A modern-day ascetic who is known for his stringent ascetic habits.
His name stems from the
fact that he used his hands (kara) as a receptacle (patra) to accept the food
he received as charity.
Because the quantity of
food one may acquire in this manner is rather little, it is considered one of
the harshest ascetic practices.
The absence of an eating
vessel denotes total detachment from worldly goods.
Swami Karpatri was also
noted for his political conservatism.
He was one of the
founders of the political party Ram Rajya Parishad ("Organization for
Ram's Reign") after India's independence in 1947.
The party's central
claim was that in order to create a well functioning society, individuals
needed to maintain the ancient caste system's distribution of rank and labor.
Aside from its orthodox
social agenda, the party supported Hindu issues such as a complete prohibition
on cow slaughter.
Swami Karpatri, while
being a Sanyasi who had abandoned the world, nonetheless retained certain
lingering attitudes from his previous life.
He was born a brahmin,
and even after renunciation, he would only eat from brahmin households.
Swami Karpatri shows how
many ascetics still have ties to the "ordinary" world, both in terms
of expressing worry about their previous position and adopting organized
political action to support issues that represent deeply ingrained Hindu
beliefs.
