SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS
By Sister Gayatriprana of the Vedanta Society of
This page contains Chapter 17 onwards
For Chapters 1 to 10 click here
For chapters 11 to 16 click here
PART III, SECTION 7: THE FRAGMENTATION OF THE VEDIC MESSAGE
IN
Chapter 17: Sectarian Commentators on the Vedanta
a) Sects, the
Division of Spiritual Labor
1. The Interpretation
of the Vedas by Various Sects Should be Allowed
The Vedas are the common
source of Hinduism in all its varied stages, as also of Buddhism and every
other religious belief in
There are certain
principles in which, I think, we - whether Vaishnavas, Shaktas or Ganapatyas,
whether we belong to the ancient Vedantists or the modern ones, whether
belonging to the old, rigid sects or the modern reformed ones - are all one;
and whoever calls him or herself a Hindu believes in those principles. Of
course, there is a difference in the interpretation, in the explanation of
those principles, and that difference should be there, and it should be
allowed, for our standard is not to bind everyone down to our position. It
would be a sin to force everyone to work out our own interpretation of things,
and to live by our methods.(2)
Cross reference to:
Rig Veda, 1.164, 46
2. All Religions and
All Methods of Work and Worship Lead Us to One and the Same Goal
[The] peculiar idea of the
Vedanta is that we must allow this infinite variation in religious thought and
not try to bring everybody to the same opinion, because the goal is the
same.(3)
Every sect of every
religion presents only one ideal of its own to humankind, but the eternal
Vedantic religion opens to humankind an infinite number of doors for ingress
into the inner shrine of divinity and places before humanity an almost
inexhaustible array of ideals, there being in each of them a manifestation of
the eternal One. With the kindest solicitude the Vedanta points out to aspiring
men and women the numerous roads, hewn out of the solid rock of the realities of
human life by the glorious sons and daughters - or human manifestations of God
- in the past and in the present, and stands with arms outstretched to welcome
all - to welcome even those that are yet to be - to that Home of Truth and that
Ocean of Bliss wherein the human soul, liberated from the net of maya, may
transport itself with perfect freedom and with eternal joy.(4)
The grandest idea in the
religion of the Vedanta is that we may reach the same goal by different paths;
and these paths I have generalized into four, viz. those of work, love,
psychology, and knowledge. But you must, at the same time, remember that these
divisions are not very marked and quite exclusive of each other. Each blends
into the other; but according to the type which prevails, we name the
divisions. It is not that you can find people who have no other faculty than
that of work, nor that you can find people who are no more than devoted
worshippers only, nor that there are people who have no more than mere
knowledge. These divisions are made in accordance with the type, or the
tendency that may be seen to prevail in people. We have found that, in the end,
all these four paths converge and become one. All religions and all methods of
work and worship lead us to one and the same goal.(5)
3. The Religion and
the Vedas Has the Vigor to Absorb Sect after Sect
Three religions now stand
in the world which have come down to us from time prehistoric - Hinduism,
Zoroastrianism, and Judaism. They have all received tremendous shocks and all
of them proved themselves by their survival their internal strength. But while
Judaism failed to absorb Christianity and was driven out of its place of birth
by its all-conquering daughter, and a handful of Parsees is all that remains to
tell the tale of their grand religion, sect after sect arose in India and
seemed to shake the religion of the Vedas to its very foundations; but, like
the waters of the seashore in a tremendous earthquake it receded only for a
while, only to return in an all-absorbing flood, a thousand times more
vigorous; and when the tumult of the rush was over, these sects were all sucked
in, absorbed and assimilated into the immense body of the mother faith.
From the high spiritual
flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science
seem like echoes, to the lowest ideas of idolatry with its multifarious
mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists and the atheism of the Jains, each
and all have a place in the Hindus’ religion.(6)
[Many] books constitute the
scriptures of the Hindus. When there is such a mass of sacred books in a nation
and a race which has devoted the greatest part of its energies to the thought
of philosophy and spirituality (nobody knows for how many thousands of years),
it is quite natural that there should be so many sects; indeed it is a wonder
that there are not thousands more.(7)
4. It Is the
Necessity of the Age That All Sects Should Be Allowed to Live
To preach Vedanta in the
There are some religions
[including the Vedic] which have come down to us from the remotest antiquity,
which are imbued with the idea that all sects should be allowed to live, that
every sect has a meaning, a great idea, embedded within itself and, therefore,
it is necessary for the good of the world and ought to be helped. In modern
times the same idea is prevailing and attempts are made from time to time to
reduce it to practice. These attempts do not always come up to our
expectations, to the required efficiency. Nay, to our great disappointment, we sometimes
find that we are quarreling all the more.(9)
We may take different
points of view as to what the Vedas are. There may be one sect which regards
one portion as more sacred than another, but that matters little so long as we
say that we are all brothers and sisters in the Vedas, that out of these
venerable, eternal, marvelous books has come everything that we possess today,
good, holy and pure. Well, therefore, if we believe in all this, let this
principle first of all be preached broadcast throughout the length and breadth
of [
b) Vedanta, the Sect
Which Must Cover the Whole Ground of Indian Religious Life
1. The Vedic Sect
Which Now Really Covers
The Upanishads not being in
a systematized form, it was easy for philosophers to take up texts as they
liked to form a system. The Upanishads had always to be taken, else there would
be no basis. Yet we find all the different schools of thought in the
Upanishads.(11)
There are six schools of
philosophy in
Of the three orthodox
divisions [of Hinduism] - the Sankhyas, the Naiyayikas, and the Mimamsakas -
the former two, although they existed as philosophical schools, failed to form
any sect. The one sect that now really covers
[In the Brahma-Sutras]
Vyasa’s philosophy is par excellence that of the Upanishads. He wrote in sutra
form, that is, in brief, algebraic symbols without nominative or verb. This
cause so much ambiguity that out of the Sutras came dualism,
mono-dualism and monism or "roaring Vedanta".(14)
The Sutras of Vyasa have
been variously explained by different commentators (15)
2. The Modern Custom
Is to Identify the Word "Vedanta" with the
All the schools of Hindu philosophy
start from the Vedanta or Upanishads, but the monists took the name to
themselves as a specialty, because they wanted to base the whole of their
theology and philosophy upon the Vedanta and nothing else. In course of time,
the Vedanta prevailed and all the various sects of
Of late it has become the
custom of most people to identify the word Vedanta with the Advaitic
system of the Vedanta philosophy. We all know that Advaitism [non-dualism] is
only one branch of the various philosophic systems that have been founded on
the Upanishads. The followers of the Vishishtadvaitic [qualified non-dualism]
system have as much reverence for the Upanishads as the followers of the
Advaita , and the Vishishtadvaitists claim as much authority for the Vedanta as
does the Advaitist. So do the Dualists; so does every other sect in
In what is being written
and taught in the West about the religious thought of India, one school of
Indian thought is principally represented - that which is called Advaitism, the
monistic [non-dual] side of Indian religion; and sometimes it is thought that
all the teachings of the Vedas are comprised in that one system of philosophy.
There are, however, various phases of Indian thought; and, perhaps, this
non-dualistic form is in the minority as compared with the other phases. From
the most ancient times there have been various sects of thought in India; and,
as there never was a formulated or recognized church or any body of men to
designate the doctrines which should be believed in by each school, people were
very free to choose their own forms, make their own philosophy and establish
their own sects. We, therefore, find that from the most ancient times
Unfortunately there is the
mistaken notion in modern
The word Vedanta, however,
must cover the whole ground of Indian religious life; and, being part of
the Vedas, by all acceptance it is the most ancient literature we have.(20)
Cross reference to:
Brih. Up., 1.4.10a
3. The Three Vedantic
Schools Are All Equally Important and Do Not Contradict Each Other, But Fulfill
It would be wrong to
confine the word Vedanta to only one system which has arisen out of the
Upanishads. The Vishishtadvaitist has as much right to be called a Vedantist as
the Advaitist; in fact, I will go a little further and say that what we really
mean by the word Hindu is really the same as the Vedantist.(21)
This is what I mean by
Vedanta, that it covers the ground of dualism, of qualified monism, and
Advaitism in
The Vedanta philosophy, as
it is generally called at the present day, really comprises all the various
sects that now exist in
Our solution is that the
Advaita is not antagonistic to Dvaita (dualism). We say the latter is only one
of three steps. The first is dualism. Then we get to a higher state - partial
non-dualism. And at last we find we are one with the universe. Therefore the
three do not contradict, but fulfill.(24)
4. The Vedanta
Contains All of Religion and Its Three Schools Represent the Stages of
Humanity’s Gradual Spiritual Growth
If one studies the Vedas
between the lines, one sees a religion of harmony.(25)
I want you to note that the
three systems [of Indian philosophy] have been current in
Just as in the case of the
six darshanas [systems of Indian philosophy], we find they are a gradual
unfolding of the grand principles whose music, beginning far back in soft, low
notes, ends in the triumphant blast of the Advaita, so also in these three
systems we find the gradual working up of the human mind towards higher and
higher ideals until everything is merged in that wonderful unity which is
reached in the Advaita system. Therefore these three are not contradictory.(26)
To realize God, the Brahman
(as the Dvaitins say) or to become Brahman (as the Advaitins say) - is the aim
and end of the whole teaching of the Vedas; and every other teaching therein
contained represents a stage in the course of our progress thereto.(27)
All of religion is
contained in the Vedanta, that is, in the three stages of the Vedanta
philosophy, the Dvaita, Vishishtadvaita and Advaita; one comes after the other.
These are the three stages of spiritual growth in man. Each one is necessary.
This is the essential of religion. The Vedanta, applied to the various ethnic
customs and creeds of
Cross reference to:
Cha. Up., 6.8.7
Mund. Up., 2.1.1
c) The Mistake of the
Thinking the Upanishads Teach Only One Thing
1. Every Indian
Philosopher Must Find His or Her Authority in the Upanishads
Whatever be the philosophy
or sect, everyone in
In India… in spite of all
these jarring sects which we see today and all those that have been in the
past, the one authority, the basis of all these systems, has yet been the
Upanishads, the Vedanta. Whether you are a dualist, or a qualified monist,
Advaitist, Vishishtadvaitist, Shuddhadvaitist, or any other Advaitist, or a
dualist, or whatever you may call yourself, there stand behind you as authority
your Shastras, your scriptures, the Upanishads. Whatever system in
The Vedanta, then,
practically forms the scriptures of the Hindus, and all systems of philosophy
that are orthodox have to take it as their foundation. Even the Buddhists and
Jains, when it suits their purpose, will quote a passage from the Vedanta as
authority.(31)
We know that all our great
philosophers, whether Vyasa, Patanjali, or Gautama, and even the father of all
philosophy, the great Kapila himself, whenever they wanted an authority for
what they wrote, every one of them found it in the Upanishads and nowhere else;
for therein are the truths that remain for ever.(32)
Either in the sharp
analysis of the Vaisheshikas, resulting in the wonderful theories about the paramanus,
dvyanus and trasarenus [atoms, entities composed of two atoms,
entities composed of three atoms], or the still more wonderful analysis
displayed in the discussions of jati, dravya, guna, samavaya (genus, substance,
quality and inhesion or inseparability), and to the various categories of the
Naiyayikas, rising to the solemn march of the thought of the Sankhyas, the
fathers of the theories of evolution, ending with the ripe fruit, the result of
all these researches, the Sutras of Vyasa - the one background to all these
different analyses and syntheses of the human mind is still the Shrutis.(33)
2. Vedantic Sects
Have Been Founded by Explaining the Upanishadic Conception from Only One
Standpoint
You find that the
[Upanishadic] texts have been commented upon by different commentators,
preached by great teachers, and sects founded upon them; and you find that in
these books of the Vedas there are apparently contradictory ideas.(34)
Commentators came and tried
to smooth down [the highest and lowest thoughts which have all been preserved
in the Vedas] and to bring out wonderful new ideas from the old things; they
tried to find spiritual ideas even in the midst of the most ordinary
statements, but the texts remained and as such, they are the most wonderful
historical study.(35)
Now I will try to lay
before you the ideas that are contained in the three sects, the dualistic,
qualified no-dualistic and non-dualistic [which cover all six schools of
orthodox Hindu philosophy]…. All the Vedantists agree on three points. They
believe in God, in the Vedas as revealed, and in cycles…. [We have already
considered these]; but before going on, I will make one remark - that these
different Vedanta systems have one common psychology, and that is the
psychology of the Sankhya system. The Sankhya psychology is very much like the
psychologies of the Nyaya and the Vaisheshika systems, differing only in minor
particulars….
The Vedantists, [however],
reject the Sankhya ideas of the soul and nature. They claim that between them
there is a huge gulf to be bridged over. On the one hand, the Sankhya system
comes to nature, and then at once it has to jump over to the other side and
come to the soul, which is entirely separate from nature. How can these
different colors, as the Sankhya calls them, be able to act on that soul which
is by its nature colorless? So the Vedantists, from the very first, affirm that
this soul and this nature are one…. They admit that what the Sankhya calls
nature exists, but say that nature is God. It is this Being, the Sat, which has
become converted into all this - the universe, humanity, soul, and everything
that exists. Mind and Mahat are but the manifestations of that one Sat. But
then the difficulty arises that that would be pantheism. How came that Sat,
which is unchangeable, as they admit (for that which is absolute is
unchangeable) to be changed into that which is changeable and perishable? The
Advaitists here have a theory which they call vivarta vada or apparent
manifestation.(36)
[Now], there are certain
[Vedic] texts which are entirely dualistic, others are entirely monistic. The
dualistic commentator, knowing no better, wishes to knock the monistic texts on
the head. Preachers and priests want to explain them in the dualistic meaning.
The monistic commentator serves the dualistic texts in a similar fashion. Now
this is not the fault of the Vedas. It is foolish to attempt to prove that the
whole of the Vedas is dualistic. It is equally foolish to attempt to prove that
the whole of the Vedas is non-dualistic. They are dualistic and non-dualistic,
both. We understand them better today in the light of newer ideas. These are
but different conceptions leading to the final conclusion that both dualistic
and monistic conceptions are necessary for the evolution of the mind, and
therefore the Vedas preach them. In mercy to the human race the Vedas show the
various steps to the higher goal. Not that they are contradictory, vain words
used by the Vedas to delude children; they are necessary, not only for
children, but for many a grownup person. So long as we have a body and so long
as we are deluded by the idea of our identity with the body, so long as we have
five senses and see the external world, we must have a personal God. For if we
have all these ideas, we must take, as the great Ramanuja has proved, all the
ideas about God and nature and the individualized soul; when you take the one
you have to take the whole triangle - we cannot avoid it. Therefore, so long as
you see the external world, to avoid a personal God and a personal soul is
arrant lunacy.(37)
Cross reference to:
Brih. Up., 1.4.10
Taitt. Up., 2.4
Cha. Up., 3.1.4 (?)
Cha. Up., 3.14.1.
Cha. Up., 6.1.4
Cha. Up., 7.25.1
Kena Up., 1.3, 2.2
Mund. Up., 1.1.3
3. By Making the
Texts Suit Their Own Philosophy Our Commentators Have Created Apparent
Contradictions in the Upanishadic Theme of Unity in Diversity
All the great commentators
in these different schools were at times "conscious liars" in order
to make the texts suit their philosophy.(38)
The Advaitic commentator,
whenever an Advaitic text comes, preserves it just as it is; but the same
commentator, as soon as a dualistic text presents itself, tortures it if he can
and brings the most queer meaning out of it. Sometimes the unborn
becomes a goat - such are the wonderful changes effected. To suit the
commentator, the word aja (the unborn) is explained as aja, a
she-goat. In the same way, if not in a still worse fashion, the texts are
handled by the dualistic commentator. Every dualistic text is preserved, and
every text that speaks of non-dualistic philosophy is tortured in any fashion
he likes. This Sanskrit language is so intricate, the Sanskrit of the Vedas is
so ancient, and the Sanskrit philology so perfect, that any amount of
discussion can be carried on for ages in regard to the meaning of any word. If
pandits takes it into their heads, they can render anybody’s prattle into
correct Sanskrit by force of argument and quotation of texts and rules. These
are the difficulties in our way of understanding the Upanishads.(39)
[Having] an idea of
studying the grammar of the Vedas I began with all earnestness to study Panini
and the Mahabhashya, but to my surprise I found that the best part of
the Vedic grammar consists only of exceptions to the rules. A rule is make and
later there comes a statement to the effect, "This rule will be an
exception". So you see what an amount of liberty there is for anybody to
write anything, the only safeguard being the dictionary of Yaksa. Still, in
this you will find, for the most part, but a large number of synonyms.(40)
Our great commentators,
Shankaracharya, Ramanujacharaya and Madhvacharya… committed mistakes. Each one
believed that the Upanishads are the sole authority, but thought that they
preached one thing, one path only. Thus Shankaracharya committed the mistake of
supposing that the whole of the Upanishads taught one thing, which was
Advaitism and nothing else; and wherever a passage bearing distinctly the
Dvaita idea occurred, he twisted and tortured the meaning to make it support
his own theory. So with Ramanuja and Madhvacharya when a pure Advaitic text
occurred. It was perfectly true that the Upanishads had one thing to teach, but
that was taught as a going up from one step to another.(41)
I am bound to tell you that
[thinking that the three systems are contradictory] has been a mistake
committed by not a few. We find that an Advaitist teacher keeps intact those
texts which especially teach Advaitism and tries to interpret the dualistic or
qualified non-dualistic texts into his own meaning. Similarly, we find
dualistic teachers trying to read their dualistic meaning into Advaitic texts.
Our gurus were great men and women; yet there is a saying, "Even the
faults of a guru must be told." I am of the opinion that in this only they
were mistaken. We need not go into text-torturing, we need not go into any sort
of religious dishonesty, we need not go into any sort of grammatical twaddle,
we not go about trying to put our own ideas into texts that were never meant
for them; but the work is plain and becomes easier once you understand the
marvelous doctrine of adhikarabheda…. The old idea of arundhati nyaya
applies. To show someone the fine star arundhati, one takes the big and
brilliant star nearest to it, upon which he or she is asked to fix his or her
eyes first, and then it becomes quite easy to direct his or her sight to arundhati.
