Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 37)

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Parts 1 to 36 were posted earlier. This is part 37. 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 37

 

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

 

Chapter 8: The Struggle to Establish the Kingdom of the Upanishads

 

a) The Revolutionizing of Indian Society through Religion

In the Vedic and adjoining periods the royal power could not manifest itself on account of the grinding pressure of the priestly power. `(1)

The Upanishads had very little kingdom, although they were discovered by kings who held all the royal power in their hands. So the struggle... began to be fiercer. (2)

It is the evidence of history that at a certain time every society attains its manhood, when a strong conflict ensues between the ruling power and the common people. The life of society, its expansion and civilization, depend on its victory or defeat in this conflict.

Such changes, revolutionizing society, have been happening in India again and again, only [there] they have been effected in the name of religion, for religion is the life of India, religion is the language of that country, the symbol of all its movements. (3)

[A Vedantic Sanskrit masque, Prabodha Chandrodaya, expresses the truth that we must] feed religion and help it grow, and it will become a giant. King Desire and King Knowledge fought, and just as the latter was about to be defeated, he was reconciled to Queen Upanishad, and a child was born to him - Realization - which saved the victory for him. (4)

The Charvaka, the Jain, the Buddhist, Shankara, Ramanuja, Kabir, Nanak, Chaitanya, the Brahmo-Samaj, the Arya Samaj - of all of these, and similar sects, the wave of religion, foaming, thundering, surging, breaks in the front, while in the rear follows the filling-up of social wants. If all desires can be accomplished by the mere utterance of some meaningless syllables, then who will exert himself to go through difficulties to work out the fulfillment of his desires? If this malady enters into the entire body of any social system, then that society becomes slothful and indisposed to any exertion, and soon hastens to its ruin. Hence, the slashing sarcasm of the Charvakas, who believed only in the reality of sense-perceptions and nothing beyond. What could have saved Indian society from the ponderous burden of omniferous ritualistic ceremonialism with its animal and other sacrifices, which all but crushed the very life out of it, except the Jain revolution which took its strong stand exclusively on chaste morals and philosophical truth? Or without the Buddhist revolution what could have delivered the suffering millions of the lower classes from the violent tyrannies of the influential higher castes? When, in course of time, Buddhism declined and its extremely pure and moral character gave place to equally bad, unclean and immoral practices, when Indian society trembled under the infernal dance of the various races of barbarians who were allowed into the Buddhistic fold by virtue of its all-embracing Spirit of equality - then Shankara, and later Ramanuja, appeared on the scene and tried their best to bring society back to its former days of glory and to re-establish its lost status. (5)

 

b) The Beginning of the Triangular Fight between Ceremonialism, Philosophy and Materialism

1. The Charvakas, Who Upheld Materialism as the Highest Goal of Life

[besides the priests and the kings engaged in struggle], there were others - recruited from both the priests and the king castes - who ridiculed equally the ritualizes and philosophers, declared spiritualism as a fraud and priestcraft, and upheld the attainment of material comforts as the highest goal of life. The people, tired of ceremonials, and wondering at the philosophers, joined the materialists in masses. (6)

The Charvaka, or materialist, basing his doctrine on the first part - the sacrificial portion - of the Vedas, believed that all was matter and that there is neither a heaven nor a hell, neither a soul nor a God. (7)

The Charvakas... preached horrible things, the most rank, undisguised materialism, such as in the nineteenth century they dare not openly preach. These Charvakas were allowed to preach from temple to temple and city to city, that religion was all nonsense, that it was priestcraft, that the Vedas were the words and writings of fools, rogues, and demons, and that there was neither a God nor an eternal soul. If there were a soul, why did it not come back after death, drawn by the love of wife and child? Their idea was that, if there were a soul, it must still love after death and want good things to eat and nice dress. Yet no one hurt these Charvakas. (8)

[The Charvaka movement] was the beginning of that caste question, and that triangular fight in India between ceremonials, philosophy and materialism which has come down unsolved to our own days. (9)

 

2. Krishna, Who Brought Reconciliation by His Unique Spirituality and Superhuman Genius

i) The Reconciliation between the Priests and the People Brought about by Krishna’s Eclectic Teachings

So the great struggle began in India and it comes to one of its culminating points in the Gita. When it was causing fear that all India was going to be broken up between the [priests and the people], there rose this man Krishna, and in the Gita he tries to reconcile the ceremony and the philosophy of the priests and the people. (10)

The first solution of the difficulty attempted was by applying the eclecticism which, from the earliest days, had taught the people to see in differences the same truth in various garbs [Rig Veda 1.164.46] The great leader of this school, Krishna - himself of royal race - and his sermon, the Gita have, after various vicissitudes brought about by the upheavals of the Jains, the Buddhists, and other sects, fairly established themselves a the "Prophet of India" and the truest philosophy of life. (11)

