The Story of Kina Ram

Translation of text from panels
Aghor Ashram, Varanasi

Lord Shiva appeared to Kina Ram’s mother in a dream and said he will be born. When Kina Ram was young, many gurus would come to visit him. Three sadhus came, who were really Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu. Then a ceremony was performed where the name Kina Ram, which means “one who has been bought” was given to him. He was very fond of gods. He liked to worship. Instead of playing with his friends, he would sing bhajans. When he was going to get his wife for his wedding, he insisted that he should be fed with milk and cooked rice, which has some kind of Tantrik connotation, because when someone dies, they are given milk and rice. So he knew that something was going to happen. When he ate this food, he received news that his wife had died. After his wife’s death he left his village and went to Khajapur, near Benares. Then he lived with a guru who tested him. He was told to fetch water from the Ganga. The guru was convinced that Kina Ram was special.

Once he was visiting a jail and there saw weak people who had to grind flour. So he touched all the grinding stones with a stick and they moved on their own, so the inmates didn’t have to work any longer. When a Muslim King heard about this deed, he came and said, “Forgive me and give me your blessing.” Then Kina Ram went to Karachi and there went to a Devi temple and got blessings from the goddess. Then he went into Afghanistan. The Muslim King of that area, Sha Jah, begged Kina Ram’s forgiveness and blessing. Then he went to the mountains and met the first-ever guru there, who was a form of Brahma, and he gave Kina Ram human flesh to eat so that he could see the world through divine eyes. He got all supernatural and divine powers from this guru. He came to Benares to one of the burning ghats here and met another guru, and the goddess Ganga offered him a gift of fish. One man had died and Baba brought him back to life.

A landlord who lived in this area offered Baba the land on which this ashram is built. Once Kina Ram went to the Ganga in Bihar and taught the people there that they should eat everything and practice Hinduism, that they shouldn’t consider anything bad to eat. He brought back to life a dead elephant. He fought against the Muslim and other people who were trying to convert Hindus away from Hinduism. He then went to Gujarat and met people who came to drown themselves in the sea. He rescued one woman who was there. A Brahmin came to him who was childless. Baba had a stick in his hand and hit the stick on the ground four times, producing four children. Another woman in Benares, whose son had almost died, asked him to heal her son. He healed him and brought him back to good health. Then he went to Madhya Pradesh, and on the bank of a river, a Muslim King who destroyed many temples in India came to beg forgiveness of Kina Ram. Kina Ram scolded him. As he was about die, he gave his final teachings to the saints and then left his body.