WHEN GREECE MET INDIA IN AMERICA
It is significant to remember that Prof. John Henry Wright who had arranged for Swami Vivekananda's affiliation to the Chicago Parliament of Religions as a delegate was the professor of Greek in Harvard University. It was as if providential that ancient Greek should welcome ancient India in this modern world that was on the verge of a first time fusion of the Occidental and the Oriental cultures en route to the provision for a synthetic world human culture that would be the basis for future world civilisation.
Prof. Wright wrote to the Chairman of the Committee on the Selection of Delegates for the Chicago Parliament of Religions in effusive terms about the young monk from India who he said was, and I quote him, ''more learned than all our learned professors put together.'' Dr. Wright's enormous prestige as professor of Greek in America's premier academic institution and his personal rapport with Dr. John Henry Barrows, the Chairman of the General Committee of the Parliament of Religions, saw Swamiji through the initial difficult phase of winning affiliation as a representative of the Hindu religion without any prior formal application by him having been made within the scheduled time limit for such. This was clearly providential, almost in line with what the young monk had prophesied to his brother disciple, Swami Turiyananda, when yet in his wanderjahre through his motherland that the Chicago Parliament was being arranged to facilitate his advent onto the world stage.
When Swamiji had said that he had no formal letter of recommendation or even introduction from the Hindu community whom he aspired to represent in the Chicago Parliament, Prof. Wright had put the matter to rest with these glowing words of appreciation : "To ask you, Swami, for credentials is like asking the sun to state its right to shine.''
Ancient Greece, seat of Occidental culture had come full swing to meet ancient India, seat of the Orient. The fusion took place historically in the parlour of Katherine Sanborn in Boston where an erudite scholar of Greek shook hands with the ebullient monk from India to set the ball rolling for the flourishing of future civilisation. And forget not, the rendezvous between ancient Europe and ancient India took place in modern America whence the new age would be ushered in. Indeed, it was a climactic moment in world history when the past and the future would seek synthesis in the present in a mighty sweep of the hand of God. Or, in Vivekananda terms, ought we to say, by the revisited hand of Man?
Written by Sugata Bose
It is significant to remember that Prof. John Henry Wright who had arranged for Swami Vivekananda's affiliation to the Chicago Parliament of Religions as a delegate was the professor of Greek in Harvard University. It was as if providential that ancient Greek should welcome ancient India in this modern world that was on the verge of a first time fusion of the Occidental and the Oriental cultures en route to the provision for a synthetic world human culture that would be the basis for future world civilisation.
Prof. Wright wrote to the Chairman of the Committee on the Selection of Delegates for the Chicago Parliament of Religions in effusive terms about the young monk from India who he said was, and I quote him, ''more learned than all our learned professors put together.'' Dr. Wright's enormous prestige as professor of Greek in America's premier academic institution and his personal rapport with Dr. John Henry Barrows, the Chairman of the General Committee of the Parliament of Religions, saw Swamiji through the initial difficult phase of winning affiliation as a representative of the Hindu religion without any prior formal application by him having been made within the scheduled time limit for such. This was clearly providential, almost in line with what the young monk had prophesied to his brother disciple, Swami Turiyananda, when yet in his wanderjahre through his motherland that the Chicago Parliament was being arranged to facilitate his advent onto the world stage.
When Swamiji had said that he had no formal letter of recommendation or even introduction from the Hindu community whom he aspired to represent in the Chicago Parliament, Prof. Wright had put the matter to rest with these glowing words of appreciation : "To ask you, Swami, for credentials is like asking the sun to state its right to shine.''
Ancient Greece, seat of Occidental culture had come full swing to meet ancient India, seat of the Orient. The fusion took place historically in the parlour of Katherine Sanborn in Boston where an erudite scholar of Greek shook hands with the ebullient monk from India to set the ball rolling for the flourishing of future civilisation. And forget not, the rendezvous between ancient Europe and ancient India took place in modern America whence the new age would be ushered in. Indeed, it was a climactic moment in world history when the past and the future would seek synthesis in the present in a mighty sweep of the hand of God. Or, in Vivekananda terms, ought we to say, by the revisited hand of Man?
Written by Sugata Bose
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