After Kashi Shashtrartha on 16th November 1869, Swami Dayanand reached Prayag via Mirzapur. In prayag, Swamiji met Pandit Devendra Nath Thakur who invited Swamiji to Calcutta. On this invitation, Swamiji came to Calcutta on 16th December 1872 and stayed there till 31st March 1873.
Here Swamiji met the then learned group of Bengal viz., Pdt. Ishwar Chand Vidyasagar, Pdt Keshav Chandra Sen, Barrister Chandra Sekhar Sen and Barister Umesh Chandra Bandopadhyaya along with Pdt. Devendra Nath Thakur. After few interactions, the learned group realised that Swami Dayanand was no ordinary human being. He was a great yogi and a greater vedic scholar.
Pdt Ishwar Chand Vidyasagar and others requested Swamiji to pen down how he came to become such a learned yogi. In the words of Maharshi Dayanand "My beloved friend Pdt Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar requested - "Whatever experience you have in achieving the yogic state, please try to pen all of it. Because the secret of knowledge is available in your books but the secret of achieving yogic state is not... I am glad to accept the suggestion of Pdt. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar ji and I will try my best to pen down them all."
From 22nd to 31st March 1873, Swamiji wrote his autobiography, mainly dealing with his search, education and practices in Yoga, in Sanskrit. Swamiji was actively involved in 1857 first war of Independence and had greater plans further (to imbibe patriotism in common Indian) and did not want the British Govt. to know about his involvement. He handed his (Sanskrit) autobiography to his Bengali Pandits friends requesting them not to print the same during his life time.
This was translated in Bengali by Sanskrit Bangla Viseshagya Mandal (not known when?). Then Pdt.Deen Bandhu Shashtri got a copy of this (Bengali) book in 1923. Till this time, Arya Samajis had possibly no clue that Maharshi Dayanand had wrote this auto biography which contained instances of his life, which where never heard of. He researched for 45 long years to validating the facts and concluded that this is a translation of a real / true auto biography of Swamiji. His research methodology is detailed in "Agyaat Jeevan ki Prist Bhumi". He translated the AutoBiography in hindi, which was published "Sarvadeshik" - the weekly magazine of Sarvadeshik Arya Pratinidhi Sabha in 66 volumes from 5th January 1969 to 8th November 1970, by the name "Agyaat Jeevani".
The above was further researched by Swami Sachchidanand Saraswati (with extensive help from Sriman Adityamuni Vaanprastha ji and Dr. Vedvrat Alok ji) who published (in 1971) "Yogi Ki AtmaCharit" which contained two parts a) Purvardha - containing his research and b) Uttarardha - containing the hindi translation of Swami Dayanand Saraswati. Sadly, the book received a half hearted acceptance from the stalwarts of Arya Samaj.
This book remain out of publication for a long time until Acharya Bhadrakam Varni republished the Uttarardha part of the above book.
We have been trying to collect, scan and put the above noted material here for free download. The following progress is notable.
A) Original Sanskrit Manuscripts written by Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati [Not Available]
B) Bengali Translation: Please help in getting us a copy
C) Agyaat Jeevani Ki Pristha Bhumi: Please help in getting us a copy
D) Agyaat Jeevani: Please help in getting us a copy
E) "Yogi ki Atma Charit" - Purvardha and Annexures to Uttarardha: Scanned - Soft copy uploaded
E) Uttarardha - Soft copy Uploaded.
F) Miscellaneous Pictures / Images relating to life of Swami Dayanand Saraswati: Uploaded on the link - Misc Pics