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Sailendra Narayana Ghoshal Sastri (Bengali: শৈলেন্দ্রনারায়ন ঘোষাল) (5 March 1928 – 8 September 1988) was a Vedic scholar and director of The Vedic Research Institute.
Biography
Birth and Education
Sailendra Narayana was born in Kaliara Village, West Midnapur, West Bengal, India, to a devout family. His parents were Agnihotri Brahmin Sashibhushan Ghoshal and Prabhabati Devi. Sailendra Narayana was a meritorious student since childhood. He stood first in the Matric exam. He got Honors in Sanskrit. He used to take lessons of Vedic literature from his father.
Narmada Parikrama
After completing graduation, he went for Narmada Parikrama, the pilgrimage travel around the bank of river Narmada, in barefoot, where he met with many Sages and had some extraordinary experiences. In that austere journey, he discovered many mysterious facts about Hindu Philosophy and many rare manuscripts of Sanskrit books like Rudra Hridaya Upanishad or Agama literature. The entire journey is described in his famous travelogue Tapobhumi Narmada.
Contribution to Indian philosophy
According to his father's wish, he traveled all over the India 4 times. He visited Kedar-Vadri, Kailash, Manas Sarovar, Satapanth, Kashmir, Varanasi etc. and got accompany of many Sages. In his debut book Alok Tirtha, published on 1957, he tried put on the light over many misconceptions of Idolatry, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavad etc. Though many of the conservative Hindus of that time protested him, famous personalities like Soumendranath Tagore, Sukumar Sen (linguist), historian Radha Kumud Mukherjee, philosopher Jagadish Chandra Chattopadhyay, bard Akshay Kumar Boral admired his work. He replied to his critics in his second book Alok Vandana(1958). Later he founded- The Vedic Research Institute.He held a skeptical view all over his life. In the letters to Shri Soumendranath Tagore, he questioned the divinity of the mystic Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.
