Swami prabhavananda

Swami Prabhavananda

Indian Philosopher

Swami Prabhavananda

At the Santa Barbara Vedanta Temple

Born(1893-12-26)26 December 1893

Surmanagar Village, Bankura district, Bengal Presidency, British Raj

Died4 July 1976(1976-07-04) (aged 82)

Vedanta Temple, Vedanta Place, Hollywood

NationalityAmerican
Known forTranslator of the Bhagavad Gita (with Christopher Isherwood) and the Upanishads (with Fredrick Manchester), author of the Spiritual Heritage of India
OccupationMonk, writer, and teacher
ReligionHinduism
Founder of[[

Main article: Vedanta Society Of Southern California, Ramakrishna Monastery

|Vedanta Society of Southern California]]
GuruSwami Brahmananda

Swami Prabhavananda (December 26, 1893 – July 4, 1976) was an Indian philosopher, monk of the Ramakrishna Order, and religious teacher. He moved to America in 1923 to take up the role of assistant minister in the San Francisco Vedanta Society. In 1928 he was the minister of a small group in Portland, OR, but in 1930 he founded the Vedanta Society of Sou

Transcribed by Swami Krishnananda (1904-97)
Compiled by Gopal Stavig

This article originally appeared in Volume 14 (Fall 2009) of American Vedantist and is reprinted with their permission. The article appears in two parts. Read Part 2 here.

Swami Prabhavananda (1893-1976) founded the Vedanta Society of Southern California in 1929. He was born in the village of Surmanagar and brought up in Vishnupur, about twenty miles west of Holy Mother’s hometown of Jayrambati. The swami met eleven of the sixteen monastic disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, many of whom he lived with and knew intimately, and from the disciples he heard numerous stories about Holy Mother. In addition, he met Swami Sadananda, Mahendra Nath Gupta, Girish Ghosh and Sister Nivedita.

Material for this article was drawn from 13 lectures on Holy Mother given by Swami Prabhavananda between 1948 and 1975.

Swami Prabhavananda’s Personal Experiences

The life of Holy Mother has been written beautifully by many authors, and so I will not recount her life story. First, I will give you my own experiences that I had wit

Swami Prabhavananda was one of the pioneer swamis sent to America by the direct disciples of Ramakrishna to build on the work started by Swami Vivekananda at the turn of the century. The swami was born in India on December 26, 1893. In 1914, after graduating from Calcutta University, he joined the Ramakrishna Order of India and was initiated by Swami Brahmananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. In 1923, Swami Prabhavananda came to the United States. After two years as assistant minister of the Vedanta Society of San Francisco, he established the Vedanta Society of Portland. In December 1929, he came to Los Angeles where he founded the Vedanta Society of Southern California the following year. Under the able care of the swami, the Society grew into one of the largest Vedanta Societies in the West, with monasteries in Hollywood and Trabuco Canyon and convents in Hollywood and Santa Barbara. Swami Prabhavananda was a man of letters as well as a man of God. He wrote and translated a number of books with the object of making the spiritual classics of India available and understan

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