Krishnabai, Mother

(1903–1989)

   teacher who embodied the love of service

   The child who later became known as Mother Krishnabai was born in 1903, although little else is known of her childhood. The first years of her life were turbulent. When she was 10 her father died. At age 13 she married K. Laxman Rao, who passed away seven years later, in 1926, leaving her a young widow.

   In 1928 she encountered Swami RAMDAS, who provided uplift from her sorrows. Krishnabai became a devoted disciple and attained self-real-ization by strictly following the swami’s teaching. As the foremost disciple and successor of Swami Ramdas, she embodied the love of service and provided for the spiritual and material needs of the poor. Under Swami Ramdas’s guidance she helped to establish Anandashram in Kerala, South India. She worked with her beloved teacher there, becoming a mother to all who went to the ash-ram. In 1963, upon the death of Swami Ramdas, she assumed leadership of Anandashram. In spite of poor health she propagated Swami Ramdas’s teachings and served the poor until her death on February 12, 1989.

   Further reading: Mother Krishnabai, Guru’s Grace (Kahnangad: Anandashram, 1963); Swami Ramdas, Krishna Bai (Ramnagar: Anandashram, 1940); Swami Satchidananda, Viswamata Krishnabai (Kahnangad: Anandashram, n.d.); Sriram, With the Divine Mother (Kahnangad: Anandashram, n.d.).