Premanand Ji Maharaj of Vrindavan
Shri Hit Premanand Govind Sharan Ji Maharaj, known in Hindi as प्रेमानंद महाराज, was born Anirudh Kumar Pandey in 1971 and left home at thirteen. After years on the banks of the Ganga he settled in Vrindavan, and today lakhs of seekers reach Shri Hit Radha Keli Kunj for his satsang. His age, his real name, his teachings on naam japa, the ashram darshan timing and how to meet him are all set out below.
Everything about Premanand Ji Maharaj, in one place
Six guides covering what seekers ask most: who he is, what he teaches, when darshan happens at Shri Hit Radha Keli Kunj, how to reach the ashram in Vrindavan, and how to put his practice to work in daily life.
Biography
Born Anirudh Kumar Pandey in 1971 near Kanpur, he left home at thirteen. The full life story from Ganga banks to Vrindavan.
Read the guideTeachings
Naam japa, prem-marg and surrender. What he says every morning about the mind, anger, grief and the Radha naam.
Read the guideDarshan Timing
Morning and evening satsang hours, the padyatra, and what has changed since his health update. Check before you travel.
Read the guideRadha Keli Kunj Ashram
Where the ashram sits in Vrindavan, how the queue works, what to expect at the gate, and where to stay nearby.
Read the guideHow to Meet Maharaj Ji
Ekantik vartalap, the morning padyatra and general darshan. What is possible, what is not, and the scams to avoid.
Read the guideQuestions Answered
Twenty six questions devotees bring to satsang about anger, family, money and grief, answered from the teachings. Add your own.
Read the guide
A boy who walked out at thirteen, and never went back
He was born Anirudh Kumar Pandey in 1971, in a Brahmin family in Akhri village near Kanpur. At thirteen he left home without telling anyone and took sanyas. For the next several years he lived on the banks of the Ganga at Varanasi, sleeping in the open, eating whatever came, and doing nothing but sadhana.
Vrindavan came later. There he met Shri Hit Gaurangi Sharan Ji Maharaj, received diksha in the Radhavallabh Sampradaya, and took the name by which lakhs now know him. Today he gives satsang every morning and evening at Shri Hit Radha Keli Kunj, and the queue outside starts forming in the dark.
- Born 1971 as Anirudh Kumar Pandey, Akhri village, Kanpur district
- Renounced home at thirteen and lived years as a wandering ascetic
- Initiated into the Radhavallabh Sampradaya at Vrindavan
- Teaches that the Radha naam, chanted with love, is the whole path
Six things Maharaj Ji repeats every single morning
His satsang does not change much, and that is the point. The same handful of instructions come back day after day, said plainly enough that a farmer and a software engineer both walk out with the same homework.
From a village near Kanpur to the lanes of Vrindavan
Four turns decide the whole story: the night he walked out, the years on the ghats, the guru who named him, and the phone cameras that carried a small Vrindavan satsang to the rest of the world.
Shri Hit Radha Keli Kunj, Vrindavan
A narrow lane, a yellow awning, a board with the day's timings on it. There is no grand gate and no booking desk. Devotees sit along the wall in the dark and wait, and when the doors open the queue moves.
Everything on this site points back to this address. Satsang happens here twice a day, the padyatra starts from here, and every genuine darshan is arranged here and nowhere else.
Nobody sells darshan, ekantik vartalap or a meeting slot with Maharaj Ji. There is no paid online booking, no agent and no fee. If a page or a person asks you for money to arrange a meeting, it is a scam. Timings also shift with his health, so confirm at the ashram before you travel.
Premanand Ji Maharaj FAQ
The ten questions seekers search for most, answered plainly. Where something genuinely varies, such as timings, this page says so rather than inventing a number.
Who is Premanand Ji Maharaj?
Shri Hit Premanand Govind Sharan Ji Maharaj is a saint of the Radhavallabh Sampradaya based at Shri Hit Radha Keli Kunj in Vrindavan. He was born Anirudh Kumar Pandey in 1971 near Kanpur, renounced home at thirteen, and now gives satsang twice a day on naam japa and the path of pure love.
