Chicago, 1893: An Improvised Meeting of Faiths

The World's Parliament of Religions opened in Chicago in September 1893 as one of several congresses attached to the World's Columbian Exposition, the world's fair marking the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus's voyage. It was organized chiefly by Charles Carroll Bonney, a lawyer and lay interfaith advocate, who wanted the fair's intellectual congresses to include religion alongside science and industry. The event assembled representatives of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Shinto and other traditions on a shared platform for seventeen days, a scale of interfaith meeting that had no real precedent in the West.

The Parliament is remembered above all for introducing several Asian delegates to a mass American audience for the first time, most famously the Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda, whose opening address, delivered without prepared remarks, is widely credited with introducing Vedanta philosophy to American religious life and helping launch the broader Western reception of yoga and Hindu thought that followed. The Buddhist delegate Anagarika Dharmapala and the Zoroastrian priest Jinanji Jamshedji Modi were also present among the many voices the event carried, at a moment when comparative religion as a field was still new and largely organized around Christian categories the Parliament itself began to unsettle.