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KOLKATA, INDIA, April 25, 2005: Swami Ranganathananda, president of Ramkrishna Math and Mission, breathed his last after a cardiac arrest today. He was 96. He attained Mahasamadhi at 3.51 a.m. at Woodlands Hospital where he was admitted on April 17. His cremation rites will be performed tomorrow around 12.30 p.m. within Belur Math (monastery) premises. His body would lie at the Math till tomorrow morning where visitors and disciples will be allowed to pay their last respects. Condoling Swami Ranganathananda’s death, Governor Mr. Gopal Krishna Gandhi said: “The revered Swami was a beacon light of intellectual energy and sublime spirituality. His profound understanding of India’s multi-cultural civilization influenced several generations of Indians.” Expressing his grief, chief minister Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said: “I had known him personally. He was a man of great knowledge.”



An orator and a scholar par excellence, Swami Ranganathananda, known as Sankaran in his early life, was born in Trikkur village in Kerala on 15 December, 1908. In 1926, he was initiated by Swami Shivanandaji Maharaj, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, at Ootacamund. He then joined the Ramakrishna Order at its Mysore branch. He received brahmacharya vows in 1929 and sanyasa vows in 1933, both from his guru, Swami Shivanandaji Maharaj, the second president of the Ramakrishna Order, at Belur Math. He worked as secretary and librarian at the Ramakrishna Mission Centre at Rangoon from 1939 to 1942 and thereafter as head of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission in Karachi from 1942 to 1948. He was also the secretary of the New Delhi Centre, October 1949 to March 1962. From April, 1962 to November, 1967 he served as secretary of Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture in Kolkata, as well as director of its School of Humanistic and Culture Studies and editor of its monthly journal. From 1973 to 1993, he was the president of the Ramakrishna Math in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. Between 1946 and 1972, Swami Ranganathananda undertook extensive lecture tours covering 50 countries. Since 1961, Swami Ranganathananda was one of the trustees of the Ramakrishna Math and a member of the governing body of Ramakrishna Mission. Between 1994 and 1998, he served as the vice-president of Ramakrishna Math and Mission. He became the 13th president of the Ramakrishna Order on 7 September, 1998.

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