About this Complete Works

In this year (1966-1967) of the Birth Centenary Celebration of Srimat Swami Abhedananda, a direct disciple of Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and the spiritual brother of Swami Vivekananda, we are offering to the reading public as well as to all seekers of knowledge, this Complete Works of Swami Abhedananda in ten volumes in English

The life of Swami Abhedananda was intimately bound up with the Vedanta movement in the West for quarter of a century, beginning from 1896 It was during this period that he delivered innumerable public lectures on different subjects, mainly philosophical, cultural and historical, from thousand platforms in the two Continents of America and Europe Besides, he was frequently invited at various Universities, Colleges also Churches where distinguished listeners thronged to hear him Some of the lectures and writings were already published in America, when Swami Abhedananda was there in connection with his mission

He returned for the first time to India for only six months in 1906, and lectured in different places in India He went back again to America in the end of 1906, and finally returned to his motherland in 1921 in September

He established two centres, one at Calcutta and another at Darjeeling, which are now known as ‘Ramakrishna Vedanta Math’ (Calcutta) and ‘Ramakrishna Vedanta Ashrama’ (Darjeeling) From the Calcutta centre some of his speeches and writings were published in book forms, and were highly appreciated all over the world. But still much of his valuable writings and lectures, including his lectures on the “Bhagavad Gita” remained unpublished

Now, on this very auspicious occasion of his Birth Centenary, we have decided to bring out completely his writings and speeches (published and unpublished) and to present them to the readers at large. For want of funds, we are unable at present to publish the Bengali and Hindi editions of the Complete Works.

Now to mention further, we have avoided the use of diacritical marks throughout the book, but have given the contents of the lectures, together with the footnotes, used in the original writings. A separate volume will come out in due course, giving the complete index of the ten volumes For the purpose of decent get up, we have used the best quality of paper available and have taken care in making the volume presentable in other respects

We hope to place the subsequent volumes on the hands of the reading public within this scheduled time

Swami Prajnanananda
General Secretary,
Swami Abhedananda Centenary
Celebration (1966-4967)

Publication Department
Ramakrishna Vedanta Math,
19-B, Raja Rajkrishna Street,
Calcutta-6
Dated, 1st January, 1967