Envoy Extraordinary
M.V. KAMATH
VIVEKANANDA: HIS GOSPEL OF MAN-MAKING AND A CHRONICLE OF HIS LIFE AND TIMES by Swami Jyotirmayananda Shakti Publishers, Madras, 1987, 885 pp., 150
Sept-Oct 1987, volume 11, No 5

This is, by any definition, a rather remarkable book. It is part biography, part compendium, part chronology and part eulogy. It has been put together by a young swami after more than a decade of patient work during which he must have scoured every journal that had written anything about Swami Vivekananda during the days of his ascendance. It is a tribute to the Swami in a way that the founder of the Ramakrishna Order would have approved. Come February 1988 and it will be the 125th birth anniversary of Vivekananda who did not live up to be even 40. And yet such has been his remarkable life, that like Shankaracharya long before him he achieved much ‘ more than most people achieve in several life times.

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