Yogendra Vidyabhushan

Who was Yogendra Vidyabhushan?

Yogendra Vidyabhushan was an Indian Bengali scholar in Sanskrit, thinker, journalist and popular author of biographies which stirred patriotic zeal in the readers’ heart. Loved by Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, admired by Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, he helped the rise of militant nationalism.

Yogendra was born at the village Simhat in Ranaghat subdivision of West Bengal, at his maternal grandfather’s house. Belonging to an orthodox Brahman family, his mother Sonamani was as pious as stern. His father Umesh Chandra Banerjee hailed from the village Suvarnapur in the district of Nadia. A modest landholder, he was fond of religious studies and meditation. Yogendra’s younger brother Mahendra was to be a prosperous London-bred physician. After the village school, Yogendra went first to the Zilla School at Barishal and, then, at Barasat. Admitted into Reverend Long’s school at Calcutta, he obtained several scholarships. At 13, Yogendra joined the Sanskrit College of the University of Calcutta, where he drew the attention of its principal, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar. Among his classmates were Vijaykrishna Goswami and Shivnath Shastri. In 1872 he and Shivnath passed their M.A. in Sanskrit successfully and both of them received the title of Vidyabhushan.