50 Fun Facts About Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda was born in Calcutta on 12 January 1863, one of nine siblings, under which name?

Narendranath Datta, shortened to Naren at home, had a grandfather, Durgacharan, who left his family to become a monk at twenty-five.

Which word in Wordsworth's The Excursion led Professor Hastie to send Vivekananda's class to Ramakrishna?

Trance was the word Hastie was explaining in a literature class when he suggested the students meet the mystic; Vivekananda first met Ramakrishna in 1881.

The 1893 Parliament of Religions in Chicago where Vivekananda spoke was staged as part of which larger event?

The World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago's world's fair, hosted what is called the first organised interfaith gathering, running from 11 to 27 September.

Vivekananda's 'Sisters and brothers of America' greeting in Chicago reportedly drew a standing ovation of what length?

Two minutes of applause from a crowd of seven thousand greeted the opening words, after which he spoke for 'the most ancient order of monks in the world'.

Who suggested the name 'Vivekananda' in place of Sachidananda shortly before the monk sailed for America?

The Raja of Khetri, Ajit Singh, also funded the voyage and was later called by Vivekananda his only friend in life; the name joins viveka, discerning wisdom, with ananda, bliss.

Besides the Bhagavad Gita, which Christian devotional classic did Vivekananda carry through five years wandering India?

The Imitation of Christ, a staff and a water pot were almost all he owned on the road; he later translated its first six chapters for the journal Brahmavadin.

Which industrialist shared Vivekananda's 1893 voyage from Yokohama and later asked him to head a research institute?

Jamsetji Tata wanted him to lead the Research Institute of Science that grew into the Indian Institute of Science; Vivekananda declined, citing his spiritual interests.

The title Paramahamsa borne by Vivekananda's guru Ramakrishna literally means 'supreme' what?

Swan is the literal sense, a bird said to be equally at home on land and on water, as the true sage is at home in matter and in spirit.

Vivekananda and eight brother disciples took formal monastic vows at Antpur in 1886 on the eve of which festival?

Christmas Eve 1886 saw the 23-year-old and his companions vow at the Radha Gobinda Jiu temple to live as their master had lived.

Vivekananda died at Belur Math on 4 July 1902 at what age, fulfilling his own prediction about his lifespan?

At 39 he was a year short of the forty he had said he would never reach; he had meditated for three hours that morning and taught pupils before dying in meditation at 9:20 pm.

Belur Math, the headquarters Vivekananda established for the Ramakrishna Order, stands on the west bank of which river?

The Hooghly flows past the grounds where Vivekananda placed Ramakrishna's relics on 9 December 1898, the act that founded the Math.

Vivekananda swam to a rock off Kanyakumari in December 1892 and is said to have meditated there for how long?

Three days and nights on what he called the last bit of Indian rock produced the 'Kanyakumari resolve' of 1892, his vision of one India.

Which year saw the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, funded partly through one-rupee folders, inaugurated?

1970 brought the inauguration of a memorial its organisers first had to prove could stand on a rock in the open sea; the Vivekananda Kendra was founded beside it in 1972.

Which organiser collected 323 MPs' signatures for the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and went on to found Vivekananda Kendra?

Eknath Ranade, a former RSS general secretary, camped in Delhi on Lal Bahadur Shastri's advice and had the signatures within days to present to the Prime Minister.

From which port did Vivekananda sail on 31 May 1893, reaching Chicago by way of Japan, China and Canada?

Bombay was the departure point, with the fare raised by his Madras disciples and several princely patrons, and he reached Chicago on 30 July 1893.

Which Harvard professor said asking Vivekananda for credentials was 'like asking the sun to state its right to shine'?

John Henry Wright, a professor of Greek, had invited him to speak at Harvard and pressed him to attend the Parliament, which Wright thought 'would give an introduction to the nation'.

Which Harvard psychologist, after hearing Vivekananda speak, called him 'simply a wonder for oratorical power'?

William James added that the monk was 'an honor to humanity'; Lord Kelvin, Nikola Tesla and Sarah Bernhardt were also counted among his admirers.

