The Early Spread of Vedanta Societies: An Example of "Imported Localism"

Abstract

Sri Ramakrishna, in whose name the Ramakrishna Math and Mission were created, and Swami Vivekananda, the disciple largely responsible for their organization, have been recognized as early examples of the "global gurus" who, over the last hundred years or so, have attracted both Hindus and those not born into Hinduism. This article will examine the establishment of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission in the United States and London. As a consequence of its attachment to the ideal of an emergent universal religion, but one linked to the claim that Hinduism is the "mother of religions," the movement has looked to the Hindu tradition for authoritative paradigms. This tendency has been matched by an expectation on the part of followers not born into Hinduism that the movement's belief and ritual activity should reflect practice in India. It will be argued that this pattern cannot be explained adequately in terms of existing theoretical understandings of the interaction between globalization and localization. Instead, it will be argued that Vivekananda's teaching led to the emergence of the related yet distinct phenomenon of "imported localism," which has been at odds with the ideal of a universal religion.

Paradigms and Styles of Advaita Mission: An Experiment in Interpretation

“…The work of Bosch and his successors on Christian missiology, however, suggests a far more modest conclusionif also one richer in interpretive possibility. First, we should note that the Ramakrishna Mission never transcended ethnicity in any absolute sense; instead, its distinctive teachings and structure brought it into complex negotiations with the various cultures it encountered, in India and in the West (Jackson 1994;Beckerlegge 2004). In this respect, it looks very much like many forms of Christianity, from the first century to the present day.…”

“…In the figure of the Buddha, he constructs an image of Advaita that promotes its application to everyday life, its active dissemination beyond the shores of India, and its engagement in questions of compassionate service and social justice. 21 Such a paradigm would be distinctively well suited to the new, transnational religious context in which Svåm Vivekånanda found himself and to which he himself made a significant contribution (see Beckerlegge 2004;Waghorne 2009). The universality of the Advaita message of liberation finds, in his teaching, a new idiom and a new social expression.…”

The Development of Modern Yoga: A Survey of the Field

“…In the less than 10 years between his 1893 arrival in the United States and his death in 1902, Vivekananda lectured prolifically on the subject of yoga. He also established a religious institution in the name of his guru, the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, which has had an influential legacy of social service in India (Beckerlegge 2000, 2006) and a more subtle impact as an international institution of Indian religiosity which encouraged non‐Indians to affiliate (Beckerlegge 2004; French 1974; Miller 2005).…”

Svāmī Vivekānanda’s Iconic Presence and Conventions of Nineteenth-Century Photographic Portraiture

“…Its use within the early Råmak®‚~a Ma †h and Mission (henceforth, movement) reflected cultural, economic, and technological choices exercized by devotees, typically drawn from limited segments of society in India and the West (see Beckerlegge 2004aBeckerlegge : 306, 2006a. It prompts questions about their motives, the values they attached to such photographs (see, for example, Beckerlegge 2000a: 128-29), and the style of composition.…”