This is the task before us; and to prove my idea I will have simply to show you
the Upanishads, and you will see it.(42)
Cross reference to:
Cha. Up., 6.8.7
Mund. Up., 1.1.3
d) The Great
Commentators on the Vedas
1. The Mimamsakas,
Who Believed That We, as We Are, Create the Universe through the Vedas
This is the claim of a
certain sect of karmis, [the Mimamsakas, a Hindu philosophical sect]: the
universe is thought and the Vedas are the words. We can create and uncreate
this whole universe. Repeating the words, the unseen thought is aroused, and as
a result a seen effect is produced…. They think that each one of us is a
creator. Pronounce the words, the thought which corresponds will arise, and the
result will become visible. "Thought is the power of the word, the word is
the expression of the thought", they say.(43)
2. The Sankhyas, Who
Attempted to Harmonize the Philosophy of the Vedas through Reason and Taught
That Our Nature Is Purity and Perfection
We think the Sankhya
philosophy is the first attempt to harmonize the philosophy of the Vedas
through reason.(44)
The common ism all
through
The Vedanta requires of us
faith, for conclusiveness cannot be reached by argumentation. Then why has the
slightest flaw detected in the position of the schools the Sankhya and the
Nyaya been overwhelmed by a fusillade of dialectics? In whom, moreover, are we
to put our faith? Everybody seems to be mad over establishing his own view; if,
according to Vyasa [in the Brahma Sutras] even the greatest muni Kapila,
"the greatest among perfected souls" [Swet. Up., 5.2] is
himself deeply involved in error, then who would say that Vyasa may not be so
involved in a greater measure? Did Kapila, then, fail to understand the Vedas? (46)
3. Sri Krishna, Who
Showed the Validity of the Various Steps in Religion
What do you find in the
Gita, and what in modern commentators? One non-dualistic commentator takes up
an Upanisad; there are so many dualistic passages which he twists and tortures
into some meaning and wants to bring them all into a meaning of his own. If a
dualistic commentator comes, there are so many non-dualistic texts which he
begins to torture to bring them all round to a dualistic meaning. But you find
in the Gita there is no attempt at torturing any one of them. They are all all
right, says the Lord; for slowly and gradually the human soul rises up and up,
step after step, from the gross to the fine, from the fine to the finer, until
it reaches the Absolute, the goal. That is what is in the Gita. Even the
Karma-Kanda is taken up and it is shown that, although it cannot give salvation
direct, but only indirectly, yet that also is valid; images are valid
indirectly, ceremonies, forms, everything is valid, only with one condition -
purity of heart. For worship is valid and leads to the goal if the heart is
pure and the heart is sincere; and all these various modes of worship are
necessary - else why should they be there? Religions and sects are not the work
of hypocrites and wicked people who invented all these to get a little money,
as some of our modern people want to think. However reasonable that explanation
may seem, it is not true and they were not invented that way at all. They are
the outcome of the necessity of the human soul. They are all here to satisfy
the hankering and thirst of different classes of human minds; and you need not
preach against them. The day when that necessity will cease, they will vanish
along with the cessation of that necessity; and so long as that necessity
remains, they must be there in spite of your preaching, in spite of your
criticisms. You may bring the sword or the gun into play, you may deluge the
world with human blood; but so long as there is a necessity for idols, they
must remain. These forms, and all the various steps in religion will remain;
and we understand from Lord Krishna why they should.(47)
4. Some Meanings from
the Brahma-Sutras
No foundation for the
authority of the Vedas has been adduced in the Vedanta Sutras. First it
has been said that the Vedas are the authority for the existence of God, and
then it has been argued that the authority for the Vedas is the text, "He
breathed out, as it were, all knowledge" [Brih. Up., 2.4.10], Now
is not this statement vitiated by what in Western logic is called an argument
in a circle?(48)
In the Gita the way is laid
open to all men and women, to all caste and color; but Vyasa [the author of the
Brahma-Sutras] tries to put meanings upon the Vedas to cheat the poor
shudras.(49)
5. Buddha, the Great
Vedantist
i) Buddha’s Fearless
Analysis of the Vedas and His Large-Heartedness in Throwing Their Hidden Truths
Broadcast over the World
Buddha was a great
Vedantist (for Buddhism is really only an offshoot of Vedanta) and Shankara is
often called a "hidden Buddhist". Buddha made the analysis; Shankara
made the synthesis out of it. Buddha never bowed down to anything - neither
Veda, nor caste, nor priest, nor custom. He fearlessly reasoned so far as
reason could take him. Such a fearless search for truth and love for every
living thing the world has never seen.(50)
Buddha was more brave and
sincere than any [other] teacher. He said, "Believe no book; the Vedas are
all humbug. If they agree with me, so much the better for the books. I am the
greatest book; sacrifice and prayer are useless."(51)
[The commentators say]: The
same God who gives out the Vedas becomes Buddha again to annul them.(52)
There is no help [for the
Hindus] out of the clutches of the Buddhists. You may quote the Vedas, but he
does not believe them. He will say, "My Tripitakas say otherwise,
and they are without beginning or end, not even written by Buddha, for Buddha
says he is only reciting them; they are eternal." And he adds, "Yours
are wrong, ours are the true Vedas; yours are manufactured by the brahmin
priests, therefore out with them!" (53)
ii) Buddha Gave Power
and Heart to Vedantic Ideas
Buddha was one of the
sannyasins of the Vedanta. He started a new sect, just as others are started
even today. The ideas which are now called Buddhism were not his. They were
much more ancient. He was a great man who gave the ideas power. The unique
element in Buddhism was its social element.(54)
What Buddha did was to
break wide open the gates of that very religion which was confined in the
Upanishads to a particular caste. What special greatness does his theory of
nirvana confer on him? His greatness lies in his unrivaled sympathy. The high
orders of samadhi, etc. that lend gravity to his religion are almost all there
in the Vedas; what are absent there are his intellect and his heart, which have
never been paralleled throughout the history of the world.(55)
iii) It Was
Absolutely Necessary for Buddha to Emphasize Non-Violence and Faith in His
Teachings
Even in the philosophical
writings of the Buddhists or Jains, the help of the Shrutis are never rejected;
and in at least some of the Buddhist schools and in the majority of the Jain
writings, the authority of the Shrutis is fully admitted, excepting what they
call the himsaka Shrutis [dealing with sacrifices involving violence to
animals] which they hold to be interpolations of the brahmins.(56)
Buddhist ritual itself,
[however], came from the Vedic.(57)
Buddha was the first man to
stand against [purification of the mind through sacrifices and such other
external means]. But the inner essence of the ideas remained as of old - look
at that doctrine of mental exercises which he preached and that mandate of his
to believe in the Suttas instead of the Vedas. Caste also remained as of old
(caste was not wholly obsolete at the time of Buddha); but it was now
determined by personal qualifications; and those that were not believers in his
religion were declared heretics, all in the old style. Heretic was a
very ancient word with the Buddhists, but then they never had recourse to the
sword (good souls!), and had great toleration. Argument blew up the Vedas. But
what is the proof of your religion? Well, put faith in it! - the same procedure
as in all religions. It was, however, and imperative necessity of the times;
and that was the reason of his having incarnated himself. His doctrine was like
that of Kapila.(58)
iv) Buddha’s
Rejection of the Personal God Could Not Hold the Popular Mind
Buddha is expressly
agnostic about God; but God is everywhere preached in [Vedanta].(59)
Every one of Buddha’s
teachings is founded [on] the Vedanta. He was one of those monks who wanted to
bring out the truths hidden in those books and in the forest monasteries. I do
not believe that the world is ready for them, even now; it still wants those
lower religions which teach of a personal God. Because of this, the original
Buddhism could not hold the popular mind until it took up the modifications
which were reflected back from
Hindus can give up
everything except their God. To deny God is to cut off the very ground from
under the feet of devotion. Devotion and God the Hindus must cling to. They can
never relinquish these. And here, in the teaching of Buddha, are no God and no
soul - simply work. What for? Not for the self, for the self is a delusion. We
shall be ourselves when this delusion has vanished. Very few are there in the
world that can rise to that height and work for work’s sake.(61)
6. Beliefs of the
According to Nyaya,
"Shabda or Veda (the criterion of truth) is the word of those who have
realized the highest."(62)
Shabdas are again divided
into two classes, the Vedic shabdas and those in common use. I found this
position in the Nyaya book called Shabdashaktiprakashika. There the
arguments indicate, no doubt, great power of thought; but, oh, the terminology
confounds the brain!(63)
[The Vaisheshikas] are
called orthodox because they accepted the Vedas, although they denied the
existence of a personal God, believing that everything sprang from the atom or
nature.(64)
7. Some Puranic and
Tantric Ideas Which Do Not Agree with the Vedas
In the Puranas you find
that, during the first divine incarnation, the minavatara,[fish avatar], the
Veda is first made manifest. The Vedas having been first revealed in this
incarnation, the other creative manifestations followed. (65)
In the Puranas we find many
things which do not agree with the Vedas. For instance, it is written in the
Puranas that some one lives ten thousand years another twenty thousand years;
but in the Vedas we find: "Human beings live indeed a hundred years."
[Isha Up., 2] Which are we to accept in this case? Certainly the Vedas.
Notwithstanding statements like these, I do not depreciate the Puranas. They
contain many beautiful and illuminating teachings and words of wisdom of yoga,
bhakti, jnana and karma; those, of course, we should accept.(66)
There is no mention of the
division of time into four yugas in the Vedas. They are arbitrary assumptions
of the Pauranika times.(67)
The Puranas, no doubt, say
that a certain caste has the right to such and such a recension of the Vedas,
or a certain caste has no right to study them, or that this portion of the
Vedas is for the Satya Yuga and that portion is for the Kali Yuga. But, mark
you, the Veda does not say so; it is only your Puranas that do so. But can the
servant dictate to the master?(68)
[In principle] it is
improper to hold many texts on the same subject to be contradicted by one or
two. Why, then, are the long-continued [Vedic] customs of madhuparka [serving
beef to a guest] and the like repealed by one or two [Puranic] texts such as,
"The horse-sacrifice, the cow-sacrifice, sannyasa, meat-offering in the
shraddha [funeral] ceremony are to be forsaken in the Kali Yuga", and so
forth?(69)
The Tantra says that in the
Kali-Yuga the Vedic mantras are futile.(70)
The Smritis and Puranas are
productions of people of limited intelligence and are full of fallacies,
errors, and the feelings of class and malice. Only parts of them breathing
broadness of spirit and love are acceptable; the rest are to be rejected. The
Upanishads and the Gita are the true scriptures.(71)
8. Shankaracharya,
the Greatest Teacher of Vedanta
i. Shankaracharya
Showed That There Is Only One Infinite Reality and Humans Can Come to It
through All the Various Presentations
Shankaracharya… caught the
rhythm of the Vedas, the national cadence…. Indeed, I always imagine that he
had some vision such as mine [of a rishi chanting the Rig Veda] when he was
young, and recovered the ancient music that way. Anyway, his whole life’s work
is nothing but that, the throbbing of the beauty of the Vedas and
Upanishads.(72)
The greatest teacher of the
Vedanta philosophy was Shankaracharya. By solid reasoning he extracted from the
Vedas the truths of Vedanta, and on them built up the wonderful system of jnana
that is taught in his commentaries. He unified all the conflicting descriptions
of Brahman and showed that there is only one, infinite Reality.(73)
Shankara says: God is to be
reasoned on, because the Vedas say so. Reason helps inspiration; books and
realized reason - or individualized perception - both are proofs of God. The
Vedas are, according to him, a sort of incarnation of universal knowledge. The
proof of God is that He brought forth the Vedas, and the proof of the Vedas is
that such wonderful books could only have been given out by Brahman. They are
the mine of all knowledge and they have come out of Brahman as someone breathes
out air [Brih. Up, 2.4.10]; therefore we know that It is infinite in
power and knowledge. It may or may not have created the world - that is a
trifle; to have produced the Vedas is more important! The world has come to
know God through the Vedas; there is no other way. And so universal is this
belief held by Shankara in the all-inclusiveness of the Vedas, that there is
even a Hindu proverb that, if a man loses his cow, he goes to look for her in
the Vedas! (74)
Shankara showed, too, that
as a humanity can only travel slowly on the upward road, all the varied
presentations are needed to suit its varying capacity.(75)
Work and worship… are
necessary to take away the veil, to lift off the bondage and illusion. They do
not give up freedom; but all the same, without effort on our own part we do not
open our eyes and see what we are. Shankara further says that Advaita Vedanta
is the crowning glory of the Vedas; but the lower Vedas are also necessary,
because they teach work and worship; and through these many come to the Lord.
Others may come without any help but Advaita.(76)
Relative knowledge is good,
because it leads to absolute knowledge; but neither the knowledge of the
senses, nor of the mind, nor even of the Vedas is true, since they are all
within the realm of relative knowledge.(77)
ii) Despite His Grand
and Rational Doctrine, Shankaracharya Had No Great Liberality of Heart
Shankara’s doctrine [is]
far more grand and rational [than that of Buddha]. Buddha and Kapila are always
saying that the world is full of grief and nothing but that - flee from it -
ay, for your life, do! Is happiness altogether absent here?… There is grief,
forsooth, but what can be done? Perchance some will suggest that grief itself
will appear as happiness when you become used to it by constant suffering.
Shankara does not take this line of argument. He says: This world is
and is not - manifold, yet one; I shall unravel its mystery - I
shall know whether grief be there, or anything else; I do not flee from it as
from a bugbear. I will know all about it - as to the infinite pain that attends
its search, well, I am embracing it in its fullest measure. Am I a beast that
you frighten me with happiness and misery, decay and death, which are but the
outcome of the senses? I will know about it - I will give up my life for it.
There is nothing to know about in this world - therefore, if there be anything
beyond this relative existence - what the Lord Buddha has designated as prajnapara
- the transcendental - if such there be, I want that alone. Whether happiness
attends it, or grief, I do not care. What a lofty idea! How grand! The religion
of Buddha has reared itself upon the Upanishads, and upon that also the
philosophy of Shankara. Only, Shankara had not the slightest bit of Buddha’s
wonderful heart, dry intellect merely! For fear of the Tantras, for fear of the
mob, in his attempt to cure a boil, he amputated the very arm itself! [He
neglected the rank and file of his countrymen which had been captured by
Tantricism, of which the excesses were threatening the purity of the Vedic
religion](78)
Shankara’s intellect was
sharp as a razor. He was a good arguer and scholar, no doubt of that, but he
had no great liberality; his heart too seems to have been like that. Besides,
he used to take great pride in his brahminism, much like the southern brahmin
of the priest class, you may say. How he has defended his commentary in the Vedanta
Sutras that the non-brahmin castes will not attain to a supreme knowledge
of Brahman! And what specious arguments! Referring to Vidura [a saintly
character in the Mahabharata who was of low caste], he has said that he
became a knower of Brahman by reason of his brahmin body in his previous
incarnation. Well, if nowadays a shudra [lowest caste person] attains to
knowledge of Brahman shall we have to side without your Shankara and maintain
that, because he had been a brahmin is his previous birth, therefore he
attained to this knowledge! Goodness! What is the use of dragging in brahminism
with so much ado! The Vedas have entitled anyone belonging to the three upper
castes to a study of the Vedas and the realization of Brahman, haven’t they? So
Shankara had no need whatsoever of displaying this curious bit of pedantry on
this subject, contrary to the Vedas.(79)
Shankaracharya could not
adduce any proof from the Vedas to the effect that the shudra should not study
the Vedas. He only quotes, "The shudra is not conceived of as a performer
of yajna or Vedic sacrifices" [Taitt. Samhita 7.1.1.6] to maintain
that when he is not entitled to perform yajnas, neither has he any right to
study the Upanishads and the like. But the same acharya contends, with
reference to the "Now then commences hence the inquiry about Brahman"
[Vedanta Sutras, 1.1.1] that the words now then does not mean subsequent
to the study of the Vedas, because it is contrary to proof that the study
of the Upanishads is not permissible without the previous study of the Vedic
mantras and Brahmanas and because there is no intrinsic sequence between the
Vedic karma-kanda and jnana-kanda. It is evident, therefore, that one may
attain to the knowledge of Brahman without having studied the ceremonial parts
of the Vedas. So, if there is no sequence between the sacrificial practices and
jnana, why does the acharya contradict his own statement when it is a case of
the shudras, by inserting the clause, "By the force of the same
logic"? Why should the shudra not study the Upanishads?(80)
The Upanishads and the Gita
are the true scriptures; Rama,
9. Ramanuja, Who
Maintained Eternal Differences within Brahman
Truly it has been said of
the Upanishads by Ramanuja that they form the head, the shoulders, the crest of
the Vedas, and surely enough the Upanishads have become the Bible of modern
India.(82)
Ramanuja says that the
Vedas are the holiest study. Let the sons of the three upper castes get the
sutra [ ] and at eight, ten, or eleven years of age begin the study, which
means going to a guru and learning the Vedas word for word with perfect
intonation and pronunciation.
Visistadvaita is qualified
Advaita (monism). Its expounder was Ramanuja. He says, "Out of the ocean
of milk of the Vedas Vyasa has churned this butter of philosophy, the better to
help humankind." He says again, "All virtues and all qualities belong
to Brahman, Lord of the universe. He is the greatest Purusha.(83)
Although the system of
Ramanuja admits the unity of the total, within that totality of existence there
are, according to him, eternal differences. Therefore, for all practical
purposes, this system also being dualistic, it was easy for Ramanuja to keep
the distinction between the personal soul and the personal God very clear.(84)
10. Madhvacharya, Who
Had
Madhva was a thoroughgoing
dualist or Dvaitist. He claims that even women may study the Vedas. He quotes
chiefly from the Puranas. He says that Brahman means Vishnu, not Shiva at all,
because there is no salvation except through Vishnu.
There is no place for
reasoning in Madhva’s explanation; it is all taken from revelation in the
Vedas. (85)
References
1. CW, Vol.4: The Paris
Congress of the History of Religion, p.425.
2. CW, Vol.3: The Common
Bases of Hinduism, p.372.
3. CW, Vol.1: The Spirit and
Influence of Vedanta, p.390.
4. CW, Vol.3: Bhakti-Yoga:
The Chosen Ideal, p.63.
5. CW, Vol.1: Karma-Yoga, Chapter
8: The Ideal of Karma-Yoga, p.108.
6. CW, Vol.1: Paper on
Hinduism, p.6.
7. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
p.122.
8. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta in
All Its Phases, p.323.
9. CW, Vol.2: The Way to the
Realization of a Universal Religion, p.360.
10. CW, Vol.3: The Common
Bases of Hinduism, p.373.
11. CW, Vol.5: A Discussion,
p.299.
12. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 7, 1895, p.36
13. CW, Vol.2: The Atman,
p.239.
14. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 7, 1895, p.36.
15. CW, Vol.1: The Vedanta
Philosophy, p.358.
16. CW, Vol.2: The Atman,
p.239.
17. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
Its Application to Indian Life, pp.229-230.
18. CW, Vol2: The Atman,
p.238.
19. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,
p.395.
20. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
Its Application to Indian Life, p.230.
21. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,
p.396.
22. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
Its Application to Indian Life, p.230.
23. CW, Vol.1: The Vedanta
Philosophy, p.357.
24. CW, Vol.5: A Discussion,
p.299.
25. CW, Vol.6: Notes Taken
Down in
26. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,
pp.396-397.
27. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Madras Address, p.342.
28. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Alasinga from the
29. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in Its Application to Indian Life, p.229.
30. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in All Its Phases, pp. 322-323.
31. CW, Vol.1: The Vedanta
Philosophy, p.358.
32. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,
p.395.
33. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Madras Address, p.334.
34. CW, Vol.3: The Work
before Us, p.281.
35. CW, Vol.2: The Freedom
of the Soul, pp.189-190.
36. CW, Vol.1: The Vedanta
Philosophy, pp.359-363.
37. CW, Vol.3: The Work
before Us, p.281.
38. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 7, 1895, p.36.
39. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in Its Application to Indian Life, p.233.
40. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in All Its Phases, p.329.
41. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
p.439.
42. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,
pp.397-398.
43. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 12, 1895, pp.47-48.
44. CW, Vol.5: A Discussion,
p.298.
45. CW, Vol.3: The Common
Bases of Hinduism, pp.376-377.
46. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra from Baranagore, August 17, 1889, p.212.
47. CW, Vol.3: The Sages of
India, pp.261-262.
48. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra, loc. cit., pp.211-212.
49. CW, Vol.4: What We
Believe in, p.359.
50. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 19, 1895, p.59.
51. Ibid., July 10, 1895,
pp.40-41.
52. CW. Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra, loc. cit., p.213.
53. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,
p.415.
54. CW, Vol.5: A Discussion,
p.309.
55. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Swami Akhandananda from Ghazipur, February, 1890, pp.225-226.
56. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Madras Address, p.334.
57. Notes, Chapter 8:
The Temple of Pandrenthan, p.88.
58. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Swami Akhandananda, loc. cit., p.226.
59. CW, Vol.6: Notes Taken
down in
60. SVW, Vol.2, Chapter 13:
The Last Battle, p.275.
61. CW, Vol.8: Buddha’s
Message to the World, p.99.
62. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra, loc. cit., p.212.
63. CW, Vol.6: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty, p.499.
64. CW, Vol.2: True Buddhism,
p.508.
65. CW, Vol.6: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty,
66. CW, Vol.3: The Religion
We Are Born In, p.458.
67. CW, Vol.5: Selections
from the Math Diary, p.315.
68. CW, Vol.3: The Religion
We Are Born In, p.457.
69. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra, loc. cit., pp.212-213.
70. Ibid.
71. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra from Almora, May 30, 1897, pp.393-394.
72. Notes of Some
Wanderings, Chapter 5: On the Way to Baramulla, p.54.
73. CW, Vol.8: Discourses on
Jnana-Yoga II, p. 6.
74. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 10, 1895, p.41.
75. CW, Vol.8: Discourses on
Jnana-Yoga II, p.6.
76. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 16, 1895, p.53.
77. Ibid., July 6, 1895,
p.33.
78. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Swami Akhandananda from Ghazipur, February, 1890, pp.226-227.
79. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty, Belur, 1898, pp.117-118.
80. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra from Baranagore, August 7, 1889, pp.208-209.
81. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Pramadadas Mitra from Almora, May 30, 1897, p.394.
82. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,
p.394.
83. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 7 and July 8, 1895, pp.36-37.
84. CW, Vol.3: Bhakti-Yoga:
The Philosophy of Ishwara, p.39.
85. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 7 and 8, 1895, p.37.
PART III, SECTION 7: THE FRAGMENTATION OF THE VEDIC MESSAGE
IN
Chapter 18: Reaction to Foreign Invasion
a) When the Kings
Supported Priestly
In the Vedic and adjoining
periods the royal power could not manifest itself on account of the grinding
pressure of the priestly power. We have seen how, during the Buddhistic
revolution, resulting in the fall of the brahminical supremacy, the royal power
in
[The priests and the
kings]… now friendly to each other… and engaged in the satisfaction of mutual
self-interest…, being steeped in all the vices consequent upon such a union,
e.g. the sucking of the blood of the masses, taking revenge on the enemy,
spoliation of others’ property, etc., they in vain tried to imitate the
rajasuya and other Vedic sacrifices of the ancient kings, and only made a
ridiculous farce of them. The result was that they were bound hand and foot by
a formidable train of sycophantic attendance and its obsequious flatteries;
and, being entangled in an interminable net of rites and ceremonies with
flourishes of mantras and the like, they soon became a cheap and ready prey to
the Muslim invaders from the West.(2)
The kshatriyas had always
been the backbone of
When the greater part of
their number sank into ignorance and another portion mixed their blood with
savages from Central Asia and lent their swords to establish the rule of
priests in India, her cup became full to the brim and down sank the land of
Bharata [India], not to rise again until the kshatriyas rouse themselves and,
making themselves free, strike the chains from the feet of the rest.
Priestcraft is the bane of
b) The Muslim Turks,
Themselves Renegades from the Vedic Religion (Buddhism), Crushed Brahminical
Supremacy under Their Feet
What is called the Muslim
invasion, conquest, or colonization of India means only this - that, under the
leadership of the Muslim Turks, who were renegades from Buddhism, those
sections of the Hindu race who continued in the faith of their ancestors were
repeatedly conquered by the other section of that very race who also were
renegades from Buddhism or the Vedic religion, and served under the Turks,
having been forcibly converted to Islam by their superior strength.(4)
The brahmin power had lost
all its own internal strength and stamina and become the weakest of the weak.
What wonder it should be broken into a thousand pieces and fall at the mere
touch of the storm of the Muslim invaders from the West! That great brahmin
power fell - who knows if ever to rise again?
The resuscitation of the
priestly power under Muslim rule was, on the other hand, an utter
impossibility. The Prophet Muhammad was himself dead against the priestly class
in any shape and tried his best to destroy this power by formulating rules and
injunctions to that effect…. The utmost the Muslim kings could do as a favor to
the priestly class - the spiritual guides of the idolatrous, hateful Kafirs -
was to allow them somehow to pass their life silently and wait for their last
moment….
Crushing the brahminical
supremacy under his feet, the Muslim king was able to restore to a considerable
extent the lost glories of such dynasties as the Maurya, the Gupta, the Andhra
and the Kshatrapa.
Thus the priestly power -
which sages like Kumarila, Shankara and Ramanuja had tried to reestablish,
which for some time was supported by the sword of the Rajput power, and which
tried to rebuild its structure on the fall of its Jain and Buddhist adversaries
- was, under Muslim rule, laid to sleep for ever, knowing no awakening.(5)
c) The South Became
the Repository of Vedic Learning, the Backbone of the Hindu Religion
The Muslim tried for
centuries to subjugate the South, but can scarcely be said to have got even a
strong foothold; and when the strong and united empire of the Moguls was very
near completing its conquest, the hills and plateaus of the South poured in
their bands of fighting peasants and horsemen, determined to die for the
religion which Ramdas preached and Tuka sang; and in a short time the gigantic
empire of the Moguls was only a name.(6)
In the South, again, was
born the wonderful Sayanacharya - the strength of whose arms, vanquishing the
Muslims, kept King Bukka on his throne, whose wise counsels gave stability to
the Vidyanagar kingdom, whose state policy established lasting peace and
prosperity in the Deccan, whose superhuman genius and extraordinary industry
produced the commentaries on the whole Vedas - and the product of whose wonderful
sacrifice, renunciation and researches was the Vedantic treatise named
Panchadashi - that sannyasin Vidyaranya Muni or Sayana, was born in this
land.(7)
The South [remained] the
repository of Vedic learning, and… [therefore], in spite of reiterated assertions
of aggressive ignorance, [today] it is the Shruti that is still the backbone of
all the different divisions of the Hindu religion.(8)
d) The Vitality of
[The fanatical belief of many
of the invaders into
But there is a vitality in
the race which is unique in the history of humanity, and perhaps that vitality
comes from non-resistance. Non-resistance is the greatest strength. In meekness
and mildness lies the greatest strength. In suffering is greater strength than
in doing. In resisting one’s own passions is far higher strength than in
hurting others. And that has been the watchword of the race through all its
difficulties, its misfortunes and its prosperity. It is the only nation that
never went beyond its frontiers to cut the throats of its neighbors. It is a
glorious thing. It makes me rather patriotic to think I am born a Hindu, a
descendant of the only race that never went out to hurt anyone, and whose only
action upon humanity has been giving and enlightening and teaching, but never
robbing.(9)
[
All along, in the history
of the Hindu race, there never was any attempt at destruction, only
construction. One sect wanted to destroy, and they were thrown out of
e) In
1. The Vedantic
Movements under the Muslims Preached the Muslim Idea of the Equality of Human
Beings
To the Muslim rule we owe
that great blessing - the destruction of exclusive privilege. That rule was,
after all, not all bad; and nothing is all good. The Muslim conquest of
The movements in northern
The friars of the orders
founded by Ramananda, Kabir, Dadu, Chaitanya or Nanak were all agreed in
preaching the equality of human beings, however differing from each other in
philosophy. Their energy was for the most part spent in checking the rapid
conquest of Islam among the masses, and they had very little left to give birth
to new thoughts and aspirations. Though evidently successful in their purpose
of keeping the masses within the fold of the old religion, and tempering the
fanaticism of the Muslims, they were mere apologists, struggling to obtain
permission to live.(13)
2. The Mighty
Spiritual Genius Chaitanya and His Teaching of Worship through the Senses
Wherever the Hindi language
is spoken, even the lowest classes have more knowledge of the Vedantic religion
than many of the highest in
And why so?
Transported from the soil
of Mithila to Navadwip and developed by the fostering genius of Shiromani,
Gadadhara, Jagadisha and a host of other great names, an analysis of the laws
of reasoning, in some points superior to every other system in the whole world,
expressed in wonderful and precise mosaic of language, stands the Nyaya of
Bengal, respected and studied throughout the length and breadth of Hindusthan.
But, alas, Vedic study was sadly neglected; and until within the last few
years, scarcely anyone could be found in
The commentary which Sri
Chaitanya wrote on the Vyasa-Sutras has either been lost or not found
yet. His disciples joined themselves to the Madhvas of the South, and gradually
the mantles of such giants as Rupa and Sanatana and Jiva Goswami fell on the
shoulders of the Babajis, and the great movement of Sri Chaitanya was decaying
fast, till of late years there is a sign of revival. I hope that it will regain
its lost splendor.
The influence of Sri
Chaitanya is all over
Vaishnavism (the religion
of Chaitanya) says, "It is all right, this tremendous love for father, for
mother, for brother, husband or child. It is all right, if only you think that
Krishna is the child; and when you give him or her food, that you are feeding
Krishna" This was the cry of Chaitanya: "Worship God through the
senses" - as against the Vedantic cry, "Control the senses! Suppress
the senses!"(15)
3. The Creative
Genius of Guru Govind Singh Produced the Political Unity of the Sikhs
One great prophet… arose in
the North, Guru Govind Singh, the last guru of the Sikhs, with creative genius;
and the result of his spiritual work was followed by the well-known political
organization of the Sikhs. We have seen throughout the history of India, a
spiritual upheaval is almost always succeeded by a political unity extending
over more or less the area of the continent, which in its turn helps to
strengthen the spiritual aspiration that brought it into being. But the
spiritual aspiration that preceded the rise of the Mahratta or the Sikh empire
was entirely reactionary. We seek in vain to find in the court of Poona or
f) The English
Occupation of
Then there came again a
period of confusion. Friends and foes, the Mogul empire and its destroyers, and
the till then peaceful foreign traders, French and English, all joined in a
melee of fight. For more than half a century there was nothing but wars and
pillage and destruction. And when the smoke and dust cleared,
After an age-long play of
action between the two forces [priests and kings], the final victory of the
royal power was echoed on the soil of India for several centuries in the name
of foreign monarchs professing an entirely different religion from the faith of
the land [the Moguls]. But at the end of this Muslim period, another entirely
new power made its appearance in the arena and slowly began to assert its
prowess in the affairs of the Indian world.
This power is so new, its
nature and working are so foreign to the Indian mind, its rise so
inconceivable, and its vigor so insuperable that, though it wields the suzerain
power up till now, only a handful of Indians understand what this power is.
We are talking of the
occupation of
From very ancient times,
the fame of
From time immemorial the
Indians have seen the mightiest royal power tremble before the frown of the
ascetic priest, devoid of worldly desire, armed with spiritual strength - the
power of mantras and religious lore - and the weapon of curses. They have also
seen the subject people silently obey the commands of their heroic,
all-powerful suzerains, backed by their armies, like a flock of sheep before a
lion. But that a handful of vaishyas (traders) who, despite their great wealth,
have ever crouched awe-stricken not only before the king but also before any
member of the royal family, would unite, cross for purposes of business, rivers
and seas, would, solely by virtue of their intelligence and wealth, by degrees
make puppets of the long-established Hindu and Muslim dynasties; not only so,
but that they would also buy the services of the ruling powers of their own
country and use their valor and learning as powerful instruments for the influx
of their own riches - this is a spectacle entirely novel to the Indians, as
also the spectacle that the descendants of the mighty nobility of [England]…
would, in no distant future, consider it the zenith of human ambition to be
sent to India as obedient servants of a body of merchants called the East India
Company - such a sight was, indeed, a novelty unseen by India before!(18)
2.The Religious
Movements in
1. The New Sects Are
Merely Pleading for Permission to Live
There have been a few
religious movements amongst the Indian people during the British rule,
following the same line that was taken up by the northern sects during the sway
of the empire of
At the present moment, we
may see three different positions of the national religion - the orthodox, the
Arya Samaj, and the Brahmo Samaj. The orthodox covers the ground taken by the
Vedic Hindus of the Mahabharata epoch. The Arya Samaj corresponds to Jainism,
and the Brahmo Samaj to the Buddhists. (20)
2. Hindu Orthodoxy,
Terrible Orthodoxy
If you tell a Hindu,
"Our Bible does not say -so-and-so" [he or she will reply]: "Oh,
your Bible! It is a babe of history. What other Bible could there be except the
Vedas? What other book could there be? All knowledge is in God. Do you mean to
say that God teaches by two or more Bibles? God’s knowledge came out in the
Vedas. Do you mean to say that God committed a mistake, then? That, afterwards,
God wanted to do something better and taught another Bible to another nation?
You cannot bring another book that is as old as the Vedas. Everything else - it
was all copied after that." They would not listen to you. And the
Christian brings the Bible. They say, "That is a fraud. God speaks only
once, because God never makes mistakes."
Now, just think of that.
That orthodoxy is terrible. And if you ask Hindus that they are to reform their
society and do this and that, they say, "Is it in the books? If it is not,
I do not care to change. You wait, in five [hundred] years more you will find
that this is good." If you say to them, "This social institution that
you have is not right", they say, "How do you know that?" Then
they say, "Our social institutions in this matter are the better. Wait
five [hundred] years and your institution will die. The test is the survival of
the fittest. You live, but there is not one community in the world that lives
five hundred years together. Look here! We have been standing all the
time." That is what they would say. Terrible orthodoxy! And thank God I
have crossed that ocean.(21)
3. The Arya Samaj,
Whose Teaching Goes against Received National Opinion
The idea that the Samhitas
are the only Vedas is very recent and has been started by the late Swami
Dayananda. This opinion has not got any hold on the orthodox population.
The reason for this opinion
was that, though Swami Dayananda could find a consistent theory of the whole
based on a new interpretation of the Samhitas, the difficulties remained the
same, only they fell back on the Brahmanas. And in spite of the theories of
interpretation and interpolation, a good deal still remains.
Now, if it is possible to
build a consistent religion on the Samhitas, it is a thousand times more sure
that a very consistent and harmonious faith can be based upon the Upanishads;
and moreover, here one has not to go against the already received national
opinion. Here all the acharyas (teachers) of the past would side with you and
you have a vast scope for new progress.(22)
4. The Brahmo Samaj,
Which Could Not Hold Its Own against the "Old Vedanta"
The Brahmo Samaj, like
Christian Science in [the
h) The Violent
Conflict between the Western and Vedic Ideals Produced a Wave of Reformers Who
Simply Played into the Hands of the Europeans
In the beginning of the
present century, when Western influence began to pour into India, when Western
conquerors, sword in hand, came to demonstrate to the children of the sages
that they were mere barbarians, a race of dreamers, that their religion was but
mythology, and God and soul and everything they had been struggling for were
mere words without meaning, that the thousands of years of struggle, the
thousands of years of endless renunciation, had all been in vain, the question
began to be agitated among young men at the universities whether the whole
national existence up till then had been a failure, whether they must begin
anew on the occidental plan, tear up their old books, burn their philosophies,
drive away their preachers, and break down their temples. Did not the
occidental conquerors, the people who demonstrated their religion with sword
and gun, say that all the old ways were superstition and idolatry? Children
brought up and educated in the new schools started on the occidental plan drank
in these ideas from childhood; and it is not to be wondered at that doubts
arose. But instead of throwing away superstition and making a real search after
truth, the test of truth became, "What does the West say?" The priest
must go, the Vedas must be burned, because the West has said so.(24)
Our Hindu ancestors sat
down and thought of God and morality, and so we have brains to use for the same
ends; but in the rush of trying to get gain, we are likely to lose them
again.(26)
On one side the new
On one side, new
On the one side, new
Have we not, then, to learn
anything from the West? Must we not needs try and exert ourselves for better
things? Are we perfect? Is our society entirely spotless, without any flaw?
There are many things to learn, we must struggle for new and higher things till
we die - struggle is the end of human life…. That person or that society which
has nothing to learn is already in the jaws of death. Yes. Learn we must many
things from the West; but there are fears, as well….
O,
The Western ladies move
freely everywhere, therefore that is good, they choose their husbands for
themselves; therefore that is the highest step of advancement; the Westerners
disapprove of our dress, decorations, food, and ways of living; therefore they
must be very bad; the Westerners condemn image worship as sinful; surely, then,
image worship is the greatest sin, there is no doubt of it!
The Westerners say that
worshipping a single deity is fruitful of the highest good, therefore let us
throw our gods and goddesses into the River Ganges! The Westerners hold caste
distinctions to be obnoxious, therefore let all the different castes be jumbled
into one! The Westerners say that child-marriage is the root of all evils,
therefore that is also very bad, of a certainty it is!
We are not discussing here
whether these customs deserve continuance or rejection; but if the mere
disapproval of the Westerners be the measure of the abominableness of our
manners and customs, then it is our duty to raise our emphatic protest against
it.(27)
Out of the feeling of
unrest produced [by the conflict of Western influence and the Vedantic
tradition] there arose a wave of so-called reform in India.(28)
The orthodox have more
faith and more strength in themselves [than the reformers], in spite of their
crudeness; but the reformers simply play into the hands of the Europeans and
pander to their vanity. (29)
The West wants every bit of
spirituality through social improvement. The East wants every bit of social
power through spirituality. Thus it was that the modern reformers saw no way to
reform but by first crushing out the religion of
i) Uniting under the
Common Ideal of Spirituality Will Alone Make the Future
We see how in Asia, and
especially in India, race difficulties, linguistic difficulties, social
difficulties, national difficulties, all melt away before the unifying power of
religion. We know that, to the Indian mind, there is nothing higher than
religious ideals, that this is the keynote of Indian life; and we can only work
in the line of least resistance. It is not only true that the ideal of religion
is the highest ideal; in the case of
The characteristic of [our]
nation is…transcendentalism, this struggle to go beyond, this daring to tear
the veil off the face of nature at any risk, at any price, a glimpse of the
beyond. That is our ideal; but of course all the people in a country cannot
give up entirely. Do you want to enthuse them? Then here is the way to do so:
your talk of politics, of social regeneration, you talks of money-making and
commercialism - all these will roll off like water from a duck’s back. This
spirituality, then, is what you have to teach to the world. Have we to learn
anything else, have we to learn anything from the world? We have, perhaps, to
gain a little material knowledge, in the power of organization, in the ability
to handle powers, organizing powers, in bringing in the best results out of the
smallest causes. This, perhaps, to a certain extent we may learn from the West.
