Monastic Name : Swami Saradananda
[1865 - 1927]


Sarat Chandra Chakravarti Sarat Chandra Chakravarty, to be known as Swami Saradananda later on, came of a rich and orthodox Brahmin family living in Amherst Street, North Calcutta. He was born on 23rd December 1865. From his early childhood, Sarat was quiet but extremely intelligent. He was very good in studies as also extra-academic activities.

Sarat first came to Dakshineswar in October 1883, when he was eighteen years old. Sarat's father owned a pharmacy and therefore wanted his son to become a doctor. Sarat was willing to do this, especially when Naren approved the plan, and he entered the Calcutta Medical College. But when Ramakrishna became fatally ill, Sarat at once abandoned his medical studies in order to nurse his Master. He never returned to them, for he became a monk. Throughout the rest of his life, however, he showed a vocation for nursing the sick. This he did fearlessly, even in case of most infectious diseases.

Saradananda was noted for his courage and his imperturbable calm, the calm of the true yogi, which he displayed in the midst of various dangers. On one occasion, when he was traveling by carriage in the mountains of Kashmir, the horse took fright and bolted down a steep slope; it was only saved from disaster because the carriage was stopped by a tree. Saradananda got out just a moment before the horse was killed by a great rock which fell from above. When he was asked later how he had felt at the time of the accident, he said that his mind had remained detached throughout, observing what took place with the objective interest. On another occasion, Saradananda was coming up the Ganges by boat with one of the devotees when a violent windstorm arose. The boat seemed likely to sink, but the Swami never stopped puffing away at his hookah. His aplomb irritated the nervous devotee so much that he finally seized the pipe and threw it into the water.

In 1893, Vivekananda went for the first time to the United States and spent more than three years there and in Europe lecturing. In 1896, he wrote asking Saradananda to come to the West and carry on his work. The two met in London, where Saradananda had been giving some lectures. Vivekananda left for India and Saradananda sailed for New York, where he remained, as the head of Vedanta Society, until his return in India in 1898. He later became the first Secretary of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission and held this office until his death in 1927.

Among Saradananda's many duties was the direction of a magazine called the Udbodhan (Awakening), which has been founded by Vivekananda. In 1908, he decided to build a house which would serve as an office for the magazine and a home for the Holy Mother. It was to pay off the debts incurred in building of this house that Saradananda began to write his articles which formed his Ramakrishna the Great Master (called in Bengali Sri Sri Ramakrishna Lilaprasanga). It was typical of him that he demanded no special privacy for himself while he engaged in this enormous task. Sitting cross-legged at a low desk in a tiny room, with the chatter of visitors all around him, he worked away with perfect concentration, breaking off, whenever neccesary, to attend some administrative detail.

Saradananda continued his work on the Ramakrishna biography until the death of the Holy Mother in 1920. After that, he seemed to lose all desire to finish it; and this is why an account of the last days of the Ramakrishna is missing from the book. Instead, Swami busied himself in arrangements for the building of a temple to the Holy Mother at her native village of Jayrambati. It was consecrated in 1923.

He passed away on 19th August, 1927.