Sister Nivedita

"The mother's heart, the hero's will The sweetness of the southern breeze, The sacred charm and strength that dwell On Aryan altars, flaming, free; All these be yours and many more No ancient soul could dream before- Be thou to India's future son The mistress, servant, friend in one."
”
- A benediction to Sister Nivedita by Swami Vivekananda [1]
Sister Nivedita ( Sister Niːbediiːt̪a (help·info)); (Bengali: সিস্টার নিবেদিতা); (1867–1911), born as Margaret Elizabeth Noble, was a Scots-Irish social worker, author, teacher and disciple of Swami Vivekananda. She met Vivekananda in 1895 in London and travelled to Calcutta, India (present-day Kolkata) in 1898. Swami Vivekananda gave her the name Nivedita (meaning "Dedicated to God") when he initiated her into the vow of Brahmacharya on March 25, 1898. She had close associations with the newly established Ramakrishna Mission. However because of her active contribution in the field of Indian Nationalism, she had to publicly dissociate herself from the activities of the Ramakrishna Mission under the then president Swami Brahmananda. She was very intimate with Sarada Devi, the spiritual consort of Sri Ramakrishna and one of the major influences behind Ramakrishna Mission and also with all brother disciples of Swami Vivekananda. Her epitaph aptly reads, Here reposes Sister Nivedita who gave her all to India

Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 Meeting Swami Vivekananda
3 Travels
4 Relationship with Sarada Devi
5 Her works
6 Contribution towards Indian nationalism
7 Death
8 Books
9 Complete Works of Sister Nivedita
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links
[edit]Early life

Margaret Elizabeth Noble was born on October 28, 1867 in the town of Dungannon in County Tyrone, Ireland to Mary Isabel and Samuel Richmond Noble. The Nobles were of Scottish descent, settled in Ireland for about five centuries.[2] Her father, who a priest, gave the valuable lesson that service to mankind is the true service to God. Margaret lost her father at the age of ten, and was brought up by her maternal grandfather Hamilton. Hamilton was one of the first-ranking leaders of the freedom movement of Ireland.[3] Margaret got her education from Church boarding school in London. She extensively studied various subjects, including physics, arts, music, literature. She embraced teaching at the age of seventeen. She first worked in Keswick as a teacher of children. Subsequently she established a school in Wimbledon and followed her own unique methods of teaching. She also participated in Church sponsored activities, being religious in nature. She was also a prolific writer and wrote in the paper and periodicals. In this way she soon became a known names among the intellectuals of London. She was engaged to be married to a Welsh youth who died soon after engagement.[4] The regulated religious life could not give her the necessary peace and she began to study various books on religion.
[edit]Meeting Swami Vivekananda

Nivedita wrote in 1904 to a friend about her decision to follow swami Vivekananada as a result of her meeting him in England in November 1895:
"Suppose he had not come to London that time! Life would have been like a headless dream, for I always knew that I was waiting for something. I always said that a call would come. And it did. But if I had known more of life, I doubt whether, when the time came, I should certainly have recognized it.