But if anyone preaches in India the ideal of eating and drinking and making
merry, if anyone wants to apotheosize the material world into a God, that he or
she is a liar; he or she has no place in this holy land, the Indian mind does
not want to listen to him or her. Ay, in spite of all the sparkle and glitter
of Western civilization, in spite of all its polish and its marvelous
manifestation of power, standing upon this platform I tell them to their face
that it is all vain. It is vanity of vanities. God alone lives, soul alone
lives, spirituality alone lives. Hold on to that.
Yet, perhaps, some sort of
materialism toned down to our own requirements, would be a blessing to many of
our brothers and sisters who are not yet ripe for the highest truths. This is
the mistake made in every country and every society; and it is a greatly
regrettable thing that in India, where it was always understood, the same
mistake of forcing the highest truths on people who are not ready for them has
been made of late. My method need not be yours. The sannyasin, as you all know,
is the ideal of the Hindu’s life and everyone by our Shastras is compelled to
give up. Every Hindu who has tasted the fruits of this world must give up in
the latter part of his or her life and whoever does not is not a Hindu and has
no more right to call him or herself a Hindu. We know that this is the ideal -
to give up after seeing and experiencing the vanity of things. Having found out
that the heart of the material world is a mere hollow, containing only ashes,
give it up and go back. The mind is circling forward, as it were, towards the
senses; and that mind has to circle backwards; the pravritti has to stop and
the nivritti has to begin. That is the ideal. But that ideal can only be
realized after a certain amount of experience. We cannot teach the child the
truth of renunciation; the child is a born optimist, his whole life is in his
or her senses, his whole life is one mass of sense-enjoyment. So, there are
childlike people in every society who require a certain amount of experience,
of enjoyment, to see through the vanity of it, and then renunciation will come
to them. There has been ample provision made for them in our books; but,
unfortunately, in later times there has been a tendency to bind everyone down
by the same laws as those by which the sannyasin is bound, and that is a great
mistake. But for that, a good deal of the poverty and misery that you see in
Renunciation - that is the
flag, the banner of India floating over the world, the one undying thought
which India sends again and again as a warning to dying races, as a warning to
all tyranny, as a warning to wickedness in the world. Ay, Hindus, let not your
hold of that banner go. Hold it aloft. Even if you are weak and cannot
renounce, do not lower the ideal. Say, "I am weak and cannot renounce the
world", but do not try to be hypocrites, torturing texts and making
specious arguments and trying to throw dust in the eyes of people who are
ignorant. Do not do that, but own you are weak. For the idea is great, that of
renunciation. What matters it if millions fail in the attempt, if ten soldiers
or even two return victorious! Blessed be the millions dead! Their blood has
bought the victory. This renunciation is the one idea throughout the different
Vedic sects except one, and that is the Vallabhacharya sect in the Bombay
Presidency - and most of you are aware of what comes where renunciation does
not exist. We want orthodoxy - even the hideously orthodox, even those who
smother themselves with ashes, even those who stand with their hands uplifted.
Ay, we want them, unnatural though they may be, for standing for that idea of
giving up, and acting as a warning to the race against succumbing to the
effeminate luxuries that are creeping into
Cross reference to:
Kaiv. Up., 2
References
1. CW, Vol.4: Modern India,
p.447.
2. Ibid., pp.444-445.
3. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Address of the Maharaja of Khetri, p.327.
4. CW, Vol.7: Memoirs of
European Travel, p.395.
5. CW, Vol.4: Modern India,
pp.445-447.
6. CW, Vol.6: The Historical
Evolution of India, p.165.
7. CW, Vol.7: Memoirs of
European Travel, pp.330-331.
8. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Madras Address, p.332.
9. CW, Vol.9: History of the
Aryan Race, p.255.
10. CW, Vol.3: The Future of
India, p.285.
11. CW, Vol.5: The Abroad
and the Problems at Home, p.217.
12. CW, Vol.3: The Future of
India, p.294.
13. CW, Vol.6: The
Historical Evolution of India, pp.165-166.
14. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Madras Address, pp.336-337.
15. Master as I Saw Him, Chapter
15: On Hinduism, pp.262-263.
16. CW, Vol.6: The
Historical Evolution of India, p.166.
17. Ibid.
18. CW, Vol.4: Modern India,
pp.448-449.
19. CW, Vol.6: The
Historical Evolution of India, pp.166-167.
20. Master as I Saw Him, loc.
cit., p.263.
21. CW, Vol.3: Buddhistic
India, pp.514-515.
22. CW, Vol.5: Letter to Mr.
–––– from Almora, June 1, 1897, p.130.
23. CW, Vol.7: Letter to
Professor John Wright from
24. CW, Vol.4: My Master,
p.158.
25. CW, Vol.4: Modern India,
pp.475-476.
26. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 23, 1895, p.64.
27. CW, Vol.4: Modern
28. CW, Vol.4: My Master,
p.158.
29. CW. Vol.5: The
Missionary Work of the First Hindu Sannyasin to the West, p.223.
30. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Alasinga from the
31. CW, Vol.3: The Future of
India, pp.287-288.
32. CW, Vol.3: Reply to the
Address of Welcome at Ramnad, pp.149-151.
33. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in All Its Phases, pp.344-345.
PART III, SECTION 7: THE FRAGMENTATION OF THE VEDIC MESSAGE
IN
Chapter 19: Intellectual and Social Abuses in Modern Times
a) For the Last
Thousand Years We Have Been Weakened by Non-Vedic Stories
1. In Their Ordinary
Lives Indians Are Mostly Puranic or Tantric
The Upanishads are our
scriptures. They have been differently explained and, as I have told you
already, whenever there is a difference between subsequent Puranic literature
and the Vedas, the Puranas must give way. But it is at the same time true that,
as a practical result, we find ourselves ninety percent Puranic and ten percent
Vedic - if even so much as that.(1)
There was a time in
Modern Hinduism is largely
Puranic, that is, post-Buddhistic, in origin. Dayananda Saraswati has pointed
out, [for example], that though a wife is absolutely necessary in the sacrifice
of the domestic fire, which is a Vedic rite, she may not touch the shalagrama
shila, or the household idol, because that dates from the later period of the
Puranas.(3)
The Tantras Are
Poisoning the Minds of the People of
There are in my motherland,
most unfortunately, persons who will take up one of the Tantras and say that
the practice of this Tantra is to be obeyed; he or she who does not do so is no
more orthodox in his or her views.(4)
When I see how much the
Vamachara [Tantra] has entered our [Bengali] society, I find it a most
disgraceful place, with all of its boast of culture. These Vamachara sects are
honeycombing our society in
The Strength-Giving,
Practical Upanishads Should Be Worshipped Rather Than the Puranas
I have always found
"occultism" injurious and weakening to humanity. What we want is
strength. We Indians, more than any other race, want strong and vigorous
thought. We have enough of the superfine in all concerns. For centuries we have
been stuffed with the mysterious; the result is that our intellectual an
spiritual digestion is almost hopelessly impaired, and the race has been
dragged down to the depths of hopeless imbecility - never before or since
experienced by any other civilized community. There must be freshness and vigor
of thought to make a virile race. More than enough to strengthen the whole
world exists in the Upanishads. The Advaita is the eternal mine of strength.
But it requires to be applied. It must first be cleared of the
incrustation of scholasticism and then in all its simplicity, beauty and
sublimity be taught over the length and breadth of the land, as applied to the
minutest detail of daily life. "This is a very large order"; but we
must work towards it, nevertheless, as if it would be accomplished tomorrow. Of
one thing I am sure - that whoever wants to help his fellow beings through
genuine love and unselfishness will work wonders.(6)
The more I read the
Upanishads, my friends, my countrymen, the more I weep for you, for therein is
the great practical application. - strength, strength for us What we need is
strength. Who will give us strength? There are thousands to weaken us, and of
stories we have had enough. Every one of our Puranas, if you press it, gives
out stories enough to fill three-fourths of the libraries of the world.
Everything that can weaken us as a race we have had for the last thousand
years. It seems as if during that period the national life had this one end in
view, viz. how to make us weaker and weaker till we have become real
earthworms, crawling at the feet of everyone who dares to put his foot on us. Therefore,
my friends, as one of your blood, as one who lives and dies with you, let me
tell you that we want strength, strength, and every time strength. And the
Upanishads are the great mine of strength.(7)
But nowadays we have put
the Puranas on an even higher pedestal than the Vedas! The study of the Vedas
has almost disappeared from
b) The Degeneration
of the Caste System Has Led to
1. The Heredity Caste
System Must Go, for It has Replaced the Original System Based on Individual
Qualities
From the time of the Upanishads
down to the present day, nearly all of our great teachers have wanted to break
through the barriers of caste, i.e. caste in its degenerate state, not the
original system. What little good you see in the present caste clings to it
from the original caste, which was the most glorious social institution.(9)
The jati dharma or dharma
enjoined according the different castes, this swadharma, that is, one’s own
dharma (the set of duties prescribed for people according to their capacity and
position), is the very basis of Vedic religion and Vedic society…. It is the
path of welfare for all societies in every land, the ladder to ultimate
freedom. With the decay of this jati dharma, this swadharma, has come the
downfall of our land. But the jati dharma or swadharma as commonly understood
at present by the higher castes is rather a new evil, which has to be guarded
against. They think they know everything of jati dharma, but really they know
nothing of it. Regarding their own village customs as the eternal customs laid
down by the Vedas, and appropriating to themselves all the privileges they are
going to their doom! I am not talking of caste as determined by qualitative
distinction, but of the hereditary caste system. I admit that the qualitative
caste system is the primary one; but the pity is that qualities yield to birth
in two or three generations.(10)
There is a certain class of
people whose conviction is that, from time eternal, there is a treasure of
knowledge which contains the wisdom of everything past, present and
future. These people hold that is was their own forebears who had the sole
privilege of having the custody of this treasure. The ancient sages, the first
possessors of it, bequeathed in succession this treasure and its true import to
their descendants only. They are, therefore, the only inheritors to it; as
such, let the rest of the world worship them.
May we ask these people
what they think should be the condition of the other peoples who have not got
such forebears? "Their condition is doomed" is the general answer.
The more kind-hearted among them are perchance pleased to rejoin, "Well,
let them come and serve us. As a reward for such service, they will be born in
our caste in the next birth. That is the only hope we can hold out to them."
"Well, the moderns are making many new and original discoveries in the
field of science and the arts which you neither dreamt of, nor it there any
proof that your forebears ever had any knowledge of. What do you say to
that?" "Why, certainly our forebears know all these things, the
knowledge of which is now unfortunately lost to us. Do you want proof? I can
show you one. Look! Here is a secret Sanskrit verse…." Needless to add
that the modern party, who believes in direct evidence only, never attaches any
seriousness to such replies and proofs.(11)
That we have fallen is the
sure sign that the basis of the jati dharma has been tampered with. Therefore,
what you call the jati dharma is quite contrary to what we have in fact. First,
read your Shastras through and through, and you will easily see that what the
Shastras define as caste dharma has disappeared almost everywhere from the
land.(12)
The caste system [as
practiced] is opposed to the religion of the Vedanta. Caste is a social custom,
and all our great teachers have tried to break it down. From Buddhism onwards,
every sect has preached against caste and every time it has only riveted the
chains. Caste is simply the outgrowth of the political institutions of
Although our caste rules
have so far changed from the time of Manu still, if he should come to us now,
he would call us Hindus. Caste is a social organization and not a religious
one. It was the outcome of the natural evolution of our society. It was found
necessary and convenient at one time. It has served its purpose. But for it, we
would long ago have become Muslims. It is useless now. It may be dispensed
with. The Hindus religion no longer require the prop of the caste system.(14)
2. The Ideal of Caste
Is to Raise Humanity Slowly and Gently to the Level of the Ideal Spiritual
Person
The solution [to the
problem of caste] is not by bringing down the higher, but by raising the lower
up to the level of the higher. And that is the line of work that is found in
all our books, in spite of what you may hear from some people whose knowledge
of their own scriptures and whose capacity to understand the mighty plans of
the ancients are only zero. They do not understand; but those do who have
brains, who have the intellect to grasp the whole scope of the work. They stand
aside and follow the wonderful procession of national life through the ages.
They can trace it step by step through all the books, ancient and modern. What
is the plan? The ideal at one end is the brahmin and at the other end, the
chandala, and the whole work is to raise the chandala to the brahmin. Slowly
and slowly you find more and more privileges granted to them. There are books
where you read such fierce words as these: "If the shudra hears the Vedas,
fill his ears with molten lead; and if he remembers a line, cut his tongue out.
If he says to the brahmin, ‘You brahmin’ cut his tongue out." This is
diabolical old barbarism, no doubt - that goes without saying - but do not
blame the law-givers, who simply record the customs of the community. Such
devils sometimes arose among the ancients. There have been devils everywhere,
more or less, in all ages. Accordingly, you will find that later on this tone
is modified a little, as for instance: "Do not disturb the shudras, but do
not teach them higher things." Then gradually we find in other Smritis,
especially those that have full power now, that if the shudras imitate the
manners and customs of the brahmins, they do well and ought to be encouraged.
Thus it is going on. I have no time to place before you all these workings, not
how they can be traced out in detail; but coming to plain facts, we find that
all the castes are to rise slowly and slowly. There are thousands of castes,
and some are even getting admission into brahminhood - for what prevents any
caste from declaring that they are brahmins? Thus caste, with all its rigor,
has been created in that manner. Let us suppose that there are castes here with
ten thousand people in each. If these put their heads together and said,
"We will call ourselves brahmins", nothing can stop them. I have seen
it in my own life. Some castes become strong, and as soon as they all agree,
who is to say nay? Because whatever it was, each caste was made exclusive of
the other. It did not meddle with others’ affairs; even the several divisions
of one caste did not meddle with the other divisions. Those powerful
epoch-makers, Shankaracharya and others, were the great caste-makers. I cannot
tell you all the wonderful things they fabricated, and some of you may resent
what I have to say. But in my travels and experiences I have traced them out
and have arrived at most wonderful results. They would sometimes get hold of hordes
of Baluchis [aboriginals] and at once make them kshatriyas; also get hold of
hordes of fishermen and make them brahmins forthwith.(15)
Our solution of the caste
question is not degrading those who are already high up, is not running amok
through food and drink, is not jumping out of our own limits to have more
enjoyment; but it comes by every one of us fulfilling the dictates of our
Vedantic religion, by our attaining spirituality and by our becoming the ideal
brahmin. There is a law laid on each one of you in this land [of
3. If the Brahmins
Cannot Live Up to the Vedas Themselves Let Them Accept Others and Build Up a
New Aryan Society
Where are the four castes
today in this country? Answer me, [brahmins of
The meaning of the mantras
in the shraddha ceremony [for ancestors] is very edifying. The mantras depict
the suffering and care undergone by our parents on our behalf. The performance
of it is an honor paid to the memory of the sum total of the spirits of our
forebears, whose virtues we inherit. Sraddha has nothing to do with one’s
salvation. Yet no Hindu who loves his or her religion, his or her country, his
or her past and his or her great forebears should give up shraddha. The outward
formalities and the feeding of brahmins are not essential. We have no brahmins
in these days worthy of being fed on shraddha days. The brahmins fed ought not
to be professional eaters, but brahmins who feed disciples gratis and
teach them true Vedic doctrines. In these days, shraddha may be performed
mentally.(18)
c) Blind Allegiance
to Non-Vedic Usages Has Been One of the Main Causes of the Downfall of
1. The Real
Worship in
The Vedanta was (and is)
the boldest system of religion. It stopped nowhere, and it had one advantage:
there was no body of priests who sought to suppress every one who tried to tell
the truth. There was always absolute religious freedom. In
We all find the most
contradictory usages prevailing in our [Indian] midst and also religious
opinions prevailing in[Indian] society which scarcely have any authority in the
scriptures of the Hindus; and in many cases we read in books and see with
astonishment, customs of the country that have neither their authority in the
Vedas nor in the Smritis nor Puranas, but are simply local. And yet each
ignorant villager thinks that if that little local custom dies out, he or she
will no more remain a Hindu. In his or her mind Vedantism and these little
local customs have been indissolubly identified. In reading the scriptures it
is hard for him or her to understand that what he or she is doing has not the
sanction of the scriptures, and that the giving up of them will not hurt him or
her at all; but, on the contrary, will make him or her a better person. (20)
Unfortunately for
Minor social usages will
also be recognized and accepted when they are compatible with the spirit of the
true scriptures and the conduct and example of the holy sages. But blind
allegiance only to usages such as are repugnant to the spirit of the Shastras
and the conduct of holy sages has been one of the main causes of the downfall
of the Aryan race.(22)
There is the towering temple
of the eternal Hindu religion, and how many ways of approaching it! And what
can you not find there? From the absolute Brahman of the Vedantin down to
Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti, Uncle Sun, the rat-riding Ganesha, and the minor
deities such as Shashthi and Makal, and so forth. Which is lacking there? And
in the Vedas, in the Vedanta and the philosophies, in the Puranas and the
Tantras, there are lots of materials, a single sentence of which is enough to
break one’s chain of transmigration for ever. And, Oh! The crowd! Millions and
millions of people are rushing towards the temple. I, too, had a curiosity to
see and join in the rush. But what was this that met my eyes when I reached the
spot! Nobody was going inside the temple! By the side of the door there was
standing a figure with fifty heads, a hundred arms, two hundred bellies, and
five hundred legs; and everyone was rolling at the feet of it. I asked someone
the reason and got the reply; "Those deities that you see in the interior,
it is worship enough for them to make a short prostration, or throw in a few
flowers from a distance. But the real worship must be offered to him who is at
the gate; and those Vedas, the Vedanta, the philosophies, the Puranas, and
other scriptures that you see - there is no harm if you hear them read now and
again; but you must obey the mandate of this one." Then I asked again,
"Well, what is the name of this God of gods?" "He is named Popular
Custom - came the reply.(23)
2. The Identification
of Vedanta with Popular Custom in the Common Mind Is Based upon Juggling with
the Meaning of the Vedas
There is another
difficulty: these scripture of ours have been very vast. We read in the Mahabhashya
of Patanjali, that great philological work, that the Sama-Veda had one
thousand branches. Where are they all? Nobody knows. So with each of the Vedas;
the major portion of these books have disappeared, and it is only the minor
portion that remains with us. They were all taken charge of by particular
families; and either those families died out or were killed under foreign
persecution, or somehow became extinct; and with them that branch of the
learning of the Vedas they took charge of became extinct also. This fact we
ought to remember, as it always forms the sheet-anchor in the hands of those
who want to preach anything new or to defend anything, even against the Vedas.
