01The sadavrat
Jalaram was born in Virpur on 4 November 1799 to a Lohana family of traders and was a devotee of Rama from childhood. He would not settle into the shop; at twenty, with the blessing of his guru Bhojalram, he opened a sadavrat, a kitchen where anyone, sadhu or traveller, high or low, was fed. His wife Virbai worked beside him. The temple keeps a stick and a cloth bag left, the account says, by an old sadhu who asked Jalaram for his wife to serve him and then vanished, leaving only these behind; devotees hold that it was Bhagwan himself testing them.
02No donations
Jalaram Bapa died on 23 February 1881, and the kitchen went on under his family. Thursday is his day across the Gujarati world, from Rajkot to Leicester and Nairobi, where Jalaram temples keep the same open kitchen. In February 2000 the Virpur temple stopped accepting any offering of money or goods, saying the sadavrat had enough; it is the rare great temple of India with no donation box. Pilgrims are still fed khichdi and kadhi, free, every day.
The life of this place
- 4 November 1799Jalaram is born at Virpur.
- 1820Jalaram opens the sadavrat.
- 23 February 1881Jalaram Bapa passes away.
- February 2000The temple stops accepting donations.
Virpur is on the Rajkot–Junagadh highway between Gondal and Jetpur; Virpur has a small station, and Rajkot is about 55 km.
