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Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna or Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa , 1836-86, Hindu mystic. He was born of a poor Brahman family in Bengal, and his given name was Gadadhar Chatterjee. In about 1855 he became a devotee of the goddess Kali and lived for the rest of his life at her temple in Dakshineswar outside Calcutta ...
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Vedanta Societies
Vedanta Societies first and most influential Hindu organization in the West, founded by Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), a disciple of Indian mystic Ramakrishna (1836-86). Vivekananda attended an international religious conference in Chicago (1893), and later established the Vedanta Society of New Yo...
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Hare Krishnas
Hare Krishnas , communalistic religious movement, officially known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Founded in New York City (1966) by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977), the movement was based upon the philosophy of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486-1533). He taught th...
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R. K. Narayan
R. K. Narayan (Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayan) , 1906-2001, Indian novelist, b. Madras (now Chennai). Narayan, who wrote in English, published his first novel, Swami and Friends, in 1935. While he wrote hundreds of short stories for the Madras newspaper Hindu, he first came to international at...
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Vedanta
Vedanta , one of the six classical systems of Indian philosophy. The term "Vedanta" has the literal meaning "the end of the Veda" and refers both to the teaching of the Upanishads , which constitute the last section of the Veda , and to the knowledge of its ultimate meaning. By extension i...
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Hinduism
Hinduism , Western term for the religious beliefs and practices of the vast majority of the people of India. One of the oldest living religions in the world, Hinduism is unique among the world religions in that it had no single founder but grew over a period of 4,000 years in syncretism with the rel...
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