How Jamsetji Tata’s conversations with Swami Vivekananda let to the formation of the prestigious Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.
It was in the summer of 1893 that two Indians, very different in their vocations, happened to travel together on a ship from Yokohama in Japan to Vancouver in Canada. One of them was a young 30-year-old unknown monk and the other a very successful trader-industrialist.
In their conversations, which they undoubtedly had sufficient occasion of, the monk passionately impressed upon his companion of the need to transition to manufacturing than merely taking the easy way of trading raw materials or semi-finished goods.
The former approach would help create jobs, add much greater value to the products then to be sold, and take the country ahead on the road to self-sufficiency and development. He also talked of training Indians not just in science, but also technology, so that the country’s requirements could be significantly fulfilled by its domestic manufacturing.
Both of them knew it was not an easy dream in the days of a hostile regime. These conversations surely had a strong resonance with the industrialist, who was probably already nursing the same ideas. They alighted at their destination and bade each other goodbye, probably thinking that this would be their last meeting.
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Experience is the only source of knowledge. In the world, religion is the only source where there is no surety, because it is not taught as a science of experience. This should not be. There is always, however, a small group of men who teach religion from experience. They are called mystics, and these mystics in every religion speak the same tongue and teach the same truth. This is the real science of religion. As mathematics in every part of the world does not differ, so the mystics do not differ. They are all similarly constituted and similarly situated. Their experience is the same; and this becomes law.
– Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works, Volume 6