Wherever in
One more idea. There is a
peculiar custom in
Any number of lies in the
name of a religious book are all right. In India, if I want to teach anything
new and simply state it on my own authority, as what I think, nobody will come
to listen to me; but if I take some passage from the Vedas and juggle with it,
and give it the most impossible meaning, murder everything that is reasonable
in it, and bring out my own ideas as the ideas that were meant by the Vedas,
all the fools will follow me in a crowd.(26)
I am very sorry to notice
in [
Poor fellows! Whatever the
rascally and wily priests teach them - all sort of mummery and tomfoolery as
the very gist of the Vedas and Hinduism (mind you, neither these rascals of
priests nor their forebears have so much as seen a volume of the Vedas
for the last four hundred generations) - they follow, and degrade themselves.
Lord help them from the rakshasas (demons) in the shape of the brahmins of the
Kali Yuga.(27)
3. Modern Hinduism
Has Lost the Spirit of Religion and Become a Religion of "Don’t
Touchism"
A dreadful slough is in
front of you - take care; many fall into it and die. The slough is this, that
the present religion of the Hindu is not in the Vedas, nor in the Puranas, nor
in bhakti, nor in mukti - religion has entered the cooking-pot. The present
religion of the Hindus is neither the path or knowledge nor that of reason - it
is "don’t touchism". "Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!" -
that exhausts its description. See that you do not lose your lives in this dire
irreligion of "don’t touchism"…; it is a form of mental disease.(28)
There is a danger of our
religion getting into the kitchen. We are neither Vedantists, most of us now,
nor Pauranics, nor Tantrics. We are just "don’t touchists". Our
religion is in the kitchen. Our God is the cooking-pot, and our religion is,
"Don’t touch me, I am holy." If this goes on for another century,
every one of us will be in a lunatic asylum. It is a sure sign of softening of
the brain when the mind cannot grasp the higher problems of life; all
originality is lost, the mind has lost all its strength, its activity, and its
power and thought, and just tries to go round and round in the smallest curve
it can find. (29)
The Vedas have two parts,
mandatory and optional. The mandatory injunctions are eternally binding on us
and constitute the Hindu religion. The optional ones are not so. The brahmins
at one time ate beef and married shudras. A calf was killed to please the
guest. Shudras cooked for brahmins. The food cooked by a male brahmin was
considered as polluted food.(30)
In Pilibit in January of
1901, the swami adduced facts and authorities from the Vedas and the Samhitas
in proof of his claim [that] even the Vedic rishis ate, and enjoined upon
others, to eat beef, the very name of which is not offensive to the ears of
orthodox Hindus. In the old Vedic period it was the practice to kill cows in
honor of guests and at certain ceremonies and on auspicious occasions, and he
supported his remarks by dilating on the evils that had accrued in the
degeneracy of the Hindu race through the fanaticism of anti- meat-eating and
the deshacharas and lokacharas [local customs] of the so-called
orthodoxists.(31)
The Hindu religion no
longer requires the prop of the caste system. A brahmin may interdine with
anybody, even a pariah. He or she won’t thereby lose his or her spirituality. A
degree of spirituality that is destroyed by the touch of a pariah is a very
poor quantity. It is almost at the zero point. Spirituality of a brahmin must
overflow, blaze and burn, so as to warm into spiritual life not only one
pariah, but thousands of pariahs who may touch him or her. The old rishis
observed no distinctions or restrictions as regards food. Anyone who feels that
his or her spirituality is so flimsy that the sight of a low caste person
annihilates it, need not approach a pariah and must keep his precious little to
him or herself.(32)
People in
In modern
d) Treading on the
Necks of the Poor and the Low Has Made the Orthodox Hindus Objects of
Indifference and Contempt and Undermined Faith in the Vedic Seers
1. By Despising the
Lower Classes and Monopolizing Religious Knowledge for a Very Long Time, the
Brahmins Themselves Have Become Beasts of Burden
In this country of ours,
the very birthplace of Vedanta, our masses have been hypnotized for ages into
[slavery and weakness]. To touch them is pollution, to sit with them is
pollution! Hopeless they were born, hopeless they must remain! And the result
is that they have been sinking, sinking, sinking, and have come to the last
stage to which a human being can come. For what country is there in the world
where people have to sleep with the cattle? And for this blame nobody else, do
not make the mistake of the ignorant. The effect is here, and the cause is,
too. We are to blame. Stand up, be bold, and take the blame on your own
shoulders. Do not go about throwing mud at others; for all the faults you
suffer from you are the sole and only cause.(35)
Swami Vivekananda: You have been despising the lower
classes of the country for a very long time and, as a result, you have now
become objects of contempt in the eyes of the world.
[Brahmin] Disciple: When did you find us despising them?
Swami Vivekananda: Why, [the] priest class never let
the non-brahmin read the Vedas and Vedanta, and all such weighty Shastras -
never touch them, even… They have only kept them down. It is they who have
always done like that through selfishness. It was the brahmins who made a
monopoly of the religious books and kept the question of sanction and prohibition
in their own hands. And, repeatedly calling the other races of
Disciple: Yes, sir, the stricture of orthodoxy
is gradually lessening nowadays.
Swami Vivekananda: It is as it should be. The brahmins,
in fact, gradually took a course of gross immorality and oppression. Through
selfishness they introduced a large number of strange, non-Vedic, immoral and
unreasonable doctrines - simply to keep their own prestige. And the fruits of
that they are reaping forthwith.
Disciple: What may those fruits be, sir?
Swami Vivekananda: Don’t you perceive them? It is
simply due to you [brahmins] having despised the masses of India that you have
now been living a life of slavery for the last thousand years; it is therefore
that you are objects of hatred in the eyes of foreigners and are looked upon
with indifference by your countrymen.(36)
And where are they through
whose physical labor only are possible the influence of the brahmin, the
prowess of the kshatriya and the fortune of the vaishya? What is their history
who, being the real body of society, are designated at all times in all
countries as "the base born"? - for whom kind India has prescribed
the mild punishments, "Cut out his tongue, chop off his flesh", and
others of like nature, for such a grave offense as any attempt on their part to
gain a share of the knowledge and wisdom monopolized by the higher classes -
those " moving corpses" of India, and the "beasts of
burden" of other countries - the shudras; what is their lot in life? What
shall I say of
2. Lack of Sympathy
Has Hidden the Vedantic Conception of the Dignity of Humanity
Oh, how my heart aches to
think of what we think of the poor, the low, in
No religion on earth
preaches the dignity of humanity in such a lofty strain as does Hinduism, and
no religion on earth treads upon the necks of the poor and the low in such a
fashion as Hinduism. The Lord has shown me that religion is not at fault, but
it is the Pharisees and Sadducees in Hinduism, hypocrites who invent all sorts
of engines of tyranny in the shape of doctrines of paramarthika and
vyavaharika. [supreme truth versus "common life"](38)
I claim that no destruction
of religion is necessary to improve Hindu society, and that this state of
society exists, not on account of religion, but because religion has not been
applied to society as it should have been. This I am ready to prove from our
old books, every word of it.(39)
The Shastras start by
giving the right to study the Vedas to everybody, without distinction of sex,
caste or creed.(40)
Ay, but it was only for the
sannyasin - rahasya, (esoteric)! The Upanishads were in the hands of the
sannyasin; he went into the forest! Shankara was a little kind and said that
even grihasthas (householders) may study the Upanishads; it will do them good;
it will not hurt them. But still the idea is that the Upanishads talked only of
the forest life of the recluse… These conceptions of the Vedanta must come out,
must remain, not only in the forest, not only in the cave, but also they must
come out to work at the bar and the bench, in the pulpit, and in the cottage of
the poor,, with the fishermen that are catching fish, and with the students
that are studying. They call to every man, woman, and child, whatever be their
occupation, wherever they may be.(41)
3. Under Buddhism and
Foreign Invasion Women Were Deprived of Their Vedic Rights
It is very difficult to
understand why in [
Q: Are you… entirely satisfied with the
position of women [in
Swami Vivekananda: By no means; but our right of
interference is limited entirely to giving education. Women must be put in a
position to solve their own problems in their own way. No one can or ought to
do this for them. Our Indian women are as capable of doing it as any in the
world.
Q: How do you account for the evil
influence which you attribute to Buddhism?
Swami Vivekananda: It came only with the decay of the
faith. Every movement triumphs by dint of some unusual characteristic and, when
it falls, that point of pride becomes its chief element of weakness. The Lord
Buddha - the greatest of men - was a marvelous organizer and carried the world
by this means. But his religion was the religion of a monastic order. It had,
therefore, the evil effect of making the very robe of the monk honored. He also
introduced for the first time the community life of religious houses and
thereby necessarily made women inferior to men, since the great abbesses could
take no important step without the advice of certain abbots. In ensured its
immediate object - the solidarity of the faith. You see, only its far-reaching
effects are to be deplored.
Q: But sannyasa is recognized in the
Vedas!
Swami Vivekananda: Of course it is, but without making
any distinction between men and women (43)
The vaishya and the shudra
[when writing letters] should sign themselves as dasa and dasi [servant,
male or female]; but the brahmin and kshatriya should write deva and
devi. [god and goddess]. Moreover, these distinctions of case and the like
have been the invention of our modern, sapient brahmins. Who is a servant, and
to whom? Everyone is a servant of the Lord Hari. Hence a woman should use her
patronymic, that is, the surname of her husband. This is the ancient Vedic
custom.(44)
In what scriptures do you
find statements that women are not competent for knowledge and devotion? In the
period of degradation, when the priests made the other castes incompetent for
the study of the Vedas, they deprived women also of their rights.(45)
There is a passage in the
later law books that a women shall not read the Vedas. So it is prohibited to a
weak brahmin, even; if a brahmin boy is not strong-minded, the law applies to
him also. But that does not show that education is prohibited to them, for the
Vedas are not all that the Hindus have. Every other book a woman can read, all
the mass of Sanskrit literature, that whole ocean of literature, science,
drama, poetry is all for them; they can go there and read that, except the
scriptures. In later days the idea was that a woman was not intended to be a
priest; what is the use of her studying the Vedas?(46)
[The barbarous custom of ]
child-marriage was resorted to in northern
4. Out of a Strong
Desire for Progress, the Brahmins Have Taken Up Western Usages and Belittle the
Aryan Sages
There is no escaping out of
[the endless net of priestly power] now. Tear the net and the priesthood of the
priest is shaken to its foundation! There is implanted in everyone, naturally,
a strong desire for progress; and those who, finding that the fulfillment of this
desire is an impossibility so long as one is trammeled in the shackles of
priesthood, rend this net and take to the profession of other castes in order
to earn money thereby - them, society immediately dispossesses of their
priestly rights. Society has no faith in the brahmin-hood of the so-called
brahmins who, instead of keeping the shikha [sacred tuft of hair], part their
hair; who, giving up their ancient habits and ancestral customs, clothe
themselves in semi-European dress and adopt the newly introduced usages from
the West in a hybrid fashion. Again, in those parts of India, wherever this
newcomer, the English government, is introducing new modes of education and
opening up new channels for the coming in of wealth, there hosts of brahmin
youths are giving up their hereditary priestly profession and trying to earn
their livelihood and become rich by adopting the calling of other castes, with
the result that the habits and customs of the priestly class, handed down from
our distant forebears, are scattered to the winds and are fast disappearing
from the land.(48)
There are people today who,
after drinking the cup of Western wisdom, thinks that they know everything.
They laugh at the ancient sages. All Hindu thought is to them arrant trash -
philosophy mere child’s prattle, and religion the superstition of fools. On the
other hand there are people - educated, but a sort of monomaniacs, who run to
the other extreme and want to explain the omen of this and that. They has
philosophical and metaphysical, and Lord knows what other puerile explanations
for every superstition that belongs to their particular race, or their peculiar
gods, or their peculiar village. Every little village superstition is to them a
mandate of the Vedas; and upon the carrying out of it, according to them,
depends the national life. You must beware of this. I would rather see every
one of you rank atheists than superstitious fools, for atheists are alive and
you can make something out of them. But if superstition enters, the brain is gone,
the brain is softening, degradation has seized upon life. Avoid these two.(49)
There are two great
obstacles on our path in
A pandit asked Swami
Vivekananda if there was any harm in giving up sandhyavandanam or prayers
performed in the morning, noon and evening, which he had had to do for lack of
time. "What!" cried out the swami, almost with ferocity, "Those
giants of old, the ancient rishis, who never walked, but strode - the like of
whom, if you are to think [of] for a moment, you would be shriveled into a moth
- they, sir, had time and you have none!"… When a Westernized Hindu spoke
in a belittling manner of the "meaningless teachings" of the Vedic
seers, the swami fell upon him with thunderbolt vehemence, crying out,
"Man, a little learning has muddled your brain! How dare you criticize
your venerable forebears, how dare you bastardize the blood of the rishis in
your veins by speaking in such a fashion! Have you tested the science of the
rishis? Have you even so much as read the Vedas? There is the challenge thrown
by the rishis! If you dare oppose them, take it up, put their teachings to the
test, and they shall not be found wanting! What is making this race
contemptible is just such intellectual bigotry and lop-sidedness as you
manifest!"(51)
5. Lack of Faith and
Physical Weakness Have Broken the Backbone of
What do we want in
What we want is… shraddha,
[faith]. Unfortunately, it has nearly vanished from
Would you believe me, we
have less faith than the Englishman or woman - a thousand times less faith!
These are plain words, but I say them; I cannot help it. Don’t you see how the
Englishmen and women, when they catch our ideals, become mad, as it were; and,
although they are the ruling class, they come to
References
1. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in Its
Application to Indian Life, p.231.
2. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta in
All Its Phases, p.324.
3. CW, Vol.5: On Indian
Women - Their Past, Present and Future, p.229.
4. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta in
All Its Phases, p.333.
5. Ibid., pp.340-341.
6. CW, Vol.9: The Editor of The
Light of the East, 1896, pp.76-77.
7. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in Its
Application to Indian Life, p.238.
8. CW, Vol.3: The Religion
We Are Born In, p.457.
9. CW, Vol.5:
10. CW, Vol.5: The East and
the West, pp.455-456.
11. CW, Vol.4: Knowledge,
Its Source and Acquirement, p.433.
12. CW, Vol.5: The East and
the West, p.456.
13. CW, Vol.5: Questions and
Answers II, p.311.
14. Shankari Prasad Basu,
"Swami Vivekananda in
15. CW, Vol.3: The Future of
India, pp.295-296.
16. CW, Vol.3: The Mission
of the Vedanta, p.198.
17. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in All Its Phases, pp.339-340.
18. Sankari Prasad Basu, op.
cit., p.297.
19. CW, Vol.2: maya and the
Evolution of the Conception of God, pp.113-114.
20. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
Its Application to Indian Life, pp.231-232.
21. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in All Its Phases, p.333.
22. CW, Vol.6: Hinduism and
Shri Ramakrishna, p.182.
23. CW, Vol.6: Matter for
Serious Thought, pp.194-195.
24. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
Its Application to Indian Life, pp.232-233.
25. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in All Its Phases, p.345.
26. CW, Vol.4: Addresses on
Bhakti-Yoga: The Chief Symbols, pp.42-43.
27. CW, Vol.8: Letter to
Haridas Viharidas Desai from
28. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Swami Brahmananda, 1895, pp.319-320.
29. CW, Vol.3: Reply to the
Address of Welcome at Shivaganga and Manamadura, p.167.
30. Shankari Prasad Basu,
op. cit., p.296.
31. Life, Vol.3,
Chapter 120: Visit to Mayavati, pp.437-438.
32. Shankari Prasad Basu,
op. cit., p.297.
33. CW, Vol.5: The Missionary
Work of the First Hindu Sannyasin to the West, p.222.
34. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
p.439.
35. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta,
p.429.
36. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty, Belur, 1899, pp.172-173.
37. CW, Vol.4: Modern India,
pp.466-467.
38. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Alasinga from
39. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Alasinga from
40. CW, Vol.3: Bhakti,
p.389.
41. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
Its Application to Indian Life, p. 244.
42. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at Belur Math, 1901, p.214.
43. CW, Vol.5: Indian Women
- Their Past, Present and Future, pp.229-230.
44. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Indumati Mitra from
45. CW, Vol.7: Conversation,
loc. cit., p.214.
46. SVW, Vol.2, Appendix C:
The Women of India, p.417.
47. SVW, Vol.1,Chapter 4:
The Midwestern Tour, p.214.
48. CW, Vol.4: Modern India,
pp.456-457.
49. CW, Vol.3: The Work
before Us, p.278.
50. CW, Vol.3: Reply to the
Address of Welcome at Ramnad, p.151.
51. Life,Vol.2,
Chapter 74: In Madras and
52. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
Its Application to Indian Life, pp.241-242.
53. CW, Vol.3: Address of
Welcome Presented at
54. CW, Vol.3: Vedanta in
Its Application to Indian Life, pp.243-244.
PART III, SECTION 7: THE FRAGMENTATION OF THE VEDIC MESSAGE
IN
Chapter 20: Saving
a) We Must Give Up
Weakness and Effeminacy and Learn How to Reduce the Doctrines of Vedanta into
Practice
1. Chalk Out an
Independent Path from the Europeans and Go Back to the Human-Making Upanishads
In Alwar in 1890, following
the swami’s instructions many young men applied themselves to the study of
Sanskrit. At times Swami Vivekananda used to teach them himself. And doing so,
he told them, "Study Sanskrit, but along with it study Western science.
Learn accuracy, my boys! Study and labor so that the time will come when you
can put our history on a scientific basis. For now Indian history is
disorganized.
We have no chronological
accuracy. The histories of our country by the English writers cannot but be
weakening to our minds, for they hold prominently before our view the picture
of our downfall. How can foreigners who understand very little of our manners
and customs, our religion and philosophy, write faithful and unbiased histories
of
You have been told and
taught that you can do nothing, and nonentities you are becoming every day.
What we want is strength; so believe in yourselves. We have become weak and
that is why occultism and mysticism come to us - these creepy things. There may
be great truths in them, but they have nearly destroyed us. Make your nerves
strong. What we want is muscles of iron and nerves of steel. We have wept long
enough. No more weeping, but stand on your feet and be true men and women. It
is a human-making religion that we want. It is human-making theories that we
want. It is human-making education all round that we want….
