Two Versions Of Swami Vivekananda's First Chicago Speech

William Page has been associated with the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of Massachusetts since 1960 and is a member of the Ramakrishna Vedanta Association of Thailand. [e-mail]

- William Page

It is not generally known, but there are at least two versions of Swami Vivekananda’s famous speech titled ‘Response to Welcome.’ That was the first speech he gave at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago, on 11 September 1893. There are a short version and a long version.

The short version is the standard, canonical version. It is found in The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (hereafter, CW), Volume 1, pp. 3-4, and it is 472 words long.

The long version, which is less known, is also in the CW, but in Volume 9, pp. 429-430. It is 554 words long—82 words longer than the short version. Published in a section titled ‘American Newspaper Reports,’ it is described as an ‘Editorial synthesis of four Chicago newspaper reports from: Herald, Inter Ocean, Tribune, and Record, ca. September 11, 1893.’ As Volume 9 notes (p. 429), it was compiled by the late Marie Louise Burke (Sister Gargi), and first appeared in her monumental work, Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries, Volume 1, pp.83-84.

The two versions combined

The interesting thing about the long version is the ways in which it differs from the short one. Below is a conflation of the two. The text in black print is common to both. The text in red italics appears only in the long version. Where there is a difference in wording, I give both, separated by a slash bar (/). The wording in the short version comes first, then the slashbar, then the wording in the long version, in red italics:

Analysis