''Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita'' ( bn, শ্রীশ্রীরামকৃষ্ণ-কথামৃত, , ''The Nectar of Sri Ramakrishna's Words'') is a

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

five-volume work by

Mahendranath Gupta Mahendranath Gupta ( bn, মহেন্দ্রনাথ গুপ্ত) (14 July 1854 – 4 June 1932), (also famously known as শ্রীম, Master Mahashay, and M.), was a disciple of Ramakrishna (a great 19th-century Hindu mystic) and ...

(1854–1932) which recounts conversations and activities of the 19th century Indian mystic

Ramakrishna Ramakrishna Paramahansa ( bn, রামকৃষ্ণ পরমহংস, Ramôkṛṣṇo Pôromohôṅso; , 18 February 1836 – 16 August 1886),——— — also spelled Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyaya,, was an In ...

, and published consecutively in years 1902, 1904, 1908, 1910 and 1932. The ''Kathamrita'' is regarded as a Bengali classic and revered among the followers as a sacred scripture. Its expurgated translation into English is entitled ''

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna ''The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna'' is an English translation of the Bengali religious text '' Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita'' by Swami Nikhilananda. The text records conversations of Ramakrishna with his disciples, devotees and visitors, record ...

'' (1942).

Methodology and history

(famously known simply as "M.") was a professor at Ripon College and taught at a number of schools in

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

. He had an academic career at Hare School and Presidency College in Kolkata. M had the habit of maintaining a personal diary since the age of thirteen. M met Ramakrishna in 1882 and attracted by Ramakrishna's teachings, M would maintain a

stenographic Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''ste ...

record Ramakrishna's conversations and actions in his diary, which finally took the form of a book ''Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita''. Initially when M began writing the diaries, he had no plans of publication. Regarding his methodology M wrote, "I wrote everything from memory after I returned home. Sometimes I had to keep awake the whole night...Sometimes I would keep on writing the events of one sitting for seven days, recollect the songs that were sung, and the order in which they were sung, and the

samadhi ''Samadhi'' (Pali and sa, समाधि), in Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and yogic schools, is a state of meditative consciousness. In Buddhism, it is the last of the eight elements of the Noble Eightfold Path. In the Ashtanga Yoga ...

and so on." In each of his ''Kathamrita'' entries, M records the data, time and place of the conversation. The title ''Kathamrita'', literally "nectarine words" was inspired by verse 10.31.9 from the

Vaishnava Vaishnavism ( sa, वैष्णवसम्प्रदायः, Vaiṣṇavasampradāyaḥ) is one of the major Hindu denominations along with Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism. It is also called Vishnuism since it considers Vishnu as the ...

text, the ''

Bhagavata Purana The ''Bhagavata Purana'' ( sa, भागवतपुराण; ), also known as the ''Srimad Bhagavatam'', ''Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana'' or simply ''Bhagavata'', is one of Hinduism's eighteen great Puranas (''Mahapuranas''). Composed in Sa ...

''. The pre-history of the ''Kathamrita'' has been discussed in R.K.Dasputa's essay . The first volume (1902) was preceded by a small booklet in English called ''A Leaf from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna'' (1897). After the death of Ramakrishna, the growing public recognition would have encouraged Gupta to make his diary public. M thought that his was an important medium for public dissemination of Ramakrishna's ideas. M also sought Sarada Devi's appraisal before the publication of the dairy. Between 1898 and 1902,

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...

excerpts from his diary were published in leading Bengali journals like ''Bangadarshan'', ''

Udbodhan ''Udbodhan'' is the only Bengali publication of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, started by Vivekananda in January 1899, with Trigunatitananda as its founding editor Over the years, it also grew into a publishing house, and remain ...

'', ''Hindu Patrika'', ''Shaitya Patrika'' and ''

Janmabhumi ''Janmabhumi'' is an Indian Malayalam-language daily newspaper, owned by Mathruka Pracharanalayam Ltd. and headquartered in Kochi, Kerala. It was launched as an evening paper from Kozhikode on 28 April 1977. From 14 November 1977 onwards it w ...

''. The first four volumes were published in 1902, 1904, 1908 and 1910 respectively and the fifth volume in 1932, delayed because of M's health problems. At the time of M's death in 1932, he was contemplating at least six to seven volumes, after which he hoped to rearrange the entire material chronologically. According to

Sumit Sarkar Sumit Sarkar (born 1939) is an Indian historian of modern India. He is the author of ''Swadeshi Movement''. Early life, education and career He was born to Susobhan Sarkar. His maternal uncle was Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis. He completed h ...