These mysticisms, in spite
of some grains of truth in them, are generally weakening. Believe me, I have
had a lifelong experience of it; and the one conclusion that I draw is that it
is weakening. I have traveled all over
Cross reference to:
Brih. Up., 4.14.4
2. Bring Life Back
into the Country by Putting the Vedas into Practice
Playing on the khol [drum]
and kartal and dancing in the frenzy of kirtana has degenerated the whole
people [of
There are many things to be
done, but means are wanting in this country [
Possessed of a plenitude of
rajas, [the Westerners] have now reached the culmination of bhoga, or
enjoyment. Do you think that it is not they, but you, who are going to achieve
yoga - you who hang about for the sake of your bellies? At the sight of their
highly refined enjoyment, the delineation in the Meghaduta comes to my
mind. [a description of the enjoyments of the Alakapuri by the poet, Kalidasa]
And your bhoga consists in lying on a ragged bed in a muggy room multiplying
progeny every year like a hog! Begetting a band of famished beggars and slaves!
Hence do I say, let people be made energetic and active in nature by the
stimulation of rajas.(5)
Cross reference to:
Shwe. Up., 3.8
Mund. Up., 3.1.6
3. Learn to
Distinguish What Is Essential and the Power of Thinking and Timely Action Will
Come of Itself
This world, if you have
eyes to see, is yours - if not, it is mine; do you think that anyone waits for
another? The Westerners are devising new means and methods to attract the
luxuries and comforts of different parts of the world. They watch the situation
with ten eyes and work with two hundred hands, as it were; while we will never
do what the authors of our Shastras have not written in books, and thus we are
moving in the same old groove, and there is no attempt to seek anything
original and new, and the capacity to do that is lost to us now. The whole
nation is rending the skies with the cry for food and is dying of starvation.
Whose fault is it? Ours! What means are we taking in hand to find a way out of
the pitiable situation? Zero! Only making a bigger noise by our big and empty
talk! That is all that we are doing. Why not come out of your narrow corner and
see, with your eyes open, how the world is moving onwards? Then the mind will
open and the power of thinking and timely action will come of itself. (6)
Every critical student
knows that the social laws of
The more, therefore, the Hindus
study the past, the more glorious will be their future; and whoever tries to
bring the past to the door of everyone is a great benefactor to this nation.
The degeneration of
Your [Aryan] ancestors gave
every liberty to the soul and religion grew. They put the body under every
bondage, and society did not grow. The opposite is the case in the West - every
liberty to society, none to religion. Now are falling off the shackles from the
feet of Eastern society as from those of Western religion.(9)
In plain words, we have
first to learn the distinction between the essentials and non-essentials in
everything. The essentials are eternal, the non-essentials have value only for
a certain time; and, if after a time they are not replaced by something
essential, they are positively dangerous. I do not mean that you should stand
up and revile all your old customs and institutions. Certainly not; you must
not revile even the most evil one of them. Revile none. Even those customs that
are now appearing to be positive evils have been positively life-giving in
times past; and if we have to remove these, we must not do so with curses, but
with blessings and with gratitude for the glorious works these customs have
done for the preservation of our race. And we must also remember that the
leaders of our societies have never been either generals or kings, but
rishis.(10)
b) Let Us Rouse the
Austere Spirit of Manhood in
1. First Be Prepared
for the Struggle for Existence
Trampled under others’
feet, slaving for others, are you human any more? You are not worth a pin’s
head! In this fertile country with abundant water supply, where nature produces
wealth and harvest a thousand times more than in others, you have no food for
your stomach, no clothes to cover your body! In this country of abundance, the
produce of which has been the cause of the spread of civilization in other
countries, you are reduced to such straits! Your condition is even worse than
that of a dog. And you glory in your Vedas and Vedanta! A nation that cannot
provide for its simple food and clothing, which always depends upon others for
its subsistence - what is there for it to vaunt about? Throw your religious
observances overboard for the present, and first be prepared for the struggle
for existence.(11)
Laziness, meanness and
hypocrisy have covered the whole length and breadth of the country. Can an
intelligent person look on all this and remain quiet? Does it not bring tears
to the eyes?
Cross reference to:
Ka. Up., 1.3.14
2. We Must Revive the
Old Laws of the Rishis, Remodeled According to the Times
There is nowhere mention of
thread being used [at the time of initiation by the guru] in the Vedas. The
modern author of Smritis, Raghunanda Bhattacharya, also puts it thus: "At
this stage [in the Vedic ceremony], the sacrificial girdle should be put
on." Neither in Gobhila’s Grihya Sutras do we find any mention of
the girdle made of thread. In the Shastras this first Vedic samskara
(purification ceremony) before the guru has been called the upanayana; but see
to what a sad pass our country has been brought! Straying away from the true
path of the Shastras, the country has been overwhelmed with usages and
observances originating in particular localities, of popular opinion, or with the
[uneducated] womenfolk! That is why I ask you to proceed along the path of the
Shastras as in olden times. Have faith within yourselves and thereby bring it
back into the country.(13)
Disciple: Then, do not the laws laid down by
the rishis rule and guide our present society?
Swami Vivekananda: Vain delusion! Where indeed is that
the case nowadays? Nowhere have I found the laws of the rishis current in
Disciple: What are we to do, then?
Swami Vivekananda: We must revive the old laws of the
rishis. We must initiate the whole people into the codes of our old Manu and
Yajnavalkya with a few modifications here and there to adjust them to the changed
circumstances of the time.(14)
Swami Vivekananda: Where do the tenfold samskaras or
purifying ceremonies enjoined by the Shastras obtain still? Well, I have
traveled the whole of
Disciple: Sir, is it possible nowadays to set
them going?
Swami Vivekananda: It is true that the ancient Vedic
laws will not have a go; but if we introduce additions and alterations in them
to suit the needs of the times, codify them, and hold them up as a new model to
society, why will they not pass as current?
Disciple: I was under the impression that at
least the injunctions of Manu were being obeyed all over
Swami Vivekananda: Nothing of the kind. Just look to
your own province and see how the Vamachara (immoral practices) of the Tantras
has entered into your very marrow. Even modern Vaishnavism, which is the
skeleton of defunct Buddhism, is saturated with Vamachara! We must stem this
tide of Vamachara, which is contrary to the spirit of the Vedas.
Disciple: Sir, is it possible now to cleanse
this Augean stable?
Swami Vivekananda: What nonsense you speak, you coward!
You have well nigh thrown the country into ruin by crying, "It is impossible!
It is impossible! What cannot human effort achieve?
Disciple: But, sir, such a state of things
seems impossible unless sages like Manu and Yajnavalkya are again born in the
country.
Swami Vivekananda: Goodness gracious! Was it not purity
and unselfish labor that made them Manu and Yajnavalkya, or was it something
else? Well, we ourselves can be far greater than even Manu and Yajnavalkya if
we want to; why will not our views prevail, then?
Disciple: Sir, it is you who said just now
that we must revive the ancient usages and observances in the country. How then
can we think lightly of sages like Manu and the rest?
Swami Vivekananda: What an absurd deduction! You
altogether miss my point. I have only said that the ancient Vedic customs must
be remodeled according to the need of the society and the time and passed under
a new form in the land…. You have read the Shastras, and my hope and faith rest
in people like you. Understand my words in their true spirit and apply
yourselves to work in their light.
Disciple: But, sir, who will listen to us? Why
should our countrymen accept them?
Swami Vivekananda: If you can truly convince them and
practice what you preach, they must. If, on the contrary, like cowards you
simply utter shlokas like parrots, be mere talkers and quote authority only
without showing them in action - then who will care to listen to you?
Disciple: Please give me some advice in brief
about social reform.
Swami Vivekananda: Why, I have given you advice enough:
now put at least something into practice. Let the world see that your reading
of the scriptures and listening to me has been a success. The codes of Manu and
lots of other books that you have read - what is their basis and underlying
purpose? Keeping that basis intact, compile in the manner of the ancient rishis
their essential truths and supplement them with thoughts that are suited to the
times; only take care that all races and all sects throughout India be really
benefited by following these rules. Just write out a Smrti like that: I shall
revise it.(15)
3. Let Us Return to
the Vital Orthodoxy of Old, at the Same Time Broadening Society That the whole
World May Become True Brahmins
You are great Vedantists,
you are very orthodox, are you not? You are great Hindus and very orthodox. Ay,
what I want is to make you more orthodox. The more orthodox you are, the more
sensible; and the more you think of modern orthodoxy, the more foolish you are.
Go back to your old [Vedic] orthodoxy, for in those days every sound that came
from these books, every pulsation, was out of a strong, steady, and sincere
heart; every note was true. After that came degradation in art, in science, in
religion, in everything - national degradation. We have no time to discuss the
causes, but all the books written about that period breathe of the pestilence,
the national decay; instead of vigor, only wails and cries. Go back, go back to
the old days when there was strength and vitality. Be strong one more, drink
deep of this fountain of yore, and that is the only condition of life in
India.(16)
But we must proceed slowly
in this. For the present we should give samskaras to those who, qualified
according to the Shastras, are devoid of the necessary samskara through their
ignorance. In this way there shall be an extensive preaching of the scriptures
and religion, and numerous preachers thereof.
The ideal of this world is
that state when this whole word will again be brahmin by nature. When there
will be no necessity of the shudra, vaishya and kshatriya powers; when
spiritual force will completely triumph over material force; when disease and
grief will no more overtake the human body; when the sense-organs will no more
be able to go against the mind; when the application of brute force will be completely
effaced from people’s memory, like a dream of primeval days; when love will be
the only motive power in all actions on this earth - then only the whole of
humankind will be endowed with brahminical qualities and attain brahminhood.
Then only the distinction of caste will be at an end, ushering in the
Satya-Yuga (Golden Age) visualized by the ancient rishis. We must adopt only
that kind of caste division which gradually leads to this goal. That division
into caste which is the best way to the abolition of case should be most
cordially welcomed.(17)
Your history, literature,
mythology, and all other Shastras are simply frightening people. They are only
telling them, "You will go to hell and you are doomed!" Therefore
this lethargy has crept into the very vitals of
c) The Life-Saving
Education for
1. We Must Replace
Superstition with Human-Making Education Based on the Teachings of the Vedas
We must have a hold on the
spiritual and secular education of the nation. Do you understand that? You must
dream it, you must talk of it, you must think it, and you must work it out.
Till then there is no salvation for the race. The education that you are getting
now has some good points, but it has a tremendous disadvantage which is so
great that all the good things are weighed down. In the first place, it is not
a human-making education; it is merely and entirely a negative education. A
negative education, or any training that is based on negation, is worse than
death. Children are taken to school and the first thing they learn is that
their fathers are fools, the second thing is that their grandfathers are
lunatic, and the third thing is that their teachers are hypocrites, the fourth
that all the sacred books are lies! By the time they are sixteen they are a
mass of negation, lifeless and boneless. And the result is that fifty years of
such education has not produced one original person in the three presidencies.
Everyone of originality that has been produced has been educated elsewhere, not
in this country; or they have gone to the old universities once more to cleanse
themselves of superstitions. Education is not the amount of information that is
put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life. We must
have life-building, human-making, character-making assimilation of ideas. If
you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have
more education than someone who has got by heart a whole library. "The ass
carrying its load of sandalwood knows only the weight and not the value of the
sandalwood." If education is identical with information, the libraries are
the greatest sages in the world and the encyclopedias are rishis. The ideal,
therefore, is that we must have the whole education of our country, spiritual
and secular, in our own hands, and it must be on national lines, through
national methods as far as practicable.(19)
Cross reference to:
Ka. Up., 1.1.5
2. Young People
Should Learn from All Renouncing Teachers the Highest Spiritual Truths Coupled
with Modern Science
In
Disciple: Talking with you and listening to
your realizations, I feel no necessity for the study of the scriptures.
Swami Vivekananda":
No! Scriptures have
to be studied also. For the attainment of jnana, study of scriptures is
essential. I shall soon open classes in the Math for them. The Vedas,
Upanishads, the Gita and Bhagavata should be studied in the classes and
I shall teach Panini’s Ashtadhyayi. [Sanskrit grammar].(21)
[My idea of education for
our Indian children] is guru-griha-vasa - living with the guru… in the same way
as of old. But with this education has to be combined modern Western science.
Both of these are necessary… The present university system is almost wholly one
of defects. Why, it is nothing but a perfect machine for turning out clerks. I
would thank my stars if that were all. But no! See how people are becoming
destitute of shraddha and faith. They assert that the Gita is only an
interpolation, and that the Vedas are but rustic songs! They like to master
every detail concerning things and nations outside of India, but if you ask
them, they do not know even the names of their own forebears up to the seventh
generation, what to speak of the fourteenth!… A nation that has no history of
its own has nothing in this world. Do you believe that one who has such faith
and pride as to feel: "I come of noble descent" can ever turn out to
be bad? How could that be? That faith in him or herself would curb his or her
actions and feelings; so much so that he or she would rather die than commit
wrong. So, a national history keeps a nation well-restrained and does not allow
it to sink so low…. Those who have eyes to see find a luminous history in
To bring this about, the
old institution of "living with the guru" and similar systems of
imparting education are needed. What we want are Western science coupled with
Vedanta, brahmacharya as the guiding motto, and also shraddha and faith in
one’s own self. Another thing that we want is the abolition of that system
which aims at educating our boys and girls in the same manner as that of the
man who battered his ass, being advised that it could thereby be turned into a
horse. (22)
One should live from his
very childhood with one whose character is like a blazing fire and should have
before him or her a living example of the highest teaching. Mere reading that
it is a sin to tell a lie will be of no use. Every boy and girl should be
trained to practice absolute brahmacharya; and then, and only then, faith -
shraddha - will come. Otherwise, why will not one who has no shraddha speak an
untruth? In our country, the imparting of knowledge has always been through men
and women of renunciation. Later, the pandits, by monopolizing all knowledge
and restricting it to the tol [village school], have only brought the country
to the brink of ruin.
3. Monasteries Must
Provide, on a Broad Modern Basis, the Vedic Facilities for the Development of
the Knowledge of Brahman
An attempt is being made
[at Belur Math, the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Order] to educate a number
of young men according to the principle of students living in touch with the
guru; these young sannyasins [will] carry on the propaganda, both in and out of
India.(24)
It is my wish to convert
[Belur] Math into a chief center of spiritual practices and the culture of
knowledge. The power that will have its rise from here will flood the whole
world and turn the course of people’s lives into different channels. From this
place will spring forth ideals which will be the harmony of knowledge,
devotion, yoga and work. At a nod from the men of this Math a life-giving
impetus will in time be given to the remotest corners of the globe, while all
true seekers after spirituality will in course of time assemble here. A
thousand thoughts like this are arising in my mind.
Yonder plot of land on the
south side of the Math will be the center of learning where grammar, philosophy,
science, literature. rhetoric, the Shrutis, bhakti scriptures and English will
be taught. This
Disciple: Then you want to reintroduce into
the country the ancient institution of living a brahmacharya life in the house
of the guru?
Swami Vivekananda: Exactly. The modern system of
education gives no facility for the development of the knowledge of Brahman. We
must found brahmacharya homes as in times of old. But now we must lay their
foundations on a broad basis, that is to say, we must introduce a good deal of
change into it to suit the requirements of the times….
That piece of land to the
south of the Math we must also purchase in time. There we shall start an
annasatra - a feeding house. There arrangements will be made for serving really
indigent people in the spirit of God. The feeding home will be named after Sri
Ramakrishna. Its scope will fist be determined by the amount of funds. For that
matter, we may start it with two or three inmates. We must train energetic
brahmacharins to conduct this home. They will have to collect funds for its
maintenance - ay, even by begging. The Math will not be allowed to give any
pecuniary help in this matter. The brahmacharins themselves shall have to raise
funds for it. Only after completing their five years’ training in this House of
Service will they be allowed to join the
Disciple: Sir, what will be the object of
starting three such sections in the Math?
Swami Vivekananda: Don’t you understand me? First of
all comes the gift of food; next is the gift of learning, and the highest of
all is the gift of knowledge. We must harmonize these three ideals in the Math.
By continually practicing the gift of food the brahmacharins will have the idea
of practical work for the sake of others and that of serving all beings in the
spirit of the Lord firmly impressed on their minds. This will gradually purify
their minds and lead to the manifestation of sattvika (pure and unselfish)
ideas. And having this, the brahmacharins will in time acquire the fitness to
attain the knowledge of Brahman and become eligible for sannyas.
Disciple: Sir, if, as you say, the gift of
spiritual knowledge is the highest, why then start sections for the gift of
food and the gift of learning?
Swami Vivekananda: Don’t you understand this point,
even now? Listen, if in these days of scarce food you can, for the
disinterested service of others, get together a few morsels of food by begging
or by any other means and give them to the poor and suffering, that will not
only be doing good to yourself and the world, but you will at the same time get
everybody’s sympathy for this noble work. Worldly-minded people, tied down to
lust and wealth, will have faith in you for this labor of love and come forward
to help you. You will attract a thousand times as many people by this
unasked-for gift of food as you will by the gift of learning or of (spiritual)
knowledge. In no other work will you get so much public sympathy as you will in
this. In a truly noble work, not to speak of people, even God befriends the
doer. When people have been thus attracted you will be able to stimulate the
desire for learning and spirituality in them. Therefore, the gift of food comes
first.(25)
4. The Manifestation
of Brahman in Women through Vedic Methods of Education
When women give up the
world and join [the Ramakrishna Order] they are no longer considered either men
or women; they have no sex. The whole question of high or low caste, man or
woman, dies out entirely.(26)
[In educating the girls of
In the chapel the pitcher
on the lowest step of the altar must always be full of water, and the lights in
great Tamil butter-lamps must always be burning. If, in addition, the
maintenance of perpetual adoration could be organized, nothing could be more in
accord with Hindu feeling.
But the ceremonies employed
themselves must be Vedic. There must be a Vedic altar on which at the hour of
worship to light the Vedic fire. And the children must be present to share in
the service of oblation. This is a rite which would claim the respect of the
whole of
Gather all sorts of animals
about you. The cow makes a fine beginning. But you will also have dogs and cats
and birds, and others. Let the children have a time for going to feed and look
after these.
Then there is the sacrifice
of learning. That is the most beautiful of all. Do you know that every book is
holy in
Revive the old arts. Teach
your girls fruit-modeling with hardened milk. Give them artistic cooking and
sewing. Let them learn painting, photography, the cutting of designs in paper,
and gold and silver filigree and embroidery. See that everyone knows something
by which she can earn a living in case of need.
And never forget humanity!
The idea of a human-worship exists in nucleus in
That country and that
nation which do not respect women have never become great, nor will ever in
future. The principal reason why your [Indian] race has so much degenerated is
that you have no respect for these living images of Shakti [divine feminine
Power]…. There is no hope of rising for that family or country where there is
no estimation of women, where they live in sadness. For this reason they have
to be raised first, and an ideal Math has to be started for them…. For the
worship of these family goddesses, in order to manifest the Brahman within the,
I shall establish the women’s Math….
