ISSN 0032-6178 R.N. 2585/57 REGISTERED Postal Registration No. Kol.RMS/096/2013–15 Published on 1 November 2014 rabuddha 9 770032 617002 P harata B or Awakened India A monthly journal of the Ramakrishna Order started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896

November 2014 Vol. 119, No. 11 ` 10.00 If undelivered, return to: ADVAITA ASHRAMA, 5 Dehi Entally Road, Kolkata 700 014, India

ISSN 0032-6178 R.N. 2585/57 REGISTERED Postal Registration No. Kol.RMS/096/2013–15 Published on 1 December 2014 rabuddha 9 770032 617002 P harata B or Awakened India A monthly journal of the Ramakrishna Order started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896

December 2014 Vol. 119, No. 12 ` 10.00 If undelivered, return to: ADVAITA ASHRAMA, 5 Dehi Entally Road, Kolkata 700 014, India THE ROAD TO WISDOM Swami Vivekananda on The Purpose of Work s is Karma, so is the manifestation Aof the will. The men of mighty will the world has produced have all been tremendous workers—gigantic souls, with wills powerful enough to overturn worlds, wills they got by persistent work. Such a gigantic will as that of a Buddha or a Jesus could not be obtained in one life. The gigantic will which Buddha and Jesus threw over the world, that whatever we wish to be in future whence did it come? Whence came can be produced by our present actions; this accumulation of power? All this so we have to know how to act. You will is determined by Karma, work. No one say, ‘What is the use of learning how can get anything unless he earns it. This to work?’ But there is such a thing as is an eternal law. We may sometimes frittering away our energies. You must think it is not so, but in the long run remember that all work is simply to we become convinced of it. A man may bring out the power of the mind which struggle all his life for riches; he may is already there, to wake up the soul. The cheat thousands, but he finds at last that power is inside every man, so is knowing; he did not deserve to become rich, and the different works are like blows to his life becomes a trouble and a nuisance bring them out, to cause these giants to him. We may go on accumulating to wake up. Man works with various things for our physical enjoyment, but motives. Some people want to get fame, only what we earn is really ours. A fool and they work for fame. If a man works may buy all the books in the world, and without any selfish motive in view, does they will be in his library; but he will be he not gain anything? Yes, he gains the able to read only those that he deserves highest. Unselfishness is more paying, to; and this deserving is produced by only people have not the patience to Karma. Our Karma determines what we practise it. Love, truth, and unselfishness deserve and what we can assimilate. We are not merely moral figures of speech, are responsible for what we are; and but they form our highest ideal, because whatever we wish ourselves to be, we in them lies such a manifestation of have the power to make ourselves. If power. what we are now has been the result of rom The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, our own past actions, it certainly follows F(Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 2013), 1.52–4. Vol. , No.  RABUDDHA December   P HARATA B or AWAKENED INDIA A monthly journal of the Ramakrishna Order Managing Editor started by Swami Vivekananda in  Swami Tattwavidananda Editor Swami Narasimhananda Contents Associate Editor and Design Swami Divyakripananda Proofreading Traditional Wisdom  Sabra and Vriju Aswani Production Editor is Month  Swami Chidekananda Cover Design Editorial: Apologetic Believers  Alimpan Ghosh General Assistance Many Voices  Swami Vimohananda Swami Vibhatmananda Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Circulation Re ections on Hindu eology  Indrajit Sinha Tapas Jana Subhasis Chattopadhyay   Prabuddha Bharata India’s Ethnicity  Advaita Ashrama PO Mayavati, Via Lohaghat in the Eyes of Swami Vivekananda Dt Champawat ·    Uttarakhand, India Swami Sandarshanananda Tel:  ·   [email protected] Harmony through the Fine Arts  [email protected] Swami Madhurananda Printed and Published by Swami Atmalokananda Forgive and Forget—A Riddle    Advaita Ashrama Swami Kritarthananda  Dehi Entally Road Kolkata ·   e Meaning of Brahman Explored  West Bengal, India Tel:  ·  ·   Alan Jacobs    /   /  [email protected] Reviews    Cover Art: ‘Rameshwaram Temple’, www.advaitaashrama.org by Mahesh Hegde Reports 

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December  One-Verse Wisdom Vol. , No.  Acharya Shankara

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Kim jyotistava bhanumanahani me ratrau pradipadikam Syadevam ravi-dipa-darshana-vidhau kim jyotir-akhyahi me Chakshustasya nimilanadi-samaye kim dhirdhiyo darshane Kim tatrahamato bhavanparamakam jyotistadasmi prabho.

[Th e guru asked the disciple:] ‘What do you think provides light? [Th e disciple replied:] ‘In the day, the sun [provides light] and in the night, lamp and others [like the moon are there to provide light].’ [Th e guru asked:] ‘If that be so, tell me which light [is needed] to see the sun and the lamp.’ [Th e disciple replied:] ‘Eyes [are needed].’

[Th e guru asked:] ‘When they [the eyes] are closed [what light remains?]’. [Th e disciple replied:] ‘Th e intellect [remains].’[Th e guru asked:] ‘[What light is needed to] see the in- tellect?’ [Th e disciple replied:] ‘Th en [at the time of seeing the intellect] I [that is Atman, alone is capable]. Th erefore, you are [of the nature of ] that supreme Light [of Atman or Brahman] and O [my] master, I too am the supreme Light [of Atman or Brahman].’

PB December 2014 651

—No bleed here— This Month

ach personality is unique and so are College, Bishnupur, and a Biblical Theology its ideas. Respect for the beliefs and convic- scholar, presents his Reflections on Hindu The- Etions of a person comes automatically when ology. The author draws our attention to the one sees that a person has strong faith in one’s be- problems facing Hinduism in the absence of a liefs. That helps one to resist opposition and go theology fit to answer contemporary challenges. on undeterred in one’s spiritual life. Apologetic He also discusses how to create a Hindu theology Believers emphasizes the need to give up being based on its own framework rather than aimlessly apologetic about our religious affiliations. trying to imitate constructs from other religions. Everyone has the right to be heard. Each In India’s Ethnicity in the Eyes of Swami voice is important and has a different tone and Vivekananda, Swami Sandarshanananda, Rama- so it is imperative that we do not add noise to krishna Mission Ashrama, Narendrapur, traces any speech. Creating an awareness about the the anthropological roots of Indians from the marginalization of voices has been one of the utterances of Swami Vivekananda. fields of work ofGa ­ yatri Chakravorty Spivak, The aesthete in us prompts us to perceive Indian literary theorist, philosopher, and Uni- beauty and the artistic in nature and inspires us versity Professor at Columbia University, where to indulge in creative pursuits and we increase the she is a founding member of the school’s Insti- amount of experience of admiring the aesthetics tute for Comparative Literature and Society. She of different human and divine expressions. This draws our attention to the Many Voices she has interplay of bhava and rasa leads us to a Harmony heard in her life, in her acceptance speech for the through the Fine Arts as shown by Swami Mad- Kyoto Prize in Art and Philosophy, delivered in hurananda, Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati. 2012. She has edited the speech for Prabuddha It is difficult for us to forgive or forget. We may Bharata and it is being published for the first ask ourselves whether we should exercise these time. Summarizing the path of her life and work, qualities in our lives. Swami Kritarthananda, she emphasizes the need to avoid having a blan- Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math, analyses this ket universal model for all cultures and beliefs. conundrum in Forgive and Forget—A Riddle. Beginning and ending her paper with acknowl- The nature of Brahman eludes us and in spite edgements of gratitude she establishes how every of the numerous pointers given in the scrip- voice has its place in the symphony of life. tures and by persons of realization, contempla- Identity crises arise when one does not under- tion on Brahman continues to be difficult. Alan stand one’s own faith. A faith tradition can be Jacobs, President, Ramana Maharshi Founda- properly carried forward only by the develop- tion, United Kingdom, delves into the nature ment of a cogent theology. Subhasis Chattopa- of Brahman in The Meaning of Brahman Ex- dhyay, Assistant Professor of English, Ramananda plored by analysing the meaning of the term.

652 PB December 2014

—No bleed here— EDITORIAL Apologetic Believers

elief is blind. It should be so. A doubt- Acting as a believer while one is in reality not ing belief is no belief. To believe in some- one, causes serious damage both to the genuine be- Bone, one cannot have even an iota of lievers and also to the genuine sceptics. There can doubt. The moment doubt enters the mind, it be doubt or there can be belief but there never can is no more belief. Similar is the case with god or be belief mixed with doubt, which is just doubt. As religion. If I believe in the tenets of a religion, I it takes courage to believe, so does it take courage should believe them completely and only then to doubt. When one lacks that courage, one tends can I call myself an adherent of that religion, not to wear the comfortable overcoat of belief while before that. One cannot put on the tag of a be- trembling inside with doubt. How does one iden- liever of a particular religion and then proceed tify an apologetic believer? These are people who to rationally test its precepts. It takes courage to have no qualms in visiting institutions of a par- believe and put one’s everything into what one ticular belief system, but shy away from identify- believes. Weakness of mind deters such belief. ing themselves as an adherent of that system when Does all this mean that one has to be an idiot to that community faces some problem, though at believe? No, but the process of convincing one- the slightest possibility of some benefit, they rush self, of questioning should precede acceptance. to proclaim their allegiance to that faith. If we look at the lives of great prophets, great One argument of the apologetic believers is believers, we find that all of them had to undergo that they do not want to identify with a particu- a phase of severe doubts and lack of conviction. lar tradition because they are embarrassed by the They were stern sceptics and did not accept any- wrongdoings of some persons belonging to that thing on hearsay. However, these very personalities faith tradition. It is akin to the proverbial saying of metamorphosed into persons having an unshake- throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If you able belief in their chosen ideal. Another thing is have a headache, cut off the head and the problem common in their lives: They did not parade their is solved! Any faith tradition becomes such after beliefs while they were still struggling with doubts. a long tradition of saints and mystics, people who They did not call themselves believers while they have experiential wisdom and translate them into had yet to arrive at a firm conviction. This is the precepts for their followers to emulate. Wrongdo- problem at hand. It is natural that doubt precedes ings are done due to wrong understanding. Should belief. But, it is highly hypocritical to call one- not a believer attempt to correct the understand- self a believer while fighting with doubt. As no ing of the adherents of one’s faith tradition rather human being does anything without a purpose, than taking pride in ridiculing the very ground this tendency of people also has a purpose and one stands on? The apologetic believers do not that is mainly to take advantage of the label of the do that because it needs effort to get firmly estab- particular religion one poses to be a believer of. lished in the rationality of one’s faith. It requires

