Swami Ramanand

[1] Ramanand Swami adopted the Vishishtadvaita doctrine of the Vaishnava which was first propounded by Ramanuja several centuries earlier.

In his travels to Srirangam in southern India in his early life, Ramanand Swami said that Ramanuja gave him diksha (initiation) in a dream and appointed him in his line as an acharya.

Nilkanth Varni traveled across India and parts of Nepal in search of an ashram or sampradaya that practised what he considered a correct understanding of Vedanta, Samkhya, Yoga, and Pancaratra (the four primary schools of Hinduism).

[4] To find an ashram that correctly practised the meaning of these four primary schools of Hinduism, he asked the following five questions on the basic Vaishnava Vedanta categories:[citation needed] While on his journey, Nilkanth Varni mastered ashtanga yoga or eightfold yoga.

In the year 1799, Nilkanth Varni's journey as a yogi eventually concluded in Loj, a village in the Junagadh district of Gujarat.