,"The ''Kathamrita'' was published from 15 to 50 years after the sessions with Ramakrishna, and covers a total of only 186 days spread over the last four and a half years of the saint's life. The full text of the original diary has never been made publicly available. Considered as a constructed 'text' rather than simply as a more-or-less authentic 'source', the ''Kathamrita'' reveals the presence of certain fairly self-conscious authorial strategies...The high degree of ' truth effect' undeniably conveyed by the ''Kathamrita'' to 20th century readers is related to its display of testimonies to authenticity, careful listing of 'types of evidence', and meticulous references to exact dates and times."

Tyagananda Swami Tyagananda is a Hindu monk of the Ramakrishna Order and presently the head of the Vedanta Society in Boston. Currently, he is also the Hindu chaplain at MIT and Harvard. He has presented papers at academic conferences, and he gives l ...

and Vrajaprana write, "...at the time of M' death, he had enough diary material for another five or six volumes. Poignantly and frustratingly, M's diary notations were as sparse as they were cryptic. As a result, M's ''Kathamrita'' project ended with the fifth volume. And, lest there be any misunderstanding, it needs to be said that the sketchy notations which constitute the remainder of M's diary belong solely to M's descendants, not to the

Ramakrishna Order The Ramakrishna Order (Bengali: রামকৃষ্ণ সংঘ) is the monastic lineage that was founded by Sri Ramakrishna, when he gave the ochre cloth of renunciation to twelve of his close disciples, in January 1886 at the Cossipore Hous ...

. It also needs to be pointed out that, according to Dipak Gupta, M's great-grandson, scholars can, and have, seen these diaries."

The ''Kathamrita'' contains the conversations of Ramakrishna from 19/26 February 1882 to 24 April 1886, during M's visits. M—even with his partial reporting—offers information about a great variety of people with very different interests converging at

Dakshineswar Kali temple Dakshineswar Kali Temple is a Hindu navaratna temple in Dakshineswar, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Situated on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, the presiding deity of the temple is Bhavatarini, a form of Parashakti Adya Kali, otherw ...

including, "... childless widows, young school-boys (K1: 240, 291; K2: 30, 331; K3: 180, 185, 256), aged pensioners (K5: 69-70), Hindu scholars or religious figures (K2: 144, 303; K3: 104, 108, 120; K4: 80, 108, 155, 352), men betrayed by lovers (K1: 319), people with suicidal tendencies (K4: 274-275), small-time businessmen (K4: 244), and, of course, adolescents dreading the grind of '' samsaric'' life (K3: 167)." The ''Kathamrita'' also records the devotional songs that were sung by Ramakrishna, including those of Ramprasad, an 18th-century ''

Shakta Shaktism ( sa, शाक्त, , ) is one of several major Hindu denominations, wherein the metaphysical reality is considered metaphorically a woman and Shakti (Mahadevi) is regarded as the supreme godhead. It includes many goddesses, all ...

'' poet., p. 214

Translations

Several English translations exist; the most well-known is ''

'' (1942), by

Swami Nikhilananda Swami Nikhilananda (1895–1973), born Dinesh Chandra Das Gupta was a direct disciple of Sri Sarada Devi. In 1933, he founded the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, a branch of Ramakrishna Mission, and remained its head until his dea ...

of the

(1942). ''The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna''. New York, Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center. This translation has been criticized as inaccurate by

Jeffrey Kripal Jeffrey John Kripal (born 1962) is an American college professor. He is the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University in Houston, Texas. His work includes the study of comparative erotics and ethics in mysti ...

, while others such as

Lex Hixon Lex Hixon (1941–1995) (born Alexander Paul Hixon Junior, also known as Nur al-Anwar al-Jerrahi in the Sufi community) was an American Sufi author, poet, and spiritual teacher. He practiced and held membership in several religious traditions. H ...

and Swami

have regarded the translation as authentic and

culturally sensitive Cultural sensitivity, also referred to as cross-cultural sensitivity or cultural awareness, is the knowledge, awareness, and acceptance of other cultures and others' cultural identities. It is related to cultural competence (the skills needed for ...

. A translation by Sachindra Kumar Majumdar, entitled ''Conversations with Sri Ramakrishna'', is published electronically by SRV Retreat Center, Greenville NY, following the original five-volume format of the Kathamrita. The latest complete translation, by Dharm Pal Gupta, is intended to be as close to the Bengali original as possible, conveyed by the words "Word by word translation" on the cover. All 5 volumes have been published.''"Sri Dharm Pal Gupta started the task of translating them into English, maintaining the same spirit of faithful translation. And before he left this world in 1998, he had completed the colossal work of translating all the five parts of Kathamrita into English."'', Publisher’s Note, Monday, 1 January 2001
http://www.kathamrita.org

References and notes

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * *

External links

at ttp://www.kathamrita.org Sri Ma Trust {{Authority control Ramakrishna Hindu texts Bengali-language books 20th-century Indian books Indian biographies

Methodology and history

Contents

Translations

References and notes

Bibliography

External links