Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 138)

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Namaste,

For me the importance of Love, as the shining permeating essence within the Vedas.

OM

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Parts 1 to 137 were posted earlier. This is part 138. 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 138

ii) Despite His Grand and Rational Doctrine, Shankaracharya Had No Great Liberality of Heart

Shankara’s doctrine [is] far more grand and rational [than that of Buddha]. Buddha and Kapila are always saying that the world is full of grief and nothing but that - flee from it - ay, for your life, do! Is happiness altogether absent here?… There is grief, forsooth, but what can be done? Perchance some will suggest that grief itself will appear as happiness when you become used to it by constant suffering. Shankara does not take this line of argument. He says: This world is and is not - manifold, yet one; I shall unravel its mystery - I shall know whether grief be there, or anything else; I do not flee from it as from a bugbear. I will know all about it - as to the infinite pain that attends its search, well, I am embracing it in its fullest measure. Am I a beast that you frighten me with happiness and misery, decay and death, which are but the outcome of the senses? I will know about it - I will give up my life for it. There is nothing to know about in this world - therefore, if there be anything beyond this relative existence - what the Lord Buddha has designated as prajnapara - the transcendental - if such there be, I want that alone. Whether happiness attends it, or grief, I do not care. What a lofty idea! How grand! The religion of Buddha has reared itself upon the Upanishads, and upon that also the philosophy of Shankara. Only, Shankara had not the slightest bit of Buddha’s wonderful heart, dry intellect merely! For fear of the Tantras, for fear of the mob, in his attempt to cure a boil, he amputated the very arm itself! [He neglected the rank and file of his countrymen which had been captured by Tantricism, of which the excesses were threatening the purity of the Vedic religion](78)

Shankara’s intellect was sharp as a razor. He was a good arguer and scholar, no doubt of that, but he had no great liberality; his heart too seems to have been like that. Besides, he used to take great pride in his brahminism, much like the southern brahmin of the priest class, you may say. How he has defended his commentary in the Vedanta Sutras that the non-brahmin castes will not attain to a supreme knowledge of Brahman! And what specious arguments! Referring to Vidura [a saintly character in the Mahabharata who was of low caste], he has said that he became a knower of Brahman by reason of his brahmin body in his previous incarnation. Well, if nowadays a shudra [lowest caste person] attains to knowledge of Brahman shall we have to side without your Shankara and maintain that, because he had been a brahmin is his previous birth, therefore he attained to this knowledge! Goodness! What is the use of dragging in brahminism with so much ado! The Vedas have entitled anyone belonging to the three upper castes to a study of the Vedas and the realization of Brahman, haven’t they? So Shankara had no need whatsoever of displaying this curious bit of pedantry on this subject, contrary to the Vedas.(79)

Shankaracharya could not adduce any proof from the Vedas to the effect that the shudra should not study the Vedas. He only quotes, "The shudra is not conceived of as a performer of yajna or Vedic sacrifices" [Taitt. Samhita 7.1.1.6] to maintain that when he is not entitled to perform yajnas, neither has he any right to study the Upanishads and the like. But the same acharya contends, with reference to the "Now then commences hence the inquiry about Brahman" [Vedanta Sutras, 1.1.1] that the words now then does not mean subsequent to the study of the Vedas, because it is contrary to proof that the study of the Upanishads is not permissible without the previous study of the Vedic mantras and Brahmanas and because there is no intrinsic sequence between the Vedic karma-kanda and jnana-kanda. It is evident, therefore, that one may attain to the knowledge of Brahman without having studied the ceremonial parts of the Vedas. So, if there is no sequence between the sacrificial practices and jnana, why does the acharya contradict his own statement when it is a case of the shudras, by inserting the clause, "By the force of the same logic"? Why should the shudra not study the Upanishads?(80)

The Upanishads and the Gita are the true scriptures; Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Chaitanya, Nanak, Kabir and so on are the true avatars, for they had hearts as broad as the sky - and, above all, Ramakrishna.

Shankara, Ramanuja, etc. seem to have been mere pundits with much narrowness of heart. Where is that love, that weeping heart at the sorrows of others? Dry pedantry of the pandit, and the feeling of only oneself getting to salvation hurry-scurry! But is that going to be possible? Was it ever likely, or will it ever be so? (81)