Swami’s Ancestors. In recent times in the village of Nagulwaram, lived a devout Brahmin (priest) called Sri Koteswara Sastry. He belonged to the lineage (gotra) of Sage Kashyapa. He spent his entire life repeating the name of the Lord (Rama Nama Japam). Even when he passed away, the name of the Lord alone was on his lips, and his fingers were counting the rosary. His son, Sri Veerabhadra Shastry is a poet in Sanskrit and Telugu and has written more than a hundred books. He is also a great astrologer. His wife is called Hanumayamma.

Two distant cousins of Sri Veerabhadra Shastry were evil sorcerers. They were skilled in black magic and had terrorised the whole village. They had the power to kill people with a mere look or the utterance of certain words or mantras. They used to worship ghosts, evil forces, and demons. Cemeteries and cremation grounds used to be their haunts. According to some people’s estimate, they had killed hundreds of people, including over three hundred children, using their evil powers. They were sworn enemies of Sri Veerabhadra Shastry and had cast an evil spell on Sri Veerabhadra Shastry’s family that his lineage may come to an end. As a result of the spell, seven children in the joint family, which included Sri Veerabhadra Shastry and his two brothers, had died.

The eighth child. When Hanumayamma was pregnant with the eighth child in the extended family of Sri Veerabhadra Shastry, there was a lot of anxiety for the infant’s survival. On Sunday, phalguna shukla vidiya, in the early hours of the 4th part of uttarabhadra, makara lagna, vyaya year, (February 24th, 1947), the child of Veerabhadra Shastry and Hanumayamma was born. The child was a boy. As soon as he was born, the two evil sorcerers, who had tried to destroy the family of Sri Veerabhadra Shastry, died all of a sudden. The two sorcerers were paternal uncles of the newborn child. With their death, the evil influence on the family and the entire village ended. 

The name-giving ceremony (namakarana) was postponed until age seven. The family was still afraid that he might not survive, since the earlier seven children had died only after their ceremony. Little did the family know that this boy was none other than the Lord Himself and that he would be known as Swami (master, Lord) or Datta Swami in the future. There are several parallels between the life of Lord Krishna and Swami. Lord Krishna was the eighth child of his parents. Swami was the eighth child in his family. Lord Krishna’s maternal uncle was a very cruel king and had killed the elder siblings of Lord Krishna along with innumerable innocent people. In Swami’s case, his two paternal uncles were cruel and had killed Swami’s elder siblings and cousins apart from hundreds of other villagers. Owing to the similarities between Lord Krishna and Swami, his paternal aunt, named him ‘Venugopala Krishna Murthy.’

Early Life

Swami the prankster. As Swami grew up to be a young boy, he brought life and enthusiasm to his family and the whole village. His enchanting pranks at once entertained and exasperated his parents. His mischief was very similar to that of Lord Krishna. Like Lord Krishna, Swami was well fond of butter and curd. He too, would collect a band of village kids and sneak into neighbor’s homes to steal butter and curd. His whole day would be spent playing with his band of friends, teasing villagers, and breaking their earthen pots. His friends adored him and considered him as their leader. Despite his constant mischief, he was the heart-throb of the entire village. Occasionally, some villagers would complain to Swami’s parents about his being a perfect menace. But on the whole, they tolerated and even enjoyed his pranks.

Swami’s upanayanam. When Swami turned seven, just a few days after his christening ceremony (namakarana), his father decided that it was about time that his son got a little serious. To reduce the mischief of Swami and instill some discipline in him, his father performed the upanayanam ceremony for Swami. The upanayanam is the initiation of a child into the traditional study of the scriptures. A large ceremony was performed, and food was distributed to the entire village. After the upanayanam, Swami’s father started teaching Sanskrit to Swami. He began by teaching eight verses from the epic, Raghuvamsha of Kalidasa. But from the ninth verse onwards, Swami began to reveal the meanings of Sanskrit verses without any further teaching. This happened when Swami was seven years of age. The father was taken aback by the extraordinary talent of his seven-year-old son. However, he was worried and thought that Swami might be possessed by a ‘Brahma Rakshasa’, the ghost of a scholarly demon. As a result, Swami could suddenly expound the Sanskrit epic without any prior study. His father performed several rituals and the chanting of mantras (sacred hymns) so that Swami may get rid of the ‘Brahma Rakshasa.’ He had no idea of the divinity of his son. When Swami related this to his devotees many years later, he jokingly said that his father did not know which ghost had possessed him. Swami said that he was possessed by Lord Datta, whose original form is described as that of a ghost called  ‘Avadhuta Datta Digambara Pishacha Rupa.’ Lord Datta in this form is Lord Shiva, who is the ruler of all ghosts.

