Anandamayi Ma was born
Nirmala Sundari to Bipinbihari Bhattacharya and Mokshada Sundari Devie in Kheora,
Brahmanbaria District on
30 April, 1896. Her father, who came originally from Vidyakut in
Tripura, was a
Vaishnavite singer.
His devotion was shown when during a storm which blew the roof off their home, he was said to have continued singing during the downpour. His daughter experienced the presence of
divine power in herself since childhood and went into a trance (
Bhava) on hearing
kirtans. She attended the village school for barely two years.
At the age of thirteen, in
1908, she was married to Ramani Mohan Chakrabarti of
Vikramapura, who she called
Bholanath and
pitaji. She spent 5 years after her marriage at her brother-in-law's home, where she was in a trancelike state much of the time. It was a celibate marriage because whenever thoughts of
sexuality occurred to him, Anandamoyi's body would take on the qualities of
death and she would grow faint. When Nirmala Sundari was about 17, Nirmala went to live with her husband in
Ashtagram. It was here that a devout neighbour, Harakumar, developed a habit of addressing her as "Ma", and prostrated before her morning and evening. In 1918, they went on to live in
Bajitpur, where she became famous for her beauty. Here they stayed till 1924, while Niramala went deeper into her trances. On his return from the office at the end of the working day, Bholanath often found Nirmala lying on the kitchen floor, the food half cooked or burnt. On the full moon night of August 1922, at midnight, 26-year old Nirmala went through the actions of spiritual initiation - all by herself. Members of Bholanath's family did not respond to his wife’s strange behavior as calmly as he did. While his relatives suggested he remarry, he became her first disciple in 1922. Her second disciple was Bhaiji.