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—No—No bleedbleed here—here— 14 Prabuddha Bharata

deep study, prayer, contemplation, meditation, People defend themselves when attacked. An or surrender—at least one of these to get an un- attack on one’s values, culture, and beliefs is an shakeable faith. That is a difficult path to tread, so attack at a very basic level. It is surprising how the majority take to the easiest path: Have your often such attacks go undefended. The victims religion but do not talk about it! lack the conviction to defend themselves and It becomes worse if the religion one adheres mistakenly pride on being non-violent. That is to is not politically or economically strong, that not non-violence but ignorance and cowardice. is, people practising that religion do not have the Every person has a right to believe in God in her upper hand in society. Then the apologetic be- or his own way. Affirming one’s beliefs or talking lievers start aligning their beliefs with those of about it can by no stretch of the imagination be the majority, at least in public, if not in private called fundamentalism, until such avowal strikes too. If God is believed to have many forms in a or injures others. So being a believer does not particular religion and a person lives in a society make one a fanatic. where the majority practise a different religion, Swami Vivekananda believed that every per- probably monotheistic, then this person starts son in the world should have a separate religion. to speak exactly like the followers of that mono- This implies that he wanted us to have an in- theistic religion. The reason is simple: Food and dependent faith system, beliefs that would not security are much more important than God! buckle under onslaughts by others. For that to There are some apologetic believers, to whose happen, we need a thorough understanding, or a face any one can utter expletives about their faith, firm resolve to thoroughly understand ourselves and yet not elicit even a mild rebuke. The rea- and our relation with God and the world. Then son given is: ‘Will my God be any lower because our faith will not be apologetic. Most of us do of this abuse?’ For them the answer is: ‘No, of not doubt that we will see the sun the next morn- course not. Your God will not become inferior, ing though death is the only certain event in our but you and your faith will.’ It would have been an lives and can have an appointment with us at any altogether different case if the believer did not get time. Then why are we reluctant to adhere to a affected by the insult. That would have been the belief system? That is because we are afraid of behaviour of a saint. However, almost always, such losing our freedom, our individuality. Unless we insult does bring suffering to the believer, and yet give ourselves completely to what we believe in, she or he has no word of protest. That is not saint- there can be no faith in reality. Sri Ramakrishna liness; it is the sign of lack of faith and courage. was tested by Swami Vivekananda before he sur- The number of religious ‘seculars’ is on a rise rendered to him. That was no ordinary testing for many years now. Such ‘secular’ believers would nor was it mild. It was a rigorous checking of the silently take in any amount of attack on their be- precepts and actions of the master. Thus faith liefs on the grounds that religion is only a private was born. Steel gets its strength from the furnace. affair. That definitely sounds nice but what to do All apologetic believers should remember that when people jeopardize your existence by wrongly they are neither sceptics nor believers. They don’t understanding your, and more importantly, their want to take sides or have definite opinions, and own religions? You bring some understanding to spend their lives uncertain about themselves and them, by whatever means. This simple exercise others. The question is: Do they really want to would give more strength to both religions. continue living like that? P

654 PB December 2014

—No bleed here— Many Voices Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

ho speaks when we speak? Therefore, when I think of my parents, I am Whether we are scientists or artists, also thinking of the histories behind them, con- Winstitutionally educated, or otherwise, cealed by the official lines which seemingly pro- all our history speaks through us. We ourselves duced them. With this proviso, and the proviso can only chart a very small part of that history. that I will build my words on my understanding Today I have given myself as my task such a chart- that the ethical is the unconditional call of all ing so that I can acknowledge that in choosing to others and the democratic is a politics based on reward me with the Kyoto prize, you have in fact training in judgement, I begin. rewarded many others who have contributed to My parents did not just bring us up to think my making, more than I can tell. of other people. By their own example, they Recently I have discovered that highly edu- made it part of what I will call our ‘soul’, some- cated people in Africa use mother tongues that thing holding together our thinking, feeling, im- were not systematized by European missionaries agining, and even our disposition of the body. in the nineteenth century, to communicate to My mother, Sivani Chakravorty, disappeared others who share that mother tongue. Indeed, in the early morning when I was five years old, if you follow the track of these un-grammatized to the local railway station, to welcome and help mother tongues, sometimes you can move down rehabilitate the refugees coming into Calcutta the East coast of Africa all the way to the South. because of the partition of India upon our inde- There are probably many other such tracks that I pendence from the British Empire in 1947. As don’t know about. In fact, the idea of calling them I grew up, she drew me into the work she did ‘endangered’ sometimes does not recognize this to make destitute widows employable. She la- extraordinary survival record. Also, calling them boured mightily to work on the establishment ‘traditional’ sometimes does not recognize their of Sarada Math, a nunnery; so that women who mobility and changefulness through the cen- wanted to lead spiritual lives could find a place to turies. Indeed, thinking of them as confined only do so. These women, mostly intellectuals, did a to very poor communities does not recognize the great deal of good in their turn for an altogether presence of all these ‘modernized’ persons who large circle of ‘other people’. My mother went use the language voluntarily, and of course, also on to establish the first working women’s hos- use it for electoral purposes. In other words, the tel in Calcutta, with such success that the state languages exist in the modernity of democracy. government asked for her secret. In doing this, I have learned to think of these languages as re- she also recognized the capacities of a cousin positories of untracked histories. Thinking about who had suffered greatly from domestic violence this resource with African and other colleagues, I and, because of internalized gendering and ma- have been helped in my efforts today. terial circumstances been unable to resist, by

PB December 2014 655 16 Prabuddha Bharata

employing her as the superintendent. My mother He kept the ways open for her so that she could restored many lives in this way. I should add that, go ahead and get a masters degree in 1937 when in her seventies and eighties, when she became she was only twenty-four. And she continued as an American citizen, she decided to start in her an independent intellectual until the very end of new country, by working more than ten thou- her life. As a woman receiving the Kyoto prize, I sand hours as a volunteer for victims of post- must say that the ethical turn in my mother and traumatic stress disorder among the veterans of myself does not belong to the enforced respon- the war in Vietnam. sibility toward others which is quite often the I have only been able to list some of the things gender fix for women in all societies—not just that my mother did. I have not been able to re- traditional, I am thinking of ‘soccer moms’. cord the everyday presence of the cheerful and I think some of this was the result of my par- good humoured person who was at the same ents’ involvement with the early Ramakrishna time on the move toward unconditional ethics. Movement and its revolution in the institutional My father, Dr Pares Chandra Chakravorty, thinking of all sectarianism: of class, race, and born a village boy, destroyed a brilliant career as religion, today largely forgotten because an in- the youngest civil surgeon created by the British depth training of children is no longer practised. government, by refusing to give false evidence Like the rest of the ‘rising’ world, we have lost at a rape trial. This was before my birth. By the the desire for preparing the muscles of the mind time I knew him, he was the saintly doctor with for ethical reflexes. an enormous charitable practice among low in- Ramakrishna (1836–1886) was an ecstatic vi- come families living all around us. He was the sionary whose wife initiated my father into the man who protected the Muslims from the neigh- ethical life in 1920, when he was twenty-one. To bourhood during the religious riots brought on have a female spiritual teacher was undoubtedly by the partition of India, even as his own Mus- of help in recognizing the importance of gender lim students protected him from the other side. justice. In 1928, he took my mother for initiation When I was eleven years old—he died when I into the ethical life to one of Ramakrishna’s dir- was thirteen—he took me to the local post office ect disciples, Swami Shivananda. Shivananda’s and pointed at the long lines, and said, ‘Because simple down to earth gender sensitivity so in- you’re my daughter, and because you’re a gentle- spired my sixteen-year-old mother that she told woman, they will let you go to the head of the us the story many times. I hope you may discern line. Remember, always stand at the end of the its philosophical depth beneath its earthiness. line.’ This was in 1953. It is not an exaggeration The story still moves me to tears. I have a picture to say that I have thought of this every day since of this man in old age on my desk in my study. He the choice of pushing ahead became a possibility. said to my mother: ‘As a new bride in your hus- My parents made me sensitive of the differ- band’s house with your father-in-law in residence ence of gender. My mother was fourteen when you will not have any time to yourself to medi- she was married. She was in her last year of tate. When you’re alone to answer nature’s call, high school. My father did not just believe that just clap your hands and say glory to the teacher, women should be educated. Of course he be- jai guru, and that will be enough.’ I will in a bit lieved that. What is important was that he rec- talk about gifts of spirit that I received from an- ognized that his child bride was an intellectual. other monk in the movement in the 1960s.

656 PB December 2014 Many Voices 17

My parents sent us to a school where the infants, before reason, which activates the parts teachers were Christianized aboriginals and gen- of our mind that are unavailable to the waking erally so-called lower-caste Hindus: St. John’s mind. As infants we invent a language. Our par- Diocesan Girls’ High School, attached to the ents ‘learn’ this language. Because they speak a oldest church in Calcutta, where Job Char- named language, the infant’s language gets in- nock, the founder of the city, lies buried. These serted into the named language with a history teachers taught with the passion of the newly before the child’s birth, which will continue after liberated. I do often say: Diocesan made me. its death. As the child begins to navigate this Sanskrit, the classical language of North India, language it is beginning to access the entire in- as grand as all classical languages are, was taught terior network of the language, all its possibility to me by Miss Nilima Pyne, one of these teach- of articulations, for which the best metaphor ers, with such dedication that I can still use the that can be found is—especially in the age of language for my scholarly and teacherly work. computers—‘memory’. Here, before our reason As the days go by, Miss Charubala Dass, the starts working, is the constitution of our ethical principal of the school, becomes my role model. semiosis, or meaning-making, in the learning of Her affectionate dignity and her gentle sternness our first language, in our first languaging. It is is not something that I can hope to imitate. That undoubtedly true that I am able to love English, she had a hand in putting in place the openness French, and German, and now, in old age, Chi- to the need for ethical reflexes that you have nese and Japanese as a student, because the love kindly recognized in me will be made clear by of the mother tongue sustains this. I try, like all the following story, the significance of which at old-fashioned students of comparative literature, the moment I did not recognize. to produce a simulacrum of first language learn- I have been training teachers among the land- ing as I learn other languages, even as I know that less illiterate in western West Bengal for thirty it is of course, impossible. years. I am myself not at all religious, not a be- In 1961, I came to New York, and, as a per- liever, about which more later. Recently, in one son connected to the Ramakrishna movement, of the meetings for all of the rural teachers come I went to the Vedanta Society in New York. As together for training, I gave them a lesson in you know, Vedanta is a highly cerebral philo- English prepositions by repeating Miss Dass’s sophical area of Hinduism, and I encountered school prayer: ‘Be thou, O Lord, before us to at the Vedanta Society in New York its extra- lead us, behind us to restrain us, beneath us to ordinary director Swami Pavitrananda, an aus- sustain us, above us to draw us up, round about tere yet gentle, immensely learned Vedantist in us to protect us.’ The call of the ethical from my his sixties. In 1963, at the age of twenty-one, school days done into a different kind of lesson, I felt that I had lost my faith—I can find no which I translated, for these people rather far re- other words to describe this, and I am amused moved from the metropolitan center, in this case to think that I will have no guarantee that the Calcutta. Make of it what you wish. Japanese equivalent will catch the absurdity of I should mention here that my parents loved these words. I felt that it would be incorrect not our mother tongue and thus we were allowed to to share this with the swami. sustain some connection to what I call ethical When I said to him, ‘Sir, I have lost my faith’, semiosis. There is a language we learn first, as he said to me, ‘Gayatri, where will you escape?