Fortunately, I knew little and was spared that torture....Always I had this burning voice within, but nothing to utter. How often and often I sat down, pen in hand, to speak, and there was no speech! And now there is no end to it! As surely I am fitted to my world, so surely is my world in need of me, waiting — ready. The arrow has found its place in the bow. But if he had not come! If he had meditated, on the Himalayan peaks!...I, for one, had never been here." [5]
She started taking interest in the teachings of Buddha as alternate source of peace and benediction. It is during this time that she met Swami Vivekananda. On a cold afternoon in November 1895, Swami Vivekananda, who had come from America to visit London on an invitation, was explaining Vedanta philosophy in the drawing room of an aristocratic family in London. Lady Isabel Margesson, a friend of Margaret, invited her for this meeting. Margaret described her experience on the occasion. A majestic personage, clad in a saffron gown and wearing a red waist-band, sat there on the floor, cross-legged. As he spoke to the company, he recited Sanskrit verses in his deep, sonorous voice. Margaret being already delved deep into the teachings of the East, found nothing quite new in what she heard on this occasion. What was new to her was the personality of the swamiji himself. She attended several other lectures of Swami Vivekananda. She raised a lot of questions whose answers dispelled her doubts and established deep faith and reverence for the speaker.
Vivekananda's principles and teachings influenced her and this brought about a visible change in her. Seeing the fire and passion in her, Swami Vivekananda could foresee her future role in India. Swami Vivekananda narrated to her the pitiable condition of the women in India prevailing at that time and wrote to her in a letter, "Let me tell you frankly that I am now convinced that you have a great future in the work for India. What was wanted was not a man, but a woman—a real lioness—to work for Indians, women especially. India cannot yet produce great women, she must borrow them from other nations. Your education, sincerity, purity, immense love, determination and above all, the Celtic blood make you just the woman wanted."[6]
Swami Vivekananda felt extreme pain by the wretchedness and misery of the people of India under the British rule and his opinion was that education was the panacea for all evils plaguing the contemporary Indian society, especially that of Indian women. Margaret was chosen for the role of educating Indian women.
Responding to the call, Margaret visited India for the first time on 28 January 1898, leaving behind her family and friends, including her mother. Swami Vivekananda devoted the initial few days in building her character and developing her love for India and its people. He explained to her India’s history, philosophy, literature, life of the common mass, social traditions, and also the lives of great personalities, both ancient and modern. A few weeks later, two of Swami Vivekananda's women disciples in America, Sara C. Bull, wife of famous Norwegian violinist and composer Ole Bull and Josphine MacLeod arrived in India. The three became lifelong friends.
On 25 March 1898, Swami Vivekananda formally initiated Margaret in the vow of Brahmacharya (lifelong celibacy) and gave her the name of "Nivedita", the dedicated one. She became the first Western woman to be received into an Indian monastic order.[7] She later recorded some of her experiences with her master in the book The Master As I Saw Him. She often used to refer to Swami Vivekananda as "The King" and considered herself as the spiritual daughter (Manaskanya in Bengali) of Swami.[8]
On 18 March 1898, Swami Vivekananda organized a public meeting at Star Theatre to introduce Sister Nivedita to the people of Calcutta. There she expressed her desire to serve India and its people.
[edit]Travels

She travelled a lot of places in India, including Kashmir, with Swami Vivekananda, Josephine Mcleod and Sara Bull and this helped her in connecting to Indian masses, Indian culture and its history. She also went to United States to raise awareness and get help for her cause. On 11 May 1898 Nivedita, along with Swami Vivekananda, Mrs. Sara Bull, Josephine Mcleod and Swami Turiyananda, set foot for the Himalayas. From Nainital they travelled to Almora. On 5 June 1898, she wrote a letter to her friend Nell Hammond exclaiming, Oh Nell, Nell, India is indeed the Holy Land.[9] In Almora she first learned the art of meditation. She wrote about this experience, "A mind must be brought to change its centre of gravity...again open and disinterested state of mind welcomes truth." [10] She also started learning Bengali from Swami Swarupananda. From Almora they went to Kashmir valley where they stayed in houseboats. Nivedita travelled to Amarnath with Swami Vivekananda. Later in 1899 she travelled to America with Swami Vivekananda and stayed in Ridgely Manor.
[edit]Relationship with Sarada Devi



Sarada Devi (left) and Sister Nivedita
Within a few days of arrival in India, Margaret met Sarada Devi, wife and spiritual consort of Sri Ramakrishna, who, surpassing all language and cultural barriers, embraced her as "khooki" or "baby" in Bengali. This, recounted Nivedita, was her "day of days."[11] Till her death in 1911, Nivedita remained one of the closest associates of Sarada Devi. On 13 November 1898 the Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi came to open the school of Nivedita. After worshiping Sri Ramakrishna she consecrated the school and blessed it, saying: ‘I pray that the blessings of the Divine Mother may be upon the school and the girls; and the girls trained from the school may become ideal girls.’ Nivedita became extremely delighted and recorded her feelings later as ‘I cannot imagine a grander omen than her blessings, spoken over the educated Hindu womanhood of the future.’[12] The first photograph of Sarada Devi was taken at Nivedita's house.
Nivedita wrote in a letter to Nell Hammond about Sarada Devi after her first few meetings with her, "She really is, under the simplest, most unassuming guise, one of the strongest and greatest of women."[13]
An excerpt is taken here from the Gospel of Holy Mother, where Sarada Devi's impressions about Nivedita are captured vividly:
Referring to Nivedita, she [Sarada Devi] said, "What sincere devotion Nivedita had! She never considered anything too much that she might do for me. She would often come to see me at night. Once seeing that light struck my eyes, she put a shade of paper around the lamp. She would prostrate herself before me and, with great tenderness, take the dust of my feet with her handkerchief. I felt that she even hesitated to touch my feet." The thought of Nivedita opened the floodgate of her mind and she suddenly became grave... The Mother now and then expressed her feelings towards the Sister. She said at last, "The inner soul feels for a sincere devotee."[14]
[edit]Her works



