The Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission

by

Gwilym Beckerlegge

• LAST MODIFIED: 24 October 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399318-0298

Introduction

The Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, together known as the Ramakrishna movement, attribute the source of their inspiration to Sri Ramakrishna (b. c.1836–d. 1886; see the separate Oxford Bibliographies article “Rāmakŗşŋa”). They were effectively created, however, after Ramakrishna’s death by Swami Vivekananda (b. 1863–d. 1902), Ramakrishna’s most prominent disciple (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies article “Vivekananda”). Together with Sri Sarada Devi, Ramakrishna’s wife and spiritual consort, who is held to be the movement’s Holy Mother, they comprise the movement’s “Spiritual Trinity.” The Ramakrishna Math (or Order) traces its origins to a cluster of young, largely unmarried, male devotees. Under Vivekananda’s leadership, they cared for Ramakrishna during his terminal illness and after Ramakrishna’s death ritually inducted themselves into saṃnyāsa (a life of renunciation). The Ramakrishna Mission was created in 1897 on Vivekananda’s return to Calcutta after a four-year absence in the United States and Europe, following his attendance at the World’s Parliament of Religions. The Mission is dedicated to offering sevā, service to the recipient held to be a manifestation of the divine. By the time Vivekananda returned to India in 1897, he had already established in New York the first Vedanta Society, the name commonly given to branches of the Ramakrishna movement beyond India, also referred to as Vedanta Centers. Vedanta Societies/Centers are branches of the Ramakrishna Math. Vivekananda had also gathered a circle of followers in London. Several of these first American and British supporters played significant roles in the subsequent development of the Math and Mission. Legally separate, the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission function as one under the direction of the president of the Ramakrishna Math and a board of trustees. The principles that govern the Math (including Vedanta Societies/Centers) and Mission, which were formulated under Vivekananda’s influence and continue to direct these organizations, envisage them having overlapping but also distinct roles. All branches are committed to promoting the teaching of Ramakrishna and, among other things, celebrating festivals. Branches of the Math and Mission in India and other historically less affluent countries are expected to assist in advancing material and social uplift, healthcare, and education through sevā. Vedanta Centers located in the more affluent settings of United States and Europe are expected to confine themselves to spiritual service.

Context and Categories

The impact of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda on the development of the Hindu tradition in the latter half of the nineteenth century and subsequently was not confined to their roles in inspiring and creating the Ramakrishna Math and Mission. Their wider significance has encouraged a concentration of scholarly interest on these influential figures, rather than on the history and significance of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission, which have perpetuated their legacy. Most of the studies of the early history of the Math and Mission produced independently of the movement have been written by historians of South Asia. Even where the focus of the historical analysis is not narrowly on the Ramakrishna movement, such studies are frequently invaluable because of the insights provided into the wider context in which the Math and Mission emerged. For example, Sarkar 1993 examines the world of the bhadralok (roughly synonymous with “gentlefolk”) devotees, the class from which many of Ramakrishna’s devotees in Calcutta (Kolkata from 2001), including Vivekananda, and to a lesser extent Vivekananda’s own followers, were drawn. Jones 1989 and Sen 1993 approach the movement within broader studies of transformations of Indian society and the Hindu tradition during the late colonial period. Baird 1981 and Beckerlegge 2000 are representative of scholarship reflecting the interests of various branches of religious studies. Farquhar 1967 (first published in 1915), one of the earliest studies produced independently of the movement, but an unsympathetic one, approached the Math and Mission through a categorization of Hindu movements. Farquhar also claimed that the Ramakrishna movement was greatly indebted to Christian influence. Attempts to classify the Math and Mission have continued in later scholarship in both period- and region-based studies; see, for example, Jones 1989 and Sen 1993, as well as analyses specifically of the movement such as Beckerlegge 2000 (Part One), Gupta 1974, and Pangborn 1976. It is a preoccupation that distinguishes the concerns of scholars unconnected to the movement from the movement’s own authors.

