Ramakrishna (18 February 1836 – 16 August 1886), also called Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (pronounced [ramɔkriʂno pɔromoɦɔŋʃo] ; IAST: Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahaṃsa), born Ramakrishna Chattopadhyay (his childhood nickname was Gadadhar), was an Indian Hindu mystic. He was a devotee of the goddess Kali, but adhered to various religious practices from the Hindu traditions of Vaishnavism, Tantric Shaktism, and Advaita Vedanta, as well as Christianity and Sufi Islam. His parable-based teachings advocated the essential unity of religions and proclaimed that world religions are "so many paths to reach one and the same goal". He is regarded by his followers as an avatar (divine incarnation).
Ramakrishna was born in Kamarpukur, Bengal Presidency, India. He described going through religious experiences in childhood. Around the age of twenty, he became a temple priest at the Dakshineshwar Kali Temple in Calcutta. While at the temple, his devotional temperament and intense religious practices led him to experience various spiritual visions. He was assured of the authenticity and sanctity of his visions by several religious teachers.
Ramakrishna's native language was Bengali, but he also spoke Hindi (Hindustani) and understood Sanskrit. There are instances recorded in the Gospel of Ramakrishna of him using English words a few times.
In 1859, in accordance with then prevailing customs, Ramakrishna was married to Sarada Devi, a marriage that was never consummated. As described in the Gospel of Ramakrishna, he took spiritual instruction from several gurus in various paths and religions, and was also initiated into sannyasa in 1865 by Tota Puri, a vedanta monk. Ramakrishna gained widespread acclaim amongst the temple visiting public as a guru, attracting social leaders, elites, and common people alike. Although initially reluctant to consider himself a guru, he eventually taught disciples and founded the monastic Ramakrishna Order. His emphasis on direct spiritual experience instead of adhering to scriptural injunctions has been influential. Ramakrishna died due to throat cancer on the night of 15 August 1886. After his death, his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda continued and expanded his spiritual mission, both in India and the West.
Ramakrishna was born on 18 February 1836, in the village of Kamarpukur, in the Hooghly district of West Bengal, India, in a poor and pious Bengali Brahmin family. He was the fourth and the youngest child of his parents, father Khudiram Chattopadhyaya, born in 1775, and mother Chandramani Devi, born in 1791. The couple's first son Ramkumar is said to have been born in 1805, a daughter Katyayani five years later, and a second son Rameswar in 1826.
Chandramani Devi was Khudiram's second wife. His first wife died young. Khudiram had ancestral property in the Dere Village of present-day West Bengal, India. An unscrupulous landlord, Ramananda Roy, who was angry with Khudiram for refusing to commit perjury, brought a false petition against him in the court and took possession of his ancestral property. Bereft of all property, Khudiram and Chandramani Devi moved to Kamarpukur where a friend, Sukhlal Goswami, gifted them one Bigha and ten Chataks of land for their maintenance.
According to traditional accounts, parents of Ramakrishna reported having experienced supernatural incidents and visions regarding his birth. In Gaya, his father Khudiram had a dream in which Bhagavan Gadadhara (a form of Vishnu) told him that he would be born as his son. Chandramani Devi reported to have had a vision of light entering her womb from the lingam in Yogider Shiv mandir. In another vision following Ramakrishna's birth, his mother saw a strange tall person lying in the bed instead of the baby Ramakrishna.
The family was devoted to the Hindu deity Rama, the family deity was Sri Raghubir–an epithet of Rama, and the male children of Khudiram and Chandramani were given names that started with Ram or Rama: Ramkumar, Rameswar, and Ramakrishna. There has been some dispute about the origin of the name Ramakrishna, but there is "...evidence which proves beyond doubt that the name 'Ramakrishna' was given to him by his father..." Ramakrishna confirmed this himself, as recorded in "M"s diaries, "I was a pet child of my father. He used to call me Ramakrishnababu."
First "superconsciousness experience"
At age nine, in accordance with Brahminical tradition, the sacred thread was vested on Ramakrishna, thus making him eligible for conducting ritual worship. He would later help his family in performing worship of their deities. According to Saradananda, as a result of his devotion in worship, he started to experience Bhava-Samadhi or Savikalpa-Samadhi. He reportedly had experiences of similar nature a few other times in his childhood—while worshiping the Goddess Vishalakshi, and portraying the God Shiva in a drama during the Shivaratri festival.
Ramakrishna described his first "superconsciousness experience,"
"When I was ten or eleven years old and lived in Kamapukur, I first experienced samadhi. As I was passing through a paddy-field, I saw something and was overwhelmed. There are certain characteristics of God-vision. One sees light, feels joy, and experiences the upsurge of a great current in one's chest, like the bursting of a rocket."
Further details are given, "One morning, while walking along the narrow ridges of a paddy field, eating puffed rice from a small basket, he saw a flock of white cranes flying against the backdrop of a dark rain cloud. The sight captivated him that he lost external awareness, and collapsed with the rice scattered around him. People nearby who saw this came to his rescue and carried him home."
This experience has been interpreted as Samadhi by Ramakrishna and his followers, but also as a trance or epileptic seizure by naturalistic minded interpreters. Samādhi, in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, is a state of meditative consciousness. In many Indian religious traditions, the cultivation of Samādhi through various meditation methods is essential for the attainment of spiritual liberation.
Ramakrishna was sent to the village school where he learned to read and write, but had an aversion towards arithmetic and didn't progress beyond simple addition, multiplication and division. He read the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and other religious books with devotion. He observed the scholars and found that they were only interested in acquiring wealth and contrasted this with his father's standards of detachment and righteous conduct. He later lost interest in this "bread-winning education". He instead became proficient in making images, acting and painting. When he was fourteen years old, he started a drama group with some of his friends and left school to pursue it. Ramakrishna had practically no formal education and spoke ungrammatical imperfect Bengali with a rustic accent.
Kamarpukur, being a transit-point on the well-established pilgrimage routes to Puri, brought Ramakrishna into contact with many renunciate saints and holy men. He became well-versed in the Puranas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the Bhagavata Purana, hearing them from the wandering monks and the Kathaks–a class of men in ancient India who preached and sang the Purāṇas. He used to sing and enact the songs and scenes from the Purāṇas to the village women. A trader, Durgadas Pyne, who enforced a strict purdah on the women in his household, criticised those who would meet Ramakrishna to listen to the Purāṇas. Ramakrishna argued with him that women will be protected through good education and devotion to God, and not through Purdah. Once a challenge was thrown by Durgadas that it was impossible to look into his inner apartments, Ramakrishna accepted the challenge and dressed himself like a weaver woman, then fooled Durgadas with his disguise and entered the inner apartments of his house. Durgadas, defeated, allowed the women to go and listen to Ramakrishna's recitals.
Ramakrishna's father died in 1843, a loss which he felt very strongly and made him reticent. He would visit the nearby cremation ground alone to practice spiritual disciplines there. At this stage the family responsibilities fell on his elder brother, Ramkumar, who was about thirty-one years older than him. When Ramakrishna was in his teens, the family's financial position worsened, Ramkumar then started a Sanskrit school in Calcutta (Jhama pukur lane), whilst also serving as a priest there. In 1852, Ramakrishna moved to Calcutta along with his brother to assist him with the priestly work.