to leave this world. The distressed disciples cried that they had no statue of him. He promised his disciples a memoir, a statue of himself prior to his departure, which they made. Then before leaving, he advised his devotees to make a sandalwood coffin and to put his body within, and then to throw it into the Ganges. He entered in to meditative samadhi and consciously exited from the body on the 11th day of the full moon.

Following his directions, they placed his body in the sandalwood coffin, circumambulated Kashi, and then lowered the coffin into the Ganges, beside which he had resided for so many years. The coffin sank to the bottom, but after some time floated to the surface. When the disciples opened the lid, they found that the box was filled with flowers, and there was no sign of the body.

Those are some of the details of the life of Trailinga Swami, who continues to remain an inspiration to saints and sadhus of all walks of life. Trailanga Swami took samadhi on the ekadashi (11th lunar day) of the bright lunar of the month of Pousha (December) 1881.