05-11-2005, 11:09 PM
xposting from perils of syncretism thread..
Post from S R Krishnan on IC..
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivili...n/message/74257
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->--- In IndianCivilization@yahoogroups.com, "Kalavai Venkat"
<history_judge@y...> wrote:
> Please see "Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master" by Swami Saradananda
& Swami Jagadananda [Ramakrishna Math, 1956], p. 296. Ramakrishna had
> a vision of Jesus, who not only embraced Ramakrishna but also
> disappeared into his body causing ecstatic trance. Then, Ramakrishna
> asked his disciples what Jesus would've looked like. They
> replied, "No description is given in the Bible but born a Jew he
> must have been very fair in complexion with aquiline nose." To this
> Ramakrishna replied, "But I saw him with the tip of his nose a
> little flat."
Thank you for the reference. This book by Swami Saradananda,
whatever its merits, seems highly suspect, esp. in light of the
following:
http://www.voi.org/books/hhce/Ch13.htm
Sri Ramakrishna had never heard of Jesus till Jesus was thrust under his nose by those disciples who had come to him from the fold of Keshub Chunder Sen. Mahendra Nath Gupta, whose record of the talks of Sri Ramakrishna was to become famous as The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna had an infantile fascination for Jesus and never missed an opportunity to compare the sayings and doings of Jesus with those of the Paramahamsa. But to the last, Jesus remained for Sri Ramakrishna only a figure which people belonging to a foreign religion worshipped as God. He did not have even a remote knowledge of the dogmas of Christianity. The only dogma, that of the original sin, which was presented to him by some disciples, he repudiated with repugnance. "Once someone gave me," he said on October 27, 1882, "a book of the Christians. I asked him to read it to me. It talked about nothing but sin." Turning to Keshub Chunder Sen, who was present, he continued, "Sin is the only thing one hears at your Brahmo Samaj too... He who says day and night, `I am a sinner, I am a sinner', verily becomes a sinner... Why should one only talk about sin and hell, and such things?"11 Thus he knocked the bottom out of Christianity. Without sin, there was no need for the atoning death
of a historical saviour.
http://www.voi.org/books/wiah/ch6.htm
Ram Swarup finds that it is absent in the earliest recordings of Ramakrishna's own talks. It first appears in a biography written 25 years after Ramakrishna's death by Swami Saradananda (Sri Ramakrishna, the Great Master), who had known the Master only in the last two years of his life. Even then, mention (on just one page in a 1050-page volume) is only made of a vision of a luminous figure.
The next biographer, Swami Nikhilananda, ventures to guess that the figure was "perhaps Mohammed". In subsequent versions, this guess became a dead certainty, and that "vision of Mohammed" became the basis of the doctrine that he spent some time as a Muslim, and likewise as a Christian, and that he "proved the truth" of those religions by attaining the highest yogic state on those occasions.
Also read
http://www.hindu.org/publications/ramswa...ssion.html
tracing the evolution of syncretic Ramakrishnaite mythology.
*********************************************************************
Sri Ramakrishna died in 1886, and the first edition of Swami Saradananda's biography must have come out in 1886 + 25 = 1911. Your edition is that of 1956, a full 45 years later and with an additional author as well. One wonders if Ramakrishna-ite mythology is not evolving with time and fashion. From a one-time vision of a "luminous figure" in 1911, we are treated to the touching racial concern for the shape of Jesus' nose in 1956, not to mention his ecstatic merging into Sri Ramakrishna.
So, while criticising Sri Ramakrishna, it is important to keep in mind that he is more sinned against by his followers than a sinner himself. While many Hindus, including Ramakrishna Mission guys, spend no end of time and ink discovering the "true" (i.e. pagan-loving, yoga-teaching) Jesus/Mohammad, one wonders why they have notinvested similar effort in uncovering the "true" Sri Ramakrishna.
If they did, we should have had more data on the number of hands Ma Kali has, rather than on the shape of Jesus' nose.
