Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 34)

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Parts 1 to 33 were posted earlier. This is part 34. Your comments are welcome... Vivekananda Centre London

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SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 34

 

 

PART I, SECTION 2: VEDIC CULTURE

Section 3: The Historical Roots of the Vedanta

Chapter 7: The Emergence of Vedanta, the Spiritual Gist and Goal of the Vedas

Chapter 8: The Struggle to Establish the Kingdom of Vedanta

Chapter 9: The Sources of Authority in Vedanta

 

PART I, SECTION 3: THE HISTORICAL ROOTS OF THE VEDANTA

 

Chapter 7: The Emergence of Vedanta, the Spiritual Gist and Goal of the Vedas

 

a) The Crystallization of Religion in India

1. The Oppression of Vedic Society by Regulations and Priestly Power

The work portion… pertained entirely to the sense life. It taught to do good works and that one might go to heaven and enjoy eternal happiness. Anything, in fact, that one might want could be provided for one by the work or ceremonials. It provided for all classes of people, good and bad. Nothing could be obtained through the ceremonials except by the intercession of the priests. So, if one wanted anything, even if it was to have an enemy killed, all one had to do was to pay the priest and the priest, through these ceremonials, would procure the desired results. It was, therefore, in the interests of the priest that the ceremonial portion of the Vedas should be preserved. By it they had their living. They consequently did all in their power to preserve that portion intact. Many of these ceremonials were very complicated, and it took years to perform some of them. (1)

Society [was] so oppressed by regulations, [and] the power was in the hands of the priests. In the social scale, the highest caste is [that of ] the priest, and that being a business - I do not know any other word - that is why I use the word priest. It is not in the same sense as in [the USA], because our priest is not a man who teaches religion or philosophy. The business of a priest is to perform all those minute details of regulations which have been laid down. The priest is the man who helps you in these regulations. He marries you; to your funeral he comes to pray. So at all the ceremonies performed upon a man or a woman, the priests must be there. In society the ideal is marriage. [Everyone] must marry. It is the rule. Without marriage, man is not able to perform any religious ceremony; he is only half a man; [he] is not competent to officiate as a priest, except he marries.

Now, the power of the priests increased tremendously. (2)

The priest naturally said to himself, "Why should I part with the power that has made the devas [gods] subservient to me, has given me mastery over physical and mental illnesses, and has gained for me the service of ghosts, demons, and other unseen spirits? I have dearly bought this power by the price of extreme renunciation. Why should I give to others that, to get which I had to give up my wealth, name, fame - in short, all my earthly comforts and happiness? Again, that power is entirely mental. And how many opportunities are there of keeping it a perfect secret! Entangled in this wheel of circumstances, human nature becomes what it inevitably would; being used to practice constant self-concealment, it becomes a victim of extreme selfishness and hypocrisy and at last succumbs to the poisonous consequences which they bring in their train. In time, the reaction of this very desire to concealment rebounds upon oneself. All knowledge, all wisdom is almost lost for want of proper exercise and diffusion, and what little remains is thought to have been obtained from some supernatural source; and therefore, far from making fresh efforts to go in for originality and gain knowledge of new sciences, it is considered useless and futile to attempt even to improve the remnants of the old by cleansing them of their corruptions. Thus lost to former wisdom, the former indomitable Spirit of self-reliance, the priest, now glorifying himself merely in the name of his forefathers, vainly struggles to preserve untarnished for himself the same glory, the same privilege, the same veneration, and the same supremacy as was enjoyed by his great forefathers. (3)

 

2. The Tremendous Mass of Rituals Almost Killed the True Religion

As the spiritual ideas [of the Vedas] progressed an arithmetical progression, so the ritualistic ideas progressed in geometrical progression. The old superstitions... developed into a tremendous mass of rituals, which grew and grew until it almost killed Hindu life. And it is still there, it has got hold of and permeated every portion of our life and made us born slaves. Yet, at the same time, we find a fight against this advance of ritual from the very earliest days. The one objection raised there is this: that ceremonials, dressing at certain times, eating in a certain way, and shows and mummeries of religion like these are only external religion, because you are satisfied with the senses and do not want to go beyond them. This is a tremendous difficulty with us, with every human being. At best, when we want to hear of spiritual things our standard is the senses; or someone hears about philosophy, about God, and transcendental things, and after hearing about them for day, asks: after all, how much money will they bring, how much sense-enjoyments will they bring? For his enjoyment is only in the senses, quite naturally. But that satisfaction in the senses, say our sages, is one of the causes which have spread the veil between the truth and ourselves. (4)

In the Vedic ashwamedha sacrifice worse things [than marrying off girls before puberty] would be done.... All the Brahmanas mention them, and all the commentators admit them to be true. (5)

Before [the orthodox priests] came, the popular ideas of a God ruling the universe, and that man was immortal, were in existence. But there they stopped. It was thought that nothing more could be known. Here came the daring of the expounders of Vedanta. They knew that a religion meant for children is not good for thinking men, that there is something more to humanity and God....

