The Dakshineswar temple is not in Howrah, but in Bali, a small village just north of Calcutta. It has grown into a town today.

The building in the foreground is the 'Naat-mandir' and stands even today. It is a hall where devotees can sit and pray and religious discources are held.

Swami Vivekananda was a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahansa, or Thakur, as he is lovingly called. Swami Vivekanada founded the Ramakrishna Order, along with 11 other young disciples of Thakur. The headquarters of this Order is at Belur Math, Howrah (across the Ganges to the north of Calcutta) and has several branches worldwide.

I still have some memories of father taking a visiting scientist a Dr. Lima de Faria and me on a trip to Dakshineshwar Temple in Dec.1955. The long sandstone corridors and the marvellous view of the Bally Bridge across the Hoogly are still rooted in memory .

Yes Bali and Belur stand opppsite each other along either side of the Hooghly..... Thank God for the existence of someone like Thakur Ramkrishna..... It changed the way 19th century aristocratic Bengali veiwed the religion.... he succesfully blew away the dogmatic dark age way of treating our sanatan dharma..... thereby bringing in the not so privileged into the fold . His simplistic explanations of very complex spiritual thoughts touched many..... taught many an educated to rethink of what they had hitherto grown up with....

i paid a vist to the holy temple very recently , its' beautiful... Naat Mandir was impressive

@Sreerupa..is Uttarpara anywhere near Belur ..you see in 1980 we used to drop our Kharagpur Accounts Manager Ramen Roy ( whom we'd jokingly call "Roy Rogers' ) at his ancestral house on the banks of the Hoogly. This house of his was absolutely fascinating : it was built like an Alamo style fortress ..complete with high walls and two huge fortess like doors !

Sadly the only thing I've read thus far . has been an abridged version ( that appeared in The Imprint of October 1965 ) of Christopher Isherwood's " Ramakrishna And His Disciples ' . The blurb says that it was highly acclaimed when it was released in 1965.

@ Jaacob... Yes Isherwood's book did help to spread the word hugely among the uninitiated.... esp in the English speaking world.... You are right about Uttarpara... it is up the river . there's also Chandannagore.. " that once upon a little French town"

Sreerupa ..thank you very much . Speaking of Chandannagore ..would that be the same as Chandernagore / Chinsurah ..? If so I can't even begin to describe all that I owe to a certain Sunil Kumar Dey of Chandernagore / Chinsurah !

Jaacob...May be you are right about he spelling of that "French" town... chinsurah is also along the river, neighbours if I may say..

Sreerupa ..Thank you very much for the clarification . The second time I visited these towns was in early 1974 for a traditional Bengali wedding , that too at night . So my memories are very hazy, at best . The first was in the late 50s when we drove through the place ..en route to Asansol , if I remember right !

bali belur uttarpara etc are all in howrah dist. from shyambazar go to north find baranagar alambazar thereafter Dakhineswar on the bank of hooghly.the bridge is connecting bali on the other side of river hooghly - known as Bali Bridge . A new bridge has also been constructed side by - known as Nivedita Bridge.

Only Debotosh Mitra has got the location right!! Dakhshineshwar is on the east bank of Ganga, on the same side as Kolkata is. I live practically next door near Dunlop Bridge,Indian statistical Institute.