S.R.Krishnan
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Post from S R Krishnan on IC..
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivili...n/message/74257
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->--- In IndianCivilization@yahoogroups.com, "Kalavai Venkat"
<history_judge@y...> wrote:
> Please see "Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master" by Swami Saradananda
& Swami Jagadananda [Ramakrishna Math, 1956], p. 296. Ramakrishna had
> a vision of Jesus, who not only embraced Ramakrishna but also
> disappeared into his body causing ecstatic trance. Then, Ramakrishna
> asked his disciples what Jesus would've looked like. They
> replied, "No description is given in the Bible but born a Jew he
> must have been very fair in complexion with aquiline nose." To this
> Ramakrishna replied, "But I saw him with the tip of his nose a
> little flat."
Thank you for the reference. This book by Swami Saradananda,
whatever its merits, seems highly suspect, esp. in light of the
following:
http://www.voi.org/books/hhce/Ch13.htm
Sri Ramakrishna had never heard of Jesus till Jesus was thrust under his nose by those disciples who had come to him from the fold of Keshub Chunder Sen. Mahendra Nath Gupta, whose record of the talks of Sri Ramakrishna was to become famous as The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna had an infantile fascination for Jesus and never missed an opportunity to compare the sayings and doings of Jesus with those of the Paramahamsa. But to the last, Jesus remained for Sri Ramakrishna only a figure which people belonging to a foreign religion worshipped as God. He did not have even a remote knowledge of the dogmas of Christianity. The only dogma, that of the original sin, which was presented to him by some disciples, he repudiated with repugnance. "Once someone gave me," he said on October 27, 1882, "a book of the Christians. I asked him to read it to me. It talked about nothing but sin." Turning to Keshub Chunder Sen, who was present, he continued, "Sin is the only thing one hears at your Brahmo Samaj too... He who says day and night, `I am a sinner, I am a sinner', verily becomes a sinner... Why should one only talk about sin and hell, and such things?"11 Thus he knocked the bottom out of Christianity. Without sin, there was no need for the atoning death
of a historical saviour.
http://www.voi.org/books/wiah/ch6.htm
Ram Swarup finds that it is absent in the earliest recordings of Ramakrishna's own talks. It first appears in a biography written 25 years after Ramakrishna's death by Swami Saradananda (Sri Ramakrishna, the Great Master), who had known the Master only in the last two years of his life. Even then, mention (on just one page in a 1050-page volume) is only made of a vision of a luminous figure.
The next biographer, Swami Nikhilananda, ventures to guess that the figure was "perhaps Mohammed". In subsequent versions, this guess became a dead certainty, and that "vision of Mohammed" became the basis of the doctrine that he spent some time as a Muslim, and likewise as a Christian, and that he "proved the truth" of those religions by attaining the highest yogic state on those occasions.
Also read
http://www.hindu.org/publications/ramswa...ssion.html
tracing the evolution of syncretic Ramakrishnaite mythology.
*********************************************************************
Sri Ramakrishna died in 1886, and the first edition of Swami Saradananda's biography must have come out in 1886 + 25 = 1911. Your edition is that of 1956, a full 45 years later and with an additional author as well. One wonders if Ramakrishna-ite mythology is not evolving with time and fashion. From a one-time vision of a "luminous figure" in 1911, we are treated to the touching racial concern for the shape of Jesus' nose in 1956, not to mention his ecstatic merging into Sri Ramakrishna.
So, while criticising Sri Ramakrishna, it is important to keep in mind that he is more sinned against by his followers than a sinner himself. While many Hindus, including Ramakrishna Mission guys, spend no end of time and ink discovering the "true" (i.e. pagan-loving, yoga-teaching) Jesus/Mohammad, one wonders why they have notinvested similar effort in uncovering the "true" Sri Ramakrishna.
If they did, we should have had more data on the number of hands Ma Kali has, rather than on the shape of Jesus' nose.
S.R.Krishnan
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->