Famous Hindus Born in May: Birthdays by Date

Famous Hindus born in May include Swami Chinmayananda (8 May), Swami Sri Yukteswar (10 May), Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj (14 May), Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati, the Kanchi Paramacharya (20 May), and Ahilyabai Holkar (31 May). This page lists people whose Gregorian birth dates are documented, in

HinduTone Dharma DeskNovember 12, 20264 min read

May birthdays at a glance

Date	Name	Born	Known for
8 May 1916	Swami Chinmayananda	Ernakulam	Vedanta teacher; founder of the Chinmaya Mission
10 May 1855	Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri	Serampore	Kriya Yoga teacher; guru of Paramahansa Yogananda
14 May 1657	Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj	Purandar fort	Second Maratha Chhatrapati, son of Shivaji
20 May 1894	Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati	Villupuram	68th head of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham
31 May 1725	Ahilyabai Holkar	Chondi, Ahmednagar district	Ruler of Indore; builder and restorer of temples

8 May: Swami Chinmayananda (1916–1993)

Born Balakrishna Menon in Ernakulam, he was a journalist and freedom-movement prisoner before he took sannyasa from Swami Sivananda in 1949. His public talks on the Gita and the Upanishads, which he called jnana yajnas, led to the founding of the Chinmaya Mission in 1953. Read more: Swami Sivananda and Swami Chinmayananda.

10 May: Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri (1855–1936)

Born Priya Nath Karar at Serampore in Bengal, he was a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya in the Kriya Yoga line and the guru of Paramahansa Yogananda, who describes him at length in Autobiography of a Yogi. His book The Holy Science (1894) compares Hindu and Christian scripture. Read more: Paramahansa Yogananda.

14 May: Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj (1657–1689)

The elder son of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Sambhaji was born at the fort of Purandar near Pune. He succeeded his father in 1680, fought the Mughal armies of Aurangzeb for nine years, and was a Sanskrit scholar who wrote the Budhabhushanam. He was captured in 1689 and put to death on Aurangzeb's orders. Maharashtra marks his birth anniversary each 14 May.

20 May: Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati (1894–1994)

Born Swaminathan at Villupuram in Tamil Nadu, he became the 68th Shankaracharya of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham at the age of thirteen in 1907 and led it for 87 years. Devotees call him the Paramacharya or Maha Periyava. His talks, collected in English as Hindu Dharma (Voice of the Guru), are widely read. He died at Kanchipuram in 1994.

31 May: Ahilyabai Holkar (1725–1795)

Born at Chondi, in present-day Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, she married into the Holkar family of Indore and ruled the state from 1767 until her death, from her capital at Maheshwar on the Narmada. She built and restored temples, ghats and rest-houses across India, among them the present Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi (1780). The Government of India marked her 300th birth anniversary on 31 May 2025.

What about saints whose jayanti follows the Hindu calendar?

Many saints' jayantis are kept by the tithi, the lunar day of the Hindu calendar, so their Gregorian date changes every year. Adi Shankaracharya Jayanti and Narasimha Jayanti often fall in May, but on different dates each year. We list them on our festival pages for each year rather than here. A fixed May date appears on this page only when a reliable source gives one.

How we choose people for this page

The Famous Hindus section is for people who were Hindu by their own statement or by uncontested record. For each name we give the date from a reliable source. Some well-known May birthdays are left out because the person's religious identity or role is contested; those wait for editorial review.

Frequently asked questions

Which famous Hindus were born in May?

Swami Chinmayananda (8 May), Sri Yukteswar (10 May), Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj (14 May), the Kanchi Paramacharya Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati (20 May) and Ahilyabai Holkar (31 May).

When is Sambhaji Maharaj Jayanti?

On 14 May. He was born at Purandar fort in 1657.

When was Ahilyabai Holkar born?

On 31 May 1725, at Chondi in present-day Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra.

When is Sri Yukteswar's birthday?

10 May. He was born at Serampore in 1855.

Why is Adi Shankaracharya not listed?

His jayanti follows the tithi (Vaishakha Shukla Panchami), so its Gregorian date changes each year.

Sources

Chinmaya Mission, "Swami Chinmayananda" (chinmayamission.com).
Self-Realization Fellowship, "Swami Sri Yukteswar" (yogananda.org).
G. S. Sardesai, New History of the Marathas, volume 1 (Phoenix Publications, 1946).
Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham, "Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Swamiji" (kamakoti.org).
Press Information Bureau, Government of India, releases on the 300th birth anniversary of Lokmata Ahilyabai Holkar, 31 May 2025.

Last reviewed: 12 November 2026.