Biography of bamakhepa

Sri Sri Bama Khepa (Bamacharan Chattopadhyay) (1837–1911)

Bama Khepa was born to a poor Brahmin family in the village of Atla near the Tarapith temple (Birbhum district) in West Bengal.

Sarvananda Chatterjee, his father, and Brahmamoyee Devi or Rajkumari Devi, his mother, were very pious and religious people. His family included a brother and four sisters eventually. A sister was also very religious, earning the name Ksepsi.

Bamakhepa family

At birth, his father gave him the name Bamacara. The name Bama Khepa arose because he was seen by Tantrics to be mad, in a divine sense, as in “divinely mad,” a great one.

One unique habit that Bama Khepa had was going into neighbors’ houses at night to take their images and or murtis (statues) of their deities, carrying them to a riverbank nearby.

He would venerate the deities through the entire night. In the morning, the villagers could not find their family deities in the house. Later, Bama Khepa was found