Gu­ru­ji Pt Par­manand Per­sad was born on April 13, 1967, on the aus­pi­cious day of Ram Nava­mi. His proud par­ents were Shankaracharya Pt Hari and Maata­ji Chan­droutie Per­sad. Guid­ed by his il­lus­tri­ous par­ents and el­der broth­ers, he be­gan his prac­tice as a pun­dit while very young.Among the many projects he car­ried out in the name of dhar­ma was a tele­vi­sion se­ries. The first se­ries was en­ti­tled Shar­ing The Joy, while his sec­ond se­ries was en­ti­tled Shiv­o­ham, con­cep­tu­alised as a jour­ney to­wards hap­pi­ness. When Gu­ru­ji Pt Par­manand died, his wife, Dr Shak­ti Per­sad, pro­duced Shiv­o­ham on WINTV just over a year ago.

The tele­vi­sion se­ries was based on fun­da­men­tal life ques­tions asked by Pun­dit Par­manand:

�2 What is it you re­al­ly seek in life?

�2 What is it we all, as hu­man be­ings, com­mon­ly seek?

The pun­dit's an­swer was: Hap­pi­ness! His mes­sage was based on liv­ing one's life like Lord Ra­ma, as out­lined by the Hin­du sa­cred text of Shri Ram­char­it­manas. Stay tuned for more of Shiv­o­ham in the near fu­ture.

What is Dhar­ma?

Dhar­ma is a con­cept of cen­tral im­por­tance in In­di­an phi­los­o­phy. It has many mean­ings in Hin­duism, Bud­dhism, and Jain­ism. In an­cient Hin­du myths, dhar­ma meant cos­mic law–the rules that cre­at­ed the uni­verse from chaos–as well as rit­u­als. In lat­er Vedas, Up­an­ishads, Pu­ranas and the Epics, the mean­ing be­came re­fined to in­clude hu­man be­hav­iours con­sid­ered nec­es­sary for or­der in the uni­verse. It en­com­passed prin­ci­ples that pre­vent­ed chaos, and hu­man be­hav­iour deemed nec­es­sary to na­ture, com­mu­ni­ty and the in­di­vid­ual–in­clud­ing con­cepts of du­ty, rights, laws, in­di­vid­ual con­duct, virtues and "right way of liv­ing." (Wikipedia)

What is Ram Nava­mi?

The Hin­du fes­ti­val of Ram Nava­mi is the cel­e­bra­tion of the birth­day of Lord Ra­ma, be­lieved to be the sev­enth avatar (in­car­na­tion) of Lord Vish­nu, and a king of Ay­o­d­hya in Hin­du scrip­tures. Ra­ma is the hero of the Hin­du epic Ra­mayana, which nar­rates his ex­ploits. Ra­ma is revered for his com­pas­sion, courage and de­vo­tion to re­li­gious val­ues and du­ty. (Wikipedia)

What is Shri Ram­char­it­manas?

Shri Ram­char­it­manas is an epic po­em in Awad­hi, com­posed by the 16th-cen­tu­ry In­di­an po­et Goswa­mi Tul­si­das (c.1532�1623). Ram­char­it­manas lit­er­al­ly means "lake of the deeds of Ra­ma."

The core of the work is a po­et­ic retelling of the events of the San­skrit epic Ra­mayana, cen­tred on the nar­ra­tive of Ra­ma. To­day, it is con­sid­ered one of the great­est works of Hin­du lit­er­a­ture. Its com­po­si­tion marks the first time the sto­ry of Ra­mayana was made avail­able to the com­mon man for song and per­for­mance. (Wikipedia)