SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 12 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 3 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

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SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Who among the following is primarily connected to the World’s Parliament of Religions convened in Chicago, 1893?

(a)Dayanand Saraswati
(b)Swami Vivekananda
(c)Raja Ram Mohan Roy
(d)Ramakrishna Paramhansa

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Swami Vivekananda represented Hinduism at the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago, which opened on 11 September 1893 with the address that began by calling his audience sisters and brothers of America.

The Parliament was held alongside the World's Columbian Exposition. His speeches there won him a mass Western following, and the lecture tours that followed paid for the work of the Ramakrishna Mission, which he founded in 1897.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Dayanand Saraswati — Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in 1875 and died in 1883, ten years before the Parliament met.
(c)
Raja Ram Mohan Roy — Raja Ram Mohan Roy belongs to an earlier generation — he founded the Brahmo Samaj in 1828 and died at Bristol in 1833.
(d)
Ramakrishna Paramhansa — Ramakrishna Paramhansa was Vivekananda's guru and died in 1886, so it was the disciple, not the master, who sailed to Chicago.

Concept

The Parliament of Religions was the first formal global gathering of faith traditions, held in Chicago in 1893. India sent no official delegation — Vivekananda arrived without credentials and was admitted with the help of a Harvard professor's letter.

What he presented was Vedanta as a universal and tolerant philosophy rather than a set of rituals. That framing is why he sits in the syllabus under both social reform and the national awakening: he gave educated Indians a tradition they could take to the West without apology.

The phrase 'primarily connected' is doing work. Other Indians spoke at Chicago too, but Vivekananda is the name the Parliament is remembered by, and the other three men in the options had all died before 1893.

Key facts

Swami Vivekananda addressed the World's Parliament of Religions at Chicago on 11 September 1893.
The Parliament was held as part of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.
Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897, naming it for his guru Ramakrishna Paramhansa.
Ramakrishna Paramhansa died in 1886 and Ram Mohan Roy in 1833.

Study next

The Ramakrishna Mission — its founding aims and its work in education and reliefThe Brahmo Samaj from Ram Mohan Roy to Keshab Chandra SenArya Samaj, Dayanand Saraswati and the shuddhi movement

Common traps

Picking Ramakrishna Paramhansa because the Mission carries his name
Assuming Vivekananda travelled as an official Indian delegate, when he had no credentials
Dating the Ramakrishna Mission to 1893 instead of 1897

The nineteenth-century reform bodies are asked by founder and by year across this bank — Brahmo Samaj, Calcutta, 1828 at 18 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q3, and Prarthana Samaj, Mumbai, 1867 at 9 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q22.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.