On the other side of the
Spirituality, sacrifice and
self-control will be the motto of all the pupils of this Math, and service or
seva-dharma the vow of their life. In view of such ideal lives, who will not
respect and have faith in them? If the life of the women of
5. Rouse
Going round the whole
world, I find that the people of [
Why do you not set about
propagating Vedanta in your part of the country? [There, in
Cross Reference to:
Ka. Up., 1.3.14
Swe. Up., 2.5
6. The Modern Methods
of Teaching Vedanta
In the books of Ishwar
Chandra Vidyasagar [a distinguished Bengali educator and philanthropist] for
little boys you read: "God is without form and of the essence of pure
knowledge", "Subal is a good boy", and so on. That won’t do. We
must compose some books in Bengali as also in English with short stories from
the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Upanishads, etc. in very easy and simple
language and these are to be give to our little boys to read.(31)
April 4, 1895: My idea is for… a society in
1894: The work should be in the line of
preaching and serving at the present time. Choose a place of meeting where you
can assemble every week, holding a service and reading the Upanishads with the
commentaries, and slowly go on learning and working. Everything will come to
you if you put your shoulders to the wheel….
If you could start a
magazine on Vedantic lines, it would further our object. Be positive; do not
criticize others. Give you message, teach what you have to teach, and there
stop. The Lord knows the rest….
Expand your hearts and
hopes as wide as this world. Study Sanskrit, especially the three bhashyas
(commentaries) on the Vedanta. Be ready, for I have many plans for the future.
Try to be a magnetic speaker. Electrify the people. Everything will come to you
if you have faith…. In time all of you will do great things at which the world
will wonder. Take heart and work. Show me something you have done. Show me a
temple, a press, a paper, a home for me. Electrify people. Raise funds and
preach. Be true to your mission.(33)
January 3, 1895: The work has begun well in
d) The Time Has Come
for
For a complete civilization
the world is waiting, waiting for the treasures to come out of
None will be able to resist
truth and love and sincerity. Are you sincere? Unselfish, even unto death? And
loving? Then fear not, not even death. Onward, my lads! The whole world
requires light. It is expectant!
Back to the Upanishads!
Back to the strengthening, life-giving teachings of the Upanishads! They who
thinks they are weak, are weak; and they who believes that they are strong, are
already invincible! "Arise, awake! And stop not till the goal is
reached!" [Ka. Up., 1.3.14](37)
References
1. Life, Vol.2,
Chapter 68: In Beautiful Alwar, pp.138-139.
2. CW, Vol.3: My Plan of
Campaign, pp.224-225.
3. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at Belur, 1901, pp.232-233.
4. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Srimati Sarala Ghoshal from
5. CW, Vol.6: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at
6. CW, Vol.5: The East and
the West, p.470.
7. CW, Vol.4: Reply to the
Address of the Maharaja of Khetri, pp.324-325.
8. Ibid., p.324.
9. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Alasinga from the
10. CW, Vol.3: Reply to the
Address of Welcome at Madura, pp.174-175.
11. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at Belur, 1898, pp.144-145.
12. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at Belur, 1899, pp.182-183.
13. CW, Vol.6: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at Alambazar Math, May, 1897, p.472.
14. CW, Vol.5: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty, p.405.
15. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty, pp.173-175.
16. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in All Its Phases, pp.346-347.
17. Swami Vivekananda,
"The Method of Work in
18. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at Belur, 1899, p.171.
19. CW, Vol.3: The Future of
India, pp.301-302.
20. Life, Vol.4:
Appendix: Swami Vivekananda in
21. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at Belur, November 1898, p.137.
22. CW, Vol.5: Conversation
with Priyanath Sinha, pp.364-365.
23. Ibid., p.369.
24. CW, Vol.5: The Belur
Math: An Appeal, p.434.
25. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at Belur, 1898, pp.157-160.
26. SVW, Vol.2, Appendix C:
The Women of India, p.417.
27. CW, Vol.8: Sayings and
Utterances, #37, pp.274-275.
28. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at Belur, 1901, pp.215-218.
29. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at Belur, 1899, pp.181-182.
30. CW, Vol.7: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty at Belur, 1902, pp.256-257.
31. CW, Vol.5: Conversation
with Priyanath Sinha, p.371.
32. CW, Vol.5: Letter to Alasinga
from the
33. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Alasinga from the
34. CW, Vol.4: A Plan of
Work for
35. CW, Vol.3: Address of
Welcome Presented at
36. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Alasinga from the
37. Life, Vol.4,
Chapter 144: The National Significance of His Life and Work - I, pp.196-197.
PART III, SECTION 8: VEDANTA ARRIVES IN THE WEST
Chapter 21: The Development of Vedic Ideals through the
Meeting of East and West
a) Let Us Take an
Impartial View of the Distinct Parts Played in the Civilization of the World by
the Greeks and Indo-Aryans
Two curious nations there
have been, sprung of the same race but placed in different circumstances and
environments, working out the problems of life each in its own particular way.
I mean the ancient Hindu and the ancient Greek. The Indian Aryans - bounded on
the north by the snowcaps of the Himalayas with freshwater rivers like rolling
oceans surrounding them on the plains, with eternal forests which to them
seemed to be the end of the world - turned their vision inward; and, given the
natural instinct, the superfine brain of the Aryans, with this sublime scenery
surrounding them, the natural result was that they became introspective. The
analysis of their own minds was the great theme of the Indo-Aryans. On the
other hand, with the Greek, who arrived at a part of the earth which was more
beautiful than sublime - the beautiful islands of the Greek archipelago, nature
all around them generous, yet simple - their minds naturally went outside.(1)
[The Indian Aryans’ chief
aim was to evolve the infinite coiled up in the frame we call human]; another
branch of the Aryans went into the smaller and more picturesque country of
The study of the Greeks was
of the outer infinite, while that of the [Indo]-Aryans was the inner infinite;
one studied the macrocosm, the other the microcosm. Each had its distinct part
to play in the civilization of the world. Not that one was required to borrow
from the other; but if they compared notes they would both be gainers.(3)
To us at the present time,
perhaps, has been given the privilege of standing aside from both these aspects
and taking an impartial view of the whole. (4)
Cross reference to:
Brihad. Up., 2.4.10
Cha. Up., 3.14.1
b) Whenever Great
Conquering Nations Arise Indian Thought Enters the Veins of Every Race
1. We Can Find Traces
of Indian Thought in the Greek Systems
Three-quarters of the
wealth of the world has come out of
Thoughts, like merchandise,
can only run through channels made by somebody. Roads have to be made before
even though can travel from one place to another; and whenever in the history
of the world a great conquering nation has arisen, linking the different parts
of the world together, then has poured through these channels the thought of
India and thus entered into the veins of every race. There are evidences
accumulating every day that before even the Buddhists were born, Indian thought
penetrated the world. Before Buddhism Vedanta had penetrated into
The Egyptians and the
Babylonians… are not Aryans. They are separate races and their civilizations
antedate all the European civilization. But with the exception of the ancient
Egyptians they were almost coeval [with the Aryans]; in some accounts, they
were even earlier. Yet in Egyptian literature there are certain things to be
accounted for - the introduction of the Indian lotus on old temples - the lotus
Gangetic. It is well known that this grows only in
From the
Pythagoras is said to have
been the first Greek who taught the doctrine of palingenesis [reincarnation]
among the Hellenes. As an Aryan race, already burning their dead and believing
in the doctrine of an individual soul, it was easy for the Greeks to accept the
doctrine of reincarnation through the Pythagorean teachings. According to
Apuleius, Pythagoras had come to
It is very probable that
Hindu philosophy had some influence on the stoic philosophy of the Greeks
through the Alexandrians. There is some suspicion of Pythagoras’ being
influenced by Sankhya thought.(10)
In Pythagoras, Socrates,
Plato and the Egyptian Neo-Platonists we can find traces of Indian thought.(11)
2. Although the
Christians Will Not Study the Vedas, the Christian Teachings and Rituals Are
Almost All Aryan in Origin
Almost all Christianity is Aryan,
I believe… Indian and Egyptian ideas met at
Christianity, with all its
boasted civilization, is but a collection of little bits of Indian thought. Ours
is the religion of which Buddhism, with all its greatness, is a rebel child,
and of which Christianity is a very patchy imitation.(13)
It is said in many books
that God created the universe out of the Word. Shabdabrahman, in Sanskrit, is
the Christian theory of the Word. An old Indian theory, it was taken to
Vedic ritual has its mass,
the offering of food to God - your Blessed Sacrament, our prasad. Only it is
offered sitting, not kneeling, as is common in hot countries. They kneel in
The teachings of the Vedas,
with which every Hindu is familiar, is identical with the teachings of
Christ.(16)
Even Christians cannot
understand their New Testament without understanding the Vedanta. The Vedanta
is the rationale of all religions. Without the Vedanta every religion is a
superstition; with it, everything becomes religion.(17)
A friend has criticized the
use of European terms of philosophy and religion in my addresses [in the West].
I would have been very glad to use Sanskrit terms; it would have been much more
easy, as being the only perfect vehicle of religious thought. But the friend
forgot that I was addressing an audience of Western people; and, although a
certain India missionary declared that the Hindus had forgotten the meaning of
their Sanskrit books and that it was the missionaries who had unearthed the
meaning, I could not find one in that large concourse of missionaries who could
understand a line of Sanskrit - and yet some of them read learned papers
criticizing the Vedas and all the sacred sources of the Hindu religion!(18)
c) The Modern Meeting
of the Ancient Greek with the Ancient Hindu
1. The Great Good of
the English Conquest of
From
2. Over the English
Highways Indian Thought Is Again Conquering the World
This most ancient
philosophy of Vedanta has, through its influence, directly inspired Buddhism,
the first missionary religion of the world; and indirectly, it has also
influenced Christianity, through the Alexandrians, the Gnostics, and the
European philosophers of the Middle Ages.(20)
One of these cycles [of
Indian thought working upon the world] has again arrived. There is the
tremendous power of
d) Western Study of
the Indian Tradition
1. The Pioneering
Study of Sanskrit Texts by Western Scholars
About a century ago there
was an English judge in
One of these judges, Sir
William Jones, was a very ripe scholar and he wanted to go to the fountainhead
himself, to take up the language himself and study it instead of relying upon
these interpreters who, for instance, might be bribed to give any verdict. So
he began to study the law of the Gentoos, as the Hindus were called. Gentoo is
probably a form of the word gentile, used by the Portuguese and
Spaniards - or the word "heathen" as you call it now. When the judge
began to translate some of the books into English he found that it was very
hard to translate them correctly into English at first hand. What was his
surprise when he found that if he translated them first into Latin and next
into English, it was much easier. Then he found in translating that a large
number of Sanskrit words were almost the same as Latin. It was he who
introduced the study of Sanskrit to the Europeans. Then, as the Germans were
rising up in scholarship - as well as the French - they took up the language
and began to study it.
With their tremendous power
of analysis the Germans found that there is a similarity between Sanskrit and
all the European languages. Among the ancient languages Greek was the nearest
to it in resemblance. Later it was found that there is a language called Lithuanian,
spoken… on the shores of the Baltic - an independent kingdom at that time and
unconnected with
Then came the theory that
there was one race in ancient times who called themselves Aryans. They found in
Sanskrit literature that there was a people who spoke Sanskrit and called
themselves Aryans, and this is mentioned also in Persian literature. Thus they
founded the theory that there was in ancient times a nation who called
themselves Aryans and who spoke Sanskrit and lived in
These are theories and have
not been proved yet; they are mere conjectures and guesses. Many difficulties
come in the way - for instance, how the Indians are dark and the Europeans are
fair. Even within the same nations speaking these languages - in
But this is certain, that
all the nations of
But in the first place,
Sanskrit literature alone is a very big mass. Although perhaps three-fourths of
it has been destroyed and lost through successive invasions yet, I think, the
sum total of the amount of literature in Sanskrit would outbalance in number of
books any three or four European languages taken together. No one knows how
many books there yet are and where they are, because it is the most ancient of
the Aryan languages.(23)
The Vedas were written in a
peculiar, archaic Sanskrit and for a long time - even today - it is thought by
many European antiquarians that these Vedas were not written, but were handed
down from father to son, learned by rote and thus preserved. Within the last
few years opinion is veering round and they are beginning to think that they
must have been written in most ancient times.
Of course, they will have
to make theories in this way. Theory after theory will have to be built up and
destroyed until we reach truth. This is quite natural. but when the subject is
Indian or Egyptian, the Christian philosophers rush in to make theories; while,
if the subject is nearer home, they think twice first. That is why they fail so
much and have to keep on making fresh theories every five years. but this much
is true: that this mass of literature, whether written or not, was conveyed;
and not only that, but is at the present day conveyed by word of mouth. This is
thought to be holy.(24)
2. The Reactionary
Western Orientalists Read Greek Influence into Everything Indian
The earliest schools of
Sanskritists in
Professor Max Muller says
in one of his books that, whatever similarities there may be between the Greeks
and Hindus, unless it be demonstrated that some Greek knew Sanskrit, it cannot
be concluded that ancient India helped ancient Greece in any way. But it is curious
to observe that some Western savants, finding several terms of Indian astronomy
similar to those of Greek astronomy, and coming to know that the Greeks founded
a small kingdom on the borders of India, can clearly read the help of Greece on
everything Indian - on Indian literature, Indian astronomy, Indian arithmetic.
Not only so; one has been bold enough to go so far as to declare that all
Indian sciences as a rule are but echoes of the Greek!
On a single Sanskrit shloka
- "The Yavanas [Ionians or Greeks] are mlechchhas [non-Vedantins]; in them
is this science established, (therefore) even they deserve worship like
rishis"… how much the Westerners have indulged their unrestrained
imagination! But it remains to be shown how the above shloka goes to prove that
the Aryans were taught by the mlechchhas. The meaning may be that the learning
of the mlechchha disciples of the Aryan teachers is praised here, only to
encourage the mlechchhas in their pursuit of the Aryan science!
Secondly, when the germ of
every Aryan science is found in the Vedas and every step of any of those
sciences can be traced with exactness from the Vedic to the present day, what
is the necessity of forcing the far-fetched suggestion of Greek influence on
them?…
Again, every Greek-like work
of Aryan astronomy can be easily derived from Sanskrit roots. I cannot
understand what right the Western scholars have to trace those words to a Greek
source, thus ignoring their direct etymology.
In the same manner, if on
finding the mention of the word yavanika (curtain) in the drama of
Kalidasa and other Indian poets, the Yavanika [Ionian or Greek] influence on
the whole of the dramatic literature of the time is ascertained, then one
should first stop to compare whether the Aryan dramas are at all like the
Greek. Those who have studied the mode of action and the style of the dramas of
both languages must admit that any such likeness, if found, is only the fancy
of the obstinate dreamer and never has any real existence as a matter of fact.
Where is the Greek chorus? The Greek yavanika is on one side of the stage, the
Indo-Aryan diametrically on the other. The characteristic manner of expression
of the Greek drama is one thing, that of the Indo-Aryan quite another. There is
not the least likeness between the Indo-Aryan and the Greek dramas; rather, the
dramas of Shakespeare resemble to a great extent the dramas of
Lastly, turning Professor
Max Muller’s own premises against him, it may as well be said that, until it is
demonstrated that some Hindu knew Greek at some time, one ought not even to talk
of Greek influence.
Likewise, to see Greek
influence on Indian sculpture is also entirely unfounded.(26)
People, in writing about
these ancient books and dates is first of all prejudiced by their earlier
education, then by their religion, then by their nationality. If Muslims write
about the Hindus, anything that does not glorify their own religion they very
scrupulously push to one side. So with the Christians - you can see that with
your own [American] writers. In the last ten years your literature has become
more respectable. So long as they [the Christians] had full play, the wrote in
English and were safe from Hindu criticism. But, within the last twenty years,
the Hindus have begun writing in English, so they are more careful. And you
will find that the tone has quite changed within the last ten or twenty years.
Another curiosity about the
Sanskrit literature is that is, like any other language, has undergone many
changes. Taking all the literature in these various Aryan languages - the Greek
or the Latin or all these others - we find that all the European branches were
of very recent date. The Greek came much later - a mere child in comparison
with the Egyptian or the Babylonian.(27)
3. Dry Western
Scholars Do Not Understand a Single Thing about Indian Scriptures
I have no faith in the
theories advanced by Western savants with regard to the Vedas. They are today
fixing the antiquity of the Vedas at a certain period, and again tomorrow
upsetting it and bringing it one thousand years forward, and so on.(28)
In translating the [Vedic]
Suktas [hymns], pay particular attention to the bhashyakaras (commentators) and
pay no attention whatever to the orientalists. They do not understand a single
thing about our Shastras. It is not given to dry philologists to understand
philosophy or religion…. For instance, the word anidavatam in the Rig
Veda was translated as, "He lived without breathing." [Rig Veda,
10.129.2] Now, here the reference is really to the chief prana and avatam has
the root meaning for the unmoved - that is, without vibration. It describes the
state in which the universal cosmic energy, or prana, remains before the kalpa
(cycle of creation) begins - vide the bhashyakaras. Explain according to our
[Indian] sages and not according to the European so-called scholars. What do
they know?(29)
There are two Sanskrit words
- pratika and pratima. Pratika means coming towards, nearing. In
all countries, you find various grades of worship. In the
It is a significant fact
that spiritual giants have been produced only in those systems of religion
where there is an exuberant growth of rich mythology and ritualism. The dry,
fanatical forms of religion which attempt to eradicate all that is poetical,
all that is beautiful and sublime, all that gives a firm grasp to the infant
mind tottering in its Godward way - the forms which attempt to break down the
very ridge-poles of the spiritual roof, and in their ignorant and superstitious
conceptions of truth try to drive away all that is life-giving, all that
furnishes the formative material to the spiritual plant growing in the human
soul - such forms of religion too soon find that all that is left to them is
but an empty shell, a contentless frame of words and sophistry with perhaps a
little flavor of a kind of social scavenging or the so-called spirit of reform.
The vast mass of those
whose religion is like that are conscious or unconscious materialists - the end
and the aim of their lives here and hereafter being enjoyment, which indeed is
to them the alpha and omega of human life, and which is their ishtapurta [
merit of works stored up in heaven]; work like street-cleaning and scavenging,
intended for the material comfort of humanity is, according to them, the be-all
and end-all of human existence; and the sooner the followers of this curious
mixture of ignorance and fanaticism come out in their true colors and join, as
they well deserve to do, the ranks of atheists and materialists, the better it
will be for the world. One ounce of the practice of righteousness and of
spiritual self-realization outweighs tons and tons of frothy talk and
nonsensical statements. Show us one, but one, gigantic spiritual genius growing
out of this dry dust of ignorance and fanaticism; and if you cannot, close your
mouth, open the windows of your hearts to see the clear light of truth, and sit
like children at the feet of those who what they are talking about - the sages
of India. Let us then listen attentively to what they say.(31)
e) The Permeation of
the West by Vedantic Thought Met Fear of the Unknowable, Adherence to the
Finite, and Mystery-Mongering
1. The Revolutionary
Changes in World Thought Due to Vedanta
Schopenhauer, the great
German sage, foretold that "The world is about to see a revolution in
thought more extensive and more powerful than that which was witnessed by the
Renaissance of the Greek literature", and today his predictions are coming
to pass. Those who keep their eyes open, those who understand the workings in
the minds of different nations of the West, those who are thinkers and study
the different nations, will find the immense change that has been produced in
the tone, the procedure, the methods, and in the literature of the world by
this slow, never-ceasing permeation of Indian thought.(32)
Influencing German thought,
Vedanta has produced almost a revolution in the regions of philosophy and
psychology.(33)
At different periods
2. Kant
Rediscovered the Groundwork of Thought Which Was Long Ago Taught by the Vedas
The philosophy of Vedanta
teaches that there are two worlds: the external or sensory, and the internal or
subjective - the thought-world.
