Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 155)

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Parts 1 to 154 were posted earlier. This is part 155. 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 155

PART III, SECTION 7: THE FRAGMENTATION OF THE VEDIC MESSAGE IN INDIA

Chapter 19: Intellectual and Social Abuses in Modern Times

a) For the Last Thousand Years We Have Been Weakened by Non-Vedic Stories

1. In Their Ordinary Lives Indians Are Mostly Puranic or Tantric

The Upanishads are our scriptures. They have been differently explained and, as I have told you already, whenever there is a difference between subsequent Puranic literature and the Vedas, the Puranas must give way. But it is at the same time true that, as a practical result, we find ourselves ninety percent Puranic and ten percent Vedic - if even so much as that.(1)

There was a time in India when the Karma-Kanda had its sway. There are many grand ideals, no doubt, in that portion of the Vedas. Some of our present daily worship is still according to the precepts of the Karma-Kanda. But, with all that, the Karma-Kanda of the Vedas has almost disappeared from India. Very little of our life today is bound and regulated by the orders of the Karma-Kanda of the Vedas. In our ordinary lives we are mostly Puranic or Tantric; and, even when some Vedic texts are used by the brahmins of India , the adjustment of the texts is mostly not according to the Vedas, but according to the Tantras or Puranas. As such, to call ourselves Vaidikas (Vedic) in the sense of following the Karma-Kanda of the Vedas, I do not think would be proper. But the other fact stands that we are all of us Vedantists. The people who call themselves Hindus would better be called Vedantists ; and, as I have shown you, under that one name Vedantic come in all our sects, whether dualists or non-dualists.(2)

Modern Hinduism is largely Puranic, that is, post-Buddhistic, in origin. Dayananda Saraswati has pointed out, [for example], that though a wife is absolutely necessary in the sacrifice of the domestic fire, which is a Vedic rite, she may not touch the shalagrama shila, or the household idol, because that dates from the later period of the Puranas.(3)