যাক, মূল বইটি না-দেখে অন্য বইয়ের ঝাল খেয়ে ওই কোটেশন আর পাতার নাম্বার চালাচ্ছেন মেনে নিলেন তো? এতেই হবে।প্রাইমারি, সেকেন্ডারি, টার্শিয়ারি, কোয়াটার্নারি রেফারেন্সের টার্মিনোলজি নিয়ে পরে কথা হবে। ইতোমধ্যে আপনিও ওগুলো কাকে বলে আরেকবার পড়া করে নেবেন, কেমন?
আপনার সবটুকু বম্ফাই তো ওই---কেন ওমুক লাইন দ্বিতীয় সংস্করণে চলে গেল আর কেন ওমুক লাইন পঞ্চম সংস্করণে ফিরে এল ঘিরেই চলছে। তা-ও এই কারণে যে অন্য লোকে বই লিখে এই অভিযোগটা করেছে। এর মধ্যে আপনার নিজের আবিষ্কৃত অভিযোগ বলে কিসুই নাই। অথচ সে-লোক বা সে-বইয়ের নামোল্লেখটুকু না করে অভিযোগ আনার কৃতিত্বটুকুও নিজের নামে নিতে চান। এইটাকেই ডিজনেস্টি বলে বুঝছেন? যেটুকু মূল পোস্ট করেছেন, তার দিকে যতবার তাকাবেন, ততবার এটা মনে করবেন।
তো, এটাই বলার, যে সংস্করণ ভিত্তিক যে টেকস্টের মডিফিকেশন হয়, যাকে পরিমার্জন ও পরিবর্ধন বলা হয়, তার কারণ ও ভিত্তি সেই সংস্করণের ভূমিকাতেই লেখার চল। তাই অন্য লোকের লেখার ঝাল খেয়ে লাফাবার আগে নিজে খুঁজে পেতে বইটা যোগাড় করে পড়ে নিলে কারণগুলো বুঝে নিতে অসুবিধে হয় না। এটা তো মনে রাখারই যে এই নিরঞ্জন ধর, রাজাগোপাল চট্টোপাধ্যায়, অভিজিৎ রায়, বিপ্লব পাল আর এই গোত্রের আরো গুচ্ছ লোক, যারা আইকনোক্লাস্ট পরিচয়ের আইডেন্টিটিতে এতটাই গর্বোদ্ধত, যে রেফারেন্সের কারচুপি, কনটেক্সট লুকোনো, পারম্পর্য গুলোনোকে তারা নিজেদের অধিকার মনে করে যথেচ্ছ ব্যবহার করে। জ্ঞানত বা অসচেতনে সেই একই নৌকোয় সওয়ার হওয়ায় কোনো বাড়তি গৌরব নেই।
যাইহোক, এই যা দিলাম, এতে বিশ্বাস করবেন না, বাজার থেকে একটা লেটেস্ট এডিশনের বই দেখে নেবেন। বিশেষত OCR জনিত বানাম্ভুল রয়েছে, সুতরাং, টুকবেন না। আই-উইটনেসের জায়গাটা বোল্ড করে দিলাম, কেমন? গুরুর মেসেজের আবার ওয়ার্ড লিমিট আছে। কতটা আসে দেখা যাক।
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION
IT GIVES us great pleasure to place this revised and enlarged
edition, which in fact is the ninth impression of Swami Vivek-ananda's
life, in the hands of the readers. Since 1933, when The Life
of Swami Vivekananda by His Eastern and Western Disciples was
revised, much new published as well as unpublished material about
the Swami's life has come to our hands. All significant new
information has, therefore, been incorporated in this edition in the
light of these archives. No pains have been spared to make it
informative, up to date, and authentic. Secondly, some material that
was omitted in the abridged second edition has been restored in
appropriate places for the sake of fuller account. Thirdly, the number
of chapters has been increased and the captions of some chapters
changed to suit the new set-up. This naturally led to splitting the
volume into two. A new chapter on "Setting the Indian Work in
Motion" has been added to the first volume.
