Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

01Ma at Dakshineswar

Rani Rashmoni consecrated the Bhavatarini Kali temple on the Ganga at Dakshineswar on 31 May 1855, and Gadadhar, then nineteen, soon took over its worship. He wept before the image that Ma had not shown herself to him. One day, at the point of taking the sword hanging in the shrine to his own life, he saw her, an ocean of light. After that he worshipped as a child talks to its mother, feeding her, fanning her, sometimes forgetting the rules of puja altogether.

02Every path walked

Over the next twelve years he practised one sadhana after another. The Bhairavi Brahmani led him through the tantric disciplines. He worshipped as Hanuman worships Rama, and as Radha longs for Krishna. The wandering monk Totapuri initiated him into sannyasa and Advaita, and the tradition says he reached nirvikalpa samadhi in a single day. He also practised as a Muslim and meditated on Christ for a time. From this he spoke to visitors of one God reached by many roads.

In his last years Keshab Chandra Sen made him known among educated Bengalis, and young men like Narendranath Datta came to sit with him. He died of throat cancer at Cossipore on 16 August 1886.

Place · 1847–55, Rani Rashmoni; consecrated 31 May 1855Dakshineswar Kali TempleThe navaratna temple of Kali on the Hooghly that Rani Rashmoni built, where Sri Ramakrishna served as priest and lived for some thirty years. Here Narendranath Datta, later Swami Vivekananda, came to him.Read →