Swami Medhananda - Swami Vivekanandas Vedāntic Cosmopolitanism

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Medhananda, Swami, author.

Title: Swami Vivekanandas vedantic cosmopolitanism / Swami Medhananda.

Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, 2022. |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021037343 (print) | LCCN 2021037344 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780197624463 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197624470 | ISBN 9780197624494 |

ISBN 9780197624487 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Vivekananda, Swami, 18631902.

Classification: LCC BL1280.292.V58 M43 2022 (print) |

LCC BL1280.292.V58 (ebook) | DDC 294.5/55092dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021037343

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021037344

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197624463.001.0001

motto , ,

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My motto is to learn whatever is great wherever I may find it.

Swami Vivekananda(1890 Letter to Svm Akhananda)

I am grateful to Revered Swami Muktidananda for providing me with an intellectually and spiritually congenial atmosphere to conduct research at the Ramakrishna Institute of Moral and Spiritual Education. In the course of researching and writing this book, I benefited from conversations with the following scholars: Ermine Algaier, Rupa Bandyopadhyay, Arindam Chakrabarti, Amit Churvedi, Nilanjan Das, Matthew Dasti, Jonardon Ganeri, Jonathan Gold, Malcolm Keating, James Madaio, Joseph Milillo, Arpita Mitra, Todd Leroy Perreira, Stephen Phillips, Sister Gayatri Prana, Anantanand Rambachan, Prabal Kumar Sen, Itay Shani, Linda Simon, and Anand Vaidya. For insightful feedback on one or more chapters of the book, I am grateful to Jonardon Ganeri, Itay Shani, Anand Vaidya, Norris Frederick, Matt Seidel, Joseph Milillo, Swami Mahayogananda, Swami Chidekananda, and four anonymous peer reviewers for Oxford University Press. I also had helpful discussions with the following monks of the Ramakrishna Order: Revered Swamis Shivavratananda, Atmavidananda, Bhajanananda, Nityasthananda, Atmarupananda, Atmapriyananda, Balabhadrananda, Muktidananda, Sarvapriyananda, Divyasukhananda, Chandrakantananda, Chidvikashananda, Mahayogananda, Vedanishthananda, Harinamananda, Sukalyanananda, Paramahamsananda, Vedarthananda, Tadvratananda, Pravrajika Vrajaprana, and Brahmacharis Subrata and Nachiketa.

Joseph Milillo, Apala Das, Swami Mahamedhananda, and Brahmachari Nachiketa kindly sent me articles and book chapters that I had trouble finding in local libraries. Swami Atmarupananda provided me with more accurate and precise dates and titles of some of Vivekanandas lectures and writings than the dates and titles found in the Complete Works. Swami Divyavibhananda, Head Librarian at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, and Swami Bhavantakananda, Head Librarian at RKMVERI, kindly allowed me to use their libraries to my hearts content. I would also like to thank Hannah Doyle and Lucy Randall at Oxford University Press for their support and guidance throughout the process.

Finally, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Most Revered Swami Smaranananda, President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, and Revered Swami Suvirananda, General Secretary of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, for their kind encouragement and unfailing support of my work. It should be noted that this book was not vetted in any way by the Ramakrishna Order. All views expressed in this book are mine alone.

[Throughout this book, whenever I cite a passage from any of the works listed below, I use parenthetical citations in the body of the text. In case of multi-volume works like The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (CW), I cite the abbreviated title, followed by the volume number and page number. Whenever I cite a passage from an originally Bengali text written or spoken by Vivekananda, I first cite the Bengali original and then the English translation.]

[Whenever I cite a passage from , I first cite the volume number, fascicle number, and page number of the Bengali text (LP) and then cite the page number of Swami Chetananandas single-volume English translation (DP).]

[Unless otherwise noted, translations of Sanskrit passages from akarcryas commentaries are my own.]

[As is standard in Kant scholarship, I cite the Critique of Pure Reason using the A/B edition pagination, and I cite all other works by volume and page of the Akademie Ausgabe (Ak.): Immanuel Kant,