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Your focussed study is your way to the sacred, I looked up the story in the Shatapatha Brah- tomar adhyayan-i tapasya.’ Let me say here that mana: Brihaspati, the divine craftsman, created I understood Jacques Derrida’s idea that reading all the creatures, and they ran away from him. is a species of ‘prayer to be haunted’ by the text as He ran after them but couldn’t catch them. He a consequence of Pavitrananda’s remark. returned sweating heavily, and dripped sweat What I have translated as the ‘way to the sac- into the fire where he had fashioned them. red’ was the Sanskrit word tapasya. It is the word Hinduism lights a fire to establish divinity that describes the concentrated meditation of in its services. This dripping of sweat into the Siddhartha Gautama, from which he emerged fire became the first offering and created the as the enlightened human being, as well one, the Buddha. I as the brick, looking had understood the forward to the dwell- word, when the monk ing that would move spoke, as an indication the human from na- that the proper study ture to culture. of the humanities Standing there in gave practice in the the gathering dusk in intuition of the tran- Paris, I received this scendental, which pre- gift from my dead pared one to respond comrade, and from reflexively, if the call of Charles Malamoud, the ethical happened with whom I had to happen. In 1991, I an appointment the received another gift next day—a French of spirit which ex- Jew who had written panded this under- a stunning book on standing into my soul. classical India—Cuir In 1985, I had le monde, Cooking the started a friendship World. I realized that with Bimal Krishna tapasya was not just Matilal, the Spalding the enlightenment Professor of Eastern Swami Pavitrananda (1896–1977) gained through the Religion and Ethics at Oxford University. Bimal transformation of intellectual labour. It related was interested in the philosophy of deconstruc- also to taapa, heat, the heat generated by creative tion and I was interested in reading indic ra- manual labour in the living body. This realiza- tional critique in Sanskrit with him. This work tion inspired me in my attempt to teach the in- continued until his death in 1991. In one of our tuitions of democracy to the largest sector of the last meetings, Bimal had spoken about one of electorate in India. the numerous etiologies to be found within Pavitrananda gave me another direct gift in Hindu heteropraxy. At his death, when I found the practice of teaching. In 1964, at the An- myself in Paris at the Bibliothèque Nationale, nual Convention of the Modern Language

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Association of America, I got my first full-time 1994 United Nations Conference on Population teaching job at the University of Iowa. I said to and Development in Cairo, where the UN first the monk, ‘Sir, I am afraid. I am twenty-two. I opened its doors to ngos or non-governmental am only three years out of India. I have to teach organizations. In the North-South divided atmos- graduate students. I have inherited a graduate phere of that meeting, I received a sense of how seminar on the French poet Baudelaire, the Ger- top-down planning could never be a shortcut to man poet Rilke, and the Irish poet Yeats. I am the ethical, how teaching the deprived nothing afraid.’ ‘Gayatri’, said he, ‘you are going to teach but justified self-interest was deeply problemati- for a living, for money. You are your students’ cal. For this, I continue to thank Farida. servant. Have you not seen how the servant can Farhad has recently reminded me that I had chastise the master’s children in order to per- counselled him to sink himself in Lalan. Yet I form her or his obligations? Always remember, think of Lalan as his gift to me. Speaking to the you are your students’ servant. If you start think- disciples there at Lalan’s graveside, I discover the ing you are a great teacher—a guru—all will be wealth of deconstruction. And, because these lost.’ He was, of course, referring to a profession friends are without institutional education, it is of domestic service that has now luckily disap- training again, in hanging out in another’s space peared almost completely, but the metaphorical responsibly, basic training in responding to the lesson was not lost on me. I remind myself of it ethical call if and when it comes, a training that everyday, both at Columbia University and at a humanities education, understood in Pavit- the rural schools. rananda’s way, can perhaps attempt to provide. In 1967, by sheer chance, I ordered a book off Here is a description of their self-represen- a catalogue by a—to me—unknown author, and, tation, shared at the death of one of their own: little by little, my work began to encounter its He felt the necessity to mobilize the ‘subalterns’ philosophical shape. The book wasDe la gram- and the ‘outcasts’ in order to create the ethico- matologie, the author Jacques Derrida. political condition to unite the human kinds in In 1986, I emerged from the miasma of gender their diversity. From this perspective he always poison, two unsuccessful marriages. I found my- insisted that anti-caste, anti-class, and anti-pa- self ready to learn from below. I looked around. triarchal politics is integral to the bhakti move- ment. Depoliticising the bhakti movement is to I found the heroic medical activist Zafrullah deny its profound ethico-political significance. Chowdhury, who sent me out with rural woman If we leave his legacies unattended we will miss paramedics in Bangladesh. He set me to work a solid ground to reconstitute the wisdom of at schooling the rural poor, sent me to work in Lalan’s school. This mobilization means a con- remote night schools. The poet Farhad Mazhar, gregation of wise people practising a harmoni- with whom I had formed a friendship in the sev- ous and responsible lifestyle evolved through enties, introduced me to the practitioners at the hundreds of years of tradition. devotional school of Lalan Shah Fakir, a nine- I should first point out that this movement teenth-century grassroots theologian and minstrel brings together the two conflictual religious trad- composer of amazing depth and invention. Farida itions of Eastern India: Islam and Hinduism, by Akhter, Farhad’s comrade and partner, an indefat- integrating ethico-philosophical elements from igable global feminist activist, drew me into that both. Secondly, I should say a word about the circuit. Under her leadership, I participated in the ‘subaltern’, mentioned in the very first line.

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‘Subaltern’ is a word that we have learned explanations. I could enter into this as a hu- from Antonio Gramsci. On the analogy of the manities person, through the importance of army where the ‘subaltern’ only takes orders, theatre. This was the deconstructive wealth I Gramsci used this word to describe those who described above. And now you have made that are cut off from the state. wealth secure. Finally a word about ‘bhakti’, which is de- I have perhaps become a little abstract here. scribed in the passage as requiring ‘anti-caste, Let me go back to childhood. anti-class, and anti-patriarchal politics’. Mine When I was a child, I loved to ‘teach’ illit- will not be an expert’s account. erate children who were domestic servants, Bhakti is a broad all-India movement. Lalan dragging them into the kind of compulsory Shah falls within the branch in East India that studentship that only a child can absolutely re- took shape in the sixteenth century. The word quire. This early habit has never quite left me. ‘bhakti’ comes from the Sanskrit root bhaj, the As a result of this kind of attempt at un-coercive primary meaning of which is ‘to divide’ as well teaching on the ground whenever I visited Pu- as ‘to share’. This characteristic is shared by the rulia, a ‘backward’ district of my home state of French word partager. Deconstructive philoso- West Bengal, an activist from there sent me a phers have commented a good deal on this char- plan, asking me to open an elementary school acteristic of partager: divide but also share. for tribal children. I responded with hesita- Would it surprise you if I revealed that I am tion, but once it got going, I could not tear my- discovering this French-Sanskrit connection self away from it. I did not know it then, but to be ‘correct’ only because I am writing some- the work of Antonio Gramsci, a man who had thing for you, for an audience toward which been put in jail by Mussolini and who died in I must be intellectually responsible? I knew jail at the age of forty-seven, was going to res- of course that bhaj meant ‘to divide’, and had onate with this teaching work—because I was based my understanding of bhakti on it. Writ- interested in learning the environment of these ing this piece, however, I looked in the San- tribals, who voted in the world’s largest dem- skrit-English dictionary, and saw that the first ocracy without much sense of the intuition of meaning of bhaj is given as ‘to divide’. Since on democracy at all. I didn’t know then, but this the model of the sixteenth-century European would become for me a project that I came to Reformation, the bhakti movement is generally call supplementing vanguardism, a project that explained as direct devotion, I thought until would come to recognize that Gramsci in jail thirty minutes before writing these words that I working out that Marx’s project of social justice alone thought that bhakti meant dividing one- was an epistemological one—in other words, a self and playing a specific role laid out in the matter of changing how one constructed ob- tradition, in as powerful a way as a great actor jects of knowledge—was on the same journey. would, just not for money, and never giving My thinking of social justice was started at the up, in order to enter into a specific relationship age of fifteen, connected with the work of Karl into what the daily self cannot contain. This Marx, but this gave it a kind of ethical speci- is what had been welcome to the disciples of ficity which was important. Democracy was, Lalan Shah, because they knew it without the after all, the difficult politics of the ethical. This dictionary and without academic or popular work would also come to reveal to me that my

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—No bleed here— Many Voices 21 interest in the African-American educationist that she also left me a material gift—$10,000— W E B Du Bois would also come to resonate so that I could start a foundation in the name with some of the assumptions—that the very of my parents: the Pares Chandra and Sivani poor should themselves be ethical subjects Chakravorty Memorial Foundation for Rural rather than simply the recipients of alms—that Education. Your bounty has augmented the sprang from this period. foundation greatly. I hope I will be able to train From the start, I started shedding presup- one or two workers in the lessons I have been positions at these schools. I came to realize that trying to learn from my experience, trying to these people had been cognitively damaged by teach with the same standard of quality control the oppression inherent in the caste system. at both ends of the spectrum. This is where my understanding of tapasya as Here a gift of spirit from my sister Profes- both intellectual and manual enlightenment sor Maitreyi Chandra must be acknowledged. came into play. The idea of manual labour was You have been kind enough to invite her, but it of great interest to my teachers and students in is no discourtesy to you to say that she would the rural area, especially when I pointed out that have come at her own expense. She has been they had been denied the right to intellectual and is active at the highest levels of work to labour, which only the upper classes and castes influence education, especially technical edu- were supposed to be able to perform. Thus even cation for the girl child, with the Government manual labour to them was without joy. They of India. Her work influences a very large num- were able instantly to recognize and understand ber of people, while my work can only remain this theme. As the days went by, and the US went focussed on a few hundred. She knows how by, I was beginning to recognize that at the high- much her experienced encouragement, that my end, American students were also denied the kind of textural work is necessary to sustain the right to intellectual labour because of the facil- structural work undertaken by the state, has ity of the Internet search engines and because of meant to me over the years. the total focus on employability and revenue. I Let us speak of the material implications am certainly not a technophobe. But I believe of the training for the ethical. Before I die, I the digital is both poison and medicine, and can want to understand something—understand- be used productively, in a healing and construct- ing everything is impossible—about bypassing ive way, only by minds trained at the slow speed the necessity of ‘good’ rich people solving the of the humanities. world’s problems. ‘Good’ rich people are de- In 1997, my dearest friend, Lore Metzger, pendent on bad people for the money they use died. Dying, she gave me a gift of spirit. The to do this. And the ‘good’ rich people’s money last time I saw her, we stayed up all night talk- mostly goes back to bad rich people. Beggars ing. I asked her what still seemed valuable. Lit receive material goods to some degree and re- with the glow of triumph over great pain in the main beggars. My work is to produce problem- proximity of death, she said, without hesitation, solvers rather than solve problems. In order to ‘teaching’. I had spoken to her of the teaching do so, I continue to teach teachers, current and in the rural schools, in long monologues, in her future, with devotion and concentration, at the study in Atlanta. She never interrupted me. I schools that produce the ‘good’ rich people— was therefore overwhelmed but not surprised Columbia University—and the beggars—seven

