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She would say in humility, 'I am a little girl only. I have not been educated at all', but I have heard the effervescence of Veda-Vedanta pouring forth from her divine lips.

Mahamandaleswar 1008 Sri Vidyanandaji Maharaj, Kailash Ashram, Rishikesh

For a span of more than fifty years Sri Ma Anandamayi dominated gracefully the spiritual horizon of India. The keepers of the Vedic heritage - the ascetics orders of India - were united in declaring her the quintessence of the Upanishadic Spirit. Eminent philosophers like Mahendra N. Sarkar and P.M.P. Mahadevan acknowledged her utterances as authoritative.

Much has been written about Sri Ma by erudite scholar as well as ordinary men and women. The present book is a lively and engaging account of Sri Ma's enigmatic personality from the point of view of a single devoted family. It is an intimate and moving study of personal commitments. Yet through the author's perspective an emerging modern society is glimpsed where orthodox rites, political upheavals, social changes create the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope. Sri Ma and her entourage of visiting dignitaries, princes, scholars, village women and children, and renowned ascetics assume a three-dimensional image. According to Richard Lannoy, who has written the Foreword, the book is a valliant attempt at closing the distance between the known and the unfathomable.