Swami Agehananda Bharati (Sanskrit: अगेहानन्द भारती, romanized: Svamī Agehānanda Bhāratī; Vienna, April 20, 1923 – New York, May 14, 1991) was the monastic name of Leopold Fischer, professor of anthropology at Syracuse University for over 30 years. He was an academic Sanskritist, a writer on religious subjects, and a Hindu monk in the Dasanami Sannyasi order.
Fischer was born in Vienna, Austria, on April 20, 1923, to Hans and Margarete Fischer. Growing up, he joined the Indian Club and began to study Hindi and classical Sanskrit, which led to his decision to become an Indologist. Later, Fischer became a member of Germany's "Free India Legion", a military unit raised during the Second World War part of the Waffen-SS which intended to serve as a liberation force for British-ruled India, and converted to Hinduism, taking on the name Ramachandra.[1]
Although he attended the University of Vienna, Bharati kept up his studies as a monk and took up teaching as well. Agehananda Bharati's travels were as extensive as his teachings were impressive. He was a professional expert in cultural anthropology, South Asian studies, linguistics, and comparative philosophy. Most of these subjects he taught in Delhi University, Banaras Hindu University, and Nalanda Institute in India. He also taught in a Buddhist academy in Bangkok, Thailand, where he first began his teachings on comparative religion. Bharati became a visiting professor of Indian philosophy at the University of Tokyo and Kyoto.
In 1956, Bharati came to the U.S. as a research associate for Washington University in Seattle. A year later he transferred to Syracuse and joined the anthropology faculty. He settled down in Syracuse and became Ford-Maxwell Professor of South Asian Studies. It wasn't long before he became the chairman of his department. He was granted U.S. citizenship in 1968. Although he lived in Syracuse that didn't mean that he had stopped traveling. He managed to go to Hawaii, Britain, Michigan, Soviet Union, Germany, and Ireland for research and as a visiting professor.
Bharati had become a member of numerous organizations including: American Association of University Professors, American Anthropological Association (fellow), Association for Applied Anthropology (fellow), American Linguistic Society, International Association for General Semantics, Mensa International, Mind Association, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Royal Philosophical Society, Royal Siam Society, International Academy of Human Rights, and New York Academy of Sciences. (Contemporary Authors, 2003) Agehananda Bharati died on May 14, 1991, of cancer at the age of 68, in a friend's house in Pittsford, New York.
By the time he died, Bharati had over 500 published works, including an autobiography called The Ochre Robe.[2]
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