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unnamed elementary schools in rural Birbhum, ngo, perhaps? What she said next was, I now a district in West Bengal; this work cannot be know, the beginning of her journey, just as, a done with an interpreter and India is multi- few years before that, it had been mine; coming lingual; Bengali is my mother-tongue. I must to the realization that equality is not sameness. understand their desires, not their needs, and, ‘Gayatri’, she said to me then, ‘I wanted to give with understanding and love, try to shift them. up that restrictive job and be with the world’s That is education in the humanities. poor. But I had thought that these people My task, then, is to learn from mistakes how would be just like Belgians, but poor. And now.’ to teach the practice of the intuitions of dem- How do I know this was the beginning of a ocracy—the tug of war between autonomy and journey for her? the rights of others. For the top, the auto-crit- On 14 September 2012, I arranged a high- ical habit in the intellectual produced by the profile meeting at Columbia University to create presence of basic civil liberties: the freedom public awareness of the tremendous oppression of speech; democracy constraining freedom of the minority Muslim Rohengyas in Burma— of speech through constructive auto-critique. also known as Myanmar—even as the country is For the bottom, the hope that perhaps even supposedly going through a democratic transi- one student will develop something like demo- tion. One of the most respected names to emerge cratic judgement, quite different from justified was Chris Rewa’s. self-interest against oppression from all sides, Just as the world’s poor are not Belgians, so and from mere leadership. are the landless illiterate in Birbhum district not Let me unpack these words. metropolitan Calcuttans, only landless and il- Learning from mistakes. The major mistake literate. It took me some years to realize that I is to think that equality means sameness. My had to begin to learn the specificity of the men- upbringing, by enlightened parents in the met- tal instrument with which they know. And if I ropolitan middle class, and all the caring gifts of am to teach them I must learn to serve them to spirit that I have here recounted, resulted in a use this instrument, not some universal human collection of pre-suppositions and habits that is instrument. I am still learning and failing, learn- our instrument of learning. That instrument of ing and failing, not giving up. learning cannot be identical with that of people And yet they vote; and that, if not universal, who had been millennially repressed, specifically is generalizable. I am a citizen of India, and in in how they were permitted to use their minds. the one-person one-vote situation, I am their I want to give a concrete example here. equal but not the same. Therefore, I am not just I met Chris Rewa, a young Belgian woman, training and teaching teachers and children who at a biodiversity festival in Bangladesh in 2000. are by nature not good enough—the upper class We sat on the stoop of a thatched cottage with view—but by history made less than good. I am wattle walls. I was listening to a stream of plaints also trying to provide the habits of democratic from rural women about what the requirements thinking so that they vote right. These subaltern of micro-credit aid really represented for them. classes cannot use the state. In a democracy, the Sitting there in the delicious winter sun, Chris people supposedly control the state. My hum- said to me that she was disillusioned with work- ble, unsuccessful, and persistent effort can be ing at her city job in Belgium, a multinational called restoring the spirit of citizenship to the

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—No bleed here— Many Voices 23 subaltern. I think of my mother serving the Vi- the best? Meghnad, tribal teenager, child of il- etnam veterans as a new US citizen. literate landless parents, had not wanted to be Citizenship, however, is generally under- a statistic for the local landowner, as the first stood as the self-interested part of democracy: tribal child to come first in the State secondary autonomy. Without an other-interested eth- exam. He had wanted to be educated accord- ical education this preparation is unprotected ing to unconditional standards. Democracy in from the worldwide control exercised today the subaltern is a fearful thing. The landowner by trade in the difference in the different cur- closed the schools. Twenty years’ labour gone. rencies of different countries, rich and poor: Try again, I told myself; Birbhum district is less finance capital. feudal than Purulia. We must understand the other-interested side Among these subaltern children, then, the of democracy for the subaltern as well. polarization between top and bottom comes un- Drawing from my own Indian experience, done. Children’s minds are like wet cement. We I had earlier found the best model for democ- are inscribing contradictory habits into them. racy in Indian classical music: creative freedom No competition, yet unconditional pursuit of within self-chosen structural rules. Drawing excellence. Pleasure in schoolwork, yet train- from his European experience, my colleague ing to enter the mainstream. Discourage ten- Jan Elster found the best model of the mindset dency to leadership, yet encourage questioning that will get to democracy in Homer’s story of authority. Nothing through sermons, everything Odysseus having his sailors wax their own ears through classroom moves. Gender balance, gen- and bind him to the mast so that he could hear der preference. Easy to say, tremendously dif- the sirens’ magic song and still not give in to the ficult to devise as habit-formation, not blind temptation of sailing to their island and wreck- obedience, in child-subjects and teacher-sub- ing his ship. jects that are equal but not the same. Both of us were thinking at the top. To cre- The recently dead poet Adrienne Rich can ate classical music, you must be highly trained. describe my response to the Kyoto Prize, as And Odysseus needed the sailors to do his bid- the necessary effort to ‘call … up the voices we ding. Democracy as self-restraint: This is what need to hear within ourselves’1. I call them up, I describe above as democracy constraining give them names, and accept the prize in all freedom of speech through constructive auto- their names, except the ones too well-known critique. But what about those who have been, to include: Sivani Chakravorty, Pares Chandra by gender and class, forcibly constrained? De- Chakravorty, Nilima Pyne, Charubala Dass, velop something like democratic judgement, Swami Pavitrananda, Farida Akhter, Farhad formula for the bottom. Mazhar, Prashanta Rakshit, Lore Metzger, The practical development of democratic Roshan Fakir, Maitreyi Chandra, Meghnad judgement in the rural child is to distinguish Shabar. On their behalf I thank you. P between education and passing exams. Meghnad Shabar of Bangthupi settlement taught me this Reference in 2006. The Human Development Index can 1. Adrienne Rich, ‘What Does a Woman Need to only ask for quantity: how many years of school- Know’ in Blood, Bread, and Poetry (New York: ing. For our children we tour schools, where is Norton, 1986), 10.

PB December 2014 663 Reflections on Hindu Theology Subhasis Chattopadhyay

ri ramakrishna compared our pos- all conceivable areas of life through one’s faith sible understanding of the supreme god- in God is the proper domain of the study of Shead in terms of blind men groping theology. Another way of defining theology different parts of an elephant and concluding is St. Anselm of Canterbury’s classic propos- that their limited perceptions of the parts were ition that ‘fides quaerens intellectum, faith seek- indeed the whole elephant. Theology, which is ing understanding’2 is theology. St. Anselm ties the study or knowledge of the godhead, is akin up theology with a particular faith community. to Sri Ramakrishna’s portrayal of our efforts to Theologising is religion specific and concerns -it think of God. self primarily with the religious traditions of the faith community that the theologian aligns with. Defining Theology Moreover, theology is done with reference to a Theologians, generally speaking, try to under- faith tradition; generally the sacred scriptures of stand the workings of the supreme godhead a faith community. Pope Pius XII had explained within the times they are born into. The Oxford the works of theologians thus: Advanced Learners’ Dictionary defines theology It is also true that theologians must always re- as ‘the study of religion and beliefs’. This is a very turn to the sources of divine revelation: for it broad definition spilling over into many discip- belongs to them to point out how the doctrine lines not considered theology. There have been of the living Teaching Authority is to be found different definitions of theology and it has been either explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures and in Tradition. Besides, each source of di- generally talked of in connection with Christian- vinely revealed doctrine contains so many rich ity, more than any other religion. treasures of truth, that they can really never be However, Hindus have also theologised exhausted. Hence it is that theology through the throughout their histories. For example, the study of its sacred sources remains ever fresh; on Brihad ­aranyaka Upanishad, saw various forms of the other hand, speculation which neglects a attraction between dyads of people in the light deeper search into the deposit of faith, proves of the supreme godhead: ‘Verily, not for the sake sterile, as we know from experience.3 of the husband … is the husband loved, but he is This article is part of an ongoing discussion loved for the sake of the self … Verily not for the on ‘self-reflective Hinduism’. Sister Nivedita says sake of the sons, my dear, are the sons loved, but in her introduction to The Complete Works of they are loved for the sake of the self.’1 Swami Vivekananda: ‘For the first time in his- This is theology at its best—in this Upani- tory … Hinduism itself forms here the subject shad, even our attraction to wealth is described of generalization of a Hindu mind of the high- in terms of the supreme godhead or the Brah- est order. For ages to come the Hindu man who man of Advaita Vedanta. This explanation of would verify, the Hindu mother who would

664 PB December 2014 Reflections on Hindu Theology 25 teach her children, what was the faith of their ‘Religion’ and ‘theology’ are not terms with fixed ancestors will turn to the pages of these books meanings and invariant applications. They are for assurance and light.’4 rather topics or commonplaces—not in the sense This is what is meant in this article by ‘the- of the familiar and the trite, but in the classical sense of linguistic variables, terms ambiguous ologising’: not writing sectarian commentaries and capacious enough to house a vast diversity of on scriptures, but reflecting on Hinduism it- meanings, arguments, and referents. The inter- self. And not just philosophizing, either. For connection of such topics constitutes neither a instance, it is one thing to explain philosophic- determined problem nor an exact proposition.5 ally the concept of the incarnation of God. It is another to ‘theologise’ about Sri Ramakrishna Thus, doing theology without defining what or other incarnations. To make the distinction is meant by religion is impossible. Religion, as clearer, to philosophize about the incarnation is has been pointed out by Buckley above, signals to show conceptually in philosophically object- so many different things to so many branches ive terms what incarnation means, and to argue of learning that we would want to give up the for or against its possibility. project of naming qua defining altogether. To theologise about Sri Ramakrishna as an For instance, Sigmund Freud defined religion incarnation is to start from the standpoint of in terms of totems and taboos, of compulsive faith—accepting that Sri Ramakrishna is an repetition of rituals,6 through what we today incarnation, as millions of people have already know as psychoses. On the other hand, for Karl done—and to explore the implications. It Rahner, religion will mean nothing without the means in part to speak to the faith community. reality of God: It also means to make Hinduism self-aware by In the last resort all it can settle with respect to conceptualising it for the faith-community, religion remains enclosed within the brackets as Swami Vivekananda did, which is pointed of God’s free sovereignty and the knowledge out by Sister Nive­dita above; and that includes of this sovereignty, at the disposal of which looking at Hinduism as a whole, not from a man must put himself by obedience in true re- sectarian vantage point. And it also means, ligio, and in which God either denies himself making the Hindu community self-aware so to man or bestows himself in free grace. And that it can defend itself in the community of re- on this either-or rests the final decision as to the concrete shape taken by a truly and exis- ligions. This article could be seen as the begin- tentially significant religion.7 ning of a discussion, with points to agree with and points to disagree with: that is what makes The contemporary meaning of theology de- it a discussion. pends on our understanding of what religion is: religions can be, on the one extreme, atheistic, Theology and Religion being only a meta-narrative constructed by us Since theology is religion specific, it would be or, it can be seen as coming into being through proper to inquire into the meaning of religion divine providence. Both these views about reli- to comprehend the nature of theology as an gion are Continental and it may be more useful academic domain. Religion has many mean- to define religion more moderately—it is sim- ings, depending on which the meaning of the- ultaneously invested with transcendence, while ology fluctuates: being always worked on by human agency.

