Kali's Child Revisited
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
The Missing Text
In Interpreting Ramakrishna: Kālīʼs Child Revisited (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
2010), we examined Ramakrishna scholarship from its inception over a century ago and
contextualized Jeffrey Kripalʼs Kālīʼs Child (Chicago University Press, 1995) within that
framework. We also analyzed the history and the many-sided implications of the
controversy surrounding Kālīʼs Child and studied the issues of interpretation and
translation in cross-cultural contexts using the book as a case study. To keep the size of
the book within manageable limits, we could not implement our original plan to include
in the book the portions of the Bengali source text Śrī-Śrī-Rāmakṛṣṇa-Kathāmṛta that
were not translated by Swami Nikhilananda in his Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (New
York: Ramakrishna Vivekananda Center, 1942). We are pleased to provide that text
here, as a supplement to Interpreting Ramakrishna.
“I have made a literal translation, omitting only a few pages of no particular interest to English- speaking readers.”—Swami Nikhilananda, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
“Those 'few pages of no particular interest' contain some of the most revealing and significant passages of the entire text.”—Jeffrey Kripal, Kālīʼs Child