A L Basham:Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda will be remembered as one of the most significant figures in the whole history of Indian religion, comparable in importance to such great teachers as Shankara and Ramanuja. Since the days of the Indian missionaries who traveled in Southeast Asia and China preaching Buddhism and Hinduism more than a thousand years earlier, he was the first Indian religious teacher to make such an impression outside India.

– Arthur Llewellyn Basham, Indologist, was appointed Swami Vivekananda Professor in Oriental Studies at the Asiatic Society Calcutta in September 1985.