Furthermore, an effort has been made to make the earlier text read
more simply and smoothly, and make the added matter all of a piece
with it. Some factual errors, which occurred in the earlier editions
owing to the scanty resources available then, have been rectified
wherever possible in the light of the recently discovered material.
The dates and versions of Swamiji's letters quoted in this edition have
mostly been taken from the photostats of the originals. As such, in
certain places they may vary from those found in The Complete
Works of Swami Vivekananda published by us. Besides these,
numerous quotations from many hitherto unpublished letters of
Swamiji, of his friends and disciples, and some hitherto unknown
information about the Swami, have been added, which make this
edition unique among all the Swami's biographies available. The
portions taken from the Bengali sources are our translations.
Occasionally, more than one version of the same incident has been
given for the benefit of the readers.
A Glossary, Bibliography, Index, and a few illustrations have been
added to this edition for the convenience of the readers.
The authorities of the Belur Math were greatly helpful in various
ways in our work while preparing this edition. Special reference may
be made in this connection to the learned guidance and inspiration
given by Swami Gambhiranandaji, General Secretary of the
Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission. ,
Many hands both monastic and lay, have contributed to the
diverse aspects of the work on the present edition. We particularly
wish to mention the contribution of Marie Louise Burke, now named
Gargi. She has liberally supplied a substantial portion of the new
information from her books as well as from her hitherto unpublished
archives. Moreover, she gave much help in the revision of the first
four chapters, and all the "Western" chapters. She has thus
generously contributed both on the research and the editing side. We
are, therefore, thankful to her for her kindness.
We are also thankful to Mrs. Gertrude Emerson Sen and Shri
Sankari Prasad Basu, for providing us with some hitherto
unpublished material regarding the Swami's life, and to several other
friends for collecting material for this edition.
We wish to express our sincere thanks to Professor Jnanendra
Chandra Datta, Lecturer in Sanskrit, Women's College, Calcutta, and
Shri Nachiketa Bharadwaj, Assistant Librarian, National Library,
Calcutta, for preparing the Index to this volume.
It is our hope that the present enriched edition, to be issued in two
volumes, will be received with warmth by Swamiji's admirers,
devotees, and research students all over the world. The second
volume will follow in due course.
MAYAVATI
25 August 1978
PUBLISHER
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আপনার ইন্টারেস্টের অংশটা
Kanyakumari is about twelve miles from Nagercoil. It is the
southern extremity of India, the meeting-place of three seas, and a
place of pilgrimage for Hindus. "Kanyakumari" means virgin girl.
The famous temple there is dedicated to the Divine Mother
manifest as a virgin girl. Eager as a child is to be back with its
mother, so was the Swami to see the Mother in that seashore
temple. Reaching the shrine he fell prostrate in ecstasy before Her
image.
Some two furlongs out in the ocean from the tip of the
mainland, where the Mother's temple is, are two rocks, known for
the last few decades as the Vivekananda Rocks. According to the
Puranas, the larger and farther of these two is the one that has been
sanctified by the blessed feet (Shripada) of the Divine Mother; For
it was here that, as Devi Kanya, She did Tapasya (disciplines and
austerities) to win the hand of the Great God, Shiva. Hence the
rock has long been considered by Shaktas a place highly
favourable for spiritual practices.
After worshipping the Mother in the temple, it was to this holy
rock that the Swami wanted to go for meditation. But how could
he go? He had not a single pice for the boatman.
Without more ado he plunged into those shark-infested waters and
swam across. About him the ocean tossed, but in his mind was
greater turbulence.
There, sitting on the last stone of India, he passed into a deep
meditation on the present and future of his country. He sought for
the root of her downfall. With the vision of a seer he understood
why India had been thrown from the pinnacle of glory to the
depths of degradation. Where only wind and surf were to be heard,
he reflected on the purpose and achievement of the Indian world.
