Trinidad’s Sat Maharaj passes away

(Trinidad Guardian) Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha and a man who carved out a lega­cy for him­self as a fight­er, Sat­narayan Ma­haraj, 88, has died.

He died at 12.01 am Sat­ur­day, eight days af­ter he suf­fered a stroke.

Ma­haraj had been ward­ed at Med­ical As­so­ciates in St Joseph in crit­i­cal con­di­tion and yes­ter­day his son Vi­jay Ma­haraj an­nounced that he had been tak­en off sup­port sys­tems.

In the lead-up to his pass­ing, over 100 pun­dits and devo­tees gath­ered at sev­en mandirs across Trinidad for pu­jas, ha­vans and jaaps, as it was be­com­ing clear that Ma­haraj may not have had long again to live.

The devo­tees chant­ed the Rudri, re­cit­ed the Ma­ha Mri­tyun­jaya mantra and read from the Gi­ta, chap­ters de­vot­ed on the jour­ney af­ter death.

A state­ment by Ra­dio and TV Jaagri­ti said that Ma­haraj passed peace­ful­ly in his sleep.

“We are ex­treme­ly grate­ful to every­one for their ded­i­ca­tion of prayers and of­fer­ings of sup­port in vary­ing forms and fash­ion,” the state­ment said.

“As per Hin­du tra­di­tions, Sri Sat­narayan Ma­haraj was un­der the pro­tec­tion of Tu­lai Leaves and he al­so drank holy wa­ter from the most revered Triveni Riv­er. In his dy­ing mo­ments, he clasped a copy of the Hanu­man Chal­isa which he al­ways kept in his pos­ses­sion when he was alive.”

The state­ment went on to say that his pass­ing was “en­tire­ly free of any pain and suf­fer­ing and was a smooth tran­si­tion from this mor­tal world”.