House in Baghbazar where Sister Nivedita started her school in 1898


House in Baghbazar where Sister Nivedita started her school in 1898

In November 1898 she started a school for girls[15] who were deprived of even basic education, in Bosepara lane in the Bagbazar area of Calcutta. She went from home to home in educate girls, many of whom were in pitiable condition owing to the socioeconomic condition of early 20th century India. In many cases she encountered refusal from the male members of the girl's family. Nivedita had widows and adult women among her students. She taught sewing, elementary rules of hygiene, nursing, etc., apart from regular courses.
She took part in altruistic activities. She worked to improve the lives of Indian women of all castes.
During the outbreak of plague epidemic in Calcutta in 1899 Nivedita nursed and took care of the patients, cleaned rubbish from the area, and inspired and motivated many youths to render voluntary service. She inserted appeals for help in the English newspapers, organized the day-to-day activities, inspected the work and personally handed over the written instructions for the preventive measures by moving around.
She was a prolific orator and writer and extensively toured India to deliver lectures, especially on India's culture and religion. She appealed to the Indian youth to work selflessly for the cause of the motherland along the ideals of Swami Vivekananda.
She was friend to many intellectuals and artists in the Bengali community, including Rabindranath Tagore, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Abala Bose, and Abanindranath Tagore. Later she took up the cause of Indian independence. Sri Aurobindo was one of her friends as well.[citation needed]
She took active interest in promoting Indian history, culture and science. She actively encouraged Dr. Jagadish Chandra Bose, the renowned Indian scientist who is credited to have discovered the wireless radio along with Marconi, to pursue original scientific research and helped him financially as well in getting due recognition when he was faced by an indifferent attitude of the British Government. Bose, who was called by her as "khoka" or the "little one" in Bengali, and his wife lady Abala Bose, were in very close terms with her. Keeping in view Nivedita’s contribution to the scientific research work of Jagadish Chandra, Rabindranath Tagore said: ‘In the day of his success, Jagadish gained an invaluable energizer and helper in Sister Nivedita, and in any record of his life’s work her name must be given a place of honour.’
Her identity as both a westerner by birth and a disciple of Swami Vivekananda enabled her to do several things that might have been difficult for Indians. She promoted pan-Indian nationalism.[citation needed]
[edit]Contribution towards Indian nationalism

