…Cont’d. from Part One
Swami Abhedananda, to a great extent, witnessed Swamiji’s work and its impact on the West. His views in the Brahmavadin of 3 June 1903 are vital to our story: “…Having established in America the glory of his master, Bhagavan Ramakrishna, through his own success and reputation … Swami Vivekananda obeyed his Master’s call and carried his message to England in 1896. There he first made the acquaintance of the Venerable Prof. Max Müller, accepted his invitation and visited him at his home in Oxford. By his magnetic personality he inspired in him the desire to publish the life and sayings of his Blessed Master.”[i]
Almost echoing the same view, Sankari Prasad Basu has added a unique angle while pointing out the enormous impact of Max Müller’s article on Sri Ramakrishna in the Nineteenth Century—titled “A Real Mahatman”. According to Sri Basu, Sri Ramakrishna had his first overseas recognition through this article by Max Müller. Though following the religious congress, infrequent references to Sri Ramakrishna’s name came up in the papers as the mentor of Vivekananda, that he had been a notable spiritual personality regardless of Vivekananda was first known to the world through the article of Max Müller. Even more so, after its publication, Swamiji always mentioned this article whenever he decided to present Sri Ramakrishna to the Western audience.[ii]
The “Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna” eventually became the “Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna”. The man behind this marvel was Mahendranath Gupta, more known as “M”. During his close association with Sri Ramakrishna for over four years, he remembered his daily conversations with numerous people on various occasions. After reaching home, sooner or later, Mahendranath kept records of those conversations in his diaries in Bengali, which he later converted into manuscripts. It was not Mahendranath alone who did this; others were there, who also noted such “Sayings”, but the Gospel carries what Mahendranath alone had recorded. Its first English rendering first appeared in Madras from the Brahmavadin Press in a 400-page book in 1907 with already published materials. Five years before this, the original Bengali version had appeared in Calcutta in 1902. The Gospel the world reads today in English appeared in 1942—translated from Bengali by Swami Nikhilananda, the founder and first monastic head of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Centre, New York. But before the New York publication appeared, one more European savant was drawn to Sri Ramakrishna after a great turmoil in Europe.
4
(Figure 1: ‘The Life of Ramakrishna’ by Romain Rolland)
Thirty years after Professor Max Müller had introduced him in Europe, Sri Ramakrishna inspired Romain Rolland, one of Europe’s all-time literary and humanist legends, a Nobel laureate, to write another biography—The Life of Ramakrishna. In his book, published in 1929, Rolland added these words for his Western readers: “The man whose image I here evoke was the consummation of two thousand years of the spiritual life of three hundred million people. Although he has been dead forty years, his soul animates modern India. He was no hero of action like Gandhi, no genius in art or thought like Goethe or Tagore. He was a little village Brahmin of Bengal, whose outer life was set in a limited frame without striking incident, outside the political and social activities of his time. But his inner life embraced the whole multiplicity of men and Gods.”[iii]
Primarily for two reasons, the above words are especially significant. First is the person whose expression they carry. Secondly, the distinct two times Sri Ramakrishna was discovered and rediscovered in Europe—the first through Professor Max Müller, followed by Romain Rolland. For in the background of both, Europe had experienced two unsettling phases. When Max Müller discovered Sri Ramakrishna, the West faced the onslaught of Higher Criticism, which had questioned the accepted ideas and beliefs of Christian theology, more so the age-old mythical Christianity—leaving an indelible impact on Western minds. In the second phase, when Rolland was attracted to Sri Ramakrishna, Europe was reeling under the aftermath of the First World War. Rolland knew what he was doing, and he addressed his people with these words of incalculable depth: “I am bringing to Europe, as yet unaware of it, the fruit of a new autumn, a new message of the soul, the symphony of India, bearing the name of Ramakrishna” (ibid).
Epilogue
An American lady present in Swamiji’s lone lecture on Sri Ramakrishna in New York later wrote: “As he entered the hall from a door at the side of the platform, one sensed a different mood in him. He seemed less confident, as if he approached his task reluctantly. … He began the lecture with a long preamble; but once in his subject, it swept him. The force of it drove him from one end of the platform to the other. It overflowed in a swift-running stream of eloquence and feeling. The large audience listened in awed stillness and at the close many left the hall without speaking. As for myself, I was transfixed. The transcendental picture drawn overwhelmed me.”[iv]
Over four years later, on a day in March or April 1900, while “talking to his class,” in “a very learned way” before the eager aspirants in California, Swamiji suddenly went silent for a few moments before uttering this with deep feeling: “I am the disciple of a man who could not write his own name, but I am not worthy to unloose his shoes. How often I have wished that I could take this intellect and throw it in the Ganges.”[v] This was perhaps the warmest tribute to Sri Ramakrishna Swamiji had ever uttered in the West, and he remained not even two whole years after he left California.
When Swami Vivekananda left his mortal frame, the San Francisco Class of Vedanta Philosophy wrote this in their condolence note to his brother disciples: “Our beloved has followed Him for whom his favourite theme was ‘My Master’. Never has man written sweeter things of one he loved. As he loved and revered his Master, so we will love and cherish his sacred memory.”[vi]
[i]Swami Vivekananda in Contemporary Indian News (1893-1902), 3.641
[ii]SamakalinBharatbarsha, vol. 2 (2006), 118.
[iii]Romain Rolland, The Life of Ramakrishna (Kolkata, Advaita Ashrama, 2012), xxii.
[iv]Sister Devamata (Laura Glenn), Memories of India and Indians, Prabuddha Bharata, April 1932, 192.
[v](a) New Discoveries, 6 (1985), 12 and (b) Reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda By His Eastern and Western Admirers (Calcutta, Advaita Ashrama, 1983), 373 (see Reminiscence of Ida Ansell).
[vi]New Discoveries 6 (1999), 220.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article belong to the author. Indic Today is neither responsible nor liable for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information in the article.
