Dhan Gopal Mukerji was born in Tamluk, Bengal, on July 6, 1890, to a Kulin Brahmin family. His father was a lawyer. In his autobiography Caste and Outcast, Mukerji writes about his idyllic childhood and how his mother greatly influenced him and encouraged his interest in spirituality. One of his life’s “great experiences” he writes was meeting with a holy man when he was about ten. Their home was close to the jungle, and the holy man shaped his attitude toward wildlife, telling him, “The animals are our brothers. They want to talk to us, we must understand them” (p. 10).