Initially Nivedita, like contemporary intellectuals from Europe, was optimistic about British rule in India and believed that it was possible for India and England to love each other. However, in the course of her stay, she came to witness the brutal side of the British rule, the repression and oppression and the division between the ruling elite and the ruled plebians; she concluded that it was necessary for India to gain independence to prosper. Therefore she devoted herself wholeheartedly to the cause of opposing the British rule. After Swami's death, she, being acutely aware of the inconvenience of the newly formed Ramakrishna Mission on account of her political activities, publicly dissociated herself from it. However, till her last days she had very cordial relationship with the brother disciples of Swami Vivekananda like Swami Brahmananda, Swami Premananda and Swami Saradananda, who helped her in her charitable and education activities in every possible way; she was very close to the holy mother, Sri Sarada Devi.
Nivedita had initially worked with Okakura of Japan and Sarala Ghoshal who was related to the Tagore family. She later started working on her own and maintained direct relationship with many of the young revolutionaries of Bengal, including those of Anushilan Samity, a secret organization. She inspired many youths in taking up the cause of freeing India through her lectures. She also exposed Lord Curzon after his speech in the University of Calcutta in 1905 where he mentioned that truth was given a higher place in the moral codes of the West, than in East. She undertook her own research and made it public that in the book Problems of The Far East by Curzon he had proudly described how he had given false statements about his age and marriage to the president of the Korean Foreign Office to win his favour. This statement when published in newspapers like Amrita Bazar Patrika and The Statesman caused a furor and forced Curzon to apologize.
In 1905 the British Government under Curzon initiated the partition of Bengal which was a major turning point in the Indian independence movement. Nivedita played a pioneering role in organizing the movement. She provided financial and logistical support and leveraged her contacts to get information from government agencies and forewarn the revolutionaries.
She met Indian artists like Abanindranath Tagore, Anand Coomaraswami and Havell and inspired them to develop pure Indian school of art. She always inspired and guided the talented students of the Calcutta Art School to move along the forgotten tracks of ancient Indian art like Nandalal Bose, Asit Kumar Haldar and Surendranath Gangopadhyay. She exerted great influence on famous Tamil poet, Subrahmanya Bharati, who met her only briefly in 1906. Nivedita designed the national flag of India with the thunderbolt as the emblem against a red background.
Nivedita tried her utmost to inculcate the nationalist spirit in the minds of her students through all their daily activities. She introduced singing of the song Vande Màtaram in her school as a prayer.
Nivedita provided guarded support to Annie Besant, and was very close to Aurobindo Ghosh (later Sri Aurobindo), on of the major contributors towards early nationalist movement. She edited Karma Yogin, the nationalist newspaper of Aurobindo.
The following piece is from an editorial in Karma Yogin, written by Nivedita, which depicts her intense respect for India:
"The whole history of the world shows that the Indian intellect is second to none. This must be proved by the performance of a task beyond the power of others, the seizing of the first place in the intellectual advance of the world. Is there any inherent weakness that would make it impossible for us to do this? Are the countrymen of Bhaskaracharya and Shankaracharya inferior to the countrymen of Newton and Darwin? We trust not. It is for us, by the power of our thought, to break down the iron walls of opposition that confront us, and to seize and enjoy the intellectual sovereignty of the world."[16]
[edit]Death

She died on October 13, 1911, age 43, in Darjeeling. Her epitaph reads "Here reposes Sister Nivedita who gave her all to India".
A benediction[17] written for Nivedita by Swami Vivekananda is available from wiki quotes: Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda.
[edit]Books

Her works included The Web of Indian Life, which sought to rectify many myths in the Western world about Indian culture and customs, Kali the mother, The Master as I saw him on Swami Vivekananda, Notes of Some Wanderings with the Swami Vivekananda on her travels in Kashmir and other places with Swamiji, The Cradle Tales of Hindusim on the stories from Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharata, Studies from an Eastern Home, Civil Ideal and Indian Nationality, Hints on National Education in India, Glimpses of Famine and Flood in East Bengal—1906.
Kali the Mother. Swan Sonnenschein & Co.,. 1900.
The Web of Indian Life. W. Heinemann. 1904.
Cradle Tales of Hinduism. Longmans,. 1907.
An Indian study of love and death. Longmans, Green & Co.,. 1908.
The master as I saw Him. Longmans, Green & Co.,. 1910.
Select essays of Sister Nivedita. Ganesh & Co.,. 1911.
Studies from an Eastern Home. 1913.
Myths of Hindus and Buddhists.. London : George G. Harrap & Co.,. 1913.
Footfalls of Indian history. Longmans, Green & Co.,. 1915.
Religion and Dharma. Longmans, Green, and Co.,. 1915.
Civic & national ideals.. Udbodhan Office. 1929.
A newly annotated edition of The Ancient Abbey of Ajanta, that was serialized in The Modern Review during 1910 and 1911, was published in 2009 by Lalmati, Kolkata, with annotations, additions and photographs by Prasenjit Dasgupta and Soumen Paul.
[edit]Complete Works of Sister Nivedita

Volume 1: The Master as I Saw Him; Notes of Some Wanderings; Kedar Nath and Bhadri Narayan; Kali the Mother. ISBN 978-8180404580
Volume 2: The Web of Indian Life; An Indian Study of Love and Death; Studies from an Eastern Home; Lectures and Articles. ASIN B003XGBYHG
Volume 3: Indian Art; Cradle Tales of Hinduism; Religion and Dharma; Aggressive Hinduism. ISBN 978-1177782470
Volume 4: Footfalls of Indian History; Civic Ideal and Indian Nationality; Hints on National Education in India; Lambs Among Wolves. ASIN: B0010HSR48
Volume 5: On Education; On Hindu Life, Thought and Religion; On Political, Economic and Social Problems; Biographical Sketches and Reviews. ASIN: B0000D5LXI