Acharya Swami Satyananda Giri Maharaj was born to Mohinimohan Mazumder and Tarabasini Devi at Malkha Nagar of Bikrampore, undivided Bengal, currently Bangladesh, on 17 November 1896. Later, his father Mohinimohan studied at the GovernmentArt College of Calcutta and the family moved to Calcutta. Mohinimohan was one of the founding fathers of Calcutta Deaf and Dumb School. As a result, the Mazumder family used to live on the school premises. Across from the school is Garpar Road, where Paramahansa Yogananda used to live with his parents. Satyananda met Yogananda when he was 11 years and Yogananda was 14 years old. They were boyhood best friends, brother disciples and colleagues. Mohinimohan had seven children; Satyananda was the eldest then there was: Nripendramohan Mazumder, Khirodmohan Mazumder, Saileshmohan Mazumder, Nalinimohan Mazumder, Gopimohan Mazumder, the youngest son and Sarjubala, the only daughter. Satyananda studied at the Mitra Institution of Calcutta and he knew Bengali, Sanskrit, Hindi, English and Oriya which he learned while he was living at Puri with his Guru SwamiSri Yukteswar Giri. He graduated with a B.A. with honours in Philosophy from the University of Calcutta. He then entered into Giri branch of the Swami Order, of which his guru Sri Yukteswar was also a part. One of his school classmates and a good friend was Ananda Mohan Lahiri, the bachelor grandson of Lahiri Mahasaya. They later worked together at Yogananda's Ranchi school.
Teacher of yoga
Satyananda was a foremost disciple of Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri in India and of Paramahansa Yogananda. Yogananda began a school with seven children at Dihika, a small country site in Bengal, India. A year later in 1918, Sir Manindra Chandra Nundy funded the school and it was moved to Ranchi, India. Yogananda called the school Brahmacharya Vidyalaya. Satyananda joined the Ranchi Brahmacharya School which Yogananda started and his close friends, Dhirananda and Satyananda supported. In 1920 Yogananda left to spread Kriya Yoga to the United States and then Yogananda called Dhirananda in 1922 to come to help. At Yogananda's request, Satyananda became the Principal and Secretary and ran the school from 1922 – 1942. During his tenure as director of the school, the Maharaja’s estate went into bankruptcy. He could not help any more like before. Teachers of the school resolved to ask help from Yogananda and accordingly Satyananda wrote to him for help but he was himself in financial trouble in USA. So all hopes were gone. Satyananda donated his salaries of the entire period and saved Ranchi School. Often he called Ranchi his blood-built institution. Yukteswar Giri trained Satyananda at his Puri Karar Ashram in 1919 when they lived together and subsequently appointed him as the "leader of the East". He also appointed Satyananda at his Puri Karar Ashram as the "Ashram Swami" for the Puri Karar Ashram. Satyananda lived in the hermitages at the Karar Ashram, Puri, at Ranchi, and at Sevayatan. He had more than three thousand devotees in India and abroad but his three disciples were Brahamachari Yogadananda, Manabendra Of Guwahati and Kalyan Sengupta.