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Theological Traditions the entire world. It is important to note that now The point of the above discussion is that the- there is no mention of a particular religion—the ology is dependent on our understanding of Catholic theologian Sobrino now is concerned what religion is or is not. Yet the etymology of not merely with the Roman Catholic faith trad- ‘theology’ is deceptive and gestures towards a ition he had inherited; but with all peoples of the possibility for understanding God. This is im- world.10 But he tries to solve various crises plagu- possible since God qua Brahman is beyond the ing us through the hermeneutics of Christology. grasp of the intellect; beyond the trappings of Since he is a Catholic priest, he theologises from the gunas. Thus theology concerns itself with the context of being a Spanish, white Christian, the consequences of the workings of the nirguna placed by Yahweh in El Salvador. It is in this sense Brahman within the woof of history. of being missioned to heal the world that we can Keeping in mind the multiplicity of the- call the economist Bernard Lonergan SJ, a theolo- ologies, we can for the purpose of this essay de- gian—albeit a theologian focussed on Christ’s role fine theology as the effect of thepraxis of being in the global movement of capital. aware of the transcendence of life in the here and Theology therefore arises out of the con- the now. It is accepted within both Judaism and tingencies of both time and space. Theology is Christianity that Yahweh acts within a linear his- culture, geography, and time specific. Hindus tory, punctuated with the fall of man, the resur- have been doing a certain kind of theology rection of the Messiah, and the imminent second for centuries before Thomas of Aquinas wrote coming of Christ, parousia. The expression and his Summa. For example, Advaita Vedanta has explication of this chronicity is the subject mat- meditated on the cause, nature, and the verity ter of the academic study of Christian theology. of the being in time. Hindu acharyas have sys- An example will clarify this: Oscar Romero, tematically studied the nature of the godhead an Archbishop at El Salvador, who called on Sal- or Brahman and the relationship between the vadoran soldiers to stop violating human rights, jiva and Brahman. Therefore, Hindus along with was gunned down for his pacifist stand; Jesu- the Christians, the Buddhists, and atheists have its at their university campus in El Salvador too practised systematic theology. were killed. The Peruvian Roman Catholic priest Gustavo Gutiérrez and later the Jesuit priest, Jon Countering Doubt Sobrino who worked in El Salvador reacted to The need for theology within Hinduism is to the poverty and violence in Latin America and create a bulwark for those who are faith pilgrims. begun doing a new kind of theology. Before It is not for those whose careers depend on ex- them, Christian theology had often been specu- ploiting the doubts and insecurities of the de- lative and philosophical. Gutiérrez8 and Sobrino9 votees. Otherwise those who do not belong to reinterpreted the Gospels in the light of the lived the faith community of the Hindus will through realities of their environments. Their new theolo- knee-jerk reactions reject the very idea of Hin- gising came to be known as ‘liberation theology’. duism and a united India as facetious and he- Christian theology thus veered away from gemonic. They will label any talk of God, nation, meditating on God to the more mundane, yet and ethics as being right-wing and conservative. more urgent need for uplifting the living condi- It is not proper to decry them from within the tions of the people of Latin America and then, of hermeneutic of Hindu theology since from the

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Hindu faith community’s perspective, these practical ramifications: the destiny of India and people do not have the intellectual rigour to rise the sanity of mentally disturbed Indians. above philosophy and have lost sight of the goal Hinduism conflates the idea of religion with of human life—Self-realization. Therefore, it is that of the goals of human life and stresses the wrong on the part of the Hindu faith-commu- value of human prowess. Therefore, for Hindus, nity to respond meaningfully to them. religion signifies the totality of being human in Thus we find that historiography for the his- relation to their revealed scriptures and God. tory of Hindus by people outside of the Hindu Hindu cosmology is based on the One becom- faith community, though called scientific, is en- ing the many—everything, every possible ac- tirely based on materialist dialectics. They do tion is from within dharma and inseparable from not see God or any other transcendental force dharma. And Hindu dharma is the way of the informing their hermeneutic. As it is a matter Brahman qua the Godhead. This is in contrast of faith it is imperative for Hindu theologians to say, Buddhism, which does not see religion in to see historical events as being entirely willed terms of God: ‘The Buddha … [refuses] to admit by the Brahman with qualities, a concept first any metaphysical principle as a common thread thought of in Hinduism. holding the moments of encountered phenom- A simple illustration will suffice: why is it that ena together, rejects the Upanisadic notion of an a certain kind of Hindu historiography needs to immutable substance or principle underlying the be done as against Western modes of historicis- world and the person and producing phenomena ing? We need to see the huge corpus of litera- out of its inherent power, be it “being”, atman, ture on India’s partition. They definitively locate brahman or “god”’.11 the event of the partition within the paradigms of colonialism and the British Raj. While this A Hindu Theology for Our Times specificity is logically valid being structuralist Now, we need to turn to liberation theology to in nature; this whole schema discounts the par- underscore the need for doing theology in India, tition as an event within the continuum of the amongst Hindus. A religion can remain alive and Hindu understanding of history. Hindu histor- not be mythical if its adherents adapt to the signs iography sees history as definitively circular, in- of the times. Thus, the Roman Catholic curia re- finitely repeatable, and more Nietzschean than jected Latin for English in its liturgy during the it is acknowledged. The quasi-historical event Second Vatican Council. Today scholars within of the partition did not merely rise out of social, the Roman Catholic tradition theologise not by economic, political, and normatively religious first studying Old and New Greek, Aramaic, and factors. It was also transcendental and metaphys- Hebrew. Roman Catholic theologians depend on ical; it was God’s will. acceptable translations of original or source texts. Another clichéd field is psychoanalysis: do For example, without Benedicta Ward’s transla- we divide the mind as Freud did or do Hindus tions of the sayings of the Desert Fathers,12 one treat the neurotic individual in terms of Hindu cannot do Christian desert theology. theories of psychology? While Freud posits the There are scholars who have to be experts in unconscious; Hindu metaphysicians of the mind ancient languages like Sumerian to first trans- insist on the blissful Atman behind each of us. late the primary Judaeo-Christian texts. Further, These two very separate issues have important Christian desert-theology speaks to us because

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of its praxis by Charles de Foucauld in our times. do in this universal search, all religious trad- In this world of social networking leading to itions have, in their differences, equal value; constant connectivity with hundreds of friends, none has precedence over the others or is priv- the practising Roman Catholic will find means ileged with a special divine revelation … The notion of ‘myth’… must also be applied to the to keep one’s life in order through desert spir- idea of the Divine Ultimate, whichever be the ituality and theology. Thus in a sense the work form under which it comes to be known in of the Christian theologian is to keep alive the the different religions: the Hindu Brahman, message of Jesus by helping each generation of the Allah of Islam, the Yahweh of Judaism, the Christians to understand the Gospels within Abba of Christianity … To speak of ‘Our Father their times and locales. in heaven’ is to refer in the Christian mythical Hindus have long meditated on the nature key to that which is ‘the Real’.13 of Brahman, the Atman, and causality. They Dupuis sets the tone of respect that doing have constructed moral theologies which en- theology demands of the contemporary theo- force categorical imperatives. But the urgent logian. Instead of building and examining scho- work which needs to be done is to start theolo- lastic idols, Hindus need to begin with assuming gising for the twenty-first century. The demands that their ideas of the supreme Godhead are best of this century are unique and there is a need understood by that which Dupuis calls ‘The no- to have theologians who can help us in realiz- tion of “myth”’ (ibid.). Since we perceive the su- ing the god-experience in the here and the now. preme Godhead, the Brahman, only through a Hindu theology has to be bipartite—there is a dark glass, we need to materialize the notion of need for experts to address the faith community myth. The transformation of Dupuis’myth de- of those who accept the Sanatana Dharma and mands making the intangible, tangible. When then, there is a need for others who will theolo- the mythical is constrained by time and space, it gise in a more global and plural manner. becomes a religion open to theological scrutiny. Jacques Dupuis in his magnum opus, Toward Just as Acharya Shankara streamlined different a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism has modes of worship and organised different monas- this to say of our ideas of that reality which can tic orders, the present need is to develop a fresh be only normatively identified but never really and cogent system of theological doctrines that entrapped by language or even religions: can be followed by devoted Hindus. Who is an One of the main objections raised against the avatara? What is grace? Who can be called a saint? theocentric paradigm was its uncritical assump- Though such questions have been addressed time tion of a concept of the Absolute Reality akin and again in Hindu religious texts, often such texts to the monotheistic and prophetic religions of belonged to a particular sect within Hinduism, the Western Hemisphere, one totally alien to which may not be accepted by many other Hindu the mystical traditions of the East. How could sects. The present need is to have a system to an- a preconceived idea of God be imposed upon swer these questions from an overall perspective, all in a bid to show how in their differences they giving broad outlines accommodating the variety do converge in the same Divine Center? This situation forced the protagonists of theocen- and catholicity of Hinduism, which would be ac- tric pluralism to propose further models which, ceptable by all sects and traditions within Hin- however, amount to little more than new vari- duism. This would help lay devotees identify and ations on the same theme … Sharing as they affirm the true practitioners and saints of the faith.

