Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 190)

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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 190

 

 

3. Dry Western Scholars Do Not Understand a Single Thing about Indian Scriptures

I have no faith in the theories advanced by Western savants with regard to the Vedas. They are today fixing the antiquity of the Vedas at a certain period, and again tomorrow upsetting it and bringing it one thousand years forward, and so on.(28)

In translating the [Vedic] Suktas [hymns], pay particular attention to the bhashyakaras (commentators) and pay no attention whatever to the orientalists. They do not understand a single thing about our Shastras. It is not given to dry philologists to understand philosophy or religion…. For instance, the word anidavatam in the Rig Veda was translated as, "He lived without breathing." [Rig Veda, 10.129.2] Now, here the reference is really to the chief prana and avatam has the root meaning for the unmoved - that is, without vibration. It describes the state in which the universal cosmic energy, or prana, remains before the kalpa (cycle of creation) begins - vide the bhashyakaras. Explain according to our [indian] sages and not according to the European so-called scholars. What do they know?(29)

There are two Sanskrit words - pratika and pratima. Pratika means coming towards, nearing. In all countries, you find various grades of worship. In the USA, for instance, there are people who worship images of saints and there are people who worship certain forms and symbols. Then there are people who worship different beings who are higher than humans, and their number is increasing every day - worshippers of departed spirits. I read that there are something like eight million of them in the USA. Then there are other people who worship certain beings of a higher grade - the angels, the gods, and so forth. Bhakti-yoga does not condemn any of these various grades, but they are all classed under one name - pratika. These people are not worshipping God, but pratikas, something which is near, a step towards God. This pratika worship cannot lead us to salvation and freedom; it can only give us certain particular things for which we worship them. For instance, if someone worships his or her departed ancestors or departed friends, he or she may get certain powers or certain information from them. Any particular gift that is got from these objects of worship is called vidya, particular knowledge; but freedom, the highest aim, comes only by worship of God Him or Herself. Some orientalists think, in expounding the Vedas, that even the personal God is a pratika. The personal God may be a pratika, but the pratikas are neither the personal nor the impersonal God. They cannot be worshipped as God. So it would be a great mistake if people thought that by worshipping these different pratikas, either as angels, or ancestors, or mahatmas (holy men and women, saints, etc.) or departed spirits, they could ever reach to freedom. At best they can only reach to certain powers, but God alone can make us free.(30)