Universal temple at Chennai
THE ABOVE TEMPLE IS THE OLD TEMPLE. BELOW ARE THE PICTURES OF THE NEW TEMPLES! IS IT NOT BEAUTIFUL? Swami Vivekananda on his triumphal return from the West was requested by the devotees in Madras (now Chennai) to start a Math here. To fulfil their earnest desire Swamiji sent his brother-disciple Swami Ramakrishnananda to Madras in March 1897 and thus Sri Ramakrishna Math,Madras, came into existence. After reaching Madras, the first thing Swami Ramakrishnananda did was to set up a small shrine for Sri Ramakrishna at a rented house. He lived there and led a life of renunciation service and austerities. Slowly he built up the institution as the present Sri Ramakrishna Math which is a hub of muiti-pronged service activities. This is the oldest centre of the Ramakrishna Order in the South.Sri Ramakrishna Math completed hundred years of its service in 1997. The shrine of Sri Ramakrishna set up in 1917 in the present Math was clearly too small to accommodate the growing number of devotees.
