Chitrabhanu

Gurudev Shree Chitrabhanu (July 26, 1922 – April 19, 2019) was a prominent figure in American Jainism. He was one of the co-founders of JAINA. When he was four years old his mother suddenly died and when he was 11 years old, his sister Magi died due to smallpox.

He studied psychology at Bangalore. He found Acharya Sagaranandsuri of Tapa Gaccha a sub sect of Śvetāmbara sect of Jainism as his Guru. He became a Jain monk on February 6, 1942, at the age of 20 at Palitana and was named Muni Chandraprabha Sagar for 29 years. He gave up monkhood in 1970 to attend the Summit, and became an ordinary shravaka. He also married Pramoda Shah in 1971. He has two sons, Rajeev Chitrabhanu and Darshan Chitrabhanu.

He died in his Mumbai residence surrounded by family members on April 19, 2019.

In Europe After attending the conference in Geneva, Chitrabhanu travelled to France and the UK.

In USA After spending some time in Africa and Europe, he came to the US in 1971 to attend the Third Spiritual Summit at the Harvard Divinity School. This resulted in many invitations across the east coast including churches, universities, and seminars.

In 1973, he founded the Jain Meditation International Center in Manhattan, New York City. He claimed to attain enlightenment in 1981 by the ocean at San Diego.

He was among the early promoters of Yoga in USA. His disciple Beryl Bender Birch developed her own style of yoga.

Establishment of JAINA With his guidance, a federation of all Jain associations termed JAINA (Federation of Jain Associations in North America), was founded which became the umbrella organization with more than 100,000 members. For his unprecedented journey to bring the Jain tradition of ahimsa to the Western Hemisphere, Chitrabhanu received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award. His wife Pramoda cooked all of his food and offered vegetarian cooking classes. Chitrabhanu consumed a lacto-vegetarian diet of fruit, legumes, vegetables, nuts, seeds and spices with dairy products.

Selected publications

He wrote twenty-five books which mainly deal with the topic of self-realization.