Swami Gahananandaji’s body at the Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratishthan. Picture by Amit Datta

Calcutta, Nov. 4: Swami Gahananandaji, the president of Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, passed away at 5.35pm today at the Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratishthan Hospital, Calcutta. He was 91.

He had been hospitalised on September 4 after a sudden setback in health owing to several age-related problems like Parkinson’s disease.

The cremation will be at Belur Math around 12.30pm tomorrow, said Swami Prabhananda, the Math and Mission general secretary.

The gates of Belur Math will remain open till the last rites are completed.

Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi and thousands of devotees rushed to the hospital after hearing the news. Many more headed to Belur Math.

Calcutta-Belur ferries plied through the night.

Born in Paharpur village of Sylhet (now in Bangladesh) in October 1916, Swami Gahananandaji joined the Ramakrishna order in Bhubaneswar in January 1939.

He received diksha from Swami Virajanandaji Maharaj, the then president of the order, that year and sanyasa in 1948. He served at Advaita Ashrama, Calcutta, from 1942 to 1952 and at the Shillong centre from 1953 to 1958.

Deeply interested in service to the sick and suffering, he was posted at the Seva Pratishthan in 1958. He worked as its assistant secretary for five years and then as its head for 22 years.

He worked hard to develop the small maternity hospital into a modern, 550-bed facility that catered to the poor and low-income people.

He was appointed a trustee of the Ramakrishna Math and member of the governing body of the Ramakrishna Mission in 1965. He was elected assistant secretary of the twin organisations in 1979.

In 1989, he became the general secretary of the Math and Mission, and its vice-president three years later. He was the head of Ramakrishna Math (Yogodyan) at Kankurgachi simultaneously.

Swami Gahananandaji was elected president of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission in May 2005.