page_title: Bhagatji Maharaj
section_title: Childhood
hierarchical_section_title: Bhagatji Maharaj / Life / Childhood
context_page_description: Bhagatji Maharaj, born as Pragji Bhakta, was a householder devotee in the Swaminarayan Sampradaya, a Hindu denomination. He is regarded as the second spiritual successor of Swaminarayan in the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha.
  Through his discourses he was instrumental in propagating the belief that Swaminarayan was Purushottam, the Supreme Being, and that his own guru, Gunatitanand Swami, was Akshar, the divine abode of God. His spiritual realization and practice as a low-caste householder set new precedents and acted as a bulwark against the idea that spiritual elevation was confined to upper castes.
  For BAPS devotees, he is best known for passing on the philosophy of the Akshar Purushottam Upasana to his closest disciple, Shastriji Maharaj, who later founded BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha in 1907 after leaving the Swaminarayan Sampradaya. His inclusion is the BAPS lineage is remarkable as he was in a lower caste and was not a saffron-clad swami demonstrating that status does not limit spiritual realization.
context_section_description: Pragji Bhakta was born on 20 March 1829 in the small, bucolic town of Mahuva into a family of tailors. His father was Govindbhai Darji his mother was Malubai Darji. As a young child, Pragji was greatly inclined towards devotion and spirituality and often visited the nearby Laksmi-Narayan mandir (which still stands today) to offer his devotion. He frequented the Malan River and gave impromptu talks to his friends on the importance of worshipping God. He would often indulge in childish pranks like selling an ornamental portion of his mother's sari, on one occasion, to feed a group of swamis, that were evidence of his spirited good nature. Pragji was introduced to the Swaminarayan faith when Sadguru Yoganand Swami visited the local Swaminarayan mandir and initiated him as a satsangi.
caption: Birthplace of Bhagatji Maharaj in Mahuva, Gujarat
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