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The very idea of a ‘Hindu Theology’ could be mission, who lives in the state of Christ’s grace a jarring note to many. However, the word ‘the- through faith, hope, and love, yet who has no ology’ is used here for want of a better word and explicit knowledge of the fact that his life is ori- does not mean the adopting of any framework ented in grace-given salvation to Jesus Christ.’14 outside of Hinduism. In due course, this dis- It is notable that Rahner called non-Christians cipline could be accommodated under the wide ‘pagans’—a derogatory term—when the struc- ambit of ‘Adhyatmika Shastra’. turalists within the social sciences were making In this context, ‘Hindu Theology’ would revolutionary critiques of Christianity. mean the systematization of various beliefs Conservative Hindus may object to theolo- within the Hindu tradition, from the perspec- gising as a cultural work because it would mean tive of a believer of the Hindu faith that will af- relying too heavily on Western hermeneutics firm and defend the Hindu religious tradition. and paradigms. Nevertheless Hinduism needs This would be in effect a reconceptualising of to reconceptualise its indigenous theological Hindu theology received from the tradition of system based on its scriptures but not limited scriptures and would help the average Hindu to glossing. It is an existential need—the Cath- better understand one’s faith and also the other olic theologians mentioned above started vigor- religions, defend or justify the faith, and help in ous theologising when their own faith was in applying the resources of Hindu tradition to pre- jeopardy. A religion which cannot adapt itself sent-day needs. This need becomes accentuated to reality is doomed to extinction. Therefore, now when believers of major world religions it may be prudent to begin a concerted effort that have established theological systems also to reconceptualise theology within Indian and feel that the theological doctrines and the prac- Hindu paradigms. tice of their faiths have become disconnected. So, what could be the context of doing the- Hindus need to have a clear understanding ology in India for Hindus? India is not yet of their theology for their own sake and not to poverty-free, most Indians neither understand position others as ‘anonymous’ adherents of their Sanskrit, nor do they speak English. Thus, they faith, that is, not to claim non-Hindus as ‘actu- are at risk from religio-cultural amnesia and at the ally being Hindus without knowing it’. The con- same time, through lack of English language profi- cept of the ‘anonymous Christian’ is now clichéd ciency, they miss out on technologically informed in Christian circles. The term was put forward paradigm changes. With each technological para- by Karl Rahner SJ, arguably the best twentieth- digm shift, huge numbers of Indian Hindus are century Catholic theologian. He mistakenly pushed further back economically and culturally. thought of labelling all non-Catholics as Cath- For instance, many Indians in present-day olics; the non-Catholics just did not know that businesses throughout the country speak fake they were in fact all Roman Catholics. Hindu Americanese and have no conception of the theologising will enable Hindus to respond to Sanatana Dharma. Thus they feel dislocated such marginalization effected through Chris- and often, inferior to persons with more secure tian theology. The necessity of such a response jobs, and at the same time, inferior to the Ameri- will be evident from what Rahner writes, ‘the cans with whom they have to interact. Often “anonymous Christian” in our sense of the term American clients make fun of Indian accents. is the pagan after the beginning of the Christian This phenomenon was non-existent even two

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decades ago. It will not do to thrust a copy of such self-reflexivity gives way to mere intellec- Bhagavadgita to those in need; neither will hatha tual gymnastics. They have to know genetics, yoga cure them of their systematic exploitation carcinogenesis, and the relative merits and de- by huge corporations. merits of genetically engineered crops—other- wise India cannot feed her people. As Swami Present-day Challenges of Vivekananda insisted, empty stomachs are not Hindu Theology conducive either to national rejuvenation or for Economic Challenges · The need of the hour spiritual endeavours. is that Hindu theologians frame economic National Challenges · Hindu theologians policies which redress the skewed wealth dis- have to address India’s huge fiscal deficits leading tribution patterns and further, have in place an to poverty. They have to deal with the onslaught educational apparatus which equips a Hindu to of the Semitic religions and tricky conversions of harness the tectonic shifts happening as a result marginalized Hindus to other religions. Swami of technological advancement. Unlike politic- Vivekananda too reacted to colonialism and the ally informed policies, Hindu theologians will dismal state of India’s economy under British have to base their recommendations based on rule. He also reacted against our seductions by the Hindu canon. Only if there are Hindu theo- foreign religions. logians addressing their culture specific social Educational Challenges · Hindu theologians and moral ills, can the Hindu faith community have their work cut out for them—they have to appreciate the importance of Sanatana Dharma. get educational institutions up and running on a Social Challenges · Hindu social structure par or better than the best organizations around inculcates slavish obedience—a remnant of co- the world. Hinduism does not need mere pun- lonial rule—to caste injunctions, to our elders, dits who can mouth by rote parts of the Hindu and to our imagined regional linguistic commu- sacred scriptures. Hinduism needs a missiology nities. Theologians need to address these issues of action. There is a need for theologians who can thereby making caste prejudices in marriages and prepare, train, and support persons who will take other social observances, irrelevant. Hindu theo- the message of Sanatana Dharma to every part logians have to be socially sensitive. Maybe there of the world. In short, Hinduism would do well is a need to emphasize the importance of the to adapt to the signs of our times or Hinduism individual over the collective since India needs as a religion will become—like the religions of entrepreneurs to revitalize the Indian economy. the Egyptians and the Greeks—merely mythical. It will not do to merely sing the glories of India’s Thus there is a need for Hindu theologians or Hinduism’s past. who will create a hermeneutics of interpreting Biological Challenges · Hindu dharma en- the actions of other faith communities in terms compasses the totality of life: thus Hindu theo- of Hindu metaphysics. For instance, what do logians need to take a hard look at issues like the Hindu sacred scriptures have to say about euthanasia, abortion in the case of congenital the rise of extremism in the Semitic religions? neo-natal diseases, and of course, at India’s bur- Why cannot disputes based on religion be set- geoning population. Hindu theologians will now tled for good? Hindus as a faith community not have the luxury to contemplate the nature cannot settle for political answers, since pol- of being, of God, of even Hinduism itself—lest itics is partisan. Hindus need to know why

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God allows such disputes to endure. Once they secularism. Hindu intellectuals have paved the understand Hindu theodicy, they will know way for moral relativism. A renewed approach how to react to global conflicts and to conflicts to Hindu theologising will correct the tendency with neighbouring nations. of many scholars, within both Indian studies and Hindu studies, to reduce Sanatana Dharma to Maintaining the Faith Community structuralist critiques devoid of either lived ex- A systematic Hindu theological corpus is needed periences of being Indian and Hindu or failing if we are to ensure that the Hindu faith commu- to understand the value of Hindu rituals. The nity is helped in practical matters. For example, latter are scrutinized through mainly European like every other faith community, Hindus also Enlightenment hermeneutics. The irony is that need family support systems like counselling. It the European Enlightenment was derisive of In- is the laity who need the theology for it is from dians for being colonial subjects. within this Hindu world view that will arise the community leaders of the future. Service in San- Training of a Hindu Theologian: atana Dharma is not akin to social work; it is A Possible Path a transcendental mission of living out faith in Now the time is ripe for training persons to be- daily service. Thus the inner life is prioritized come Hindu theologians in the here and the now. over social concerns. Hindu theology will enable The first condition to be met while theologising this resituating of daily living. within the Hindu religious traditions is to have We now need to turn to two concepts: Hin- Indologists translate two types of source texts: duism and Hindu theology. Hinduism has been the Sanskrit corpus and the vernacular, includ- rejected as not meaningful through etymolog- ing dialectical, texts into English. There is no ical and cultural analyses. Disciplines such as bypassing the English language. Further, these Asian studies, South Asian studies, and Indian prospective theologians will have to be experts studies have been successful in popularising in in various disciplines. Only then can these per- academic circles the foreign origins of the term sons of faith access fruitfully Hinduism’s huge ‘Hindu’. The scholars in these disciplines do not religious corpora and reinterpret them according accept the existence of Sanatana Dharma, leave to the needs of present times. alone any idea of being Hindu. Again this whole The first requisite to do Hindu theology will project of systematising Hinduism runs the risk now be presented at the end. Only those who of being conflated and thus Othered, with the through the grace of God, believe and live out high-handedness of the political polemicists. the realities of the Sanatana Dharma can become Naysayers miss the intellectual enterprise Hindu theologians. Without shraddha, there of Emmanuel Lévinas, Jacques Derrida, and cannot be Hindu theologians. Karl Rahner SJ, Martha Nussbaum. They are Jews writing on Bernard Lonergan SJ, Thomas of Aquinas OP— or glossing the Torah, and thus what they pass the doyen of all Christian theologians, were all off as modernism or cosmopolitanism comes first men of deep faith and then from their God- from their own rootedness in Judaism. They are experience they began to lay out their systematic speaking of accepting the ‘gentile’ who is anath- theologies regarding their Catholic faith, the ema to kosher Jews. Thus what they understand social conditions prevailing during their own by secularism is not what Hindus mistake as times, and the life-world.

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Hindu theologians should be first trained in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.4.5. the crucible of their own families who practise the 2. See truths of Hinduism. Then arises the need for so- accessed 14 October 2014. cial and economic support. Finally, Hindu monks 3. Pius XII, Humani Generis (Vatican: Papal En- cyclicals, 1950) accessed 14 October 2014. will begin to look at the world with eyes tempered 4. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9 vols (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1–8, 1989; with Hinduism’s doctrine of universal tolerance 9, 1997), 1.ix. and be able to sift the grain from the chaff. 5. J Michael Buckley, ‘The Study of Reli- One can do philosophy in a bottom-up man- gion and the Rise of Atheism: Conflict or ner; beginning from preliminary inquiries into Confirmation?’ in Fields of Faith: Theology and the meaning of the universe to arrive at certain Religious Studies for the Twenty-first Century eds David Ford, Ben Quash, and Janet Martin conclusions, which may or may not be true. The Soskice (Cambridge: Cambridge University, theologian, on the other hand, begins with faith 2005), 3. and then shows to the world that her or his faith 6. See Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo: Some is verifiable as true. Unlike the philosopher, the Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives knowledge of the theologian is borne out of her of Savages and Neurotics, trans. James Strachey (New York: W W Norton, 1989). or his prior fidelity to the truth, to natural justice, 7. Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, trans. and the laws of God. That philosophy is theology David Bourke, 23 vols (New York: Seabury, which has been confirmed finally by women and 1976), 1.86. men renunciates as being helpful to the journey 8. See Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, trans. Caridad in God-realisation. What the Hindu theologian Inda and John Eagleson (New York: Orbis, proves must be first ratified by those Hindus who 1988). practise a spiritual life and have these qualities 9. See Jon Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator: A Historical- defined in Hindu scriptures: ‘Fearlessness, pur- Theological Reading of Jesus of Nazareth, trans. ity of heart, steadfastness in knowledge and yoga, Paul Burns and Francis McDonagh (New York: Orbis, 1994). charity, self-control, and sacrifice, study of the 10. See Jon Sobrino, Where Is God? Earthquake, scriptures, austerity and uprightness.’15 Terrorism, Barbarity, and Hope, trans. Margaret Christianity has survived since it has allowed Wilde (New York: Orbis, 2004). inculturation; Hinduism too can rise over the 11. Noa Ronkin, ‘Causation as the Handmaid of Metaphysics: From the Paticcasamuppada to crimson tide if Hindu theologians learn from the the Patthana’ in Early Buddhist Metaphysics: The history of religions. There is no harm done to the Making of a Philosophical Tradition (London: Sanatana Dharma in reaching out to those who Routledge, 2005), 196. remain oblivious of this great religion. This reach- 12. See The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early ing out can be set in motion by vigorous Hindu Christian Monks, trans. Benedicta Ward, (Lon- don: Penguin, 2003). theologising in every aspect of Hindu lives. P 13. Jacques Dupuis, ‘The Debate over Theology of Religions’ in References Toward a Christian Theology of Re- ligious Pluralism (New York: Orbis, 2001), 193. 1. The Upanishads, trans. Swami Nikhilananda, 4 14. Theological Investigations, 14.283. vols (Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama, 2008), 3. 176; 15. Bhagavadgita, 16.1.

