Swami Vivekananda Quotes

The topic of our this article is Swami Vivekananda's education life.

❶ In this first section of this article we'll discuss the schools and colleges Narendranath Datta (pre-monastic name of Swami Vivekananda) attended.
❷ In the second section, you'll find Narendranath's examination marksheets.
❸ And in the third and the last section we'll discuss on Swamiji's examination results.

Swami Vivekananda was born Narendranath Datta on 12 January 1863. In 1871, when he was eight years old, he was enrolled at Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's Metropolitan Institution. He continued his schooling at Metropolitan Institution till 1877, when his family moved to Raipur, Madhya Pradesh.

In Raipur the Datta family stayed from 1877 to 1879. Most probably Narendranath did not attend any school at Raipur. Rajagopal Chattopadhyaya wrote in his book Swami Vivekananda in India: A Corrective Biography—

There was no school in a remote place like Raipur. So he spent time with his father. It was not only academic. They used to talk and argue a lot during their one-and-half year's stay. Some educated and learned people used to visit their home. Among them Mahendranath remembered Roy Bahadur Bhutnath De, father of future linguist Harinath De, who lived in the same building with them. . .

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

In 1879, the Datta family moved back to Calcutta. Again, we'll follow Rajagopal Chattopadhyaya's Corrective Biography (most of the biographies have unclear infromation, for example, Swami Nikhilananda wrote in his Swami Vivekananda – A Biography—

In 1879 the family returned to Calcutta, and Narendra within a short time graduated from high school in the first division. In the meantime he had read a great many standard books of English and Bengali literature.

It is not clear which school he joined after returning to Calcutta. Anyway, Rajagopal Chattopadhyaya has given us details. He wrote, after returning to Calcutta at 1879, Narendranath applied for readmission at his old school Metropolitan Institution. The school authority was initially reluctant, but later accepted him. Narendranath passed school leaving examination in the First Division from Metropolitan Institution in 1879.
We find support for this information in William Radice's book Swami Vivekananda and the Modernisation of Hinduism too.

In 1879, after passing school examination, Narendranath entered the Presidency College, Calcutta. Again Nikhilananda's information is unclear here. He wrote—

. . . in 1879 Narendranath entered the Presidency College of Calcutta for higher studies. After a year he joined the General Assembly's Institution, founded by the Scottish General Missionary Board and later known as the Scottish Church College.

There is not much information why Narendranath left Presidency College. We get some information in Life And Philosophy Of Swami Vivekananda, written by Gopal Shrinivas Banhatti. Banhatti wrote—

. . . Presidency College, Calcutta, which Vivekananda attended so irregularly that he was not sent for the B.A. degree though he had passed the examination

Very soon, Narendranath left Presidency College and joined General Assembly's Institution (now known as Scottish Church College) and studied Philosophy. In 1881, he passed F. A. examinations.^[1] In 1885, he earned his B. A. degree^[2] from the same college.


Now, we'll start our second section — Swami Vivekananda's examination results/marksheet. The immediate source of these information is Manishankar Mukhopadhyay's The Monk as Man: The Unknown Life of Swami Vivekananda.



This is the last section of this article. In many internet forums, discussions I have seen people commenting like—

• "Oh, Swamiji obtained only 56 out of 100 in his F.A. and B. A. examinations."
• "45% in psychology — very poor marks".

You may read this article too—
Swami Vivekananda on "Karmanyevadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana"

1. F. A. means Fine Arts. It is similar to current Higher Secondary or 10+2 examination.
2. B. A. means Bachelor of Arts. It is similar to current graduation or 10+2+3 examination.

We have studied the following books to collect information for this article—

• Banhatti, Gopal Shrinivas (1 January 1995). Life And Philosophy Of Swami Vivekananda. Atlantic Publishers & Dist. pp. 192–. ISBN 978-81-7156-291-6.
• Chattopadhyaya, Rajagopal (1 January 1999). Swami Vivekananda in India: A Corrective Biography. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. pp. 23–. ISBN 978-81-208-1586-5
• Nikhilananda, Swami (1953). Vivekânanda: A Biography. Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center. ISBN 978-0-911206-25-8
• Radice, William (1999). Swami Vivekananda and the Modernisation of Hinduism. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-565093-8
• Samkara (1 January 2011). The Monk as Man: The Unknown Life of Swami Vivekananda. Penguin Books India. ISBN 978-0-14-310119-2. 

---

This page was last updated on: 11 May 2014, 12:32 pm IST (UTC+5:30 hours)
Number of revisions in this page: 1