Life
Bhattacharya was born in the Ahiritola area of Kolkata. He took to the life of Brahmacharya, or celibacy, at a very young age. In the course of his wandering he met Lahiri Mahasaya in Varanasi. Lahiri Mahasaya agreed to initiate him in Kriya Yoga under the condition that he give up his sannyas vows and return to a householder life. Bhattacharya fulfilled this condition and received initiation from Lahiri Mahasaya. As a householder, he worked as a flower vendor.
Around the year 1885 he was permitted by the sage to set up an institution, the Aryya Mission Institution, for publishing Kriya related books. Paramahansa Yogananda in his book, Autobiography of a Yogi wrote:
The master now permitted his disciple, Panchanon Bhattacharya, to open in Calcutta a yoga center, the "Arya Mission Institution". The centre distributed certain yogic herbal medicines, and published the first inexpensive editions in Bengal of the Bhagavad-Gita. The Arya Mission Gita, in Hindi and Bengali, found its way into thousands of homes.The Aryya Mission Institution as founded by Panchanon Bhattacharya closed many years ago. It was revived again in recent years.
Some of Panchanon Bhattacharya's disciples include Srish Mukherjee, Bamandev Banerjee, Netai Charan Banerjee, Barada Charan Majumdar, Kumarnath Mukherjee, Jeevanlal Choudhury amongst others. Many disciples initiated by Lahiri Mahasaya also came to him for instruction on advanced kriyas. The late Maheshwari Prasad Dubey was a disciple of Nitayi Charan Bandhopadhyaya (Banerjee), the disciple of Panchanon Bhattachrya listed above.
Read more about this topic: Panchanan Bhattacharya
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