Swaminarayan Ji

Swaminarayan (1781-1830), born Ghanshyam and widely known by his monastic name Sahajanand Swami, is venerated by his followers as a manifestation of Krishna and as the founder of the Swaminarayan Sampradaya, a devotional tradition centred in Gujarat and now established worldwide.

As a child ascetic he travelled under the name Neelkanth; on initiation his guru named him Sahajanand Swami; the name Swaminarayan comes from the mantra he later taught his followers, and the sampraday itself takes its name from him.

He is depicted as a serene ascetic, typically in saffron or yellow robes. Temple worship across the tradition's branches centres on murtis of Swaminarayan himself, often installed alongside Radha-Krishna or Lakshmi-Narayan, the specific pairing varying by branch and mandir.

Orphaned as a child, he left home at the age of eleven and spent seven years wandering across India as a young yogi under the name Neelkanth before settling at the hermitage of the ascetic Ramanand Swami. Initiated in 1800 and given leadership of Ramanand's Uddhava Sampradaya in 1802 despite some opposition, he went on to build six major mandirs, at Ahmedabad, Bhuj, Vadtal, Dholera, Junagadh and Gadhada, and to lead large-scale nonviolent yajnas alongside social reforms for women and the poor.

He succeeded his own guru, Ramanand Swami, as head of what became the Swaminarayan Sampradaya. Before his death he established two acharya lineages, at Ahmedabad (Nar Narayan Dev Gadi) and Vadtal (Laxmi Narayan Dev Gadi), from which the tradition's later branches, including BAPS, descend.

His teachings on personal morality, nonviolence and devotion are recorded in texts including the Shikshapatri and the Vachanamrut, and remain foundational across the sampraday's branches. The tradition he founded has grown into one of the most visible modern Gujarati Hindu movements, with a significant global diaspora presence.

Rooted in Gujarat, the tradition today spans a large global Gujarati diaspora. Its branches, among them BAPS and the Nar Narayan Dev and Laxmi Narayan Dev gadis, differ in succession and organisational structure while all tracing their authority back to Swaminarayan himself.