American newspapers reporting on the 1893 Parliament of Religions gave Vivekananda which nickname?

'The cyclonic monk from India' was the press label, and one paper wrote that after hearing him 'we feel how foolish it is to send missionaries to this learned nation'.

Vivekananda declined a chair of Eastern Philosophy at Harvard and a similar post at which other American university?

Columbia and Harvard both offered him academic positions, which he turned down because the duties would conflict with his commitment as a monk.

In which American city did Vivekananda found the first Vedanta Society in November 1894?

New York's society gained a physical home in January 1895, and Vivekananda later sent his brother-monk Abhedananda to take charge of it.

Which book collects the private lessons Vivekananda gave a dozen disciples at Thousand Island Park in summer 1895?

Inspired Talks was transcribed by Sara Ellen Waldo, who took down weeks of classes held in a cottage one of the students had offered.

Which thirteen-stanza poem did Vivekananda compose at Thousand Island Park in July 1895?

The Song of the Sannyasin came out of the summer retreat where, from mid-June to early August, he gave private classes to a dozen selected disciples in a borrowed cottage.

On a houseboat on which Kashmir lake did Vivekananda write the poem Kali the Mother in September 1898?

Dal Lake in Srinagar was his Kashmir base; he wrote the poem after visiting the Kheer Bhawani temple, in what Sister Nivedita called a 'fever of inspiration'.

Vivekananda's disciple Sister Nivedita, who opened a Calcutta girls' school in 1898, was born in Ireland as whom?

Margaret Noble, born in Dungannon, County Tyrone, ran her own Ruskin School in Wimbledon before meeting Vivekananda in London in 1895.

The name Nivedita, which Vivekananda gave his Irish disciple on 25 March 1898, means what?

'Dedicated to God' came with a vow of brahmacharya taken at Nilambar Mukherjee's garden; she went on to nurse plague patients in Calcutta in 1899.

Which figure, revered by the Ramakrishna Order as Holy Mother, opened Sister Nivedita's school on Kali Puja day in 1898?

Sarada Devi, Ramakrishna's wife, had embraced the Irishwoman as 'khooki', little girl, within weeks of her arrival in Calcutta that January.

Which brother-monk, a civil engineer before taking vows, designed the Belur Math temple that Vivekananda envisioned?

Swami Vijnanananda's building, consecrated on 14 January 1938, takes its dome from Florence Cathedral, its entrance from a South Indian gopuram and its balconies from Fatehpur Sikri.

In which year, months after landing back in India, did Vivekananda found the Ramakrishna Mission for social service?

1897's founding came on 1 May in Calcutta, with ideals based on karma yoga, and the Mission's first famine relief began that year in Murshidabad district.

Which creature encircles the emblem of Vivekananda's Ramakrishna Mission, standing for yoga and the awakened kundalini?

A serpent rings wavy waters for karma, a lotus for bhakti and a rising sun for jnana, with a bird at the centre standing for the Supreme Self.

Which disciple of Ramakrishna, born Rakhal Chandra Ghosh, became the first president of the Order Vivekananda organised?

Swami Brahmananda, whom Ramakrishna treated like a son, held the presidency until his death in 1922, when Swami Shivananda succeeded him.

Which English couple who followed Vivekananda home from England founded the Advaita Ashrama at Mayavati in 1899?

The Seviers, Captain James and Charlotte, set up a Himalayan ashram where, at Vivekananda's wish, no images are worshipped, not even of Ramakrishna.

Which English monthly, begun in Madras in 1896 at Vivekananda's behest, is India's longest-running English journal?

Prabuddha Bharata, 'Awakened India', moved to the Himalayas in 1898, and Vivekananda wrote it a poem when an issue was missed after its first editor died.

Ramakrishna, Vivekananda's guru, died in August 1886 at a garden house in Cossipore after developing which illness?

Throat cancer was diagnosed in 1885, and the disciples who nursed him at Cossipore received ochre robes from him, forming his first monastic order.

