Katha Prasanga : Balananda’s spiritual discourses in colonial Bihar in the early twentieth century

Abstract

The example of Ramakrishna, a temple priest whose conversations recorded in Kathamrita so much affected the Bengali middle class, suggests the need for the scrutiny of the conversations of another holy man, Balananda, recorded in the Katha Prasanga. Giving a message of religious tolerance, yoga, Shaivite bhakti and social conservatism, he too had a middle-class following among the Bengali intelligentsia in Bihar.