About Us

The new Math at Alambazar was situated on a land measuring 2 bighas and 22 square ft. of land. There were also small ponds, a fruit garden and a well for drinking water inside Alambazar Math campus. It was an old two storied building which stood imperiously on tall pillars facing the main road known as Deshbandhu Road. The address of the Math was 40, Deshbandhu Road [now 95, Deshbandhu Road (west)]. The side entrance was later known as 60/1, Ramchandra Bagchi Lane.

The new Math continued, initially, the same tradition of austere spiritual practice and down to earth living in poverty like Baranagar Math. The financial condition in the new Alambazar Math began to improve. Swamiji used to send  some help from the West occasionally. Regular begging of food from door to door was then stopped. Devotees like Girish Ghosh, Mahendra Gupta and others used to bring materials for the Master’s worship. Regular meals included only rice, dal and vegetables curry. On some days there was nothing to offer to Thakur, not even a piece of sugar candy. On one such occasion one devotee Mahendra Mukherjee sent some candies, a pot full of rosogollas, and other materials for worship (Swami Akhandananda: page-106). Milk or Ghee was a dream. One day somebody brought milk to the Math. After worship when this little milk was offered to brothers, there was rejoicing for this only one big spoonful of milk and they shouted in elated voice: “Are you getting strength now from this milk?”

Abhedananda spoke in his memories of further development. The old rags for sleeping were replaced by new simple Carpets (Sataranchi). Someone offered a table and a lamp for reading. One devotee offered one table with four drawers. After Swamiji’s return two more tables, a few chairs and for the first time a cot were acquired for Swamij. But the rest would sleep on raw mats or rags. From the middle of 1895, Hariprasanna (later Swami Vijnanananda) started sending Rs 60/- per month. Austerity and poverty still continued, but the superhuman austerity, hunger and privation of Baranagar days were left behind. Maharaja of Khetri offered Swamiji Rs.3000/- which he sent to Alambazar Math. When in 1897 Swami Vijnanananda joined the Alambazar Math as a brahmachari,his regular donation of Rs.60/- per month discontinued.

At Alambazar Math the new shrine was newly decorated. Niranjanananda hired a carpenter from Shyambazar Street and made new wooden altar for Thakur in the new shrine. Shivananda collected a drum (damaru) from Venaras. (Swami Prabhananda: Ramakrishna Mather Adi Katha , p.88) In the first year of Alambazar Math, the disciples observed the Shivaratri Festival. Adbhutananda, a brother disciple, led the worship during the four quarters of the night (Swami Vivekanander Jibaner Ghatanavali: Mahendra Nath Dutta, Mahendra Publishing House- 2:4). Sri Ramakrishna loved a flower known as “Nageswar Champa”. Two brothers Subodhananda and Akhandananda went out in search of the flower. After searching in a number of places Akhandananda returned with the flower which he got in a distant village of Barasat.

The new Math emerged as a powerful monastic brotherhood. Behind the rise and strength of the Alambazar Math were the burning letters of Swamiji which he had written to Math Brothers from 1894 March to 1897 January. To Sashi (Ramakrishnananda) he wrote from the USA, “The priests tried their utmost to snub me. But the Guru (Teacher) is with me, what could anybody do? And the whole American nation loves and respects me, pays my expenses, and reveres me as a Guru…It was not in the power of your priests to do anything against me. Moreover, it is a nation of scholars”.(First letter to Sashi Maharaj at Alam Bazar Math dated: 19.3.1894) When in the absence of their leader Naren, the brother disciples felt threatened by public apathy, Naren’s letter brought back their confidence. “In every attempt there will be one set of men who will applaud and another who will pick holes. Go on doing your own work, what need have you to reply to any party? –Truth alone triumphs, not falsehood. Through Truth lies Devayana, the path of god’s. Everything will come about by degrees”.

Swamiji’s entrance into Alambazar Math marked the beginning of new history. Virajananda, a monk disciple of Vivekananda was stunned at the very moment he first saw Swamiji in 1897 at Alambazar Math. He wrote “I looked at his mesmerizing eyes about which I read in the paper cuttings from U.S. His whole body was, as if, radiating light. What a wonderful figure – a rare combination of beauty and power and non-chalant mood of deep peace – a dazzling personality… His face radiated fire. When he used to walk on the roof of the Math only with a loin cloth he looked like Napoleon of the spiritual world, the earth slipping away from under his feet. It seemed a great spiritual force was emanating from his body bursting on the world outside.”

The first monastery at Baranagar witnessed the birth of Ramakrishna Monks. But an organized group of educated young monks was something new. In fact, initially these new monks had to face silent rejection and even open criticism from the householder disciples of Sri Ramakrishna. It was only after Swamiji’s historic success at Chicago Parliament that these monks began to get respect and acceptance in the contemporary Bengal society. It is here in Alambazar Math, that the cloistered life of the Ramakrishna Monks of the earlier Baranagar Math was turned into a global movement both for individual liberation as well as human welfare.

