Swami Virajananda

Virajananda
Virajananda, a direct monastic disciple of Vivekananda and sixth President of the Ramakrishna Order
Religion	Hinduism
Order	Ramakrishna Mission
Philosophy	Vedanta
Personal
Born	Kalikrishna Bose (1873-06-10)10 June 1873 Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India
Died	30 May 1951(1951-05-30) (aged 77)
Guru	Swami Vivekananda
Honors	President of the Ramakrishna Order from Dec 1938 to May 1951

Swami Virajananda (10 June 1873 – 30 May 1951), born Kalikrishna Bose, was an initiated disciple of Sarada Devi and a former president of the Ramakrishna Order. Born as the son of Trailokyanath Bose and Nishadkalidevi, Virajananda was the first person to join the Ramakrishna Order after the direct disciples of Ramakrishna. In 1897, he was initiated into sannyasa by Vivekananda. from 1899 onward he served in Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati and became its president in 1906. He is recognised as a monastic disciple of Vivekananda.

Along with Swarupananda, Virajananda played a great role in popularising the monthly magazine of the order, Prabuddha Bharata. He was also responsible for successful completion of compilation and publishing of The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. He then edited and published a biography of Vivekananda in 1906 under the title The Life of Swami Vivekananda by his Eastern and Western Disciples. He was appointed the president of the Advaita Ashrama at Mayavati in 1913. In 1924 he became the General Secretary of the Ramakrishna Order. In 1938, he became the 6th President of the Ramakrishna Mission. He was the main source of inspiration behind the founding of two educational institutes of that mission known as Vidyamandir and Sarada Pith.

Kalikrishna, as he was called in his pre-monastic life, was born on 10 June 1873 to Trailokyanath Bose and Nishadkali Devi on the Hindu festival day of bathing festival (snan yatra) of Jagannath. He had his early education from Hembabu's training academy and passed his matriculation from Ripon School in 1890. He was adept in extra curricular activities like handicrafts, fine arts, cooking and gardening from an early age. He was inspired by his friend Khagendranath, later Vimalananda, a disciple of Vivekananda, to lead a spiritual life. He also had a group of young friends who later became renunciates and who also joined the Ramakrishna order. Among them were Sudhir Chandra Chakravarty (Swami Shuddhananda), Sushil Chandra Chakravarty (Swami Prakashananda), Govinda Shukul (Swami Atmananda) and Haripada Chatterjee (Swami Bodhananda). Kalikrishna joined Ripon college and came in contact with Ram Chandra Datta, one of the foremost householder disciples of Ramakrishna, and the founder of Kankurgachi Yogodyan. He was also intimate with Mahendranath Gupta or M and another prominent householder disciple of Ramakrishna, who was at that time a professor of English at Ripon college.M inspired him to visit Baranagar Math and meet the direct monastic disciples of Ramakrishna. After spending many days there in company of the monks, Kalikrishna renounced his wordly life and joined the Baranagar Math as an inmate. He served all the prominent monastic disciples like Ramakrishnananda, Niranjananda and Saradananda. He also went on a pilgrimage to Bodhgaya. He went to Jayrambati to attend the Jagaddhatri Puja conducted by Sarada Devi's family, along with Saradananda. In 1892, the monastery of the Ramakrishna Order was shifted to Alambazar and was called Alambazar Math. There Kalikrishna got an opportunity to meet and serve Gopaler Ma, a woman disciple of Ramakrishna. Under instruction from Sarada Devi he went back home and stayed with his family to recuperate from a broken health and there he followed an intense spiritual routine. In 1895, he went to Benaras and Vrindavan for performing spiritual austerities and stayed with direct monastic disciples of Ramakrishna like Brahmananda, Baburam Maharaj, Advaitananda and Yogananda. He also stayed in the house of Hariprasanna Chatterjee, later Vijnanananda to recoup his health. However all this time he was greatly inspired by Vivekananda and his exploits in the West and was awaiting his return. In 1897 he reached Calcutta and met Vivekananda. Within a few days of their first meeting, Vivekananda granted sannyas to Kalikrishna who was renamed as Virajananda (Vi-rajas, without stain).