Pujya Shri Sant Harihar Giri Maharaj Alias Baba  (29th January 1961 – 10th August 2022 ) was an Indian Hindu Sant and jivanmukta (liberated being). He was born Subramaniam Venkata Raman but is mostly known by the name Sant Shri Harihar Giri Maharaj.

He was born in Ludhiana of Punjab, India as his father migrated from Tamilnadu. His forefathers were from Kalady and SEKHARIPURAM, belonging to the clan of Adi Shankaracharya. He was born In 1961, and at the age of 3, the first time Shri Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi Swami took him and placed him in his lap during his Pada yatra along with Sishyas. Baba was leading his normal life with high qualifications and a good career serving his parents as the only child of them. Baba met with many road accidents and in one major accident, he had many injuries a piece of his helmet got stuck up which gave him a “death experience” and from then was away from his routine activities spending time with his parents.

Baba’s parents started facing many health problems and he slowly moved to Bangalore for their treatment as his grandparents were located nearby. Maharaj’s mother was admitted to a critical care unit for more than 40 days in February 2000 and her corpse was not discharged on the day of her demise charging him a huge amount. As her corpse was received on 1St April 2000, Baba along with his father finished her final rites and reached the Manikarnika Ghat of Varanasi for fulfilling the Terahvin ie 13th-day ceremony on 13th April 2000. While performing the rituals, Baba’s father had Jal Samadhi in front of his eyes and when he wanted to search for his father’s corpse, Baba was ordered by the Purohits who were performing the terahvin rituals of mother not to pull out as it happened in Manikarnika Ghat and in Ganga Jal.

Sant’s Transformation Stage:

On that day, ie 13th April 2000, unknowingly Maharaj started walking leaving all his belongings on the Ghat the Pada Yatra attracted him to the sacred Trikuta hill of Katra, and Mata Vaishno Devi was aroused in him, and in 2001 took his Diksha in Kulu Manali.

Maharaj identified with the personal God, or “Iswara”, that is, Shiva which resulted in finding his mind for Iswara where he took on the role of a Sannyasin and remained for the rest of his life as a Sant. He attracted many devotees during his Pada Yatra from Vaishno Devi to Kanyakumari and halted in Peeths, Ashrams, and many spiritual places where many regarded him as an avatar of Shiva and came to him for darshan for solving their materialistic problems.