Later compilation · Essential works
Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)
শ্রীশ্রীরামকৃষ্ণকথামৃত (Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita)
The principal source for Ramakrishna’s teaching and a classic of Bengali prose. Every scene is dated and placed: the master’s room at Dakshineswar, visits to devotees’ houses in Calcutta, the last illness at Shyampukur and Cossipore. Brahmos, pandits, actors, schoolboys and widows pass through its pages, and Ramakrishna answers with rustic parables, songs of Ramprasad and sudden ecstasies. Its themes are all there: God-realisation as life’s only goal, the harmony of religions, the divine Mother as identical with Brahman, the danger of “woman and gold”, service and devotion for those who live in the world. Aldous Huxley compared it with Boswell’s Johnson; the historian Sumit Sarkar reads it as a constructed text covering only 186 days.
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Authorship note
Ramakrishna did not write it. It is Mahendranath Gupta’s (“M.”, 1854–1932) reconstruction, from his diary, of the conversations he witnessed between February 1882 and April 1886. Five volumes in Bengali published in 1902, 1904, 1908, 1910 and 1932; extracts had appeared earlier in periodicals (1898–1902) and an English booklet, A Leaf from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1897). The canonical English translation is Swami Nikhilananda’s The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), which rearranges the five volumes chronologically and omits some pages.
Editions and translations
Editions in your language first, without hiding the others. Each with its cover and its store.
English
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai
Translation: Swami Nikhilananda
ISBN 8171201849
Edición india de la traducción de Nikhilananda (en dos volúmenes en las reimpresiones actuales).
Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita (traducción palabra por palabra)
Sri Ma Trust, Calcuta, 2011
Translation: Dharm Pal Gupta
ISBN 9788188343003
Traducción íntegra de Dharm Pal Gupta, bisnieto de M., que conserva la estructura de los cinco volúmenes.
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, Nueva York, 1985
Translation: Swami Nikhilananda
ISBN 9780911206012
Edición completa en un volumen (1.062 pp. según Open Library).
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, Nueva York, 1980
Translation: Swami Nikhilananda
ISBN 9780911206029
Registro de Open Library (ISBN-10 0911206027).
Ramakrishna
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
The Conscious LibraryThe Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, Nueva York, 1942
Translation: Swami Nikhilananda
Primera edición de la traducción de Swami Nikhilananda, con prólogo de Aldous Huxley. Traducción protegida (Nikhilananda murió en 1973).
বাংলা
Ramakrishna
শ্রীশ্রীরামকৃষ্ণকথামৃত, vol. 1
The Conscious Libraryশ্রীশ্রীরামকৃষ্ণকথামৃত, vol. 1
Calcuta (edición de M.; hoy Kathamrita Bhavan y Udbodhan Karyalaya), 1902
Primer volumen; los siguientes en 1904, 1908, 1910 y 1932. Texto bengalí de dominio público (M. murió en 1932).
Français
Ramakrishna
L’Enseignement de Râmakrishna
The Conscious LibraryL’Enseignement de Râmakrishna
Adrien-Maisonneuve, París, 1942
Translation: Jean Herbert
Paroles groupées et annotées par Jean Herbert: antología temática del Kathamrita.
Ramakrishna
L’Enseignement de Ramakrishna
The Conscious LibraryL’Enseignement de Ramakrishna
Albin Michel, París, 2005
Translation: Jean Herbert
ISBN 9782226159069
Reedición de la antología de Jean Herbert.
Deutsch
Ramakrishna
Sri Ramakrischnas ewige Botschaft
The Conscious LibrarySri Ramakrischnas ewige Botschaft
Rascher, Zúrich, 1955
Versión alemana del Gospel «von seinem Schüler M», con prólogo de Aldous Huxley; sin ISBN.
Español
El Evangelio de Ramakrishna
Luis Cárcamo, editor, Madrid, 2020
ISBN 9788476272121
144 páginas según Open Library: por su extensión es una versión abreviada, no la traducción completa del Kathamrita.
Other works by Ramakrishna
- The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna according to M. (M.’s own English version) · 1897
- The Gospel of Râmakrishna (Abhedananda edition, 1907) · 1907
- Sri Ramakrishna, the Great Master (Lilaprasanga) · 1909
- Râmakrishna: His Life and Sayings · 1898
- Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna · 1903
- Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna
- Teachings of Sri Ramakrishna · 1934
- Words of the Master
- Sri Sri Ramakrishna Punthi (A Portrait of Sri Ramakrishna) · 1901
- Life of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (Ramchandra Datta) · 1890
- Ramakrishna as We Saw Him · 1990
- The Life of Ramakrishna (Romain Rolland) · 1929
- Ramakrishna and His Disciples (Christopher Isherwood) · 1965
- Kali’s Child (Jeffrey J. Kripal) · 1995
- Interpreting Ramakrishna (Tyagananda and Vrajaprana) · 2010
- Ramakrishna Paramahamsa: Sadhaka of Dakshineswar (Amiya P. Sen) · 2010
- Great Swan (Lex Hixon) · 1992
Sources
- Gupta, Mahendranath («M.»). Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita (শ্রীশ্রীরামকৃষ্ণকথামৃত). 5 vols. Calcuta, 1902, 1904, 1908, 1910 y 1932. Trad. inglesa: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trad. e introd. de Swami Nikhilananda, prólogo de Aldous Huxley. Nueva York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1942.
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