He thought not of Bengal, or of Maharashtra, or of the Punjab, but
of India and the life of India. The centuries were laid out before
him. He perceived the realities and potentialities of Indian culture.
He saw India organically and synthetically, as a master-builder
might visualize in the concrete an architect's plans. He saw
religion to be the life-blood of India's millions. "India", he realized
in the silence of his heart, "shall rise only through a renewal and
restoration of that highest spiritual consciousness that has made
her, at all times, the cradle of the nations and cradle of the Faith."
He saw her greatness: he saw her weaknesses as well-the central
one of which was that the nation had lost its individuality. To his
mind, the only hope lay in a restatement of the culture of the
Rishis. Religion was not the cause of India's downfall; but the fact
that true religion was nowhere followed: for religion, when lived,
was the most potent of all forces.
The single-minded monk had become transformed into a
reformer, a nation-builder, a world-architect. His soul brooded
with tenderness and anguish over India's poverty. What use is a
religion, he thought, from which the masses are excluded?
Everywhere and at all times he saw that the poor had been
oppressed by whatever power the changes of fortune had set over
them. The dominance of the priesthood, the despotism o[ caste, the
merciless divisions which these created in the social body, making
outcasts of religion the majority of its followers-these the Swami
saw as almost insurmountable barriers to the progress of the Indian
nation. His heart throbbed
for the masses, great in their endurance. He seemed to enter, in
some high mode of feeling, their world. In their sufferings he
found himself sharing; by their degradation he found himself
humiliated. He longed to throw in his lot with theirs. Agony was in
his soul when he thought how those who prided themselves on
being the custodians of religion had held down the masses through
the ages. In his letter of March 19, 1894, to Swami
Ramakrishnananda, written from Chicago, one catches something
of the ardour of the Swami's meditation on the rock:
In view of all this, specially of the poverty and ignorance, I got
no sleep. At Cape Comorin, sitting in Mother Kumari's temple,
sitting on the last bit of Indian rock, I hit upon a plan: We are so
many sannyasis wandering about, and teaching the people
metaphysics-it is all madness. Did not our Master use to say, "An
empty stomach is no good for religion"? That those poor people
are leading the life of brutes, is simply due to ignorance. We have
for all ages been sucking their blood and trampling them
underfoot.
But what was the remedy? The clear-eyed Swami saw that
renunciation and service must be the twin ideals of India. If the
national life could be intensified in these channels, everything else
would be taken care of. Renunciation alone had always been the
great dynamo of strength in India. So at this critical time he looked
to the men of renunciation to uphold the cause of India's
downtrodden masses. The plan he hit upon was this-to continue
the same letter:
Suppose some disinterested sannyasis, bent on doing good to
others, go from village to village, disseminating education and
seeking in various ways to better the condition of all down to the
Chandala [outcaste], through oral teaching, and by means of maps,
cameras, globes, and such other accessories can't that bring forth
good in time? All these plans I cannot write out in this short letter.
The long and short of it is-if the mountain does not come to
Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain. The poor are
too poor to come to schools and Pathashalas; and they will gain
nothing by reading poetry and all that sort of thing. We as a nation
have lost our individuality, and that is the cause of all mischief in
India. We
have to give back to the nation its lost individuality and raise the
masses. The Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Christian, all have
trampled them underfoot. Again the force to raise them must come
from inside, that is, from the orthodox Hindus. In every country
the evils exist not with, but against, religion. Religion, therefore, is
not to blame, but men.
What could he do, a penniless sannyasi? In the midst of
despair, inspiration came to him. He had travelled the length and
breadth of India: he was sure that in every town he could find at
least a dozen young men who would help him in the service of the
masses. But where was the money to come from? He asked for
help: he got only lip sympathy. "Selfishness personified-are they
to spend anything!" the Swami exclaimed. In his anguish he
looked out over the ocean. A ray of light shot across his vision.
