By F M Britto
Raipur, Aug 8, 2022: For nearly 45 years, a frail Catholic priest with long hair and beard and dressed in a white dhoti and yellow kurta with a thin white shawl used to move about in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.
However, these days, the Raipur archdiocesan priest appears in worn out white kurta and a pair of dark pants, his white beard unruly and hair trimmed short.
Is Swami Ishanand, as he is known, disillusioned with Indianization?
“No, I still love ashram life,” asserts the 79-year-old priest with his characteristic strong smile. “Only for practical purposes I have changed to this dress,” expalins the parish priest of Sankra, a rural parish, 118 km south of Raipur, the archdiocesan headquarters.
“I was attracted to live an ashram life since late Father Amalorpavadass spearheaded Indian ashram life style in the 1970s,” Swami Ishanand explains.
The ascetic was born as Thomas Elipulikatt on November 4, 1943, in a farming family at Poovathodu parish in Palai diocese of Kerala. He joined the newly formed Raipur prefecture, then in Madhya Pradesh, as the first seminarian in 1963, since three of his sisters had already joined the Salesian Missionaries of Mary Immaculate in the neighboring Nagpur archdiocese, from which Raipur was carved.
His other sister joined the Daughters of Mary in Tamil Nadu. All his six brothers have got married.
After his priestly ordination in 1973, Father Elipulikatt was posted as the first priest in charge of Bhanpuri, at the outskirts of Raipur. When he took charge of the parish in June 1974, he tried to live with vegetarian food and asceticism in his personal life.
“I didn’t want to join any religious congregation because they were of western model. I wanted to have an Indian way of ashram life. Hindus are attracted to ashram life than institutional Church,” Ishanand told Matters India.
After a short stay in Bhanpuri, he was appointed the parish priest of Mahasamund in December 1974 (now a district headquarters). “I continued to live like a sadhu,” he recalls.
With the permission from then diocesan administrator German Pallottine Monsignor Francis Werner Hunold, he went for ashram life experiences in various Christian and Hindu ashrams in various parts of India.
To build his dream hermitage Shantivanam Ashram (Abode of Peace), he collected some fund to purchase 3-4 acres of land in 1979 at Mahadev Ghat, on the banks of Kharoon river, outskirts of Raipur, to live as a sadhu, in the natural setting.
He moved in to live there on his 36th birthday “first under the tree,” says Swami Ishanand. “Gradually I built some simple huts with the bricks available from the brick kiln there,” he adds.
Besides adapting simple vegetarian food, he put on yellowish kurta and white dhoti, allowing long hair and beard. He lived alone, allowing disciples to join him to seek God in contemplation and prayer, leading a simple life in harmony with nature.
The temples there attracted a large number of Hindu devotees, especially during the festival seasons. Many Hindus who came there started also visiting the sanyasi, without knowing that he was a Christian.
“In the beginning they didn’t know I was a Christian. Later many came to know. When I told them that Jesus is my ishta dev (personal god), they had no problem,” says Swami Ishanand. “Sadhus are in search of God-experience and not for making conversions.”
Hindu Rama Rao, who came from Bhilai to visit the temples, continued visiting him and eventually became a believer in Christ. “He is still friendly with me and visits me,” says Swami Ishanand. “Ashram life was not for making conversions, but for witness,” he asserts.
Many priests, nuns and lay people also used to frequent Ishanand’s place and spend their time in the Indian model chapel in prayer and retreat. “I faced no opposition from any religious fundamentalists,” he says.
As demanded by the diocese, Swami Ishanand handed over the ashram to Raipur diocese, after some 20 years. The land is now given to the Order of the Friars Minor, who care the Catholic families around and the Salesian sisters’ formation center nearby.
Swami Ishanand went for a padayatra (march on foot) from Palai to Amritsar in Punjab, about 3,200 km. With no money in his hand, he says, he survived on people’s generosity. “I didn’t have any money. I begged food on the way. Often I starved. It is also a penance,” adds the Swami.
Although priests and nuns on the way showed him hospitality, some refused accommodation, food and “even water” to him, says the Swamiji painfully. “But I didn’t have any bitter experience,” he consoles himself.
Then Swami Ishanand went to the neighbouring Nagpur archdiocese to continue his ashram life. Both the former Archbishops Leobard D’Souza and his successor Archbishop Abraham Viruthakulangara (his seminary mate) were very supportive, he says.
In his search, he landed up in a village, about 45 km away the archbishop’s house. While wandering there, a villager asked him what he wanted. When he disclosed to him that he was looking for some land for ashram, that man, who happened to be the sarpanch (village head man) generously offered the vacant government land lying outside the village.
Though the Hindu villagers later discovered that he was a Christian, it did not create any problem, he says. “Hindus have great devotion to ascetics,” says the Swamiji. “Visiting them is our equivalent to visiting the Blessed Sacrament,” he adds. They also used to offer him some money, but not much. “Even now they are friendly with me. There was no problem from the police or government officials either.”
Since “Raipur experienced a shortage of priests,” he returned to his home archdiocese in 2015. He was then posted in the hill station of Chilpi, about 170 km away Raipur. “I continued the ashram life there,” he says in the established structure. He stayed there for three years.
One Tiwari, a Hindu Brahmin forester, frequented him there. Later he and his wife became his devotees, he says. They had gone even to Kerala to stay in his house for a few days, he adds.
But for priests and nuns, Swami Ishanand is an entertainer from his seminary days. They make use of his surname too to jester him. And he too enjoys at their pun.
From Chilpi he went down to Bhaghbahra parish, where he stayed for two years. From Bhaghbahra he went to Nagpur for some time. Now he stays in Sankra parish as its parish priest from June 2021. “I still lead an ashram life. Only some adjustments with my dress and hair style, due to my pastoral necessities,” Swami Ishanand explains.
“I will no more go back to Nagpur,” he says with a big grin. He has handed over that ashram to Acharya Sachidananda Bharati. The former Air force pilot turned to be an Indian ascetic is keeping a family to care about it. “But I will continue to lead the ashram life,” says Swami Ishanand. “I am still convinced to continue my ashram life.”
About 70 years ago Rev Gaspar Pinto founded the Indian Missionary Society IMS in Varanasi to be an alternate form of missionary endeavour. Unfortunately the first batch of seminarians were sent to Spain Germany Austria USA etc defeating the very purpose of the IMS.
Had Indian Christianity followed the ascetic ashram approach to evangelism it would have been far more fruitful. Unfortunately it chose the colonial institutional triumphalistic model that may have produced quantity but not quality.
Amalorpavadas was not the Pioneer of the Christian ashram movement. He was preceded by Bede Griffiths, Krusbhakt, Abhishiktanand, Stanley Jones and Murray Rogers, all of whom were foreigners who had made India their home.
I too have travelled on foot without money. The longest such gospel journey was for 2 months covering about 2000 kms. One difference though; I always wore my wooden rosary with the crucifix, carried my Bible and another large crucifix in my cloth sling bag. I invariably experienced the power and presence of God.
I remember meeting Elipullikat when he visited our Jyotiniketan Ashram in Bareilly in the 1970’s. I remember that he had kept a baby squirrel in his long hair!