Swami the extraordinary. After that, Swami began composing shlokas (verses) in Sanskrit on his own. The ancient and intricate Sanskrit language flowed effortlessly from Swami’s pen. Swami started writing poems, epics, stotrams (paeans), and philosophical books in the hundreds. Sanskrit scholars were dumbfounded seeing the compositions of Swami when he was barely eleven years old. Great scholars like Sri M. Satyanarayana Sastry and Sri Tatacharya compared the works of Swami to those of the legendary Kalidasa. Sri Vavilala Venkateswara Sastry, a great philosopher, appreciated Swami extensively. Sri.D.Prabhakara Sastry and Sri.J.Venkateswara Sastry recognised that Swami’s genius was out of the ordinary. They realized that it was not genius, but it was Divinity.

Swami the astrologer. At the age of ten, Swami used to tell the future. Initially, people thought that he must have inherited some of his father’s astrological skills. However, two incidents convinced people of Swami’s divinity rather than astrological skills. Once when Swami was present by his father’s side, a farmer from the neighboring village of Kookatlapally, came to them and invited them to his daughter’s wedding. Swami suddenly said that the bride would die immediately after the wedding. Everyone in Swami’s family was shocked. They scolded Swami for making such an outrageous statement. The farmer, who had come to invite them, was speechless. Yet, he proceeded with the wedding of his daughter. After the wedding was over and when the bride prostrated before her in-laws to receive their blessings, as per tradition, she immediately fell dead. This incident became the talk of the town.

Another incident took place when Swami went to visit his uncle in Kundurti. In his uncle’s house, Swami took a diary and wrote that jis aunt would pass away due to cholera on a particular date. He signed the same with the date of prediction. On the predicted day, Swami’s aunt died of cholera. Swami’s uncle had not seen the note that Swami had made and signed in the diary and came to know it only later on.

Swami the student.  Swami was exceptionally brilliant in his studies. He completed his bachelor’s degree at the age of fifteen and proceeded to the prestigious Allahabad University for his Masters and Ph.D. During his five-year stay in Allahabad, he would wake up at 3:00 am every morning and walk to the holy river, Ganga (Ganges), to perform severe penance. He would first bathe in the holy waters. Then he would hold a Shiva Lingam in his left hand and shower it with the holy water of the Ganga with his right hand. He would do this standing on one leg in the water till 7.00 am. After that, he would proceed to the university to attend classes and do his research. Every full moon day (Poornima), Swami would go to the holy city of Varanasi (Banaras), which is just a few hours away from Allahabad. There, He would worship Lord Shiva by performing the Rudrabhishekam.

By the age of seventeen, Swami had completed His Master’s degree in chemistry. He continued working towards a Ph.D. Swami worked in the laboratory for his Ph.D. for only thirty days and completed His thesis in a few months after joining the Ph.D. program. His thesis was titled ‘A New Supersonic Technique for Metallurgical Testing.’ It was a very short thesis and contained only thirty pages. Swami was inspired by Newton and Einstein, whose groundbreaking theses in their time were concise. Swami did not want to submit a watered-down thesis running into hundreds of pages; he instead wanted a short, power-packed thesis with an original idea. His professors were highly impressed with Swami’s thesis, his original work, and his brilliance as a researcher. However, they could not accept his thesis so soon. The university had a rule that the minimum time for completing a Ph.D. degree should be twenty months. Swami was obliged to wait for that period before he could submit His thesis.

Swami the Vedic scholar. Swami spent this time enacting another divine drama in this world. It was a critical phase of his life from the point of view of his Divine Mission on earth. Every morning, he would go to the university but not to the chemistry department; he would go to the G. N. Jha Research Institute, which was on campus. There are hundreds of thousands of original palm-leaf manuscripts of ancient philosophical texts in this famous institute, including the Vedas, Brahmasutras, Bhagavad Gita, and commentaries of great ancient masters on the scriptures. Swami would study them all day. His colleagues in the chemistry department would joke that his admission to the chemistry department was a mere formality; He could always be found in the G. N. Jha Research Institute. They would add that Swami was not a research scholar in chemistry but a scholar in Sanskrit and philosophy.

Swami the Professor. At the age of 30, Swami became a professor in chemistry. Swami leads a simple life in Vijayawada, India. He is a professor at K. L. Engineering College, Vijayawada. He has published numerous original research papers in internationally acclaimed journals. He is a rare combination of a scientist and a spiritual genius. He is a strong proponent of a rational approach to spirituality. In his eyes, science and religion are no different. He says that a rationalist can easily be a spiritualist. 

Swami lives with His wife, Smt. Jayalakshmi Narasakumary. His three sons are named Anjaneya, Veerabhadra, and Vatsararushi. His youngest child is a daughter by the name of Hanumayamma. While living in the world, Swami teaches Divine Knowledge to devotees and ordinary people.