Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda, originally named Narendranath Datta, lived from 12 January 1863 to 4 July 1902. He was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, and religious teacher, best known as the foremost disciple of the mystic Ramakrishna. In the late 19th century, he played a key role in bringing Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world, helped foster interfaith understanding, and is recognized for raising Hinduism’s profile to that of a major global religion.

From a young age, he was drawn to religion and spirituality. At eighteen, he met Ramakrishna and became a devoted follower, later taking vows as a sannyasin, or renunciate. After Ramakrishna’s death, he wandered across the Indian subcontinent as a monk, witnessing firsthand the harsh conditions of the Indian masses under British rule. He wanted to ease their suffering through social services but lacked the funds. In 1893, he traveled to the United States for the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, where he gave a landmark speech that began, “Sisters and brothers of America…” His message promoted Hindu spiritual ideas and called for religious tolerance and universal acceptance. The speech made a deep impact; one American newspaper called him “an orator by divine right and undoubtedly the greatest figure at the Parliament.”

After Chicago, he gave lectures across the United States, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe, spreading core Hindu philosophical ideas. He founded the Vedanta Society of New York and the Vedanta Society of San Francisco (now the Vedanta Society of Northern California), which became the basis for later Vedanta groups in the West. Back in India, he established the Ramakrishna Math, a monastic order for spiritual training, and the Ramakrishna Mission, focused on social services, education, and humanitarian work.

Vivekananda is considered one of modern India’s greatest thinkers. He was a philosopher, social reformer, and the most effective advocate of Vedanta philosophy abroad. He was central to the Hindu revivalist movement and significantly shaped Indian nationalism during colonial times. Honored as a patriotic saint, his birthday is celebrated in India as National Youth Day.

**Early life (1863–1888)**

**Birth and childhood** He was born Narendranath Datta (often called Narendra or Naren) into an aristocratic Bengali Kayastha family at his ancestral home at 3 Gourmohan Mukherjee Street in Calcutta, then the capital of British India, on 12 January 1863, during the Makar Sankranti festival. He was one of nine siblings. His father, Vishwanath Datta, worked as an attorney at the Calcutta High Court. His grandfather, Durgacharan Datta, was a scholar of Sanskrit and Persian who left his family at age twenty-five to become a monk. His mother, Bhubaneswari Devi, was a devout housewife. The rational, progressive attitude of his father and the religious nature of his mother shaped his thinking and personality. From a young age, he was interested in spirituality, meditating before images of deities like Shiva, Rama, Sita, and Hanuman, and was fascinated by wandering monks and ascetics. As a child, he was mischievous and restless, often hard for his parents to manage. His mother once said, “I prayed to Shiva for a son and he has sent me one of his demons.”

**Education** At age eight, in 1871, he enrolled at Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s Metropolitan Institution, attending until his family moved to Raipur in 1877. After they returned to Calcutta in 1879, he was the only student to score first-division marks on the Presidency College entrance exam. He was a wide reader, interested in philosophy, religion, history, social science, art, and literature, as well as Hindu scriptures like the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Puranas. He trained in Indian classical music and regularly took part in physical exercise, sports, and organized activities. At the General Assembly’s Institution (now Scottish Church College), he studied Western logic, Western philosophy, and European history. He passed the Fine Arts exam in 1881 and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1884. He studied thinkers such as David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Baruch Spinoza, Georg W. F. Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill, and Charles Darwin. He was especially fascinated by Herbert Spencer’s evolutionism and corresponded with him, translating Spencer’s book *Education* (1861) into Bengali. Alongside Western philosophy, he also learned Sanskrit scriptures and Bengali literature.

William Hastie, the principal of Scottish Church College, wrote of him: “Narendra is really a genius. I have travelled far and wide but I have never come across a lad of his talents and possibilities, even in German universities, among philosophical students. He is bound to make his mark in life.” He was known for his prodigious memory and speed reading, with many stories confirming this. Some called him a *shrutidhara*—a person with an exceptional memory.

**Initial spiritual forays** In 1880, he joined Keshab Chandra Sen’s Nava Vidhan, a group Sen had founded after meeting Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and reconverting from Christianity to Hinduism. At some point before 1884, he also became a member of a Freemasonry lodge.