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News India Live, Digital Desk: A civil engineer… who left his luxurious job like a straw for the Lord.” These words were said by Swami Vivekananda for one of his monk friends, who before taking sannyasa was a big government engineer and whom the world knows today by the name of Swami Vigyananand. On Wednesday, the birth anniversary of this Swami Vigyananand was celebrated with great devotion and pomp at the Ramakrishna Math in Lucknow.
This birth anniversary was not just a celebration, but an occasion to remember the great saint who was a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, the guru brother of Swami Vivekananda and an extraordinary genius. It was he who prepared the map of Belur Math of Swami Vivekananda’s dreams and took the entire responsibility of its construction.
Who was Swami Vigyananand?
Swami Vigyananand’s worldly name was Hariprasanna Chattopadhyay. He was born in a distinguished family near Dakshineswar. He was a topper in studies and later became an excellent civil engineer. He worked as a District Engineer in the then United Province, which was considered a very big post at that time. But since childhood he was inclined towards spirituality and after meeting Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, his life changed completely.
When Swami Vivekananda returned from the West, on his call, Hariprasanna left his prestigious job and took sannyasa and became Swami Vigyanananda. Vivekananda trusted him a lot and was impressed by his engineering abilities.
Glory of Swami Vigyananand echoed in Lucknow Math
The Jayanti program started in the morning with Mangal Aarti and Vedic chanting at Ramakrishna Math in Nirala Nagar, Lucknow. After this, Math President Swami Muktinathanand ji threw light on the life and contributions of Swami Vigyananand. He told how Swami Vigyananand achieved a wonderful balance of engineering and spirituality in his life.
He also recalled the incident when Swami Vivekananda, while handing over the responsibility of building the temple of Belur Math to Vigyanananda, had said that this temple should be such that it should be a confluence of the architecture of temple, mosque and church, so that people of every religion coming here feel a sense of belonging. Swami Vigyanananda made this dream come true and today Belur Math is a unique symbol of inter-religion equality.
The program ended with devotional songs and distribution of Prasad, but this birth anniversary refreshed in everyone’s mind the memories of that great engineer-saint, who dedicated his entire life in the service of Guru and God.
