Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 136)

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Parts 1 to 135 were posted earlier. This is part 136. 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 136

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 Why, then, are the long-continued [Vedic] customs of madhuparka [serving beef to a guest] and the like repealed by one or two [Puranic] texts such as, "The horse-sacrifice, the cow-sacrifice, sannyasa, meat-offering in the shraddha [funeral] ceremony are to be forsaken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)