The author of the multi-volume epic “Jean-Christophe,” the famous French writer Romain Rolland is considered one of the creators of the genre of artistic biography. He owns the biographies of Beethoven, Tolstoy, Michelangelo. In the first decades of the 20th century, when interest in the East was just emerging among the European intelligentsia, R. Rolland turned to India, its philosophy and culture. The hero of his book was the son of a modest Brahman from a Bengal village, known throughout the world under the name of Sri Ramakrishna (1836–1886). The teachings of this unusual religious thinker left an imprint on all areas of social and political life in India. Moreover, the name of Ramakrishna is firmly entrenched in the cultural heritage of all mankind. His ideas were paid tribute to such humanists as Mahatma Gandhi and J. Nehru, Leo Tolstoy and Nicholas Roerich, Max Muller and Romain Rolland.