672 PB December 2014 India’s Ethnicity in the Eyes of Swami Vivekananda Swami Sandarshanananda

he aryans may have migrated from Swamiji’s idea is being corroborated by the outside India but that doesn’t prove that fact that iron was used, not copper, in South Tthey were more civilized. They were no- India at the beginning of the age of metal, im- mads and covered long distances in search of a mediately succeeding the last phase of the Stone place suitable for settlement. Proceeding east, Age, meaning the Neolithic Age. Since the con- they found the tropical atmosphere of Indian temporary Aryans who settled in North India subcontinent suitable. The region was full of did not know the use of iron, as it required an beautiful mountains, rivers, and forests along advanced knowledge for its extraction, the Dra- with expanses of fertile land. The Aryans had the vidians could be deemed ‘superior’ by dint of their expertise in animal husbandry and use of horse. higher proficiency in science. And that the Dra- They had to learn agriculture from the aborigine vidians were identical with the people of Cen- Dravidians who were by then advanced in its sci- tral Asia is held to be somewhat right. But it is ence. They settled in India after intermittent war a paradox that they advanced from Central Asia and peace with the aborigines. Hence, one can to Egypt and Babylonia in two different factions. presume that the Aryans grew through inter- ‘The Egyptians entered into Egypt from a south- actions with the indigenous people. ern country called Punt, across the seas. Some Swami Vivekananda says: ‘The Dravidians say that that Punt is the modern Malabar, and were a non-aryan race of Central Asia who pre- that the Egyptians and Dravidians belong to the ceded the Aryans, and those of Southern India same race’ (7.367). More penetrating research is were the most civilised. Women with them stood required to unravel its mystery. Swamiji was not higher than men. They subsequently divided, one who would say things without reason. Like- some going to Egypt, others to Babylonia, and the wise, he says: ‘The Ceylonese are not Dravidians rest remaining in India.’1 It is a revolutionary con- but pure Aryans. It was colonised from Bengal cept which contradicts the prevalent notion that about 800 B.C., and they have kept a very clear Egyptian and Babylonian civilizations are anterior history of their country from that time’ (8.395). to Indian civilization, and that the latter might Views such as these given by Swamiji should not have any direct link with the former two, un- open fresh debates helping scholars to write a less through Indus valley civilization, if at all. But more dependable history of mankind. As for the Swamiji passed away much before the Indus valley question of women standing above men in the civilization was archaeologically discovered, with early Dravidian society, similarly nothing defin- the impression that it might ‘be an older civiliza- ite can be said, until we are able to discover the tion than any yet known to historians’. source from which he draws this conclusion.

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But, conjecturally, he must have had intimately varieties—the Negrito-kolarian, the Dravid- noticed certain practices among the Dravidian ian, and the Aryan. To these have been added women which gave him an inkling; and it thus from time to time dashes of nearly all the known became discernible to him that those practices races, and a great many yet unknown—various breeds of Mongoloids, Mongols, Tartars, and had percolated down the ages from the ancient the so-called Aryans of the philologists. Well, times of our civilization. However, whatever may here are the Persian, the Greek, the Yunchi, the be the truth, there was indeed a period in which Hun, the Chin, the Scythian, and many more, our women enjoyed ample social liberty. Will Du- melted and fused, the Jews, Parsees, Arabs, rant points out: ‘Nevertheless, woman enjoyed Mongols, down to the descendants of the Vi- far greater freedom in the Vedic period than in kings and the lords of the German forests, yet later India. She had more to say in the choice of undigested—an ocean of humanity, composed her mate than the forms of marriage might sug- of these race-waves seething, boiling, struggling, gest. She appeared freely at feasts and dances, and constantly changing form, rising to the surface, and spreading, and swallowing little ones, again joined with men in religious sacrifice. She could subsiding—this is the history of India.3 study, and might, like Gargi, engage in philo- sophic disputation. If she was left a widow there The root, from which our civilization has were no restrictions upon her remarriage.’2 It will grown, according to Vivekananda, is not as sim- not be unreasonable if one visualizes the same ple as it is often conceived. Like others, he too ac- to have been enjoyed by Indian women before cepts ‘Aryanisation’ of our country, cutting across the Vedic age. After all it is the same people who diverse ethnic groups, as true; but he, neverthe- usher in the transmogrification of their social cul- less, believes at the same time that it has happened ture, keeping the beneficial values and making more through an intricate process of sharing and room for others in places of the redundant ones. assimilation of values than by any other means. It Spectacular Speculations was a long drawn out process that slowly trans- formed the country into a common culture. It may Swamiji’s perception of India gives a new vision so happen that Indians themselves adopted the for Indological studies. He takes India’s view appellation ‘Arya’, in order to signify the highest from two different angles—one is of a mature attainment, in terms of spiritual as well as secular historian and the other of a proficient critic— values, in human beings. Besides, the fact that the they ultimately mingle in him to lend his origin- word ‘Arya’ was incorporated into the Sanskrit ality. From the former, in a few masterly strokes lexicography with definite etymological senses he draws a picture of her past thus: also suggests that the term is of Indian origin. A veritable ethnological museum! Possibly, the One of the many meanings derived from it is ‘to half-ape skeleton of the recently discovered Su- lift’, that perfectly matches with the idea Swamiji matra link will be found on search here, too. The propounds. He is of the opinion that the process Dolmens are not wanting. Flint implements can of ‘Aryanisation’, a social and spiritual regener- be dug out almost anywhere. The lake-dwell- ation, of the Dravidians, which at one point of ers—at least the river-dwellers—must have been abundant at one time. The cave-men and leaf- time swamped the entire land, took place grad- wearers still persist. The primitive hunters liv- ually, progressing through every aspect of their ing in forests are in evidence in various parts of lives. It is to him a propitiatory process for the re- the country. Then there are the more historical awakening of the people. In any case, the fact that

674 PB December 2014 India’s Ethnicity 35 the Aryans did not take possession of the land in has its social purpose and function. It is a close one attempt is generally agreeable. Indologist A L corporation equipped with a certain traditional Basham says: ‘The Aryan invasion in India is not a and independent organization, observing cer- single concerted action, but one covering centuries tain usages regarding food and marriage. Each group is free to pursue its own aims free from and involving many tribes, perhaps not all of the interference by others. The functions of the dif- same race and language.’4 Hence, the hallmark of ferent castes were regarded as equally import- Indian culture is a compounded feature that has ant to the well being of the whole. The serenity compelling calls for Orientalists over the centuries. of the teacher, the heroism of the warrior, the The Latin motto ‘light comes from the orient’ of honesty of the businessman, and the patience The Royal Asiatic Society in Britain is a sort of and energy of the worker all contribute to the testimony to this. social growth. Each has its own perfection’ (77). And from the latter, Swamiji draws the con- According to Swamiji, the concept of caste is a clusion: ‘We stick, in spite of Western theories, landmark achievement of our ancestors. Within to that definition of the word “Arya” which we it lie the germs of full manifestation of the human find in our sacred books, and which includes potential as well as the blessings of manifold pro- only the multitude we now call Hindus. This gress in society. The Sanskrit word for ‘caste’ is Aryan race, itself a mixture of two great races, ‘jati’, species. It bears the idea of ‘creation’ along Sanskrit-speaking and Tamil-speaking, applies to with the prospect of ‘variation’. And variation all Hindus alike. That the Shudras have in some brings diversity—diversity stemmed fetches an- Smritis been excluded from this epithet means nihilation. ‘So long as any species is vigorous nothing, for the Shudras were and still are only and active, it must throw out varieties. When the waiting Aryas—aryas in novitiate.’5 Evidently, it ceases or is stopped from breeding varieties, it to Swamiji, anything that is noble and laudable in dies. Now the original idea of Jati was this free- us is of the Aryan descent. He considers evolution dom of the individual to express his nature, his of the Aryan culture in India as an accomplish- Prakriti, his Jati, his caste; and so it remained for ment of the highest order; and it is not the contri- thousands of years.’7 The caste system in practice bution of a single race that makes it possible. For today is ‘not the real jati, but a hindrance to its example, the caste system exercised by it is ‘one progress’ (ibid.). It is practically preventing its of the greatest social institutions’. But its ‘legitim- free action. ‘Any crystallized custom, or privilege, ate fructifications’ are ‘thwarted’ in various ways. or hereditary class in any shape’ obstructs it ‘from Otherwise, it is destined to lead us to a useful goal. its full sway’ (ibid.). And whenever such a thing Reflecting Swamiji’s thought, Dr Radha­ happens in a nation, failing to produce variety in krishnan describes the purpose of caste system: human beings, the result is disastrous. Swamiji ‘Caste on its social side is a product of human cites the examples of Europe and America for the organization and not a mystery of Divine ap- propitious consequences of caste. He says when pointment. It is an attempt to regulate society they ‘took away most of the barriers that stood in with a view to actual and ideal unity.’6 He further the way of individuals, each developing his caste’ explained its ramifications: (ibid.), they rose. Therefore he suggests its ‘full The different functions of the human life were sway again’ for our complete regeneration. The clearly separated and their specific and comple- current confusion regarding caste is because of mentary character was recognized. Each caste its misinterpretation and misrepresentation with

