The ADVAITA Brahma Ashram was founded by Sri Sri Jogeswar Digambar Paramhansa Totapuri Maharaj, in short, “Nanga Baba,” or popularly called “Languli Baba“ ( Naked Saint ) by the local populace. He was so called because he did not wear any clothes as a renunciate. Many legends ascribe different stories to his birth and the period of his corporeal existence. The exact date, year and place of birth of this great Sadhu are not known nor are revealed by the Saint himself. It is gathered from sources that the great Soul was born sometime between 1630 AD and1650 AD on the borders of the erstwhile undivided Punjab and NWFP ( North West Frontier Province). His physical frame and features besides the language spoken by Baba testifies to the fact that the Seer belonged to the Punjab province before a part of it segregated to form Pakistan.
The Nanga Baba or "Nangta" Baba took sanyas at a very early age in life to be indoctrinated in Naga-Abadhuta cult. Sometimes later, he set up the Naga Math (of Naga Monastery) in Lodhiana now in the Punjab state. Thereafter he set out for Nepal and the Tarai Regions in the Himalayas to undertake Kuchhra sadhana, an austere and vigorous form of penance. Driven by his increasing zeal for pilgrimage in the Asian continent of West-Asia & South-Asia, the naked Baba travelled every nook and corner of India and parts of Brahma Desha (Bangladesh) even Karakoram & Hindukush mountain spanning the borders between Pakistan and China. He had covered the long Hindu Kush range stretching between central Afghanistan and northern Pakistan and went beyond the Himalayas on his way to Mansarovar, Tibet and the Capsian Sea. Totapuri had also undertaken extensive journey to major parts of South and West Asia. According to a legend, it took almost a hundred years for Baba to complete his pilgrimage.
About 50 years before he abandoned his mortal frame in 1961, Baba set up his hermitage in the quiet outskirts of Puri and carried on his sadhana under a huge old banyan tree on the premises. Once asked about his age, which he had never revealed, Baba jocularily pointed his finger at this tree, indicating that he was as old as the tree itself.
