Swami Atmajnanananda (also written Svāmī Ātmajñānānanda, born Stuart Elkman) is a
swami
Swami (; ; sometimes abbreviated sw.) in Hinduism is an honorific title given to an Asceticism#Hinduism, ascetic who has chosen the Sannyasa, path of renunciation (''sanyāsa''), or has been initiated into a religious monastic order of Vaishnavas ...
(monk) of the
Ramakrishna Order, which he joined in 1981. He has a
Ph.D. in
oriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field that studies Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology. In recent years, the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Middle Eastern studie ...
from the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
.
He is currently resident minister at the
Vedanta Center of Greater Washington, DC, in
Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially Unincorporated area, unincorporated, it is an edge city with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ...
, USA.
He authored ''Jiva Gosvamin's Tattvasandarbha: A Study on the Philosophical and Sectarian Development of the Gaudiya Vaisnava Movement'', published by
Motilal Banarsidass
Motilal Banarsidass Publishing House (MLBD) is an Indian academic publishing house, founded in Delhi, India in 1903. It publishes and distributes serials, monographs, and scholarly publications on Asian religions, Buddhology, Indology, East ...
in 1986 under his pre-monastic name, Stuart Elkman.
Atmajnanananda was a significant critic of
Jeffrey Kripal's book ''
Kali's Child''.
[
Swami Atmajnanananda (August 1997), ''Scandals, cover-ups, and other imagined occurrences in the life of Ramakrishna: An examination of Jeffrey Kripal's ''Kali's child. ]International Journal of Hindu Studies
The ''International Journal of Hindu Studies'' is a Peer review, peer-reviewed academic journal published by Springer Science+Business Media. The editor-in-chief is Sushil Mittal (James Madison University). The journal was established in 1997 and a ...
, volume 1, issue 2, pages 401–420.
Online version
accessed on 2010-01-20.
[
Jeffrey J. Kripal (January 1998), ''Pale Plausibilities: A Preface for the Second Edition f Kali's Child'. University of Chicago Press]
Online version
available at Kripal's Rice University website, accessed on 2010-01-25. "Swami Atmajnanananda, for example, has gone through the first edition with the proverbial "fine-toothed comb" and published his criticisms in a journal article (but only, I might add, after corresponding with me for almost a year)." .."A close reading of tmajnananandaarticle and the present edition will reveal where I agree with Atmajnanananda and where I still disagree. I am deeply grateful to Swamiji for his intellectual honesty, for his religious integrity, and, most of all, for his humane civility."
References
External links
Vedanta Center of Greater Washington, DC website Swami Atmajnanananda (English) Lecture, Boston
Monks of the Ramakrishna Mission
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
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