This Krishna preceded Buddha by some thousand years... A great many people do not believe that he ever existed. Some believe that [the worship of Krishna grew out of] the old sun worship. There seem to have been several Krishnas; one was mentioned in the Upanishads, another was a king, another a general. All have lumped into one Krishna. It does not matter much. The fact is, some individual comes who is unique in spirituality. (12)

 

ii) The Teaching of Motiveless Work Brought a Momentary Lull in the Struggle between the Priests and the Kings

The tug of war [between the brahmins and the kshatriyas had begun] in the earliest periods of the history of the [indian race], and throughout the Shrutis it can be distinctly traced. A momentary lull came when Sri Krishna, leading the faction of kshatriya power and of jnana, showed the way to reconciliation. The result was the teachings of the Gita - the essence of philosophy, of liberality, of religion. (13)

When the Gita was first preached, there was going on a great controversy between two sects. One party considered the Vedic yajnas and animal sacrifices and suchlike karmas to constitute the whole of religion. The other preached that the killing of numberless horses and cattle cannot be called religion. The people belonging to the latter party were mostly sannyasins and followers of jnana. They believed that the giving up of all work and the gaining of knowledge of the Self was the only path to moksha [liberation]. By the preaching of his great doctrine of work without motive, the author of the Gita put at rest the dispute of these two antagonistic sects. (14)

Krishna was, from his childhood, against snake-worship and Indra-worship. Indra worship is a Vedic ritual. Throughout the Gita he is not favorable to Vedic ritual. (15)

Krishna saw plainly through the vanity of all the mummeries, mockeries and ceremonials of the old priests; and yet he saw some good in them.

If you are a strong man, very good! But do not curse others who are not strong enough for you.... Everyone says, "Woe unto you people!" Who says, "Woe unto me that I cannot help you. The people are doing all right to the best of their ability and means and knowledge. Woe unto me that I cannot lift them to where I am"?

So, the ceremonials, worship of gods, and myths are all right, says Krishna.... Why? Because they all lead to the same goal. Ceremonies, books and forms - all these are the links in the chain. Get hold! That is the one thing. If you are sincere and have really got hold of one link, do not let go; the rest is bound to come. [but people] do not get hold. They spend the time quarreling and determining what they should get hold of, and do not get hold of anything.… We are always after truth, but never want to get it. We simply want the pleasure to go about and ask. We have a lot of energy and spend it that way. That is why Krishna says: Get hold of any one of these chains that are stretched out from a common center. No one step is greater than another.... Blame no view of religion so far as it is sincere. Hold on to one of these links and it will pull you to the center. Your heart itself will teach all the rest. The teacher within will teach all the creeds, all the philosophies. (16)

That priestly power which began its strife for superiority with the royal power from the Vedic times and continued it down through the ages, that hostility against the kshatra power, Bhagavan Sri Krishna succeeded by his superhuman genius in putting a stop to, at least for the time being, during his earthly existence. (17)

 

3. The Conservative Force of the Ethical Principles and Good Works of the Jains

[Of the pre-Buddhistic sects which took up whatever portion of the Vedas they liked], the Jains were very moral atheists who, while rejecting the idea of a God, believed that there is a soul, striving for more perfect development. (18)

The Jains... are a very ancient sect [who are] a conservative force in India [even] today.... This sect was at least five hundred years before Buddha, and he was five hundred and fifty years before Christ....

They declared against the validity of the scriptures of the Hindus, the Vedas. They wrote some books themselves, and they said, "Our books are the only original books, the only original Vedas, and the Vedas that are now going under that name have been written by the brahmins to dupe the people."...

In their methods and manners they were different.... By work, they mean doing good to others. That has, of course, something in it; but mostly, as to the brahmins, work means to perform these elaborate ceremonials: killing of cows and bulls, killing of goats and all sorts of animals, that are taken fresh and thrown into the fire, and so on. "Now", declared the Jains, "that is no work at all, because injuring others can never be any good work." And they said, "This is the proof that your Vedas are false Vedas, manufactured by the priests, because you do not mean to say that any good book will order us [to be] killing animals and doing these things. You do not believe it. So all this killing of animals and other things that you see in the Vedas, they have been written by the brahmins, because they alone are benefited. It is the priest only [who] pockets the money and goes home. So, therefore, it is all priestcraft."

It was one of their doctrines that there cannot be any God. "The priests have invented God that the people may believe in God and pay them money. All nonsense! There is no God. There is nature and there are souls, and that is all. Souls have got entangled in this life and got round them the clothing of man you call a body. Now, do good work."...

These Jains were the first great ascetics, but they did some great work. "Don't injure any, and do good to all that you can, and that is all the morality and ethics, and that is all the work there is and the rest is all nonsense - the brahmins created that. Throw it all away." And then they went to work and elaborated this one principle all through - and it is a most wonderful ideal: how all that we call ethics they simply bring out from that one great principle of non-injury and doing good. (19)