What is Premanand Ji Maharaj's real name and age?
His birth name was Anirudh Kumar Pandey. He was born in 1971 in Akhri village, Sarsaul block, Kanpur district, which puts him in his mid fifties. Premanand Govind Sharan is the name he received at diksha in the Radhavallabh Sampradaya.
Where does Premanand Ji Maharaj live?
At Shri Hit Radha Keli Kunj ashram in Vrindavan, Mathura district, Uttar Pradesh. This is where morning and evening satsang happen and where the padyatra begins. He does not hold court anywhere else.
Who is Premanand Ji Maharaj's guru?
Shri Hit Gaurangi Sharan Ji Maharaj of Vrindavan, from whom he received diksha into the Radhavallabh Sampradaya. Before that he had already spent years as a wandering ascetic on the banks of the Ganga at Varanasi.
How can I meet Premanand Ji Maharaj?
By going to the ashram in Vrindavan and joining the queue for satsang or darshan like everyone else. Ekantik vartalap, the private conversation, has very limited slots and is arranged at the ashram's discretion. There is no online form and no way to reserve a place in advance.
Is there any fee or online booking for darshan?
No. Darshan is free and nothing is sold online. There is no official booking portal, no agent and no paid fast track. Anyone asking for money to arrange a meeting with Maharaj Ji is running a scam, and the ashram has said so repeatedly.
What are the darshan and satsang timings?
Satsang runs in the early morning and again in the evening, with the morning padyatra before it. The exact hours have shifted since his health changed in late 2025, so treat any timing you read online as indicative and confirm at the ashram before you travel.
What does Premanand Ji Maharaj teach?
That chanting the Radha naam with love is the whole practice, and that everything else follows from it. He teaches prem marg over fear, surrender of results over anxiety about them, and seva done quietly. He asks householders to stay householders, not to renounce as he did.
Is Premanand Ji Maharaj alive, and how is his health?
Yes. He continues to give satsang and darshan at the ashram. He has long standing kidney illness and has spoken about it openly from the stage, which is why the schedule and the padyatra now vary. Check the ashram before planning a trip around a specific timing.
Can I ask Premanand Ji Maharaj a question online?
Not directly. What you can do is put your question to his teachings and get an answer grounded in what he has actually said in satsang over the years. Use the ask a question page on this site for that.
Premanand Maharaj: age, real name and everything else people search for
Most of what circulates about Maharaj Ji online is second hand, and a good part of it is wrong. What follows is the plain record, with the uncertain parts marked as uncertain rather than smoothed over.
प्रेमानंद महाराज: what is his real name?
His birth name is Anirudh Kumar Pandey. Premanand Govind Sharan is the name given to him at diksha in the Radhavallabh Sampradaya, and the full formal address is Shri Hit Premanand Govind Sharan Ji Maharaj. Devotees usually shorten it to Premanand Ji Maharaj or simply Maharaj Ji.
You will also see the name spelled Pramanand, Permanand, Parmanand and Premanand Govind Sharan across the internet. They all refer to the same saint of Vrindavan.
Premanand Maharaj age: how old is he?
He was born in 1971, which makes him 55 years old in 2026. Some sources record the year as 1972; the ashram has never published a birth certificate, so treat the year as accurate and the exact date as unconfirmed.
He renounced home in 1985 at the age of thirteen, which means he has now spent more than four decades as a sanyasi, longer than most people reading this have been alive.
Where was he born?
In Akhri village, in the Sarsaul block of Kanpur district, Uttar Pradesh. The family was Brahmin and already religious: his grandfather had taken sanyas, his father was a devotee, and the household kept the Gita and the daily paath as ordinary routine rather than as an occasion.
He has said in satsang that the pull he felt as a child was not rebellion against the family but a continuation of what the family had already put in front of him.
Why did he leave home at thirteen?
He did not announce it. He left, took sanyas, and did not return. In satsang he describes the years that followed without romance: no money, no shelter arranged in advance, and food only when someone offered it unasked, which was his own rule rather than anyone else's.
He brings this up most often when a devotee tells him their sadhana feels hard. His reply is usually that difficulty is not a sign you have taken a wrong turn.