It posits three fundamental
concepts - time, space, and causation. From these is constituted maya, the
essential groundwork of human thought, not the product of thought. This same
conclusion was arrived at a later date by the great German philosopher, Kant.(35)
What is true of the
external must also apply to the internal world. Mind also wants to know itself,
but this Self can only be known through the medium of the mind and is, like the
wall, unknown. This Self we may call y, and the statement would then be:
y +mind is the inner self. Kant was the first to arrive at this analysis
of the mind, but it was long ago stated in the Vedas.(36)
Kant’s great achievement
was the discovery that "time, space and causation are modes of
thought", but Vedanta taught this ages ago and called it maya.(37)
Those of you who are
acquainted with Western philosophy will find something very similar [to the
theory of maya] in Kant. But I must warn you, those of you who have studied
Professor Max Muller’s writings on Kant, that there is one idea most
misleading. It was Shankara who first found out the identity of space, time and
causation with maya; and I had the great good fortune to find one or two
passages in Shankara’s commentaries and send them to my friend the professor.
So even that idea was… in India.(38)
Kant has proved beyond all
doubt that we cannot penetrate beyond the tremendous dead wall called reason.
But that is the very first idea upon which all Indian thought takes it stand,
and dares to seek - and succeeds in finding - something higher than reason,
where alone the explanation of the present state is to be found. This is the
value of the study of something that will take us beyond the world. "Thou
art our Father, and wilt take us to the other shore of this ocean of ignorance."
[Prash. Up.,6.8] That is the science of religion, nothing else.(39)
3. The Vedantic Ideas
Which Have Crept into Philosophy and Literature in the West Have Been
Rationalized and Relativized.
There is no book of
philosophy written today in which something of… Vedantism is not touched upon -
even the works of Herbert Spencer contain it.(40)
What is Spencer’s unknowable?
It is the Indian maya. Western philosophers are afraid of the
unknowable, but Indian philosophers have taken a big jump into the unknown and
they have conquered.
Western philosophers are
like vultures soaring high in the sky, but all the while with their eyes fixed
on the carrion beneath. They cannot cross the unknown, and they therefore turn
back and worship the almighty dollar.(41)
Indian Vedantic… ideas have
crept into the great French poets, such as Victor Hugo and Lamartine and
others, and the great German poets such as Goethe, Schiller and the rest. The
influence of Vedanta on European poetry and philosophy is very great. Every good
poet is a Vedantin, I find; and whoever writes some philosophical treatise has
to draw upon Vedanta in some shape or other. Only some of them do not care to
admit this indebtedness and want to establish their complete originality -
Herbert Spencer and others, for instance. But the majority do openly
acknowledge it. And how can they help it, in these days of telegraphs and
railways and newspapers?(42)
Attempts have been made in
[Again], at the beginning
of this century, Schopenhauer, the great German philosopher, studying from a
not very clear translation of the Vedas made from an old translation into
Persian and thence by a young Frenchman [Duperron] into Latin, says, "In
the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the
Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life, and it will be the solace of my
death."(44)
[But] Schopenhauer stands
on reason only and rationalizes the Vedas.(45)
I think Schopenhauer’s
philosophy makes a mistake in its interpretation of the Vedanta, for it seeks
to make the will everything. Schopenhauer makes the will stand in the place of
the Absolute. But the Absolute cannot be presented as will, for will is something
changeable and phenomenal, and over the line drawn above space, time and
causation [between pp. 256-257] there is no change, no motion; it is only below
the line that external motion and internal motion (called thought) begin. There
can be no will on the other side; and will, therefore, cannot be the cause of
this universe. Coming nearer, we see in our own bodies that will is not the
cause of every movement. I move this chair; my will is the cause of the
movement, and this will becomes manifested as muscular motion at the other end.
But the same power that moves the chair is moving the heart, the lungs, and so
on - but not through will. Given that the power is the same, it only becomes
will when it rises to the plane of consciousness, and to call it will before
it has risen to this plane is a misnomer. This makes a good deal of confusion
in Schopenhauer’s philosophy. (46)
Just as you find the
attempts of Hegel and Schopenhauer in German philosophy, so you will find the
very same ideas brought forward in ancient
Cross reference to:
Isha peace chant
4. The Theosophical
Society Weakened the Indians by Giving Them back Their Superstitions
I disagree with all those
[the Theosophists] who are giving their superstitions back to my people. Like
the Egyptologist’s interest in
I am perfectly aware that,
although some truth underlies the mass of "mystical’ thought which has
burst upon the Western world of late, it is for the most part full of motives
unworthy or insane. For this reason, I have never had anything to do with these
phases of religion, either in
I quite agree that only the
Advaita philosophy can save humankind, either in the East or West, from
"devil worship" and kindred superstitions, giving tone and strength
to the very nature of humanity.
It is the patient
upbuilding of character, the intense struggle to realize the truth, which
will tell in the future of humanity.(49)
Brave, bold men - these are
what we want. What we want is vigor in the blood, strength in the nerves, iron
muscles and nerves of steel, not softening, namby-pamby ideas. Avoid all these.
Avoid all mystery. There is no mystery in religion. Is there any mystery in
Vedanta, or the Vedas, or in the Samhita, or in the Puranas? What secret
societies did the sages of yore establish to preach their religion? What
sleight-of-hand tricks are recorded as having been used by them to bring their
grand truths to humanity? Mystery-mongering and superstition are always signs
of weakness. These are always the signs of degradation and death. Therefore,
beware of them. Be strong, stand on your own feet. Great things there are, most
marvelous things. We may call them supernatural things so far as our ideas of
nature go, but not one of these things is a "mystery". It was never
preached on the soil of
f) A New Type of
Reverential, Sympathetic and Learned Sanskrit Scholar
1. Max Muller, the
Perfect Vedantist
There is now happily coming
into existence in Europe a new type of Sanskrit scholar, reverential,
sympathetic, and learned - reverential, because they are a better stamp of people,
and sympathetic because they are learned. And the link which connects the new
portion of the chain with the old one is, of course, our Max Muller. The Hindus
certainly owe more to him than to any other Sanskrit scholar of the West.(51)
Among the Sanskrit scholars
of the West, Professor Max Muller takes the lead.(52)
Professor Max Muller is a
perfect Vedantist and has done splendid work in Vedantism.(53)
I wish I had half of [Max
Muller’s] love for
Although [before 1895]
Professor Max Muller in all his writings on the Hindu religion added at last a
derogatory remark, he had to see the truth in the long run. [In his book on Vedantism]
you will find him swallowing the whole of it - reincarnation and
all.(55)
The old man took in
Vedanta, bones and all, and boldly came out.(56)
[As of March, 1899], the
Rig Veda Samhita, the whole of which no one could even get at before, is now
very neatly printed and made accessible to the public, thanks to the munificent
generosity of the East India Company and to the Professor’s prodigious labors
extending over years. The alphabetical characters of most of the manuscripts,
collected from many parts of
Besides this, he has been
dwelling, as it were, and spending his whole lifetime amidst ancient Sanskrit
literature; but notwithstanding this, it does not imply that in the Professor’s
imagination India is still echoing as of old with Vedic hymns, with her sky
clouded with sacrificial smoke, with many a Vashishtha, Vishwamitra, Janaka and
Yajnavalkya, with every home blooming with a Gargi or a Maitreyi, and herself
guided by the Vedic rules or canons of the Grihya-Sutra.
The Professor, with his
ever-watchful eyes, keeps himself well-informed of what new events are
occurring in the out-of-the-way corners of modern
One wonders at Professor
Max Muller’s knowledge of the social customs and codes of law, as well as the
contemporaneous occurrences in the various provinces of present-day
In particular, the
Professor observes with a keen eye what new waves of religion are rising in
different parts of
2. The Melody of
Vedanta Was Caught by Max Muller, the Re-embodiment of the Vedic Sage Sayana
I am simply astonished when
I think of the gigantic task which Max Muller, in his enthusiasm, undertook as
a young man and brought to a successful conclusion in his old age. Think of
this man, without any help, poring over old manuscripts hardly legible to the
Hindus themselves, and in a language to acquire which takes a lifetime, even in
India - without even the help of any needy pandit whose "brains could be
picked" (as the Americans say) for ten shillings a month, and with a mere
mention of his name in the introduction to some book of "very new
researches" - think of this man, spending days and sometimes months, in
elucidating the correct reading and meaning of a word or a sentence in the
commentary of Sayana (as he himself has told me) and in the end succeeding in
making an easy road through the forest of Vedic literature for all the others
to go along; think of him and his work, and then say what he really is to the Indians!
Of course, we need not all agree with him in all that he says in his many
writings; certainly such an agreement is impossible. But agreement or no
agreement, the fact remains that this one man has done a thousand times more
for the preservation, spreading and appreciation of the literature of our
Indian forebears than any of us can ever hope to do, and he has done it all
with a heart which is full of the sweet balm of love and veneration.(58)
I am not aware whether
Europe can point out another well-wisher of
My impression is that it is
Sayana who is born again as Max Muller to revive his own commentary on the
Vedas. I have had this notion for long. It became confirmed in my mind, it
seems, after I saw Max Muller. Even in
Disciple: But, sir, if Sayana himself became
Max Muller, then why was he born a mlechchha instead of being born in the
sacred
Swami Vivekananda: The feeling and distinction that I
am an Aryan and the other is a mlechchha comes from ignorance. What are
varnashrama and caste divisions to one who is the commentator of the Vedas, the
shining embodiment of knowledge? To him they are wholly meaningless, and he can
assume human birth wherever he likes to do good to humankind. Specially if he
did not choose to be born in a land which excelled both in learning and in
wealth, where would he secure the large expenses to publish such stupendous
volumes? Didn’t you hear that the East India Company spent nine lakhs of rupees
in cash to have the Rig Veda published? Even this money was not enough.
Hundreds of Vedic pandits had to be employed in
My visit [to Max Muller]
was really a revelation to me. That nice little house in its setting of a
beautiful garden, the silver-headed sage, with a calm face and benign, and a
forehead as smooth as a child’s in spite of seventy winters, and every line in
that face speaking of a deep-seated mine of spirituality somewhere behind; that
noble wife, the helpmate of his life through his long and arduous task of
exciting interest, overriding opposition and contempt, and at last creating a
respect for the thought of the sages of ancient India - the trees, the flowers,
the calmness, and the clear sky - all these sent me back in imagination to the
glorious days of ancient India, the days of our brahmarshis and rajarshis, the
days of the great vanaprasthas, the days of Arundhatis and Vashishthas.
It was neither the philologist
nor the scholar that I saw, but a soul that is every day realizing its oneness
with Brahman, a heart that is every moment expanding to reach oneness with the
Universal. Where others lose themselves in the desert of dry details, he has
struck the wellspring of life. Indeed his heartbeats have caught the rhythm of
the Upanishads: "Know your Self, and leave off all other talk." [Mund.
Up., 2.2.5]
Although a world-moving
scholar and philosopher, his learning and philosophy have only led him higher
and higher to the realization of the Spirit, his lower knowledge has indeed
helped him to reach the higher knowledge. This is real learning. "Knowledge
gives humility". Of what use is knowledge if it does not show us the way
to the Highest?
And what love he bears
towards
Max Muller is a Vedantist
of Vedantists. He has, indeed, caught the real soul of the melody of the
Vedanta in the midst of all its setting of harmonies and discord - the one
light that lightens the sects and creeds of this world, the Vedanta, the one
principle of which all religions are only applications.(61)
3. Paul Deussen has
Boldly Declared the Metaphysical Depths of the Upanishads before the Whole
World
If Max Muller is thus the
old pioneer of the new movement, Paul Deussen is certainly one of its younger
advance-guard. Philological interest had long hidden from view the gems of
thought and spirituality to be found in the mine of our ancient scriptures. Max
Muller brought out a few of them and exhibited them to the public gaze,
compelling attention to them by means of his authority as the foremost
philologist. Deussen, unhampered by any philological leanings and possessing
the training of a philosopher singularly well versed in the speculations of
ancient Greece and modern Germany, took up the cue and plunged boldly into the
metaphysical depths of the Upanishads, found them to be fully satisfying and
then equally boldly declared the fact before the whole world.(62)
In Europe it is the
interest in comparative philology that attracts scholars to the study of
Sanskrit, though there are people like Paul Deussen who take interest in
philosophy for its own sake.(63)
Doctor Deussen is what I
should call a "warring Advaitist" - no compromise with anything else.
Ishwara is his bugbear. He would have none of it, if he could.(64)
Deussen is certainly the
freest among scholars in the expression of his opinion about the Vedanta. He
never stops to think about the "what would they say" of the vast
majority of scholars. We indeed require bold men and women in this world to
tell us bold words about truth; and nowhere is this more true now than in
Europe where, through the fear of social opinion and such other causes, there
has been enough, in all conscience, of the white-washing and apologizing
attitude among scholars towards creeds and customs which, in all probability,
not many among them really believe in. The greater the glory, therefore, of Max
Muller and Deussen for their bold and open advocacy of truth! May they be as bold
in showing to Indians their defects, the later corruptions in Indian
thought-systems, especially in their application to their social needs!(65)
References
1. CW, Vol.3: The Work
before Us, pp.269-270.
2. CW, Vol.6: Hindu and
Greek, p.86.
3. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
p.434.
4. CW, Vol.1: Privilege,
p.433.
5. CW, Vol.9: History of the
Aryan Race, pp.255-256.
6. CW Vol.3: The Work before
Us, p.275.
7. CW, Vol.9: History of the
Aryan Race, p.252.
8. CW Vol.3: The Vedanta in
All Its Phases, p.322.
9. CW, Vol.4: Reincarnation,
p.264.
10. CW, Vol.5: A Discussion,
p.298.
11. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
p.434.
12. Notes, Chapter 8:
The Temple at Pandrenthan, pp.89-90.
13. CW, Vol.3: The Work
before Us, p.275.
14. CW, Vol.4: Addresses on
Bhakti-Yoga: The Chief Symbols, pp.47-48.
15. Notes. loc. cit.,
pp.88-89.
16. SVW, Vol.1, Chapter 6:
The Climax at Detroit, p.368.
17. CW, Vol.5: The Abroad
and the Problems at Home, p.212.
18. CW, Vol.4: The Reply to
the Madras Address, p.344.
19. CW, Vol.3: The Work
before Us, pp.270-272.
20. CW, Vol.1: The Spirit
and Influence of Vedanta, p.390.
21. CW, Vol.3: The Work
before Us, pp.275-276.
22. CW, Vol.4: India’s
Message to the World, pp.315-316.
23. CW, Vol.9: The History
of the Aryan Race, p.249-251.
24. Ibid., p.253.
25. CW, Vol.4: On Professor
Paul Deussen, pp.274-275.
26. CW, Vol.4: The Paris
Congress of the History of Religions, pp.426-428.
27. CW, Vol.9: History of
the Aryan Race, pp.251-252.
28. CW, Vol.3: The Religion
We Are Born in, pp.457-458.
29. CW, Vol.5: Letter to
Alasinga from New York, December 1895, p.98.
30. CW, Vol.4: Addresses on
Bhakti-Yoga: The Chief Symbols, pp.40-41.
31. CW, Vol.3: Bhakti-Yoga:
Spiritual Realization, the Aim of Bhakti-Yoga, p.44.
32. CW, Vol.3: The First
Public Lecture in the East, p.109.
33. CW, Vol.1: The Spirit
and Influence of Vedanta, p.390.
34. CW. Vol.3: Vedantism,
pp.434-435.
35. CW, Vol.8: The Reality
and the Shadow, p.237.
36. CW, Vol.6: Introduction
to Jnana-Yoga, p.43.
37. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 14, 1895, p.50.
38. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in All Its Phases, pp.341-342.
39. CW, Vol.1: Raja-Yoga:
Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms: Introduction, p.199.
40. CW, Vol.5: The
Missionary Work of the First Hindu Sannyasin to the West, p.222.
41. CW, Vol.6: Notes Taken
Down in Madras, 1892-93, pp.104-105.
42. CW, Vol.7: Memoirs of
European Travel, pp.375-376.
43. CW, Vol.2: maya and
Illusion, p.99.
44. CW, Vol.3: First Public
Lecture in the East, p.109.
45. CW, Vol.7: Inspired
Talks, July 14, 1895, p.51.
46. CW, Vol.2: The Absolute and
Manifestation, p.131.
47. CW, Vol.3: The Vedanta
in All Its Phases, pp.342-343.
48. Master as I Saw Him, Chapter
14: Past and Future in India, p.254.
49. CW, Vol.8: Letter to E.
T. Sturdy from New York, April 24, 1895, p.335.
50. CW, Vol.3: The Work
before Us, pp.278-279.
51. CW, Vol.4: On Dr. Paul
Deussen, p.275.
52. CW, Vol.4: Ramakrishna,
His Life and Sayings, p.409.
53. CW, Vol.5: The
Missionary Work of the First Hindu Sannyasin to the West, p.222.
54. CW, Vol.6: Letter to
Mrs. Bull from London, May 30, 1896, p.362.
55. CW, Vol.8: Letter to the
Hale Sisters from New York, May 5, 1895, p.337.
56. CW, Vol.8: Letter to
Mary Hale from Thousand Island Park, June 26, 1895, p.342.
57. CW, Vol.4: Ramakrishna,
His Life and Sayings, pp.409-411.
58. CW, Vol.4: On Dr. Paul
Deussen, pp.275-276.
59. CW, Vol.4: Ramakrishna,
His Life and Sayings, p.412.
60. CW, Vol.6: Conversation
with Sharat Chandra Chakravarty, Calcutta, 1897, pp.495-496.
61. CW, Vol.4: On Professor
Max Muller, pp.280-281.
62. CW, Vol.4: On Dr. Paul
Deussen, pp.276-277.
63. CW, Vol.3: Vedantism,
p.435.
64. CW, Vol.8: Letter to Mr.
E.T. Sturdy from Kiel, September 10, 1896, p.388.
65. CW, Vol.4: On Dr. Paul
Deussen, p.277.