Swami Vivekananda and Asian Consciousness Niraj Kumar wami Vivekananda should be credited of transformation into a great power. On the with inspiring intellectuals to work for other hand, Asia emerged as the land of Bud­ Sand promote Asian integration. He dir­ dha. Edwin Arnold, who was then the principal ectly and indirectly influenced most of the early of Deccan College, Pune, wrote a biographical proponents of pan­Asianism. Okakura, Tagore, work on Buddha in verse titled Light of Asia in Sri Aurobindo, and Benoy Sarkar owe much to 1879. Buddha stirred Western imagination. The Swamiji for their pan­Asian views. book attracted Western intellectuals towards Swamiji’s marvellous and enthralling speech Buddhism. German philosophers like Arthur at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche saw Bud­ on 11 September 1893 and his subsequent popu­ dhism as the world religion. larity in the West and India moulded him into a Swamiji also fulfilled the expectations of spokesman for Asiatic civilization. Transcendentalists across the West. He did not Huston Smith, the renowned author of The limit himself merely to Hinduism; he spoke World’s Religions, which sold over two million about Buddhism at length during his Chicago copies, views Swamiji as the representative of the addresses. He devoted a complete speech to East. He states: ‘Buddhism, the Fulfilment of Hinduism’ on 26 Spiritually speaking, Vivekananda’s words and September 1893 and stated: ‘I repeat, Shakya presence at the 1893 World Parliament of Re­ Muni came not to destroy, but he was the fulfil­ ligions brought Asia to the West decisively. ment, the logical conclusion, the logical develop­ For, reading correctly the spiritual hunger of ment of the religion of the Hindus.’2 He further the West that his words and presence brought mentioned: ‘Hinduism cannot live without Bud­ to the surface, Vivekananda went on to found dhism, nor Buddhism without Hinduism’ (1.23). the Ramakrishna Mission whose centres in al­ No doubt he was viewed as a Buddhist as most every major city of Europe and America launched the influx of Asian spirituality that much as a Hindu during his lifetime by many has changed the religious complexion of those people of the US. On 19 March 1894 Swamiji continents permanently. Buddhism, Sufism, spoke at the Detroit auditorium on ‘Buddhism, Sikhism, Baha’i and others have followed, but the Religion of the Light of Asia’ and concluded Vedanta was the pioneer.1 that ‘Buddhism was the foundation of even the Christian religion, that the catholic church Swamiji and Buddha came from Buddhism’ (7.430). He allowed this Swamiji was viewed not merely as a Hindu monk image to be cultivated: that he belonged to the but as someone who had come from the East Orient and was also the true representative of with a new message. The US was on the cusp the Light of Asia! 568 PB October 2013 —No bleed here— Swami Vivekananda and Asian Consciousness 23 When he returned to Detroit, the local That face has been indelibly printed on my newspapers attacked him severely. TheDetroit heart. It may have been a hallucination; but very Evening News wrote: ‘The Hindoo­Brahmin­ often I think that I had the good fortune of see­ Buddhistic fad of an effete and rotten oriental­ ing Lord Buddha that day.5 ism has run its course in the west, and it has been Sister Nivedita mentions, in the diary she found that there is nothing in it.’3 John Lincoln kept during their pilgrimage to Kashmir and Blauss, a US citizen, wrote a long letter to the North India, the swami’s reaction when he was New York Times on 19 May 1897, under the cap­ passionately speaking of Buddha: ‘“Why Swami, tion ‘Dropping into Buddhism: How Members I did not know that you were a Buddhist!” of the Brooklyn Ethical Society Came to It’, re­ “Madam”, he said, rounding on her, his whole garding a report that the Brooklyn Ethical So­ face aglow with the inspiration of that name, “I ciety performed Buddhist rites. Blauss blasted am the servants of the servants of the servants of Swami Vivekananda who, in his view, repre­ Buddha.” ’ 6 Sara Bull, whom Swamiji addressed sented Buddhism at the Parliament of Religions as ‘mother’, identified Swamiji as Buddha before at Chicago. He held Swamiji responsible for the her untimely death in 1911.7 growing popularity of Buddhism.4 Swamiji’s devotion towards Buddha can be Swamiji himself admits that he was follow­ gleaned from the fact that a few months before ing the path of Buddha. In fact, his close dis­ Sri Ramakrishna left this earthly abode, Swamiji ciples like Sister Nivedita and Sara Bull were undertook a pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya in April convinced that he was Buddha’s reincarnation. 