Swami Jnanananda born as Bhupathiraju Lakshminarasimha Raju was an Indian Yogi and Nuclear Physicist.
Background
He was born in a village in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh on 5 December 1896. His father, Rama Raju, was interested in Vedic and scholarly pursuits. Swami Jnanananda was married by his father in 1916 but, inspired by the life of Gouthama Buddha, he renounced worldly pleasures and went to Lumbini, in Nepal.
Education
He studied Mathematics and Physics at Dresden.
Career
After primary schooling, he joined in the Taylor High School, Narsapuram. He has traveled many pilgrim centres in India for about 10 years. He went to Germany with an interest in Physics.
He took up research in High Tension and X-Ray Physics at Charles University, Prague.
He was christened as Swami Jnanananda by his guru, Swami Purnananda. He went to Germany in 1927 to deliver religious discourses and to get his religious works printed.
His lectures attracted the attention of Professor Dember at the Dresden University.
The Einstein"s theory of relativity caught the attention of the swamiji.
He requested Professor Dember and successfully completed the undergraduate course in two years in 1929. His major work, 'Purna Sutras", delivered in Germany were printed during this period.
He went to Czechoslovakia to work at the Charles University with Professor
Dolshek for about three years. His research at the university led to the development of precise methods in X-Ray spectroscopy for which he was awarded a Doctor of Science in 1936. He has shifted to England and joined University of Liverpool under Sir James Chadwick during the World World War World War II He has worked in Nuclear Physics, Spectroscopy of Beta Radiations and received his Doctor of Philosophy
He continued his research on Beta Ray spectroscopy in the United States with a number of radioactive isotopes at the Michigan University.
He completed his book on High Vacuum.
He returned to India in 1947 and joined as senior scientific officer at the National Physics Laboratory in Delhi. He met with an accident at Bhimavaram in 1954 was admitted to the King George Hospital in Visakhapatnam.
On the request of Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University, he joined the Physics Department for developing nuclear physics facilities in 1954. Nuclear Physics as a separate Department was started on July 1, 1956.
He was promoted as Professor and Head of the Department.
He continued in that position till 1965. The University authorities named the laboratory as "Swami Jnanananda Laboratories of Nuclear Research".