Swami Vivekananda : Centenary of Chicago Address
A commemorative postage stamp on the 100 years of the Chicago Address by Swami Vivekananda :
Issued by India
Issued on Sep 11, 1993
Issued for : The Department of Posts pays its homage to Swami Vivekananda by issuing a postage stamp to commemorate the centenary of his historic Chicage address.
Design : The stamp depicts Swami Vivekananda against the background of the Art Institute building at Chicago where the speech was delivered. It was in the Institute’s great Hall of Columbus that the delegates of the Parliament gathered on the memorable morning of September 1893.
The first day cover depicts Swami Vivekananda in meditation and also a famous line from the address.
Design Credits :
Stamp & F.D.C.: C.R. Pakrashi
Cancellation : Smt. Alka Sharma, Artist, Department of Posts
Type : Stamp, Postal Used
Colour : Multi Colour
Denomination : 200 Paise
Overall size : 3.91 x 2.90 cms.
Printing size : 3.55 x 2.54 cms.
Perforation : 13 x 13
Paper : Imported Un W/M adhesive gravure coated Stamp Paper in sheets of 50.8 x 53.5 cms.
Number of stamps Printed : 0.6 million
Number per issue sheet : 35
Printing Process : Photogravure
Printer : India Security Press
Name : Narendranath Datta
Born on Jan 12, 1863 at Calcutta, India
Died on Jul 4, 1902 at Belur Math, Bengal Presidency, British India [now in Belur, West Bengal, India]
About :
- Referring to this address, the New York Herald wrote: “He is undoubtedly the greatest figure in the Parliament of Religions.“ Such was the impact of the Swami‘s performance that his life-size portraits were posted in the streets of Chicago and passers-by bowed in reverence.
- Swami Vivekananda in his address at Chicago laid stress on three fundamentals of religion, namely, direct communication with the Divine, the incapacity of the human mind to fathom the depth of the Divine and an attitude of compassion. Swami Vivekananda affirmed with great eloquence that Indian spiritualism does not accept any religion which does not believe in service to the humanity. Religion, he said, develops the divine possibility which is in all of us. It is this spiritualism which was expressed in the songs of our devotees, the philosophies of our seers and the prayers of our common people in India through out the ages.
- It is a sweet irony of history that even as Swami Vivekananda introduced Indian spiritualism to the West, America helped India to recognise the greatness of her own young and vibrant monk then not so well known in his own country. His address at Chicago kindled a surge of re-awakening in India. The urge to rediscover the foundations of their own age-old spiritualism invaded the Indian minds and secondly it led to a powerful re-affirmation of the ancient Indian reverence for asceticism and monasticism infused with a new feeling for humanitarianism and a zeal for missionary service.
- Swami Vivekananda at Chicago was described by Annie Besant thus “A striking figure, clad in yellow and orange, shining like the Sun of India.“ Referring to the Chicago voyage, Sri Aurobindo said “The going forth of Vivekananda was the first visible sign to the world that India was awake, not only to survive but to conquer.“
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