RĀMAKRṢṆA PARAMAHAMSA. – His real name was Gadādhar Chatterji, born into a poor Brahman family at Hoogly in Bengal on 20 February 1834 (according to others, 18 February 1836), and died on 15 March 1886.
At the age of seventeen, after his father’s death, he accompanied his elder brother, Pandit Rām Kumār, to Dalsinesvar near Calcutta. The latter was to be priest in a temple dedicated to the goddess Kālī, venerated as the divine mother by a Hindu sect. Gadādhar became his assistant. Endowed with a strong memory, he succeeded in acquiring a broad religious culture and displayed outward manifestations of an uncommon religiousness. In order to restore him to a normal life, they married him to a six-year-old girl; according to Hindu custom, however, she had to remain in her father’s house until the age of eleven or twelve. During that period, a brahmana Sanyāsini taught him the discipline of Yoga according to the Sāktya school. But his spiritual guide was a certain Totā-puri, who instructed him in the Vedanta of Sankara and initiated him into the life of the Sanyāsī, bringing him to the highest degree of Samādhi. He then took vows of absolute renunciation and celibacy, forgetting that he was already married, and from his Guru received the name R. The epithet Paramahamsa, that is, “heavenly swan,” was given to him later by his devotees.
The ecstasies and alleged visions of Kṛṣṇa himself became increasingly frequent, seriously threatening his health. To the great scandal of his devotees, he then began to practise Muslim asceticism and subsequently turned to Christianity, displaying an intense love for Jesus. He nevertheless always remained a perfect Hindu, and his religious experiences purported to demonstrate that all religions are true and capable of leading spirits toward divinity. The intensity of his religious manifestations and his love for the poor won him many disciples, who collected his dialogues and discourses and, on the initiative of Narendra Nāth, known by the name of Vivekānanda, formed the religious association called the “R. Mission,” which today is one of the most powerful missionary organizations of Hinduism.