Ramakrishna Paramahansa, the mystic saint of Dakshineswar and guru of Swami Vivekananda, was known in his childhood as:

Ramakrishna Paramahansa was born as Gadadhar Chattopadhyay on 18 February 1836 at Kamarpukur, a village in the Hooghly district of Bengal.

Early life:

• He was born into a poor but devout Brahmin family.
• He had little formal education, but he was deeply religious from childhood and loved devotional songs and plays.

Dakshineswar:

• In 1855, Rani Rashmoni, a wealthy widow of Calcutta, built the Kali temple at Dakshineswar, on the banks of the Hooghly.
• Gadadhar's elder brother, Ramkumar, became its chief priest, and Gadadhar later succeeded him.
• He spent most of his life at Dakshineswar, in deep devotion to the goddess Kali.

Spiritual practices:

• He followed many spiritual paths, including Tantra, Vaishnava devotion and Advaita Vedanta, under different teachers.
• His Vedanta teacher, Totapuri, gave him the name "Ramakrishna".
• He also practised Islam and Christianity for some time, and concluded that all religions lead to the same God.

Teachings:

• "Jato mat, tato path": as many faiths, so many paths.
• He taught that service to humans is service to God ("Shiva jnane jiva seva").
• He stressed devotion, renunciation of "kamini-kanchan" (lust and greed), and direct experience of God.

His wife:

He was married to Sarada Devi, who later became a spiritual guide, and is revered as the "Holy Mother".

His disciples:

• His most famous disciple, Swami Vivekananda, spread his message in India and abroad.
• His conversations were recorded by Mahendranath Gupta ("M") in the "Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita".
• He died on 16 August 1886 at Cossipore, Calcutta.
• The Ramakrishna Mission was later founded in his name by his disciples.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Narendranath Datta was the original name of Vivekananda; Mula Shankar was the original name of Dayananda Saraswati; Chandra Mohan is not correct.