Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (February 18, 1836 - August 16, 1886) was a Bengali saint. His early name was Gadadhar Chattopadhyaya. A devotee of the goddess Kali and a teacher of Advaita Vedanta Hinduism, which contain the beliefs of Smartism, a denomination of Hinduism, he preached that “all religions lead to the same goal.” He placed “spiritual religion” above “blind ritualism.”
Traditional biography
In India, people usually concentrate more on the teachings of saints and less on whether the dates of significant events related to them are historically accurate. But in the case of Ramakrishna, we have authentic accounts of his life and times. This was possible because many of his disciples were well educated and had a strong desire to present only the facts which could be verified from multiple sources. The main credit for collecting and recording such facts goes to Swami Saradananda, a disciple of the Master. He wrote an authoritative biography to sift the facts from the legends and stories which were growing around Ramakrishna. A new English translation of this by Swami Chetanananda is available.
Traditional account of his childhood
Gadadhar’s parents, Khudiram and Chandramani, were poor and made ends meet with great difficulty. Gadadhar was the pet of the whole village. He was handsome and had a natural gift for the fine arts. He, however, disliked going to school, not interested in earning money only. He loved Nature and spent his time in fields and fruit gardens outside the village with his friends. He was seen visiting monks who stopped at his village on their way to Puri. He would serve them and listen with rapt attention to the arguments they often had among themselves over religious issues.
Gadadhar attained the age when he should be invested with the sacred thread (Upanayana). When arrangements were nearly complete for this, Gadadhar declared that he would have his first alms as a Brahmin from a certain Sudra woman of the village. This was something unheard of! Tradition required that it should be a brahmin and not a sudra who would give him the first alms. This was pointed out to him but he was adamant. He said he had given his word to the lady and if he did not keep his word, what sort of brahmin would he be? No argument, no appeal, no amount of tears could budge him from his position. Finally, Ramkumar, his eldest brother and now the head of the family after the passing away of their father, had to give in.