Around 1894-1895, Vivekananda writes to his brother monks, Swami Brahmananda and Swami Ramakrishnananda, urging them to find a way to start a magazine – preferably bilingual – that would serve as a tool to educate and inspire the masses to rise up and build a new India. India, then being a British colony, was sorely lacking in any kind of social strength or mass moral character. This magazine had to fill up a gigantic vacuum.