• Baird, Robert, ed. Religion in Modern India. 2d ed. New Delhi: Manohar, 1981.

  This volume contains studies of a range of Indian religious movements and the influential leaders and thinkers associated with them, including chapters on “The Ramakrishna Movement” and “Swami Vivekananda” by George M. Williams. The editorial Preface reflects on a perceived tendency among scholars to give less weight to “modern” Hindu movements than “classical” Hindu systems, something arguably often apparent in studies of the Ramakrishna movement and its creator, Vivekananda.

• Beckerlegge, Gwilym. The Ramakrishna Mission: The Making of a Modern Hindu Movement. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.

  A collection of essays that includes in Part One a lengthy exploration of scholarly approaches to the study of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, and the Math and Mission, although now inevitably dated. This section ranges over the classic studies by F. Max Mūller and Romain Rolland, and more recent scholarship prior to 2000, including attempts to categorize the Math and Mission.

• Farquhar, John N. Modern Religious Movements in India. 1st Indian ed. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1967.

  Despite its overtly Christian polemical concerns, Farquhar’s study remains of interest. Its use of the terminology “modern Hindu religious movements,” “reform,” and “reaction” is found in subsequent studies. Farquhar is hostile to Vivekananda as a threat to the progress of Christian mission and the political stability of colonial India, anticipating later scholarly debates about Vivekananda’s political significance. The Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission are dismissed as dependent on Christian influence.

• Gupta, Krishna Prakash. “Religious Evolution and Social Change in India: A Study of the Ramakrishna Mission Movement.” Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s., 8 (1974): 25–50.

  DOI: 10.1177/006996677400800103

  Gupta argues that the Ramakrishna Mission’s evolution should be analyzed on its own terms and not reductively by viewing it, for example, as a defense mechanism to counter the challenge of Christian missions, or in terms of some other variant of an “impact of ‘the West’” explanation. The article includes a discussion of the categorization of the Ramakrishna Mission as a “revitalization movement.”

• Jones, Kenneth W. Socio-religious Reform Movements in British India. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

  Not confined to Hindu movements, this overview of the British colonial period adopts a regional approach, apart from its treatment of 20th-century political developments. In his coverage largely of the early decades of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, Jones focuses on its service activities. He also examines concepts and categories relevant to the study of the movement, which he presents as an “acculturative socio-religious movement.”

• Pangborn, Cyrus R. “The Ramakrishna Math and Mission: A Case Study of a Revitalization Movement.” In Hinduism: New Essays in the History of Religions. Edited by Bardwell L. Smith, 98–119. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1976.

  The usefulness of the category of “revitalization movement” is not tested before its application to the Math and Mission, which results in a familiar account of the movement’s development and growth over the following half century. Pangborn justifiably emphasizes the role of Swami Brahmananda, the first president, observing that, by making the Ramakrishna Order (the Math) Ramakrishna’s successor, Vivekananda departed from reliance on a succession of living, charismatic gurus.

• Sarkar, Sumit. An Exploration of the Ramakrishna Vivekananda Tradition. Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1993.

  The Ramakrishna of Sarker’s study is the Ramakrishna of Dakshineswar, where Ramakrishna lived for much of his adult life, rather than the Ramakrishna of Belur Math, the Ramakrishna movement’s HQ. It is a study of the admirers Ramakrishna typically attracted before his fame spread. Refining the emphasis on the bhadralok class in general found in many studies of Ramakrishna, Sarkar focuses on those in paid, usually clerical, employment.

• Sen, Amiya P. Hindu Revivalism in Bengal 1872–1905. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993.

  Although concerned more with the lives of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, Sen’s authoritative study of Hindu Bengal includes discussion of concepts and categories, such as “Renaissance,” “revivalism,” and “revitalization,” which figure in scholarly debates about the nature of the Math and Mission. Sen’s essays also shed considerable light on the social milieu from which many involved with the birth of the movement in Bengal were drawn and their attitudes.