Puran Puri

Puran Puri (Hindi: पूरन पुरी, alternative spellings Purana Poori or Praun Poory) was an 18th-century sanyasi monk and traveller from India, who travelled from Central India to Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the Middle East, Moscow and Tibet. He was a Khatri or Rajput, born 1742 in the city of Kannauj in what is now the modern-day state of Uttar Pradesh in India.

Initiation and Life as a Yogi

Puran Puri left his father's house at the age of nine, and travelled to Bithoor where he became a Fakir. From Bithoor he proceeded to Allahabad, where he started his urdhwa bahu tapasya. Puran Puri belonged to the Puri sub-order of Dashanami Sampradaya swamis.

Travels

Even though he was a humble ascetic and travelled mainly to Hindu places of worship as a form of pilgrimage, Puran Puri's travels were extensive and comparable in distances to those of more famous travellers like Ibn Batuta. His travelogue was recorded by East India Company official Jonathan Duncan in May 1792, when he was the British Resident at Benares. This was the western-most destination in his travels.

Travel through Persia

From Moscow, Puran Puri returned to Astrakhan, and via the Silk Road cities of Shamakhi, Shirvan, Tabriz and Hamadan, reached Isfahan. Isfahan was one of the largest cities in the world, and after a stay of forty days there, he then proceeded to Shiraz in the Fars Province of current day Iran. In Shiraz, Puran Puri was part of an audience with Karim Khan Zand.

After delivering the items to Hastings, he was presented with letters of introduction to Maharaja Chait Singh of Benares, a grant of the jagir (land grant) of the village Ashapur to Puran Puri.

Popularity of Image in Europe

Puran Puri's image with his hands raised in penance, along with the image of a fellow sanyasi Param Swatantra Prakashanand Bramhachari lying on a bed of nails, was drawn by Jonathan Duncan himself for his 1799 article in the 'Asiatic Researches' journal. These were among the earliest images of yogis received in Europe, and triggered the European fascination for documentation of the novel postures and painful practices of ascetics. As such, the image of Puran Puri was widely redrawn and reproduced as an archetype of a yogi or gymnosophist.