Swami Vivekanand

Swami Vivekananda :
(Birth: 7th Jan.1863 - Death: 4th July,1902)

Swami Vivekananda was the first person to introduce Indian Culture and Hindu religion to the Western nations. He became internationally famous because of his speeches in the Congress of Religions held at Chicago, U.S.A.

Swami Vivekananda was born in Kayastha family named Dutta in Shimla Pally, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. His father was Viswanath Dutta, who was an attorney general and mother was Bhuvaneswari Devi. Vivekanand was called as Veereshwar or Narendra in his childhood. He passed the B.A. examination from the Dutta College, Kolkata. While in college, Oriental and Western philosophy were his favorite subject of study.

For some period, Swami Vivekananda adopted the Brahmo Samaj, but when he met Ramakrishna Paramhansa, in 1882, his life was revolutionised. He took sanyas for studying the Vedas and lived in Himalayas for six years. He meditated there for the attainment of the Truth. Then, he studied Buddhism in Tibet for one year.

At last, he attained realization while meditating on the rock near Kanyakumari. The rock went on to become the Vivekananda memorial at Kanyakumari.

In 1892, after he completed the pilgrimage of India, he came to know about the Congress of Religion to be held at Chicago. The Raja of Ramnad, who was originally invited for the conference, promoted Vivekananda as the right person to represent the views of Hinduism in the Parliament. Thus, helped by his friends at Chennai, Bhaskara Sethupathi, Raja of Ramnad and Maharajas of Mysore and Khetri, Vivekananda set out on his journey to the USA. He left for America on 31st may 1893 , after collecting the amount necessary for his travel. He had to face many hardships during his journey and his first day in America. One Miss Kate Sanborn introduced him and he was admitted as an authorized representative of the Hindu religion. His personality and eloquence impressed the people so much that he soon became well-known around the world as the Hindu Sanyasi. After completing his two year's lecture tour in America, he went to England. The British also were impressed by him.

After returning from tours of America & England, Swami Vivekananda founded an institution in the name of guru Shri Ramakrishna Paramhansa i.e. ' Ramakrishna Mission'

On July 4, 1902 at Belur Math near Kolkata, he taught Vedanta philosophy to some pupils in the morning. He had a walk with Swami Premananda, a brother-disciple and gave him instructions concerning the future of the Ramakrishna Math. The same day, Vivekananda left his mortal body at the young age of 39. The Vivekananda Rock Memorial built at Kanyakumari still reminds us of him and his guru.