Belur Mathਬੇਲੂੜ ਮੱਠ

Belur Math is a monastic headquarters, not a classical ancient mandir. On the west bank of the Hooghly at Belur, in Howrah district of West Bengal, this 40-acre campus is the worldwide headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission, the movement founded by Swami Vivekananda in the name of his master Sri Ramakrishna. Its great temple, consecrated in 1938, deliberately fuses the architecture of the world's religions into what the Mission calls a symphony in architecture.

1899: the monastery finds its permanent home

Sri Ramakrishna was born in 1836 in a pious Brahmin family of Kamarpukur, a village in Hooghly district. During twelve years of strenuous sadhana at Dakshineswar, on the northern side of Kolkata, he practised the branches of the Vedic religion, then Islam and Christianity, and taught that every religion is true and all creeds aim at the same goal. Shortly after his passing in August 1886, his sannyasin disciples, headed by Swami Vivekananda, organised a monastic order bearing his name, with a monastery at Baranagar, a northern suburb of Kolkata. The order set itself a twofold ideal: to train a band of sannyasin teachers of Vedanta as propounded by Sri Ramakrishna, and, with the lay disciples, to carry on missionary and philanthropic work, looking upon all, irrespective of caste, creed or colour, as manifestations of the Divine. The Ramakrishna Mission Association was started by Vivekananda in May 1897, shortly after his return from the West. In 1899 he shifted the Math to its present site at Belur, across the river Ganga about six kilometres north of Howrah station. The land had been purchased on 4 March 1897, and Vivekananda established Belur Math by placing the holy relics of Sri Ramakrishna there on 9 December 1898. The Ramakrishna Math was registered as a trust in 1901, and the Ramakrishna Mission as a society in 1909 under Act XXI of 1860. The two are independent, but their central administration is vested in the same Governing Body, headquartered at Belur Math.

Why does the temple look like a church, a mosque and a temple at once?

The Sri Ramakrishna Temple at Belur Math is designed to celebrate the diversity of Indian religions: seen from different positions it resembles a temple, a mosque and a church. The fusion of Hindu, Buddhist and Christian art and motifs is a deliberate symbol of the unity of all religions, the universal faith in which the movement believes. The vision grew out of Vivekananda's own travels. As a wandering monk he had studied the Taj Mahal, the Fatehpur Sikri palaces, the palaces of Rajasthan and the ancient temples of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu; in America and Europe he had seen buildings of Modern, Medieval, Gothic and Renaissance styles, and he folded these ideas into the design. The architect was Swami Vijnanananda, a direct monastic disciple of Ramakrishna who had been a civil engineer in his pre-monastic life. Swami Shivananda, the then President of Belur Math, laid the foundation stone on 13 March 1929, the massive construction was handled by Martin Burn and Co., and the temple was consecrated on 14 January 1938, Makar Sankranti day.

What the fusion architecture actually shows

The main entrance has a facade influenced by Buddhist styles, the Buddhist stupa at Sanchi and the main entrance of the Ajanta caves, while the structure rising over the entrance is modelled on the lofty towers of the Hindu temples of South India. The windows and balconies draw on the Rajput style of north India, the central dome is derived from the Renaissance architecture of the Duomo of the Florence Cathedral, and the ground plan is in the shape of a Christian cross. The natmandira, the spacious congregational hall attached to the sanctum, resembles a church; its pillars on both sides are in the Doric or Greek style, and the beam above is held by decorative brackets similar to the Meenakshi Temple at Madurai in Tamil Nadu. The elaborate designs on the pillars recall the Orissa style, the hanging balconies and windows show Mughal work as at Fatehpur Sikri, and the broad parikrama path for circumambulation is built like Buddhist chaityas and Christian churches. Lattice-work Navagraha figures are etched on the semi-circular top outside the temple, a golden kalasha crowned by a full-bloomed lotus sits at the very top, and the three umbrella-like domes in Rajput-Mughal style recall the thatched roofs of Kamarpukur village. The temple stands 34.3 metres tall and covers 3,060 square metres, built mainly of chunar stone. Inside, a full-size statue of Sri Ramakrishna sits on a hundred-petalled lotus over a damaru-shaped marble pedestal in which his sacred relics are preserved; the swans on the front represent the Paramatman. The statue was made by the sculptor Gopeswar Pal of Kolkata, the decorations were conceived by the artist Nandalal Bose, and the canopy, doors and windows are of selected teakwood imported from Myanmar.

The campus: four temples and a museum

The 16-hectare campus on the banks of the Hooghly holds temples dedicated to Ramakrishna, Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda, in which their relics are enshrined, along with the main monastery of the Ramakrishna Order. The Swami Vivekananda Temple stands on the spot where his mortal remains were cremated in 1902; consecrated on 28 January 1924, it keeps an alabaster OM in its upper storey, and beside it stands the bel tree under which he used to sit. Vivekananda died at Belur Math on 4 July 1902, aged 39. The Holy Mother's temple, dedicated to Sarada Devi, the spiritual consort of Ramakrishna, stands at the entrance of the Math and was consecrated on 21 July 1920. The Swami Brahmananda temple honours the first president of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission and was dedicated on 7 February 1924. The two-storey Ramakrishna Sangraha Mandir is a museum of the movement's history: the long coat Vivekananda wore in the West, Sister Nivedita's table, a recreation of the Panchavati grove of Dakshineswar, the black stone bowl from which Ramakrishna took payasam in his final days, and his footwear and clothes. The old shrine, where daily prayers were offered until the new temple's consecration, still stands, and the entrance gate of the Math carries the symbols of all religions.

Service as worship: the Ramakrishna Mission idea

Belur Math is not only a place of prayer. It conducts medical service, education, work for women, rural uplift, work among the labouring and backward classes, relief work, and spiritual and cultural activities. The centre runs schools, colleges, libraries, students' homes, hospitals, clinics, dispensaries and old-age homes, and the movement's branch centres stretch across India and abroad. The annual birthdays of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Sarada Devi and the other monastic disciples are celebrated here; the tradition of Kumari Puja was started by Vivekananda in 1901, and the annual Durga Puja is one of the main attractions. The former president A. P. J. Abdul Kalam regarded Belur Math as a place of heritage and national importance.

Visiting Belur Math today

The Math sits on the west bank of the Hooghly, about an hour's drive from Kolkata, and can be reached by direct EMU train services from Howrah, by ferry and by road; the Belur Math railway station, part of the Kolkata Suburban Railway, was inaugurated in 2003. Across the river stands the Dakshineswar Kali Temple, where Ramakrishna did his sadhana. Among the mandirs of India, Belur Math is the most unusual of them all: a temple that is a monastery, and a monastery that is a temple, and a counterpoint to grand modern complexes like Akshardham Delhi.