Tarapith is also famous as the place of worship of the 13th century devotee Saint Bamakshyapa. This great saint came here to worship the Goddess for their spiritual salvation. Bamakhyapa used to sit in meditation near the Maaa Tara temple and he on enlightenment saw Maa Tara. This man was born in 1837 in Birbhum, in the village of Atla near Tarapura or Tarapith. His father was Sarvananda Chatterji, who was a religious man and named him Bamacara in the childhood. Bamakhyapa was the second son of his parents and also had a sister. From the childhood only Bama was called mad Bama, or Bamakhyapa because of his tantrums. He would pray to Goddess Kali and when his prayers would not be answered he would scream and cry and even roll on the ground shouting "Jaya Tara". Bama’s family was too poor to send him to school and he also had little interest in studies. Instead he liked to sing with his father who was a professional singer and an ecstatic and used to fall into the state of bhava like a yogi.
After his father's death Bama was required to earn for his family, although he failed to keep a job and loved to spend days and nights singing before the image of Maa Tara. He would roam over the shrine of the goddess and the burning ground of Tarapith. As a result of following, Brajabasi Kailaspati, who violated traditional purity rules, Bama lost his Brahman priest status and became an "outcaste" to the villagers. Bamakhyapa worked as a priest at the temple of Tara pith but did not follow the traditional rituals. He would frequently go in trance or have arguments with the goddess. There are many stories about Bamakhyapa as told by the devotees. Bama, practiced a form of kundalini yoga and in the state of trance he could perform some impossible acts. Bamakhyapa had a love-hate relationship with Maa-Tara and this continued till his death in 1911.
Bamakyapa was a Shakta and an embodiment of pathway of Tantra in Bengal, which combines the extremes of passion. This chaotic path unifies the opposites of life and death, hatred and devotion and sacred and sacrilegious. For millions of Bengali Saktas Bamakhyapa became the true symbol of devotion with his divine madness.