Swami Rama Tirtha was known as Ram Soami and Gossain Tirtha Rama during his childhood. He was born to Pandit Hiranand Goswami in a Punjabi Brahmin family. He is known as the Indian teacher of Vedanta, a Hindu philosophy. He was born in a small village in Gujranwala District in Punjab, India on October 22nd, 1873.
Right from the time he was a child he loved hearing recitations from the Holy Scriptures. His mother died when he was young after which his father arranged his marriage at the age of ten. A friend of his father took care of him but the young Rama Tirtha was greatly influenced by the Gossain Gurudas who took care of him. He became a professor at the Forman Christian College (A Chartered University), Lahore.
Rama Tirtha took up a job as a Professor of Mathematics, after completing his education at college. Later on, he gave up his job and renounced worldly life and left for the Himalayas. After returning back from the Himalayas, he spent all his life in spreading the Vedanta. Rama Tirtha travelled first to Japan and later on to USA in 1902. Amongst other notable teachers, Rama Tirtha was the first one to lecture in the USA and speak about education of youth in India and about practicing the Vedanta concept. He proposed to help young Indians to study at universities in America and assist them in getting student scholarships.
On reaching USA many followers got attracted towards him and his teachings about the Vedanta. Rama Tirtha lived an eventful life. He died on October 17th, 1906 at New Tehri, a United Province in British India, leaving behind him a great legacy and large number of followers. As part of a common spiritual practice in Hinduism, Swami Rama Tirtha always referred to himself in the third person, in order to detach himself from Ego.
