Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 13)

[Guest guest]

We are presenting the following work by Sister Gayatriprana.

Parts 1 to 12 were posted earlier. This is part 13. Your comments are welcome.

jay/Vivekananda Centre London

Earlier postings can be seen at http://www.vivekananda.btinternet.co.uk/veda.htm

 

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 13

 

Continued.......

 

g) Systematizing the Concepts of Vedanta

 

More and more as time went on, the Swami had found it necessary to systematize

his religious ideas. To do this he felt he would necessarily have to re-organize

the entire Hindu philosophical thought by unifying its distinctive features

around a few leading ideas of the Hindu religious systems, so as to make it more

readily intelligible to Western minds. He wanted to bring out, according to

different schools of Vedanta, the ideas of the soul and the divinity or final

goal, the relation of matter and force and the Vedantic conception of cosmology,

and how they coincided with modern science. He also intended to draw up a

classification of the Upanishads according to the passages which have a distinct

bearing on Advaita, Vishishtadvaita, and the Dvaita conceptions, in order to

show how all of them can be reconciled. His constructive genius thus roused made

him want to write a book, carefully working out all these ideas in a definite

form. (34)

 

To Alasinga, April 4, 1895: "Send me the Vedanta Sutras and the commentaries of

all the sects." (35)

 

To Alasinga, May 6, 1895: In your [English language] journal write article after

article on the three systems [of Vedanta philosophy], showing their harmony as

one following after the other, and at the same time keep off the ceremonial

forms altogether. That is, preach the philosophy, the spiritual part, and let

people suit it to their own forms. I wish to write a book on this subject;

therefore I wanted the three Bhashyas; but only one volume of the Ramanuja

Bhashya has reached me as yet." (36)

 

By the time Swami Vivekananda went to Thousand Island Park in the summer of

1895, he had with him the Bhashyas of all the sects, and all his philosophical

writings and utterances were, as it were, so many commentaries upon these, which

were remarkably original in their expression. He would accept no authority as

final, "knowing full well how each commentator, in turn, had twisted the texts

to suit his own meaning." Whensoever he made comments in his classes upon the

Vedas or other sacred scriptures of Hinduism, he was found invariably to throw a

whole world of light and revelation upon the texts. (37)

 

To Swami Ramakrishnananda from Caversham, Autumn, 1895: Well, you just patiently

do one thing - set about collecting everything that books, beginning with the

Rig Veda down to the most insignificant of Puranas and Tantras, have got to say

about annihilation of the universe, about race, heaven and hell, the soul,

consciousness, and intellect, etc., the sense-organs, mukti and transmigration

and suchlike things. No child's play will do - I want really scholarly work. The

most important thing is to collect the materials. (38)

 

To Mr. E. T. Sturdy, London, October 31, 1895: It is absolutely necessary to

form some ritual and have a church. That is to say, we must fix on some ritual

as fast as we can. If you can come Saturday morning or sooner, we shall go to

the Asiatic Society Library, or you can procure for me a book called Hemadri

Kosha, from which we can get what we want; and kindly bring the Upanishads. We

will fix something grand, from birth to death of a man. A mere loose system of

philosophy gets no hold on mankind.

 

If we can get it through before we have finished the classes, and publish it by

publicly holding a service or two under it, it will go on. They want to form a

congregation, and they want ritual. (39)

 

[This proposal of Swami Vivekananda was apparently never carried out]

 

To Mr. Sturdy from New York, February 13, 1896: I am working a good deal now

upon the cosmology and eschatology of the Vedanta. I clearly see their perfect

unison with modern science, and the elucidation of the one will be followed by

that of the other. I intend to write a book later on in the form of questions

and answers. (40)

 

[This was never done, but from his lectures in London in 1896 it is easy to see

that his mind was still working on these ideas.]

 

Swami Vivekananda came to London [in the spring of 1896] and called for Swami

Saradananda [to help with the Western work]. Swami Vivekananda's

brother-disciples sent Swami Saradananda off on S.S.Rewa. In a few days the call

came for Swami Abhedananda. Swami Vivekananda in his letter [of July 3, 1896]

asked him to take all the Vedic classics with him:

 

"Send Swami Abhedananda to England as soon as you get this letter.... He will

have to bring some books for me. I have only got the Rig Veda Samhita Ask him to

bring the Yajur Veda, Sama Veda, Atharva Veda, as many of the Brahmanas as he

can get, beginning with the Shatapata, some of the Sutras, and Yaska's Nirukta."

 

His brother-disciples went to the abode of the savant Satyavata Samashrami and

purchased all the volumes of the Vedic books, Bibliotheca Indica, compiled by

him and published by the Asiatic Society. Then Swami Abhedananda boarded the

ship and his brothers gave him a sendoff. (41)

 

On Friday, August 6th, 1897... Swami Abhedananda landed at the port of New York,

the commercial capital of the United States of America. He had with him a box of

Sanskrit books on the Vedas, Upanishads, and six systems of Hindu philosophy

which he had brought from India at the request of Swami Vivekananda. (42)

 

To Alasinga, Autumn, 1896: I am busy writing something big on the Vedanta

philosophy. I am busy collecting passages from the various Vedas bearing on the

Vedanta in its threefold aspect. You can help me by getting someone to collect

passages bearing on, first, the advaitic idea, then the vishishtadvaitic, and

the dvaitic, from the Samhitas, the Brahmanas, the Upanishads and the Puranas.

They should be classified and very legibly written with the name and chapter of

the book in each case. It would be a pity to leave the West without leaving

something of the philosophy in book form.

 

There was a book published in Mysore in Tamil characters, comprising all the one

hundred and eight Upanishads; I saw it in Professor Deussen's library. Is there

a reprint of the same in Devanagari? If so, send me a copy. If not, send me the

Tamil edition and also write on a sheet the Tamil letters and compounds, and all

juxtaposed with its Nagari equivalents, so that I may learn the Tamil letters.

(43)

 

October 31, 1896, from the Journal Light: We lately listened to a discourse by

Swami Vivekananda.... The subject, in the main, was the Vedas, but we got

excursions on evolution, modern science, idealism and realism, the supremacy of

the Spirit, etc. On the whole, we gathered that the speaker was a preacher of

the universal religion of spiritual ascendancy and spiritual harmony. Certain

passages from the Vedas - beautifully translated and read, by the way - were

charming in their bearing upon the humaneness and sharp reality of a life beyond

the veil. One longed for more of this.

 

We were much impressed with the admission that in the Vedas there are many

contradictions, and that devout Hindus never thought of denying them nor

reconciling them. Everyone was free to take what he liked. At different stages

and on different planes, all were true. Hence the Hindus never excommunicated

and never persecuted. The contradictions in the Vedas are like the

contradictions in life - they are very real, but they are all true. This seems

impossible, but there is sound sense in it. (44)

 

Swami Vivekananda was invited by the Paris Congress of the History of Religions

[in the autumn of 1900] to contradict the conviction of many of the Sanskrit

scholars of the West that the Vedic religion is the outcome of the worship of

the fire, the sun, and other awe-inspiring objects of natural phenomena. He

promised to read a paper on this subject, but he could not keep his promise on

account of ill health, and only with difficulty was he able to be personally

present at the Congress, where he was most warmly received by all the Western

Sanskrit scholars, whose admiration for the swami was all the greater as they

had already gone through many of his lectures on the Vedanta. (45)

 

to be continued.....