Dr. Satyanarayan Dasa Babaji, a great IIT alumnus
2024.04.12 (Vrindavan Today News): Dr. Satyanarayan Dasa Babaji was born in the year 1954 with the given name Satya Pal Singh Tanwar, in a small village in the state of Haryana. Although his village Palla is about seven kilometers from Faridabad city, it had no modern amenities. There was no electricity, nor were there roads or vehicles. People lived as they had been living for hundreds of years without any modern technology. The village primarily consisted of farming families. The land was ploughed with bulls, the means of transportation was a bullock cart and cultivation depended on rains or water pulled from wells with the help of bulls. The village had only two wells for getting water for the daily needs of people as we as cows, bulls and buffaloes.
Great IITan Mr. Satyapal Singh Tanwar, 76/ME/B.Tech/IIT Delhi; becomes Mahant Dr. Satyanarayan Dasa Babaji Maharaj
Babaji was part of a joint family and spent a happy childhood within a traditional family framework and village environment. His primary education happened in the village school, and secondary in the Government school of Malviya Nagar, Delhi. He did his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering and M.Tech in Industrial Engineering at IIT Delhi. During his IIT years, he was also an avid sportsman and represented IIT Delhi in hockey and weightlifting. He won a silver medal in Delhi State as well as in Inter University weightlifting championship. He was honored as the Best Sportsman of the year1976.
He worked in Mumbai for six months and then moved to Miami, Florida. For most IITians, arriving in the USA was a dream comes true. But Babaji had a different mindset. He minutely observed the life of Americas and could see that underneath the glamour there was only sadness, loneliness, frustration, dissatisfaction, and suffering. To counter this people took shelter of liquor and drugs.
To preserve and protect the traditional wisdom of India, Babaji founded the Jiva Institute, which has three divisions: namely, Cultural, Health, and Education. The Cultural Division, headed by Babaji, focused on the scriptures of India, their study, and publication, Babaji regularly gives classes on various scriptures to Indian as well as international students. Jiva Institute has a rich collection of scripture, both printed and handwritten. Babaji has written more than 20 books. His main work has been translating the Shat Sandarbhas into English and commenting on them. Recently he wrote a revolutionary book called The Sanskrit Non-translatable together with Rajiv Malhotra. This book has been written to promote the proper use of Sanskrit words that are generally mistranslated by the laity. The book was ranked number four in the best-seller group on Amazon.
The health division of Jiva Institute is headed by Dr. Partap Chauhan, who has worked for the last 35 years to spread Ayurveda in India as well as abroad. His telemedicine project was selected as the best by the UN. He started the world’s first call centre for Ayurveda. The Education Division runs a Jiva Public School at Faridabad under the supervision of Rishi Pal Chauhan. IN this school each student is taught about his or her own unique nature based on Ayurveda and Bhagavad Gita and Vedic Psychology.
In addition to teaching at his institute in Vrindavan, Babaji gives seminars and lectures on Sanskrit and a variety of topics relating to Indian Philosophy in Europe and the United States. He is a visiting professor at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Where he teaches every summer, as well as an Adjunct Faculty Member of the Hindu University of America, in Florida. He regularly teaches at the Universite Terre De Ciel, France. He has also taught at the Mississippi State University, the University of Zurich, Switzerland, the Tubingen University, Germany, the Heidelberg University, Germany, the University of Comparative Religions, Antwerp, Belgium, and the University in Croatia, Rektorat Sveucilista U Rijeci, Rijeka. He works in collaboration with the Faculty for the Comparative Study of Religions, Antwerp, Belgium.
Babaji also started a Sanskrit school, called Shri Chaitanya Sanskrit Samsthana, Vrindavan, Which is affiliated with the Sampoornananda Sanskrit University, Benaras. It awards Shastri Degrees in Vedanta, Sahitya, and Vyakarana. The School also has a branch at Radhakunda. Students are given free education.
Babaji has also developed a new field called Vedic Psychology based on his study of Indian scriptures, to help modern people facing problems related to the mind, such as anxiety, depression, stress, grief, and failure in relations. He has trained international groups of teachers to utilize this knowledge for giving therapy. He has also trained an American Psychologist to include this knowledge while treating her clients. He founded The Vedic Psychology Institute in the USA, which promotes this wisdom. For this purpose, he has designed various easy-to-understand e-courses for distant learners.
Babaji was honored with the outstanding contribution Award for National Development given IIT Delhi Alumni Association in the years 2001-2002. He is listed in the ‘Contemporary Who’s Who’s published by the Governing Board of Editors of the American Biographical Institute. He is a Member of the editorial Board for Bilingual Sanskrit Series of Global Scholarly Publications, USA. IN 1994 he was honored by Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, the president of India for translating Jiva Goswami’s Tattva Sandarbha. TheResearch and Advisory Board of the International Biographical Centre of Cambridge, England, selected Babaji as ‘International Educator of the Year 2004’. He was honored with the Hakim Ajmal Khan Global Award for Organizational and social Vedic Services in 2006. In November 2012, he was awarded the sahitya sammana for his extraordinary contribution to the spreading of Vedic Culture through literature by the president of India, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee. In 2015 Babaji was officially installed as a Mahanta of the Jiva Institute by the Chatuh Vaishnava Sampradaya Parishad of Vrindavan.
(This article was recently published in a book on 100 great IItians, which was edited by Commander V.K. Jaitly. It includes the biography of Mahant Dr. Satyanarayan Das Babaji, the president of ‘Vrindavan Today Foundation’, the organization responsible for publishing ‘Vrindavan Today’ monthly. Our editorial board takes pride on Babaji’s achievement and congratulates him)