The Varanasi years
For a long stretch through the late 1980s and 1990s he lived on the ghats of the Ganga at Varanasi, sleeping in the open through winters, bathing in the river and doing nothing but japa and study. There is a photograph from around 1996 that shows him young, with long matted hair, standing at the water's edge.
This is the period that shaped the teaching. Almost every instruction he gives now about detachment, about the body, and about not negotiating with God for outcomes traces back to it.
Who is Premanand Ji Maharaj's guru?
Shri Hit Gaurangi Sharan Ji Maharaj of Vrindavan. He received diksha from him into the Radhavallabh Sampradaya, the tradition founded by Shri Hit Harivansh Mahaprabhu, which places Shri Radha at the centre of worship rather than beside it.
That lineage explains the emphasis you hear in every satsang: not Krishna alone, but Radha, and the naam of Radha as the direct route.
What does he actually teach?
Take the Radha naam. That is the whole instruction, and he repeats it every day without adding conditions. No initiation is required, no fee, no fixed hour, no particular posture and no minimum count to start with. Chant while walking, while cooking, while commuting.
Around that core he addresses what people actually bring him: anger, anxiety, overthinking, grief, money, marriage, exams, loneliness. The answer is rarely a technique. It is usually to stop feeding the thought and give the mind the name to hold instead.
Does he ask people to renounce?
No, and he is direct about it. He left home himself, but he tells householders to stay householders. Family, job and duty are where the practice is tested; walking out of them is not a shortcut and he treats the idea with suspicion when a young devotee raises it.
His formula for working life is simple: do the work fully and completely, then hand over the result. Most suffering, as he puts it, is the distance between what happened and what you demanded.
Shri Hit Radha Keli Kunj ashram
The ashram sits on a narrow lane in Vrindavan, Mathura district, Uttar Pradesh. There is no grand gateway and no reception. A yellow awning, a board with the day's timings, a rope barrier, and devotees sitting along the wall from well before dawn.
Satsang runs twice a day, morning and evening, and the morning padyatra starts from here. Everything genuine happens at this address and nowhere else.
Darshan timing and the padyatra
For years the padyatra left the ashram in the small hours and devotees lined the route in the dark for a few seconds of darshan. Since his health changed in late 2025 that schedule has become irregular.
This site does not print a fixed clock time for that reason. Any page that gives you exact hours with confidence is guessing. Confirm at the ashram, or with someone who was there that week, before you plan travel around it.
Is there a fee, an agent or an online booking?
None of the three. Darshan is free. Ekantik vartalap, the private conversation, has very limited slots and is arranged at the ashram's discretion, never sold. There is no official booking portal and no authorised agent.
If a website, a WhatsApp number or a person asks you for money to arrange a meeting with Maharaj Ji, it is a scam. This has been said from the ashram repeatedly and it is worth repeating here.
His health, and whether he is alive
He is alive and continues to give satsang. He has long standing kidney illness and has spoken about it openly from the stage, declining treatment at various points and treating the body as something to be used rather than preserved.
Rumours of his death circulate periodically on social media and are false each time. The schedule varies with his health, which is a different thing, and that is the part worth checking before you travel.
Why so many people found him at once
Maharaj Ji did not build an audience. For most of his life he had none by design. What changed is that phone cameras reached a small Vrindavan satsang, and short clips of him answering an ordinary question in ordinary Hindi began to travel. He speaks without English, without slides and without a technique to sell, and that turned out to be exactly what a very large number of people were looking for.
Today he is one of the most searched spiritual figures in India, and public figures from across the country visit the ashram, including President Droupadi Murmu. None of that has changed the format. The satsang still starts in the dark, still runs on the same handful of instructions, and still ends with the same homework: take the name.
For a fuller account of the teachings see the teachings page, or read the complete biography. If you are planning a trip, start with how to meet Maharaj Ji and the ashram guide. Basic biographical facts are also recorded on Wikipedia and Wikidata.
Start with the name, not with the theory
Maharaj Ji's own instruction to a new seeker is never a reading list. It is to begin chanting today, in whatever language and whatever state of mind you are in, and to let the rest follow.