Bamakhepa

Bamakhepa
Bamakhepa
Personal life
Born	Bamacharan Chattopadhyay 22 February 1837 Atla village, Birbhum, Bengal Presidency, Company Raj
Died	July 18, 1911(1911-07-18) (aged 74) Tarapith, Birbhum, Bengal Presidency, British Raj
Nationality	Indian
Honors	Tarapith Bhairav
Religious life
Religion	Hinduism
Temple	Tarapith
Philosophy	Shaktism
Religious career
Guru	Swami Kailashpati
Disciples Nigamananda Paramahansa

Bamakhyapa (Template:Lang-bn; 1837–1911), born Bamacharan Chattopadhyay, was an Indian Hindu saint who is held in reverence in Tarapith and whose shrine is also located in the vicinity of the Tara temple in Birbhum. He worshipped Maa Tara as if she was his own mother. He was born at Atla village in the Rampurhat subdivision of the Birbhum district.

Memorial of Sadhak Bamakhyapa

Worship

Seated Bamakhepa idol at the Tarapith temple complex

Bamakhaypa, goddess Tara's ardent devotee lived near the temple and meditated in the cremation grounds. He was a contemporary of famous Bengali saints like Ramakrishna Paramhamsa and Vishuddhanand Paramhamsa from Gyanganj or Siddhashram who established Navmundi Asan at Kashi. At a young age, he left his house and came under the tutelage of a Siddha tantric saint named Kailashpati and a vedic saint named Swami Mokkshadananda, who lived in a village name Dakshingram, in Birbhum district. Later he relocated to maluti, an old temple village on the banks of Dwarka River. He stayed in Mouliksha temple for continuing the worship of Holy Mother.

Bamakhyapa's Temple at Maluti in Jharkhand

After this incident, Bamakhaypa was fed first in the temple before the deity and nobody obstructed him. It is believed that Ma Tara gave a vision to Bamakhaypa in the cremation grounds in her ferocious form and then took him to her breast.

Popular culture

Beginning in 2007, a teleserial named 'Sadhak Bamakhepa' about Bamakhepa ran on television in Bengal. By late 2011, it had run for 1500 episodes.

In the teleserial Mahapeeth Tarapeeth, the life of the ardent devotee Bamakhepa was also depicted elaborately.

Further reading

• Dalrymple, William (2009). Nine Lives. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. pp. 203–233. ISBN 978-1-4088-0153-6. Retrieved 19 June 2010. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
• Kinsley, David R. (1997). Tantric visions of the divine feminine: the ten mahāvidyās. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-20499-7.
• Ramos, Imma (2017). Ramos, Imma (ed.). "The Myth of the Goddess Sati". Pilgrimage and Politics in Colonial Bengal. 1. Routledge: 138. doi:10.4324/9781315223148. ISBN 978-1-315-22314-8.