Talk:Ramakrishna

Obvious error restored by User:Gbohoadgwwian

The statement about the Cohen paper was plain wrong.

the paper does not say this and by restoring an incorrect phrase, Gbohoadgwwian is taking the BURDEN to be repsonsible for adding mistakes to wikipedia.

i have read this paper, and this is not what the Martin Cohen paper says.

The paper is this

Cohen, Martin (2008). "Spiritual Improvisations: Ramakrishna, Aurobindo, and the Freedom of Tradition". Religion and the Arts. BRILL. 12 (1–3): 277–293. doi:10.1163/156852908X271079.

See this https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Ramakrishna&diff=833953063&oldid=833939069

Ramakrishna's Name

I'm going to change the name of Ramakrishna as used in this article. In the first paragraph, it say, "...born Gadadhar Chatterjee or Gadadhar Chattopadhyay". His given name at birth was Ramakrishna Chattopadhyay. Gadadhar was a nickname. Swami Prabhananda, senior monk and Trustee of the Ramakrishna Order came out with a book in 1993 titled, "More About Ramakrishna". The first chapter is titled, "Who Gave the Name Ramakrishna and When?", is about the various versions of how Ramakrishna got his name, but proves it was given to him by his father at birth.

The family was devoted to Hindu God Rama, and male children of Khudiram and Chandramani were given names that started with Ram or Rama: Ramkumar, Rameswar, and Ramakrishna. There has been some dispute about the origin of the name Ramakrishna, but there is "...evidence which proves beyond doubt that the name 'Ramakrishna' was given to him by his father..." Ramakrishna confirmed this himself, as recorded in "M"s diaries, "I was a pet child of my father. He used to call me Ramakrishnababu." Ellis408 (talk) 14:43, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

References

Ramakrishna's Name

The main article on Ramakrishna states, "...born Gadadhar Chatterjee or Gadadhar Chattopadhyay". That's not right. Gadahar was a nickname, and as you can see here, Ramakrishna was his given name at birth.

The family was devoted to Hindu God Rama, and male children of Khudiram and Chandramani were given names that started with Ram or Rama: Ramkumar, Rameswar, and Ramakrishna. There has been some dispute about the origin of the name Ramakrishna, but there is "...evidence which proves beyond doubt that the name 'Ramakrishna' was given to him by his father..." Ramakrishna confirmed this himself, as recorded in "M"s diaries, "I was a pet child of my father. He used to call me Ramakrishnababu." Ellis408 (talk) 14:59, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

References

Tota Puri

The section is WAY to much for Tota Puri. He was one of Ramakrishna's gurus, but has a massive presence in the section about Ramakrishna's sadhana. Need to move much (almost all) to a Tota Puri article. I've encountered this Toda Puri empathisis before, including claiming that Puri was his only guru, which runs contrary to RK's whole outlook on the various religions and teachers. Puri wasn't the first or last.

Any others feel this way? Ellis408 (talk) 16:14, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I too feel this way. The section on Tota Puri blocks the reader from the rest of the article following it by it's sheer size. RamasSquirrel (talk) 02:39, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

I am also in favor for creating another article for Tota Puri as currently there is none. RamasSquirrel (talk) 02:41, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Ramakrishna's Given Name

I'm writing this in advance of changing the opening paragraph from this:

Ramakrishna Paramahansa (Bengali: রামকৃষ্ণ পরমহংস, romanized: Ramôkṛṣṇo Pôromohôṅso; pronounced [ramɔkriʂno pɔromoɦɔŋʃo] ^ⓘ, 18 February 1836 – 16 August 1886), also spelled Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, born Gadadhar Chattopadhay...

To this:

Ramakrishna Paramahansa (Bengali: রামকৃষ্ণ পরমহংস, romanized: Ramôkṛṣṇo Pôromohôṅso; pronounced [ramɔkriʂno pɔromoɦɔŋʃo] ^ⓘ, 18 February 1836 – 16 August 1886), also spelled Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, born Ramakrishna Chattopadhay...

If was quite common for Bengalis to use nicknames - even various names for the same people. Research into original documents has brought forward information that was unavailable or overlooked before. Here is the line of thinking about the Ramakrishna name:

Most books just quote earlier books about Ramakrishna that his childhood name was Gadadhar - but without a reference or source. A few books claim that the name Ramakrishna was given by Tota Puri during an initiation. Other's claim the name was given by Mathur Babu (the Rani's son-in-law), again without sources.

However, in M's Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, he quotes a deed signed in 1861 by the Rani Rasmani (who owned Dakshineswar, the temple where Ramakrishna lived for over thirty years) that in 1858 "Ramakrishna" was paid a monthly stipend of 5 rupees and 3 pairs of cloth. Tota Puri didn't come to the temple until 1864.

In Swami Phabhananda's book, More About Ramakrishna, the first chapter is titled Who Gave the Name Ramakrishna and When?, he points out that the family was devoted to the Hindu deity Rama (the family deity was Sri Raghubir, an epithet of Rama), and the male children of Khudiram and Chandramani were all given names that started with Ram or Rama: Ramkumar, Rameswar, and Ramakrishna.

Also, Ramakrishna confirmed this himself, as recorded in the original "M" diaries, recently translated by Swami Chetanananda from the hand written Bengali originals, "I was a pet child of my father. He used to call me Ramakrishnababu."

Note: Prabhananda was the historian of the Ramakrishna Order and for a long time was head of the Institute of Culture in Calcutta, where visiting scholars can study and access the archives of the Order. For more than 40 years. Chetanananda has been re-translating key books of the Order's history, referring to the most authoritative sources in the original Bengali, adding to and correcting the Order's history.