The Disciples of Sri Ramakrishna SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
EARLY DAYS
Swami Vivekananda, or Narendranath Datta, or simply Narendra or Naren as he was known during his pre-monastic days, was born to Viswanath Datta and Bhuvaneshwari Devi on Monday, 12 January 1863, at Calcutta. The Datta family was rich, respectable, and renowned for charity, learning, and a strong sprit of independence. Narendranath’s grandfather, Durgacharan Datta, was well-versed in Persian and Sanskrit and was skilled in law. But after the birth of his son Vishwanath, he renounced the world and became a monk. He was then only twenty-five. Vishwanath Datta was an attorney-at-law in the High Court of Calcutta. He was proficient in English and Persian, and took great delight in reciting to his family the poems of the Persian poet Hafiz. He also enjoyed the study f the Bible which he thought contained the highest wisdom. Though charitable sometimes to an extravagant degree,
