Reflections
Swami Shri Hari Ram Ji Vyas, Rasik Ananya of Vrindavan
From the court of Orchha to a grove beside Sewa Kunj: the life of the saint who would not leave Vrindavan, and who gave us Yugal Kishor Juu.
Hari Ram Vyas was born in Orchha, the capital of Bundelkhand, in Samvat 1567, into the family of Sumokhan Shukla, royal priest of the court. He was a scholar before he was anything else: by his youth he had mastered Sanskrit, the Puranas and the art of debate, and kings sent for him to settle arguments.
It was a wandering disciple of Shri Hit Harivansh Mahaprabhu who first spoke to him of Vrindavan. Vyas Ji came to see for himself, met Hit Harivansh, and took initiation. The story goes that he threw his books of debate into the Yamuna that day. He had found what the arguments were about.
He never left. When his old patron, King Madhukar Shah of Orchha, came to take him home, Vyas Ji sang that the trees of Vrindavan were now his mother, his father, his children and his kin. The king went back alone and became his disciple instead. For this single-minded love the saints gave Vyas Ji the title Rasik Ananya: the rasik who belongs to Vrindavan and to nothing else.
He settled in a grove beside Sewa Kunj, which came to be called Kishor Van after the Thakur who appeared to him there, Shri Yugal Kishor Juu. He wrote in the language of the people: the padas of the Vyas Vani, the couplets of the Ragmala, the nine Sanskrit jewels of the Navratna. They are sung at the temple to this day. The saints of Braj count him among the Haritrayi, the three Haris of Vrindavan with Swami Haridas and Hit Harivansh, and revere him as an incarnation of Vishakha Sakhi.
He lived to a great age and left this world in his own grove. His samadhi at Vyas Ghera was raised by Veer Singh Dev of Orchha, and his family has served Yugal Kishor Juu beside it ever since. Fifteen generations later, that is still where you will find us.