The crystallization of religion in India had been going on for many years. Already there were elaborate ceremonies; already there had been perfected a system of morals for the different stages of life. But there came a rebellion against the mummeries and mockeries that enter into many religions in time, and great men came forth to proclaim through the Vedas the true religion. (6)

[When] the priests, even at that dawn of history [were putting] most of their energies into elaborating rituals; and when the nation began to find the load of ceremonies and lifeless rituals too heavy - came the first philosophical speculations, and the royal race was the first to break through the maze of killing rituals. (7)

 

b) The Struggle against the Spiritual Tyranny of the Priesthood

1. The Great Conflict between the Conservative Priests and the Kings Who Promulgated the Philosophic Portion of the Vedas

The priests differentiated themselves into a separate caste. The second caste was the caste of the kings.... All the Upanishadic philosophy is from the brains of kings, not priests. (8)

The Vedic priests based their superior strength on the knowledge of the sacrificial mantras. By the power of these mantras, the devas are made to come down from their heavenly abodes, accept the drink and food offerings and grant the prayers of the yajamanas [the men who perform sacrifices]. The kings as well as their subjects are, therefore, looking up to these priests for welfare during their earthly life. Raja soma [ King soma - the Vedic name for the soma plant] is worshipped by the priests and is made to thrive by the power of his mantras. As such, the devas whose favorite food is the juice of the soma plant is offered in oblation by the priest, are always kind to him and bestow his desired boons. Thus strengthened by divine grace, he defies all human opposition; for what can the power of rituals do against that of the gods? Even the king, the center of all earthly power, is a supplicant at this door. A kind look from him is the greatest help; his mere blessing a tribute to the state, preeminent above everything else.

Now commanding the king to be engaged in affairs fraught with death and ruin, now standing by him as his fastest friend, with kind and wise counsels, now spreading the net of subtle, diplomatic statesmanship in which the king is easily caught - the priest is seen oftentimes to make the royal power totally subservient to him. Above all, the worst fear is in the knowledge that the name and fame of the royal forefathers and of himself and his family lie at the mercy of the priest's pen. He is the historian. The king might have paramount power; attaining great glory in his reign, he might prove himself as the father and mother in one to his subjects; but if the priests are not appeased, the sun of his glory goes down with his last breath for ever; all his worth and usefulness deserving of universal approbation are lost in the great womb of time, like the fall of the gentle dew in the ocean. Others, who inaugurated the huge sacrifices lasting many years, the performers of the ashwamedha and so on - those who showered, like incessant rain in the rainy season, uncounted wealth on the priests - their names, thanks to the grace of the priests, are emblazoned in the pages of history. The name of Pryadasi Dharmashoka [the Buddhist emperor], the beloved of the gods, is nothing but a name in the priestly world, while Janamejaya, the son of Parikshit [a performer of the snake sacrifice], is a household word in every Hindu family. (9)

Ancient India [was] for centuries... the battlefield for the ambitious projects of two of her foremost classes - the brahmins [priests] and the kshatriyas [kings].

On the one had, the priesthood stood between the lawless social tyranny of the princes over the masses, whom the kshatriyas declared to be their legal food. On the other hand, the kshatriya power was the one potent force which struggled with any success against the spiritual tyranny of the priesthood and the ever-increasing chain of ceremonials which they were forging to bind down the people with. (10)

Between the kings, who promulgated that philosophic portion of the Vedas, and the priests, a great conflict arose. The priests had the people on their side because they had all the utility which appealed to the popular mind. The kings had all the spirituality and none of the economic element; but as they were powerful and the rulers of the nation, the struggle was a hard and bitter one. The kings gradually gained a little ground, but their ideas were too elevated for the masses, so the ceremonial or work portion always had the mass of the people Always remember this - whenever a religious system gains ground with the people at Large, it has a strong economic side to it. It is the economic side to a religion that finds lodgement with the people at Large, and never its spiritual or philosophic side. If you should preach the grandest philosophy in the streets for a year, you would not have a handful of followers; but if you could preach the most arrant nonsense with an economic element, you would have the whole people with you. (11)

There [runs] an economic struggle through every religious one. This animal called human has some religious influence, but is guided by economy. Individuals are guided by something else, but the mass of humankind never make a move unless economy is [involved]. You may [preach a religion that may not be perfect in every detail], but if there is an economic background [to it], and you have the most [ardent champions] to preach it, you can convince a whole country....

For the religion of the Upanishads to be popularized was a hard task. Very little economy is there, but tremendous altruism. (12)