| Swami Tyagananda | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1956 |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | Head of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society, Boston. Chaplain at MIT, Harvard |
Swami Tyagananda is a Hindu monk of the Ramakrishna Order and presently the head of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society in Boston. Currently he is also the Hindu chaplain at MIT[1] and Harvard.[2] He is also a member of American Academy of Religion and the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. He has presented papers at academic conferences and he gives lectures and classes at the Vedanta Society, MIT, Harvard, and other colleges in and around Boston.
He joined the Ramakrishna Order as a monk in 1976, after graduating from the University of Bombay, India. Swami Tyagananda has served in the following monasteries:
Swami Tyagananda was the editor of the English language journal Vedanta Kesari based in Chennai, India. for eleven years. He has translated and edited ten books, including Monasticism: Ideals and Traditions (1991), Values: The Key to a Meaningful Life (1996) and The Essence of the Gita (2000).
Swami Tyagananda also wrote the paper Kali’s Child Revisited or Didn’t Anyone Check the Documentation, in which he examines a list of what he calls "serious errors" that he had found in Jeffery Kripal's book, Kali's Child.[3] Copies of Kali's Child Revisited were distributed at the annual meeting of the AAR[4] and published in journal Evam.[5] [6] Other scholars such as Lola Williamson from University of Wisconsin, Madison, expressed the view that Swami Tyagananda’s criticisms in Kali's Child Revisited "indeed go to the heart of things".[7] In 2010, Tyagananda co-authored the book Interpreting Ramakrishna: Kali's Child Revisited with Pravrajika Vrajaprana which further discusses these issues.[8]
In a departure from earlier Hindu traditions, in compliance with the practice prevalent in almost all centers of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, Swami Tyagananda also conducts a special service during Christmas Eve. The event begins with the garlanding an image of Madonna and Child. The Nativity story from the King James Bible is then read out loud, followed by the Sermon on the Mount and a homily on Jesus' life.[9] The 139th MIT Commencement ceremony in 2005 began with Swami Tyagananda's invocation in Sanskrit and English.[10]