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Chitrabhanu (July 26, 1922 – April 19, 2019) was a prominent figure in American Jainism. He was one of the co-founders of JAINA.

Personal life

He was born as Rup-Rajendra Shah on July 26, 1922 in a small town Takhatgarh in Pali district of Rajasthan, India. He studied psychology at Bangalore. He found Acharya Sagaranand as his Guru. He became a Jain monk on February 6, 1942 at the age of 20 at Palitana and was named Muni Chandraprabha Sagar for 29 years.

In 1970 he was invited to attend The Second Spiritual Summit Conference to be held in April in Geneva, Switzerland.[5] Jain monks are traditionally not permitted to travel overseas.[6] He gave up monkhood in 1970 to attend the Summit, and became an ordinary shravaka. He also married Pramoda Shah in 1971. He has two sons, Rajeev Chitrabhanu and Darshan Chitrabhanu.

He died in his Mumbai residence on April 19, 2019.

In USA

After spending some time in Africa and Europe, he came to the USA in 1971 to attend the Third Spiritual Summit at the Harvard Divinity School.[5][8][9] In 1973, he founded the Jain Meditation International Center in Manhattan, New York City.[5] He claimed to attain enlightenment in 1981 by the ocean at San Diego. In 1975 he met Jain Muni Sushil Kumarji to USA, the first practicing Jain monk on his visit to USA.

He was among the early promoters of Yoga in USA. His disciple Beryl Bender Birch developed her own style of yoga.

Establishment of JAINA

With his guidance, a federation of all Jain associations termed JAINA (Federation of Jain Associations in North America), was founded which became the umbrella organization with more than 100,000 members. For his unprecedented journey to bring the Jain tradition of ahimsa to the Western Hemisphere, Chitrabhanu received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award.

courtesy-wikipedia
- Chitra Bhanu

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