ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the main hagiographies produced in the Ramanandi environment, with a focus on those that had a tangible impact on the development of Ramananda's life story. The development of Ramananda's life story made a decisive step at the beginning of the twentieth century as part of a precise project planned by a radical group in the sampradaya. The eighteenth century was also a crucial period for the Ramanandi sampradaya because various branches were organizing themselves and new centers in Northern India were established. At the beginning of the twentieth century, detailed biographies of Ramananda began to be produced in the Ramanandi sampradaya by the radical group specifically for the purpose of demonstrating that Ramananda was an acarya and did not have any link with Ramanuja. From the 1980s several scholars have dealt with Ramananda, his life and sampradaya from various perspectives.
