Swami Abhedananda, originally named Kaliprasad Chandra, was a disciple of the famous spiritual leader Ramakrishna Paramahansa in the 19th century. He founded the Ramakrishna Vedanta Math and was sent by Swami Vivekananda to lead the Vedanta Society of New York in 1897 to spread the teachings of Vedanta. Throughout his life, he authored several books on this topic and established the Ramakrishna Vedanta Math in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Darjeeling.

Swami Abhedananda was born on 2nd October 1866 in north Calcutta, and his birth name was Kaliprasad Chandra. At the age of 18, while studying for his school final exam, he visited Dakshineswar and met Ramakrishna. After Ramakrishna's death in 1886, he became a Sanyasi and spent the next ten years of his life travelling throughout India, meditating and meeting famous sages.

In 1896, Vivekananda asked Abhedananda to join him in London and propagate the message of Vedanta in the West, which he did with great success. He travelled extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Hong Kong, preaching messages of Vedanta and teachings of his Guru. In 1922, he crossed the Himalayas on foot and studied Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. He claimed to have discovered a manuscript on the lost years of Jesus in Hemis Monastery, which has been incorporated into one of his books. However, this claim has been disputed by historians.

He founded the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society in Kolkata in 1923 and the Ramakrishna Vedanta Math in Darjeeling in 1924. He also started publishing the monthly magazine Visvavani in 1927, which is still published today. He presided over the Parliament of Religions at the Town Hall, Calcutta, in 1936 as a part of the birth centenary celebrations of Ramakrishna. He died on 8th September 1939 at the Ramakrishna Vedanta Math, and at the time of his death, he was the last surviving direct disciple of Ramakrishna.