On the morning he died, Vivekananda taught pupils the Shukla Yajur Veda, yoga philosophy and which other subject?

Sanskrit grammar filled part of the last lesson; he then discussed plans for a Vedic college with colleagues and died that evening while meditating.

At which port did Vivekananda land on returning from the West, giving his first public speech in the East?

Colombo's welcome began a triumphal progress through Ceylon and southern India, during which people sat on railway tracks to force trains to stop so they could hear him.

Which city's Vedanta Society, founded by Vivekananda in 1900, built what is called the West's first Hindu temple?

San Francisco's society, first led by Swami Trigunatitananda, completed the building in 1905 by converting a large Victorian house whose ornamental facade was designed to present Hinduism to local audiences.

In 1900 Vivekananda addressed the Congress of Religions in which city, speaking on the Bhagavad Gita's authenticity?

Paris hosted the congress, where his lectures also covered the worship of the lingam; the French philosopher Jules Bois was his host for much of the trip.

Which soprano credited Vivekananda with lifting her from grief and travelled with him through Egypt around 1900?

Emma Calvé, hailed as the greatest Carmen of her day, wrote that he 'truly walked with God' and later visited Belur Math to see his tribute to Ramakrishna.

Which Oxford Indologist, author of Ramakrishna's first Western biography, met Vivekananda in May 1896?

Max Müller's biography introduced the mystic to European readers; on the same trip Vivekananda went on to Germany and met the Indologist Paul Deussen.

Vivekananda told the Brooklyn Ethical Society he had a message to the West as who had a message to the East?

Buddha was the comparison; elsewhere he said he wanted to make 'the Methodist a better Methodist' rather than convert anyone to a new belief.

After Ramakrishna died in 1886, Vivekananda made a dilapidated house in which Calcutta suburb the first monastery?

Baranagar's rent was met by holy begging, and the disciples who stayed on spent hours a day there in meditation and austerities.

Vivekananda's father, whose sudden death in 1884 left the family bankrupt, practised which profession?

An attorney at the Calcutta High Court, his father had a progressive, rational outlook that, together with his mother's piety, shaped the future monk.

Vivekananda studied Western philosophy at Calcutta's General Assembly's Institution, known today by which name?

Scottish Church College's principal, Hastie, called him 'really a genius', saying he had never met a lad of such talents even in German universities.

As a student Vivekananda joined Keshab Chandra Sen's Band of Hope, which tried to discourage young people from what?

Smoking and drinking were its targets from 1881 to 1884; Sen's Nava Vidhan and the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj also shaped the young man's rationalist beliefs.

Before 1884 Vivekananda became a member of which fraternal organisation, alongside his Brahmo Samaj activity?

A Freemasonry lodge, Keshab Chandra Sen's circle and the Brahmo Samaj were the avenues through which he first met Western esoteric ideas.

Which city's airport was renamed for Vivekananda in 2012 because he lived there as a teenager in the 1870s?

Raipur, where his family lived from 1877 to 1879, renamed its Mana Airport for him on 24 January 2012; Chhattisgarh's state technical university also bears his name.

At which Kali temple, built by Rani Rashmoni in 1855, did Vivekananda visit Ramakrishna, who served there as priest?

Dakshineswar became the young sceptic's regular destination after his father's death, though at first he dismissed Ramakrishna's visions as hallucinations.

The anniversary of Vivekananda's 11 September 1893 Chicago address is observed in India as which day?

World Brotherhood Day marks the speech, while 2013, the 150th anniversary of his birth, was officially celebrated by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.

In G. V. Iyer's 1998 film Swami Vivekananda, which actor won a National Film Award for playing Ramakrishna?

Mithun Chakraborty's third National Film Award came for a film whose director spent eleven years on the research and screenplay.

Vivekananda Setu, a 1931 rail-and-road bridge across the river at Bally, was first named after which Viceroy?

Lord Willingdon's name gave way to Bally Bridge before the span, built to link Calcutta's port with the railhead at Howrah, was renamed for the monk.