1886. At Kashipur the Master’s disciples used to Swamiji referred to a vision of Buddha he had in discuss the life and message of Buddha. They had his childhood: also inscribed on their meditation room the fam­ I saw the wonderful figure of a monk appear ous saying of Buddha: ‘Let this body dry up on suddenly—from where I did not know—and its seat; let its flesh and bones dissolve: without stand before me at a little distance, filling the attaining the Enlightenment which is difficult room with a divine effulgence. He was in ochre to achieve even in aeons, this body shall not rise robes with a Kaman dalu (water­pot) in his from its seat.’8 Swamiji again visited Bodh Gaya hand. His face bore such a calm and serene just before his early in February expression of inwardness born of indifference pari nirvana to all things, that I was amazed and felt much 1902, along with Japanese art historian Okakura drawn to him. He walked towards me with a Kakuzo. He had an inkling that he would not slow step, his eyes steadfastly fixed on me, as if survive long enough to establish a fusion of Bud­ he wanted to say something. But I was seized dhism and neo­Hinduism after this visit. In a with fear and could not keep still. I got up from letter to Swami Swarupananda from Gopal Lal my seat, opened the door, and quickly left the Villa, Benares Cantonment, Swamiji wrote: ‘A room. The next moment I thought, ‘Why this total revolution has occurred in my mind about foolish fear?’ I became bold and went back into the relation of Buddhism and Neo­Hinduism. I the room to listen to the monk, who, alas, was no longer there. I waited long in vain, feeling may not live to work out the glimpses, but I shall dejected and repenting that I had been so stu­ leave the lines of work indicated, and you and pid as to flee without listening to him. I have your brethren will have to work it out.’ 9 seen many monks, but never have I seen such Though Swamiji is often represented as an extraordinary expression on any other face. the enunciator of modern Hinduism and the PB October 2013 569 24 Prabuddha Bharata establisher of the Vedanta movement in the and good.’11 West, his appropriation of Buddha’s growing In 1901–2 Okakura Kakuzo, famous for his popularity to represent himself as the ‘Light of work The Ideals of the East and credited with Asia’ often goes unnoticed. raising the ‘Asian consciousness’, came to Cal­ cutta. The first reference to the interaction Swamiji and Japan between the two Asian heroes occurs in a let­ Swamiji was preparing to stir the Asian con­ ter written by Swamiji from Belur Math, on sciousness. He wrote a series of articles—from 14 June 1901, to Josephine MacLeod, who was 1899 to 1901—articulating his conception of then in Japan. Swamiji wrote in the postscript Asia in Udbodhan, the Bengali monthly of the that he received an invitation to visit Japan and Ramakrishna Order. The series was later pub­ a cheque of 300 rupees from Okakura. After his lished under the title ‘The East and The West’. reflections on ‘The East and The West’ articles, In this work he reflected over Japan, China, the Swamiji was gearing up to establish a connec­ Arab world, and the Persian civilization on the tion between India and Japan as the first step one hand, and on France, Britain, and the US towards harmonizing Asia. In a letter dated on the other. Swamiji was building up his ideas 14 June 1901 Swamiji responded to Josephine: for his Eastern mission. He passed away on 4 ‘You are perfectly correct in saying that we will July 1902 and his dream of revisiting Japan and have to learn many things from Japan. The help other Asian countries to champion the cause of that Japan will give us will be with great sym­ a confident and united Asia did not materialize. pathy and respect, whereas that from the West But he passed the baton of this great ideal to the unsympathetic and destructive. Certainly it Japanese art historian and philosopher Okakura is very desirable to establish a connection be­ Kakuzo (1863–1913). tween India and Japan’ (5.162). Swamiji had a fleeting brush with maritime Okakura arrived in India accompanied by Asia. His life was too short to make a foray into Josephine MacLeod. They had left Shimonoseki continental Asia. But he could see a thread of on 5 December 1901 and arrived in Calcutta on 6 commonality among Asian cultures by even a January 1902. Okakura met Swamiji on the same brief encounter. His first visit to Japan was en day, and Swamiji exclaimed: ‘It seems as if a long route to Chicago in 1893.