Vivekananda Rock Memorial

About Vivekananda Rock Memorial: 

• It is located on a small island off Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu.
• The memorial stands on one of the two rocks located about 500 meters off the mainland of Vavathurai.
• The rock is surrounded by the Laccadive Sea, where the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean, and the Arabian Sea form a confluence.
• It was built in 1970 in honour of Swami Vivekananda, who is said to have attained enlightenment on the rock.
• It comprises of the 'Shripada Mandapam' and the 'Vivekananda Mandapam'.
• There is also a life-sized bronze statue of Swami Vivekananda on the premises.
• It is also a memorial for which all State Governments and the Central Government contributed.

Who was Swami Vivekananda?

• Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), born Narendranath Datta, was a Hindu monk and one of the most celebrated spiritual leaders of India. 
• He was the foremost disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa and a world spokesperson for Vedanta.
• He was hailed as a Dhyana Sidha, a meditation expert, by his guru, Ramakrishna Paramhamsa.
• He attempted to combine Indian spirituality with Western material progress, maintaining that the two supplemented and complemented one another. 
• He believed that the path to self-purification is through helping others. He encouraged people to engage in selfless service and to work towards the betterment of society.
• Through his teachings on the four yogas, the harmony of religions, the divinity of the soul, and serving humanity as God, Vivekananda gave spiritual aspirants paths to that realization.
• Vivekananda represented Hinduism at the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions convened during the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
• After his first visit to the West, Swami Vivekananda went back to India and founded the Ramakrishna Order at Belur outside of Kolkata in 1897.

Q1: What is Vedanta philosophy?

Vedanta is a school of philosophy within Hinduism dealing with the nature of reality, one of the six orthodox systems (darshans) of Indian philosophy and the one that forms the basis of most modern schools of Hinduism. The word Vedanta is a compound of veda, "knowledge;" and anta, "end, conclusion;" translating to "the culmination of the Vedas." It applies to the Upanishads, which were commentaries on the Vedas, the earliest sacred literature of India, and to the school arising from the “study” (mimamsa) of the Upanishads."

Source: PM Modi to meditate at Tamil Nadu’s Vivekananda Rock Memorial to mark culmination of Lok Sabha campaign