DA . NEWS IN INDIAN (1893-1902) with Sri Ramalaishna and the Mission Volu111e: I Edited with Introduction by Sankari Prasad Basu Assisted by : Bi1nal Kumar Ghosh Lak.~h1ni Kanta Doral The Ramakri.~hna Miaion Institute of Culture Gol Park, Calcutta • 700 029 Google Original from Digitized by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Gf l> ,1 ~J L L I 1 O. :~, · 12 · "✓ 51 S cl S I I r1 1l 1 v . \ Publislwd by The Secretary The Mission Institute of Culture Calcutta-700 029, India First Edition: September 1997 Copyright C 1997, Mission Institute of Culture. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval systeo~ or transmitted, in any fo,m or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except for brief passages quoted in reviews or critical articles. Price in India : Three hundred and twenty-five only ISBN 81-85843-89-9 Printed in India Computer typeset at the a Mission Institute of Culture Photo-offset at Rama Art Press, 6/30 Oum Oum Road Calcutta 700 030 Google Original from Digitized by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Dedicated to The Hallowed Memory of Swami Omkarananda, Formerly Vice-President, Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission Google Original from Digitized by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Google Original from Digitized by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN • Publisher"s Note When Swami Vivekananda left Bombay by steamer to attend the Parliament of Religions in Chicago, there were hardly a half a dozen people to see him off. But when he returned home three and a half years later, thousands of people received him wherever he went. What made the difference ? It was the ideas he preached. What he preached made each person feel he or she was divine, and this infused courage, strength, and vigour into all who heard him. Man-making was his mission, he said. With this in mind, he travelled through the whole country inspiring people. According to Swamiji, two sins had aippled the country: neglect of the masses, and treating women as inferior. India had paid heavily for these sins, and the time had come when she had to atone for them. Yet Swamiji was optimistic about India's future. Good education would solve India's proble•>l8, and then a new India would emerge with the working people coming to the fore. He wanted to see science and religion come together sden.ce for physical well-being, and religion for spiritual well-being. Swamiji hoped India would show the way in this respect. Prof. Sankari Prasad. Basu is well known for his study and research on Swami Vivekananda. For years, he has collected inforn1ation on Swamiji from the contemporary Indian Newspapers and Journals, a portion of which will be found in the present volume. A few more volumes will be published later. The book will give the reader a firsthand account of the great impact Swamiji made on contemporary India through his words and deeds. The Introduction, Index, and detailed contents make the book all the more useful and valuable. Prof. Basu has indeed done a remarkable job. 11 September 1997 S1Vami Lokeswarananda Google Original from Digitized by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN ; I ' Google Original from Digitized by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Preface (I) Great Indian luminaries of pre-independence days were unanimous in recognising Swami Vivekananda's immense influence on national mind, moving it to the path of liberation, m~ntal and physical. To Bal Gangadhar Ttlak, Vivekananda was second Sankaracharya. His mouthpiece The Mahratta wrote in 1912, Swami Vivekananda was the real father of India's regeneration. Rabindranath Tagore said, the call of Vivekananda roused the inner soul of the youth and prepared them for the utmost dedication and sacrifice. Mahatma Gandhi admitted that his patriotism was increased thousandfold by reading Vivekananda. That Swamiji had influenced Gandhiji in his campaign against untouchability was admitted by his ciose associates, like Vinoba Bhabe and C. F. Andrews. To Sri Aurobindo, Vivekananda was the Hero, moulded by the Avatar of the age, Ramakrishna, 'destined to take the world between his two hands and change it' and whose advent was 'the first visible sign to the world that India was awake not only to survive but to conquer.' To both Bepin Chandra Pal and Annie Besant Vivekananda w.1s undoubtedly the first prophet of Indian nationalism. According to Jawaharlal Nehru, Swamiji was 'full of dynamic and fiery energy and a passion to push India forward. He came as a tonic to the depressed and de1noralised Hindu mind and gave it self-reliance.... His influence ov€r the mind of India and especially of successive generations, has been tremendous.' Chakravarti Rajagopalachari firmly asserted, 'Swami Vivekananda saved Hinduism and ~ved India. But for him we would have lost our religion and would not have gained our freedom. We therefore owe everything to Swami Vivekananda.' And Subhas Chandra Bose, the great revolutionary, who contributed most for India's freedom at the last phase of its struggle, considered Vivekananda as his Guru. Google Original from Digitized by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Bose's thoughts and actions were moulded under the influence of the life and teachings of Swamiji. Not only political leaders, but eminent persons of all walks of life, poets, philosophers, educationists, social scientists and thousands of dedicated workers, all recognised the great influence Swamiji exerted on them. -Are all these eulogizes sufficient to conclusively prove that Vivekananda was the main spirit behind India's regeneration ? New ideas are coming and new questions are raised challenging the validity of such contentions and even the data on which conclusions have been drawn. Facts, hard and introvertible, are needed to justify the claims. Other than direct contentporary evidence, nothing can be conclusively proved. (II) One fine morning, way back in 1961, Sri Sunil Behari Ghosh of the National Library, Calcutta and a close friend of mine, came rather excitedly to my residence in Howrah and asked, 'Do you know that the National Library has recently acquired of the files of the Indian Mirror ?' For scholars like