People pay homage to Swami Ranganathanandaji on Saturday. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Calcutta, May 7: A special puja was held at Belur Math today on the mahasamadhi labh of Swami Ranganathanandaji, the president of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission who passed away in a city nursing home on April 25.

Serpentine queues formed since early this morning and stretched for about a kilometre outside the math as more than a lakh of devotees gathered to pay homage to Ranganathanandaji.

The day was marked by the bhandara. The morning started with mangal arati followed by a special puja.

Devotional songs were sung from early morning till nearly 4 pm. These included bhajans, kirtans and shyama sangeet. This was followed by a memorial meeting and sandhya arati.

Prasada was distributed from 12 noon. Devotees paid floral tributes and sat through the day listening to devotional songs and eating prasada.

In the memorial meeting that started at 4 pm, Swami Smaranananda, the general secretary of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, and Subrata Maitra, Ranganathanandaji’s doctor, recalled that the monk had led a disciplined life and spread the message of Vedanta.

Ranganathanandaji had undertaken extensive lecture tours from 1946 to 1972, covering 50 countries in North and South America, Asia, Africa and Europe, including Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia. From 1973 to 1986, he visited Australia, the US, Holland and Germany annually.