To the brother disciples in Alambazar Math Swamiji defined Universality as the essential foundation of the new Ramakrishna movement: “Narrowness, bigotry and jealousy will have no place in the new movement…. Whether I live or die, whether I go back to India or not, remember this specially, that universality ôôôé  perfect acceptance, not tolerance only ôôôé we preach and perform. Take care how you trample on the least rights of others. Many a huge ship has floundered in that whirlpool. Remember, perfect devotion minus its bigotry ôôô éthis is what we have got to show”. He knew the limitations of organized church which sometimes smothers the originality of its members. To the western disciples he said in Thousand Island Park in 1895, “It is bad to stay in the church after you have grown up spirituality. Come out and die in the open air of freedom.”

The future ideals of the Math must be the worship of the Living God in human being: “If you want any good to come, just throw your ceremonials overboard and worship the Living God, every being that wears a human formôôôéGod in His universal as well as individual aspect. The universal aspect of God means this world, and worshipping it means serving it- this indeed is work, not indulging in ceremonials.” (Letter of 1894) he wanted each of the brothers to develop originality.

The Ramakrishan Movement, in fact, was crystallized in Alambazar Math by those inspiring letters even before Vivekananda’s return to India. The new vision of ‘Sangha’, an organization in the name of Sri Ramakrishna was slowly concretized here, an organization which was destined to usher in a new civilization based on the essential divinity of man, all over the world.

On 19th February 1897, the day when Swamiji returned from the West like a heroic prophet, there was a tumultuous reception at the Sealdah Station. Students drew his horse carriage. Thousands gathered on the road side. After giving a short speech at Ripon College, Swamiji and all the crowded followers reached the Bagh Bazar residence of Shri Pashupati Nath Bashu, and finally reached Alambazar Math for the first time in the same evening. Other brother disciples and devotees had already gone out to the city to receive their leader. Swami Shivananda and Swami Niranjananda had already gone to Ceylone in January, 1897, in order to receive Swamiji there before he stepped into India. Ramakrishnananda and Akhandananda waited for Swamiji at the Math on Deshbandhu Road. The entrance gate was in the middle of the building on the western side in Ramchandra Bagchi Lane. They had already made a small gate with banana tree and mango-leaf, a pot filled with holy water (Purna Kumbha). The Prophet entered the new Math along with his beloved brothers, (Swami Akhandananda: by Swami Annadananda: 2007, P.115) like a triumphant hero of history on the evening of 19th February, 1897.

Swamiji had left the first Math, the Baranagar Math during the mid July of 1890. And then began his historic journey as parivrajak, a wandering friar, moving alone with God. Not sure of his future destiny he was moving like an unknown monk sometimes as Vividishananda and sometimes as Satchidananda. When he came back in 1897 Feb., it was the return of a prophet with a global mission. It was a return of a Vivekananda with a divine authority. During the days of wandering, when Vivekananda was rudely insulted and even ousted from a Venaras Math, he left with the words, “I will not come back to this society until I burst upon it like a bombshell and make it follow me like a dog”. On 19th Feb, his arrival had, indeed, burst upon contemporary Bengal like a bombshell. Vivekananda came like a victorious prophet.

Before returning to India in London in a moment of prophetic inspiration, Swamiji oneday said “St. Paul was a learned fanatic I am also a learned fanatic and I want to create a band of learned fanatics”. (Londone Swami Vivekananda: Mahendranath Dutta-1 P: 74) This dream was starting to concretize when he got his inspired and scholarly brother disciples like Ramakrishnananda, Abhedananda, Saradananda and others, and disciples like Virajananda, Sadananda, Shuddhananda and others in his Alambazar Math. One brother disciple, Turiyananda, like others, began to glorify Swamiji openly saying, “Naren used to speak such and such ideas”. (Ghatanabali- Mahendranath Dutta:3:102) Soon on 19th February, 1897, the prophet himself came among the new ‘fishers of men’ to Alambazar Math and within 70 days on 1st May he started the Ramakrishna Mission in the Calcutta Residence of Sri Balaram Bose, an earnest household devotee of Sri Ramakrishna.

Mou

A MoU was executed on 14 October 2008 at New Delhi between National Culture Fund (NCF), a mechanism of Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India and Sree Ramkrishna Satyananda Alambazar Math (Alambazar Math) to assist Alambazar Math in its renovation, restoration and preservation by contributing funds. As agreed, the total project cost would be Rs.3.20 crores, out of which NCF would meet Rs.1.07 crore and Alambazar Math would provide the rest amount of Rs.2.13 crores through donations etc. Both the parties would deposit their parts in a joint Bank account (Bank of Patiala, New Delhi Branch, Bank A/C no.65045010300)

This project will be implemented as soon as the tenants vacate the Math premises. It is mentioned that, NCF will not provide any sum for the rehabilitation of the tenants, but the Math has to bear the whole cost of rehabilitation.

Vetted Detailed Project Report (DPR)

As already mentioned in the MoU on 14 October 2008 that the total project cost would be Rs.3.20 crores, out of which each party will contribute its part accordingly. But till mid of 2012 the restoration and reconstruction work could not be started due to tenants' rehabilitation problem. And in this four years the prices of materials and labour hiked to a good extent. So, the project cost must have been increased according to mutual discussions.

With the mutual understanding the new project cost was ascertained to Rs.5.37 crores. A new Detailed Project Report (DPR) was, then, executed accordingly. This new DPR was submitted to Archaeological Suvey of India (ASI). After a thorough verifications ASI vetted the project report and asked NCF to put the project into action as per the DPR.