Sri Sarada Math and Ramkrishna-Sarada Mission and the Flame of Service: an Exploration

Subrata Bagchi

The lofty ideals of Ramkrishna-Vivekananda Movement are quietly expressed in the vocabulary of spiritual philanthropy of Sarada Math and Ramkrishna-Sarada Mission, founded by the vastly spiritualized Sanyasinis.

The Math/Mission duo, instituted on the cardinal tenets of Vedantic philosophy of ‘bhaktiyoga’ and ‘karmayoga’ stand out as the unrivalled institutions in the annals of Hindu women’s religious organizations. This monastic order of the nuns is devoted to undemonstrative but humanitarian services to the downtrodden whom Swami Vivekananda called ‘daridranarayana’. Their yearning for spiritual sublimation and philanthropy for the ‘liberation of self’ pronounces the celebration of the exegetical postulates of the Movement that ‘God is in everyone’.

The monastic order embodies both the Math and Mission, and the Mission was founded in 1960 for philanthropic services to women and children, assuming them as the veritable manifestation of the divine irrespective of caste, creed and nationality. It undertakes educational work, medical service, rural development and spreads spiritual ideas. But their services for those dire needs of the poor are not properly apprised of due to Sanyasinis’ predilection for undemonstrative presence. This seems to have obscured their coming into prominence.

The paper explores the efflorescence of the Math/Mission as Hindu women’s monastic organizations and portrays a historiographic account of the debates around their creation. It weighs the circumstances that prompted the Sanyasinis’ discerning move for a space, sequestered from the unshakeable unity with the Ramakrishna Mission for perfecting their spiritual sublimation and philanthropic vision, as wished by Bhagavan SriRamkrishna and the holy mother SreeMa Sarada.

The paper addresses the focal theme by exploring the cases of specific interventions of the Mission in ‘Education’, ‘Health’ and ‘Community Services’---the major concerns of current conception of development. It draws attention to such interventions by two outstanding units of the Mission in Kolkata namely, Sister Nivedita Girls’ School and Matri Bhavan for their role in reaching out to the poor at a time when there is a paradigm-shift from state-provisioning to private-care system

The paper traces how this spiritual philanthropy of the Math/Mission for the promotion of women-education and for medical services to poor women works for stabilizing Hinduism and acts as a bulwark against the spread of foreign influences including NGOisation. It also studies the spiritual impact of the Math/Mission for the spread of Hindu culture amongst the local communities.