About this stamp
Swami Chidananda
India Post issued this ₹5 stamp on 21 May 2016, in his birth centenary year, for Swami Chidananda (1916–2008) of the Divine Life Society, Rishikesh. Born Sridhar Rao on 24 September 1916 at Mangalore, to Srinivasa Rao and Sarojini Devi, he was drawn from childhood to the service of the poor and the sick, building huts for people with leprosy on the lawns of his home and caring for them.
Disciple of Sivananda
Answering the call of Swami Vivekananda and Swami Sivananda, he left home on Buddha Purnima, 19 May 1943, to serve Swami Sivananda at Rishikesh, and on Guru Purnima, 10 July 1949, took sannyasa as Swami Chidananda, “one who is in the highest consciousness and bliss”. Moved by the plight of the people with leprosy near the ashram, at a time when hospitals were closed to them, he carried fruit and medicine to their huts himself. In 1990 he asked the branches of the Divine Life Society to make the last decade of the century a “Divine Decade” of service to villagers, women and the young. An admirer of Gandhi and Vivekananda, he held all religions in respect.
The stamp was designed by Alka Sharma; Security Printing Press, Hyderabad printed 403,000.
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