BENGALURU: The Bengaluru head of Ramakrishna Ashram, Swami Harshananda, passed away due to a cardiac arrest at the ashram on Tuesday noon, ashram authorities said. He was 91 years old, and was suffering from age-related illnesses, as per sources. The swami was president of the Ramakrishna Mutt in Bengaluru since 1989. The swami, who was wheelchai r-bound for months, moved about and took care of his commitments before having lunch and retiring to his room, where he passed away at 1:05pm.
Swami Harshananda was a mechanical engineer from the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, and joined the Ramakrishna Mission in 1954 where his guru was Swami Virajananda, the sixth president of the Bengaluru branch of Ramakrishna Mission.
He worked in Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mangaluru, Allahabad and Belur Mutt in West Bengal (headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission). He was a polyglot and an expert in Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, Bengali and English, sources said, adding that he has several books to his credit, including ‘A Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism’.