us it was indeed a pleasan~ surprise. From the biographies and reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda we came to know of the significant role this paper had played in publishing regularly Vivekananda news after his historic appearance at the Parliament of Religions at Chicago. Hitherto it was believed that the old files of the Indian Mirror had been lost. The information Sunil brought seem most encouraging because at that time we were thrilled by Marie Louise Burke's serialised articles on Swami Vivekananda in America : New Discoveries in the Prabuddha Bharata. Her new findings unmistakably showed that original source material on Vivekananda was far from being exhausted. Louise Burke 'discovered' immense enthralling information in America.n libraries and Archives and with proper perspective had placed Vivekananda in a new dimension. One could visualise the colossal figure of the Man, fighting his life's battle, all by himseH, against an organised enmity in a foreign land, only to defend his country's honour, subjugated and despaired by the British imperialistic power and other Wesh:111 counbies. Yet that very land possessed of a great and ancient civilization which bears the immortal truth of Advaita, and destined to become the bastion of [10] Google Original from Digitized by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN universal religion of humanity. That was Louise Burke's Vivekananda in America. But what about Vivekananda in India ? Could we not discover new information about him going through contemporary Indian sources? Sunil's information kindled our hopes. Alas, to my dismay, I was told that I would not be allowed to handle the files of the Indian Mirror, as those are too brittle, but yes, Sunil, being a staff of the Library, could do so. And he did. He meticulously searched the files of the paper (189~1902), found copious invaluable info11nation and arranged for typing, which was done voluntarily with great care by Sri Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya, also a staff of the Library. Then I took upon myself the task of searching for other available papers and started investigation which continued for the next three decades. I visited Poona and Bombay in 1963, accompanied by my wife Maya Basu. Both of us worked at the Kesari Trust Office and Ferguesson College Library in Poona, and Asiatic Society, Central Library, TlD\es of India library, Gujrati weekly office, all in Bombay. Then again, searches were done in Calcutta and Howrah libraries Ramakrishna Vedanta Math library, Bangiya Sahitya Parishad library, Belur Math library, Howrah Ramakrishna Vivekananda Ashrama library, Udbodhan library, Calcutta University library, Chaitanya library, Sadharan Brahmo Samaj library, Kankurgachi Ramakrishna Yogodyan library, Entally Sri Ramakrishna Archanalaya, Sister Nivedita Girls' School library, Advaita Ashrama (Calcutta) h"brary, Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture library. The huge material thus collected was published in a massive volume, titled Vivekananda in Indian Newspapers: 1893-1902, jointly edited by Sunil Behari Ghosh and myself in 1969. The book was dedicated to Marie Louise Burke. I was blessed and inspired by some of the great and noble sannyasins of the Ramakrishna Order, such as Swami Abhayananda (Bharat Maharaj), Swami Omkarananda (formerly Vice-President), Swami Vireswarananda (formerly Secretary and President), Swami Gambhirananda (formerly Secretary and President) and Swami Bhuteshananda (presently President). It was Revered Swami Vtreswarananda who gave me a letter of introduction for which Sri P. M. Bodas of Poona, a dynamic man and founder of the local private Ramakrishna Ashrama, provided me and my wife with board and lodging in his newly taken guest house and engaged two of his office-workers to help (11) Google Original from Digitized by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN in my search. Through the grace of Swami VJ.reSwarananda and Swami Gambhirananda, the otherwise private Math library was made open to me. (III) The search continued. After the manuscript of the Vivekananda in Indian Newspapers was completed, I visited Benaras twice (1967 and 1971-72), and Lucknow and Mayavati (1969) for the same purpose. Swami Nityaswarupananda, formerly Secretary of the Rama krishna Mission Institute of Culture, Calcutta sponsored a na tion-wide field trip by me. In 1971-72 I extensively toured impor tant centres of Southern and Western India, which lasted for seven months. Sri Bimal Kumar Ghosh, Sri Lakshmi Kanto Boral (both of whom are assitant editors of these volumes) and Sri Biswanath Basu worked with me at different phases of the tour. Maya also accompanied me during the entire tour and ungrudgingly helped me in the library work. This present volume and the next two volumes (to be published) contain ma terials mostly collected in this tour. In continuation of the search we again visited Lucknow, Benaras-and Mayavati, Almora, and Patna. In 1992, the Institute of Culture again sponsored a research tour during which I vis ited Delhi, Kankhal and Madras, accompanied by Sri Bimal Kumar Ghosh and Sri Lakshmi Kanto Boral. Searches were re sumed at the National Library, Calcutta and The Statesman Of fice, Calcutta. In all these later searches, the materials we collected were enough, as I have said, for a book of three volumes, each contain ing more or less six hundred pages in the royal size. If with these are added the matte1 s already published in the Vivekananda in Indian Newspapers, which has been out of print for a long time, the wh<lle thing will run into five volumes. This massive project requires huge financial liability. Commercial publishers were re luctant to take the risk. I appro,,ched as the last hope Revered Swami Lokeswaranandaji tf, publish this book on behalf of th~ Institute of Culture. We knew what Swami Lokeswarananda was like and what he did and is still doing for promoting educational endeavours and helping research scholars. I was one of the many recipients of his endless generosity and patronage. He enquired about the project, satisfied himself and then secured sanction (12] Google Original from Digitized by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN