Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 19)

October 28, 2000

We are presenting the following work by Sister Gayatriprana.

Parts 1 to 18 were posted earlier. This is part 19. Your comments are welcome... 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 19

c) Though the Largest Portion of the Vedas Are Lost, They Still Are a Huge Literature

India has been the one country to which every nation that has become strong wants to go and conquer, it being reputed to be very rich. The wealth of the people had become a fable, even in the most ancient history. [Many foreign invaders] rushed to become wealthy in India and conquered the country. Every one of these invasions destroyed one or more of the families [who were the custodians of the Vedas], burned many libraries and houses. And when that was so, much literature was lost. It is only within the last few years that ideas have begun to spring up about the retention of these various religions and books. Before that, mankind had to suffer all this pillaging and breaking down. Must stupendous creations of art were lost forever. Wonderful buildings - where, from a few bits of remnants now in India, it can be imagined how wonderful they were - are completely gone. (16)

Almost the largest portion of the Vedas has been lost. The priests who carried it down to posterity were divided into so many families; and, accordingly, the Vedas were divided into so may parts. Each part was allotted to a family. The rituals, the ceremonies, the customs, the worship of that family were to be obtained from that [respective] portion of the Vedas. They preserved it and performed the ceremonies according to that. In course of time, [some of ] these families became extinct; and with them, their portion of the Vedas was lost, if these old accounts be true. (17)

Some of the Vedic secrets were known to certain families only, as certain powers naturally exist in some families. With the extinction of these families, the secrets have died away. (18)

Many of the texts of the Vedas are lost. They were divided into branches, each branch put into the head of certain priests and kept alive by memory. Such men still exist. They will repeat book after book of the Vedas without missing a single intonation. The larger portion of the Vedas has disappeared. The small portion left makes a whole library by itself. The oldest of these contain the hymns of the Rig Veda. (19)

Ninety-nine percent of the Vedas are missing; they were in the keeping of certain families, with whose extinction the books were lost. But still, those left now could not be contained even in a large hall.... They were written is language archaic and simple; their grammar was very crude, so much so that it was said that some parts of the Vedas have no meaning. (20)

You find in every nation when a new idea, a new form, a new discovery or invention comes in, the old things are not brushed aside all at once, but are relegated to the religion of holiness. The ancient Hindus used to write on palm leaves and birch bark; and when paper was invented they did not throw aside all the palm leaves, but used to consider writing on palm leaves and birch bark holy.... So this form of transmitting the literature of the Vedas from teacher to disciple by word of mouth, although antiquated and almost useless now, has become holy. The student may refresh his memory by books, but has to learn by word of mouth of a teacher. (21)

c) Hinduism Is the Religion of the Vedas

First, in discussing the scriptures, one fact stands out prominently - that only those religions which had one or many scriptures of their own as their basis advanced by leaps and bounds and survive to the present day, notwithstanding all the persecution and repression hurled against them. The Greek religion, with all its beauty, died out in the absence of any scripture to support it; but the religion of the Jews stands undiminished in its power, being based on the authority of the Old Testament. The same is the case with the Hindu religion, with its scripture, the Vedas, the oldest in the world. (22)

By Hinduism, I mean the religion of the Vedas. (23)

The Hindus proper look up to the Vedas as their religious scripture. (24)

The Hindus received their religion through the revelation of the Vedas. (25)

The Hindus founded their creed upon the ancient Vedas, a word derived from vid, to know. (26)

The cardinal features of the Hindu religion are founded on the meditative and speculative philosophy and on the ethical teachings contained in the various books of the Vedas. (27)

e) Modern Hinduism Is, Properly, the Religion of the Vedas and Vedanta

In the Vedas we find both [these names]: sindhu and indu for the river Indus; the Persians transformed them into hindu and the Greeks into indus, whence we derived the words India and Indian. (28)

This word Hindu was the name that the ancient Persians used to apply to the river Sindhu. Whenever in Sanskrit there is an s in ancient Persian it changes into an h, so that sindhu became hindu; and you are all aware how the Greeks found it hard to pronounce h and dropped it altogether, so that we became known as Indians. (29)

The word Hindu by which it is the fashion nowadays to style ourselves, has lost all its meaning, for this word merely meant those who lived on the other side of the river Indus (in Sanskrit sindhu). This name was murdered into hindu by the ancient Persians and all people living on the other side of the river Sindhu were called by them Hindus. (30)

Now this word Hindu, as applied to the inhabitants of the other side of the Indus, whatever might have been its meaning in ancient times, has lost all its force in modern times; for all the people that live on this side of the Indus no longer belong to one religion. There are the Hindus proper, the Muslims, the Parsees, the Christians, Buddhists and Jains. The word Hindu in its real, literal sense ought to include all these, but as signifying the religion, it would not be proper to call all these Hindus. (31)

With the re of Islam the word Hindu became degraded and meant " a dark-skinned fellow", as is the case now with the word native. (32)

Thus this word has come down to us; and during the Muslim rule we [indians] took up the word ourselves. There may not be any harm in using the word, of course; but, as I have said, it has lost its significance, for you may mark that all the people who live on this side of the Indus in modern times do not follow the same religion as they did in ancient times. The word, therefore, covers not only Hindus proper, but Muslims, Christians, Jains, and other people who live in India. I therefore would not use the word Hindu. What word should we use, then? The other words which alone we can use are either the Vaidikas, the followers of the Vedas - or, better still, the Vedantists, the followers of the Vedanta. (33)

The word Vedanta literally means the end of the Vedas - the Vedas being the scriptures of the Hindu. (34)

The Vedanta means the end of the Vedas, the third section, or Upanishads, containing the ripened ideas which we find more as germs in the earlier portion. (35)

The last part of the Vedas is called the Vedanta, meaning the end of the Vedas. It deals with the theories contained in them, and more especially with the philosophy with which we are concerned. It is written in Sanskrit, and, you must remember, was written thousands of years ago. (36)

Sometimes, in the West, by the Vedas are meant only the hymns and rituals of the Vedas. But at the present time these parts have gone almost out of use; and usually by the word Vedas, in India, the Vedanta is meant. All our commentators, when they want to quote a passage from the scriptures, as a rule, quote from the Vedanta, which has another technical name with the commentators - the Shrutis.... 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. (37)

It is very hard... to find any common name for our religion, seeing that this religion is a collection, so to speak, of various religions, of various ideas, of various ceremonials and forms, all gathered together almost without a name, and without a church, and without an organization. The only point where, perhaps, all our sects agree is that we all believe in the scriptures - the Vedas. This perhaps is certain that no man can have a right to be called a Hindu who does not admit the supreme authority of the Vedas.... The spiritual teachings of the Vedas known as the Upanishads and the Vedanta has always been quoted as the highest authority by all our teachers, philosophers, and writers, whether dualist, qualified monist, or monist.... Therefore, perhaps in modern times, the one name which should designate every Hindu throughout the land should be Vedantist or Vaidika, as you may put it; and in that sense I always use the words Vedantism and Vedanta. (38)