Professor Prafulla Chandra Ghosh was a well-loved professor and a Shakespeare scholar of great eminence. A Premchand Raychand scholar, he was a student of H.M. Percival at Hindoo College and later taught at the same college, taking the mantle of Shakespeare studies from his mentor after Percival’s departure. Taking up the post of teaching at Presidency College in 1904, he then worked for a brief period in Ripon College, followed by his appointment as Deputy Magistrate in the management of the Calcutta University. He continued his teaching at Presidency College from 1908 to his retirement in 1939, after which he was named Professor Emeritus. His teaching is reminisced by his students and acquaintances in glowing words: he is often called the ‘greatest teacher of English in the annals of Presidency College’. Ashoke Kumar Mukherji described that as a teacher of Shakespeare studies, P.C. Ghosh echoed Keats’s idea of ‘Negative Capability’; Professor Sukanta Chaudhuri mentioned how his parents, who were taught Shakespeare by Prafulla Chandra Ghosh, reminisced that Ghosh “would burst into tears whenever he came to the part where Othello slaps Desdemona”. The Shakespeare Commemoration volume of Presidency College Magazine, edited by the renowned lecturer Taraknath Sen, remembers Ghosh fondly for his contribution:

“For well over thirty years he was, in a very real sense of the phrase, a towering figure on the teaching staff of Presidency College, and when he retired in 1939, one felt that a whole epoch in the history of Presidency College had definitely come to an end—an epoch of glory, greatness, and power. With an amazing mastery of English, both of phrase and of pronunciation, he combined a magnificent gift for reading. To read Shakespeare with him was a memorable experience. He had a unique power of becoming what he taught, and he lived and made his pupils live the plays of Shakespeare as he read and spoke about them. … One who will dive into the pages of his copies of individual plays of Shakespeare—plain texts interleaved with sheets filled with his own annotations—will find them a rich mine of valuable comment and original contributions to the minutiae of Shakespearean scholarship. A most remarkable thing about him was that the austerities of scholarship— the history of a word, a point of contemporary manners, a textual problem, the pursuit of an obscure allusion, exploring source-materials, conventions and traditions—could impassion him as much as the immediate emotional and dramatic impact of a play. Altogether, his teaching of Shakespeare brought to the learner an opulence of satisfaction—sensuous, emotional, intellectual—that was unique of its kind. Presidency College will not see the like of him again.”

This bust is located on the first floor of the Main Building, between the Professors’ Common Room and the Vice Chancellor’s office: on the immediate right to the Portico terrace. The inscription below the bust reads:

The founder of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission, Swami Vivekananda was a major force in the revival and reformism of Hinduism in India, a staunch figure in Indian Nationalism and well known for his contribution towards the introduction of the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world.

Born Narendranath Datta in Simlapalli, Calcutta on 12^th January 1893, he was home-schooled in his early life, followed by his education at Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar’s Metropolitan Institution, and then at Presidency College. He was the only student of his time to receive first-division marks in the Presidency College entrance examination. He was associated with Presidency College for the period of 1880-1881, following which he joined the General Assembly's Institution (now Scottish Church College), where he studied Western logic, Western philosophy and European history. In 1881, he passed the F.A. examination, and completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1884. A brilliant student who studied the works of Hume, Kant, Fichte, Spinoza, Hegel, Mill and many others, as well as showed an interest in religion and history, especially the Hindu scriptures, Narendranath was known for his extraordinary memory and ability at speed reading.

Struggling to support his family after his father’s death, Narendranath was employed for some time at the Metropolitan School even as he delved into the study of philosophy, history, literature and science. Spiritually, his initial beliefs were shaped by Brahmo concepts; he met Shri Ramakrishna through Keshab Chandra Sen’s Nava Vidhan, an association he joined in 1880. His association with Ramakrishna was to be lifelong; Ramakrishna became his spiritual focus after Narendra’s father’s death in 1884. Although he did not initially accept Ramakrishna as his teacher and rebelled against his ideas, he was attracted by his personality and began to frequently visit him at Dakshineswar.

After Ramakrishna’s death in 1885, he took to the monastic way of life. In December 1886, Narendra and eight other disciples took formal monastic vows; Narendranath took the name ‘Swami Vivekananda’. Vivekananda traveled extensively in India for five years, visiting centres of learning and acquainting himself with diverse religious traditions and social patterns. He lived on alms and interacted with all religions and castes to understand their way of life. He left Bombay for Chicago on 31 May 1893. and visited several cities in Japan, China and Canada en route to the United States, reaching Chicago on 30 July 1893, where the ‘Parliament of Religions’ took place in September. He was invited to speak at Harvard, and his speech at Chicago representing ‘India and Hinduism’, opening with the famous address “Sisters and brothers of America!” won hearts and brought him fame worldwide. He toured the world extensively after this, invited across the globe for lectures on spirituality. He founded the Ramakrishna Mission on 1 May 1897. During this visit, Vivekananda established Vedanta Societies in San Francisco and New York and founded a shanti ashrama (peace retreat) in California. He then went to Paris for the Congress of Religions in 1900.

Vivekananda passed away on 4th July, 1902. He was cremated on a sandalwood funeral pyre on the bank of the Ganga in Belur, opposite to where Ramakrishna had been cremated sixteen years earlier.

In spite of his short term at Presidency College, Swami Vivekananda has always been celebrated as one of the institution’s great alumni. His birth anniversary has been meticulously celebrated every year, and his teachings zealously discussed. In 2012, Presidency University and Akhil Bharat Vivekananda Sikha Parisad organised a programme to commemorate the sesquicentennial birth year of Swami Vivekananda, where the Choir presented a collage of songs and recitations in a programme. The following year, the birth centenary of the great saint was celebrated with great enthusiasm, of which this statue remains a marker.

This marble statue of Swami Vivekananda was donated by the Presidency Alumni Association, and has been installed in the Main corridor (near the Vice Chancellor’s office, immediate left to Portico terrace) on the first floor of the Main Building. The statue was unveiled by Swami Prabhanandaji Maharaj, Vice President, Ramakrishna Mission, on 23rd June 2013. The inscription below the bust reads: