History

Swami Vivekananda reached Colombo in January 1897 along with his small group of Western disciples. He founded two monasteries, one at Belur, which became the headquarters of Rama krishna Mission and the other one at Mayavati on the Himalayas, in Champawat District which is at Uttrakhand and thus called the ‘Advaita Ashrama’. The main objective of these monasteries was to train young men who to eventually become ‘Sannyasis of the Ramakrishna Mission, and to give them training for their work. The philanthropic activity was started in the same year and relief of the famine was carried out. However, Swami Vivekanand’s days as a Parivrajaka i.e wandering monk before his visit to Parliament of Religions, took him through many parts of India and he visited several architectural monuments like the Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri palaces, Diwan–e–Khas , palaces of Rajasthan, ancient temples of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and other places. Whilst, he was in his tour in America and Europe, he came across buildings of architectural importance of Modern, Medieval, Gothic and Renaissance styles. It was noted that Vivekananda incorporated these ideas in the design of the Belur Math temple. A brother monk of Swami Vivekananda- Swami Vijnanananda and one of the monastic disciples of Ramakrishna Mission, who was, in his pre-monastic life, a civil engineer, designed the temple according to the ideas of Vivekananda and Swami Shivananda. Hence, then President of Belur Math laid the foundation stone on 16 May 1935. The enormous construction was handled by Martin Burn & Co. The mission declared the Belur Math as A Symphony in Architecture.