Ramakrishna

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An influential Indian saint and mystic known for his profound spiritual teachings and devotion to the divine
2. A prominent figure in the 19th-century Hindu revival movement, celebrated for his experiences of God and emphasis on the unity of all religions
3. A revered spiritual leader whose life and philosophy have inspired countless followers in the pursuit of deep spiritual knowledge and enlightenment

Etymology: Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–1886) was a Bengali priest at the Dakshineswar temple near Calcutta, and he was not a scholar. He could barely read, yet he moved between Hindu, Muslim and Christian practice and reportedly reached the same mystical state through each. His name is simply a compound of "Rama" and "Krishna," the two avatars of the god Vishnu, and his parents gave it to him in the belief that a god had been born to them. The name was not a coinage made to honour him later; it was the name he was born with, Gadadhar Chattopadhyay, before he took "Ramakrishna" as a religious name. The word became an English proper noun largely through his disciple Swami Vivekananda, who carried the teacher's message to the West after speaking at the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago. Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission, and the Vedanta Societies that spread across America and Europe took the name with them, so it appears in English mainly as the name of a movement and its founder.