Yes, he would go to America in the name of India's millions.
There he would earn money by the power of his brain. Returning
to India, he would devote himself to the regeneration of his
countrymen-or die in the attempt. Shri Ramakrishna would show
him the way, even if nobody in the world would help the work.
Here, then, at Kanyakumari was the culmination of days and
months of thought on the problems of the Indian masses; here the
longing to find a way by which the wrongs inflicted on them could
be righted, was fulfilled. He gazed over the waters through a mist
of tears. His heart went out to the Master and to the Mother in
prayer. From this moment his life was consecrated to the service
of India, but particularly to the service of her outcast Narayanas,
her starving Narayanas, her millions of oppressed Narayanas. To
him, in this hour, even the direct experience of Brahman in the
Nirvikalpa Samadhi, and the bliss attending it, became subservient
to the overwhelming desire to give himself utterly for the good of
the Indian people. His soul was caught up in the vision of
Narayana Himself, the Lord of the Universe, transcendent, yet
immanent in all beings-whose boundless love makes no distinction
between high and low, pure and vile, rich and poor. To him
religion was no longer a special province of human
endeavour: it embraced the whole scheme of things-the Vedas, the
sages, asceticism and meditation, the Supreme Vision, and the
people, their lives, their hopes, their misery and poverty and
sorrows. He saw that religion, without concern for the poor and
suffering, was so much dry straw. Yes indeed, at Kanyakumari
2
the Swami became the patriot and prophet in one!
And so his meditation confirmed him in his intention of going
to the West. He would make that individualized and aggressively
self conscious West bow down to the Oriental experience as
embodied in India's message to the world. That on which the
monks of India concentrate as the ideal of their race and as the
consummation of their lives-that in its entirety he would preach to
the West. In the wake of that preaching, by him and by others to
come, India would rises great light illuminating the whole world.
He would renounce even the bliss of the Nirvikalpa Samadhi for
the liberation of his fellow-men in India and abroad! Thus was the
spirit of Shri Ramakrishna revealed to him in one of the most
profound experiences of his life. No wonder he later spoke of
himself as "a condensed India".
It would seem that the Swami meditated on the rock at
Kanyakumari for three days. This view is supported by the evi-dence
of two eye-witnesses. One of these was Shri Ramasubba
Iyer. In 1919, when Swami Virajananda, a disciple of the Swami
and a monk who came to be widely known and respected, went on
pilgrimage to Kanyakumari, Shri Iyer told him that he had himself
seen the Swami meditating on the rock for hours together, for
three days consecutively. This came as a surprise to Swami
Virajananda. In 1914, when he published Volume II of the first
edition (in four volumes) of the present Life of Swami
Vivekananda, he had not known it; hence he had there been unable
to give definite information about the length of time the Swami
was on the rock.
' In September 1970, the Vivekananda Mandapam, built as a memorial on the rock on
which the Swami meditated, was consecrated and opened. The work was put through by the
Vivekananda Rock Memorial Committee, Madras
Years later, another eye-witness, Shri Sadashivam Pillai, told
an admirer of Swami Vivekananda that the Swami had remained
on the rock for three nights. The Swami had come to Kanyakumari
on foot. Being impressed by the monk's personality, Shri Pillai had
watched his movements. He had seen him swim over to the rock.
When the Swami did not return in the evening, he became
anxious. Next morning Shri Pillai went to the rock with food for
the Swami. There he found him meditating; and when Shri Pillai
asked him to return to the mainland, he refused. When he offered
food to the Swami, the latter asked him not to disturb him. If Shri
Pillai wished to give him some food, he could leave some fruit and
milk in a hollow of the rock, so that he, the Swami, could take it at
will. Shri Pillai was sure that the Swami spent three nights on the
rock. Leaving Trivandrum on December 22, then, and in all
probability going straight to Kanyakumari, the Swami was perhaps
on the rock from December 24 to 26.