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ulterior motives. Swamiji gave a full-throated of civilization. Swamiji abhorred class, for he had voice in favour of scientific implementation of observed how every extra dollar earned created a caste in society and said: ‘This variety does not new class in an affluent society like the usa, per- mean inequality, nor any special privilege’ (373). petuating discrimination between man and man Swamiji’s conviction was that, ‘Whatever may all the more vigorously. He saw class to be a so- be the import of the philological terms “Aryan” phisticated instrument for social dissension and and “Tamilian”, even taking for granted that both exploitation, giving a spur to pride and prejudice. these grand sub-divisions of Indian humanity came from outside the Western frontier, the div- Intriguing Inferences iding line had been, from the most ancient times, Vexed by an overemphasis on philology for histor- one of language and not of blood’ (299). He ap- ical research on the Aryan genesis, Swamiji says: ‘A preciates varnashrama practised by the Aryans gentle yet clear brushing off of the cobwebs of the because it was ‘very flexible, sometimes too flex- so-called Aryan theory and all its vicious corollar- ible to ensure a healthy uprise of the races very low ies is therefore absolutely necessary, especially for in the scale of culture’ (297). The terms Brahmin, the South, and a proper self-respect created by a Kshatriya, and so on ‘simply represent status of a knowledge of the past grandeur of one of the great community’ (298), which is in a state of flux. So ancestors of the Aryan race—the great Tamilians’ those who are stationed at the uppermost rung of (301). Some historians too believe that ‘the Dra- society have to prove their superiority over others vidians at one time inhabited the whole of India, by manifesting spirituality and ‘by raising others including the Punjab, Sind and Baluchistan, and to the same status’ (300). Swamiji sent them a gradually migrated to Mesopotamia. The fact that word of caution lest they would grow proud and the Dravidian language is still spoken by the Bra- oppressive, having enjoyed the maximum respect hui people of Baluchistan is taken to lend strength as well as authority in society. The false ego gener- to this view.’8 But ethnically Brahuis are predom- ated from birth in higher caste was repugnant to inantly Iranians, establishing that Dravidians him. He said: ‘Beware, Brahmins, this is the sign of went outside India towards Sumeria. death! Arise and show your manhood, your Brah- Dravidians and Sumerians are also believed to minhood, by raising the non-brahmins around be the same, closely connected with the people of you—not in the spirit of a master—not with the the Indus valley. This cannot be denied altogether. rotten canker of egotism crawling with supersti- The Egyptians may be connected with the Dra- tions and the charlatanry of East and West—but vidians through the Sumerians. Swamiji says: ‘The in the spirit of a servant. For verily he who knows borders of this Mediterranean were the birthplace how to serve knows how to rule’ (300). of that European civilisation which has now con- Society is now badly class-ridden. There is a quered the world. On these shores the Semitic deliberate endeavour to multiply classes on the races such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Phoeni- plea of economic progress. Policy of the purse cov- cians, and Jews, and the Aryan races such as the ertly disintegrates humanity into countless classes, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, fused together— which is potentially detrimental. Blocking the effi- to form the modern European civilisation.’9 cacy of caste, we have given way to a naked compe- If the Aryans were of extra-Indian origin, tition and a free rein to its breeding that is slowly then they were divided, as Swamiji held, into two pushing us back to the savagery we left at the dawn groups—one approaching India and the other

676 PB December 2014 India’s Ethnicity 37 travelling to Greece. He arrived at this conclusion immoral. The Hindu type is essentially metaphys- on the basis of his study of Greek culture vis-à-vis ical and religious, but lacking in all the elements Indian culture. He observed that although these of organization and work’ (9.206). He was proud two peoples were of identical roots they were none- to be of the Hindu type because while ‘the whole theless different in nature because of the strong in- world is trying to trace its ancestry from men dis- fluences of two different climatic conditions. tinguished in arms and wealth, the Hindus alone The air of India pre-eminently conduces to are proud to trace their descent from saints’ (207). quietness, the nature of the Yavana [Greek] is the There is yet another ‘theory that the “Indus” constant expression of power; profound medita- people were Aryans’. But it is hard to believe, since tion characterises the one, the indomitable spirit each has an individuality of its own as a people of dexterous activity, the other; one’s motto is with specific expression of development. Even “renunciation”, the other’s “enjoyment”. One’s then, exchange at various levels among them whole energy is directed inwards, the other’s, could have happened to justify their percepti- outwards; one’s whole learning consists in the ble resemblance on certain aspects. Examining knowledge of the Self or the Subject, the other’s, the appearances and languages of the people of in the knowledge of the not-self or the object (perishable creation); one loves Moksha (spirit- our country now, we come across four types of ual freedom), the other loves political independ- them, namely ‘the majority high-class Hindus’, ence; one is unmindful of gaining prosperity ‘the people mostly living in the South Indian Pen- in this world, the other sets his whole heart on insula’, ‘primitive tribes living in hills and jungles’, making a heaven of this world; one, aspiring after and ‘a people with strong Mongolian features’ eternal bliss, is indifferent to all the ephemeral who ‘live on the slopes of Himalayas and moun- pleasures of this life, and the other, doubting the tains of Assam’. The last two are descendants of existence of eternal bliss, or knowing it to be far the Neolithic peoples. Of them, the primitive away, directs his whole energy to the attainment of earthly pleasures as much as possible (4.402). people have not made ‘any appreciable progress during the thousands of years’ last. ‘There is hardly Swamiji here suggests that the world is div- any doubt that these primitive races at one time ided into two ancient cultures resorting to which spread all over India. But they had to yield to the the two hemispheres of Earth, the East and the superior forces of the Dravidians, who gradually West, developed into two distinct civilizations. He occupied some of their lands. The same process dreamt that they would shake hands for mutual was repeated when large tracts of the country were good. But, unfortunately, it seems Kipling’s saying conquered at a later time by the Aryans.’10 Though ‘the twine shall never meet’ is not to be incorrect some of the ancient races extant have not changed ever, in order to make Swamiji’s dream true. In his much externally, yet they could be assumed to analysis, there are broadly three types in the Aryan have come in touch with the influence of the cul- civilization—‘the Roman, the Greek, the Hindu’, ture of the Aryans, which eventually endowed differing in characters. ‘The Roman type is the type them with a sense of belonging to this country on of organization, conquest, steadiness—but lack- the basis of a realized unity with others. ing in emotional nature, appreciation of beauty The idea that the people of South India were and the higher emotions. Its defect is cruelty. The different from the people of North India was Greek is essentially enthusiastic for the beauti- not tenable to Swamiji. He did not observe any ful, but frivolous and has a tendency to become other difference between them than the difference

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of language. ‘There may have been a Dravidian as a nation with a common identity, notwith- people who vanished from here, and the few who standing diverse appearances, languages, beliefs, remained lived in forests and other places. Quite and faiths. This indeed is the ‘Indianness’ about possibly the language may have been taken up, but which Swamiji urges Indians to remain conscious all these are Aryans who came from the North. through the thick and thin of the struggle for ex- The whole of India is Aryan, nothing else.’11 All istence. Clearly, he held the Aryans in high esteem other theories appeared to him quaint and ridicu- because of their achievements in science, religion, lous. The truth is, he says, ‘there is not one word philosophy, literature, arts, and above all spir- in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryan ituality that present India gloriously before the ever came from anywhere outside of India, and in world. To him their life story is an account of the ancient India was included Afghanistan. There it best development of human resources, which is ends’ (293). Similarly, the theory that multitudes captured in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. of Shudras were non-Aryans was unacceptable to Numerous characters of these two epics are our him. It is unbelievable that numerous indigenous cherished heritage for millennia; and they form slaves are at the command of a handful of alien the basis of our thoughts and of our moral and Aryans, showing no physical reactions to them. ethical ideas. Praising these two literary works, he His explanation in this regard is that there was says: ‘In fact, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata only one caste in the beginning, ‘the Brahmins, are the two encyclopaedias of the ancient Aryan and then by difference of occupation they went on life and wisdom, portraying an ideal civilisation dividing themselves into different castes’ (ibid.). which humanity has yet to aspire after’ (4.101). Swamiji observes poetically: ‘Onward through Swamiji was worshipful to everything Aryan. several centuries, we come to a multitude sur- He looked upon its influence as auspicious and rounded by the snows of the Himalayas on the wanted that every child born in India should be north and the heat of the south—vast plains, in- Aryan. He said: ‘I may remark that according to terminable forests through which mighty rivers Manu a child who is born of lust is not an Aryan. roll their tides. We catch a glimpse of different The child whose very conception and whose races—Dravidians, Tartars, and Aboriginals pour- death is according to the rules of the Vedas, such is ing in their quota of blood, of speech, of manners an Aryan. Yes, and less of these Aryan children are and religions. And at last a great nation emerges being produced in every country, and the result is to our view—still keeping the type of the Aryan— the mass of evil which we call Kali Yuga’ (3.409). stronger, broader, and more organized by the as- Swamiji’s inquisitive mind delved deep into similation. We find the central assimilative core the Aryan history. His inquiring search divulged giving its type and character to the whole mass the truth that the Aryans never snatched ‘away clinging on with great pride to its name of “Aryan”, the lands of the aborigines’ and drove them out. and, though willing to give other races the bene- He took it to be ‘pure nonsense’ and considered fits of its civilization, it was by no means willing such ideas ‘monstrous lies’, propagated with vested to admit them within the “Aryan” pale’(6.159). interest. He is overtly distrustful of the intellectual foibles like the Aryans hailed from Central Asia, Epilogue Central Tibet, North Pole, Swiss Lake, and other There is a subtle phenomenon in the Indian way areas. Swamiji registers his reservation: ‘When- of life, powerful enough to hold Indians together ever the Europeans find an opportunity, they

678 PB December 2014 India’s Ethnicity 39 exterminate the aborigines and settle down in ease pleasant but virtually beastly processes never and comfort on their lands; and therefore they found a place’ (537). India was a melting pot think the Aryans must have done the same!’(5.535). which produced a universal culture that had a Sri Ramachandra was struck by the grandeur of bearing on every nation for its civilization. Lanka, soon after stepping on its soil, following his Swami Vivekananda’s predictions about the victory. The people of South India were his ‘friends Aryans are thought-provoking. In our own inter- and allies’ as they were of the same stock. Perhaps, est, we can ill-afford to remain indifferent to them. ‘in a few places there were occasional fights be- Replacing the myths and deceptions, we have to tween the Aryans and aborigines’ (536). Under- draw the correct conclusions regarding our an- standably, aborigines with sticks and stones could cestors. The fact that some erudite historians also not be compared with the Aryans armed with confirm Swamiji’s view is evident from Will Du- swords, bows, and arrows ‘on fiery steeds’. Swamiji rant: ‘In the days when historians supposed that gives his observation in imagery thus: ‘The loom of history had begun with Greece, Europe gladly be- the fabric of Aryan civilisation is a vast, warm, level lieved that India had been a hotbed of barbarism country, interspersed with broad, navigable rivers. until the “Aryan” cousins of the European peoples The cotton of this cloth is composed of highly had migrated from the shores of the Caspian to civilised, semi-civilised, and barbarian tribes, bring the arts and sciences to a savage and be- mostly Aryan. Its warp is Varnashramachara, and nighted peninsula. Recent researches have marred its woof, the conquest of strife and competition this comforting picture—as future researches will in nature’ (ibid.). He remarks that in occupying change the perspective of these pages.’12 He asks other countries, Europeans never raised them to whether India is the oldest civilization. Maybe better conditions. They exterminated them by Swamiji’s assertion is the only logical answer to the roots, as if they were beastly, when they found the question with its needed affirmation. P their races weaker. This is evidenced by the his- tories of America, Australia, New Zealand, the References Pacific Islands, and South Africa. 1. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Swamiji infers that the Aryans did not come 9 vols (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1–8, 1989; from outside India and believes that the Aryans 9, 1997), 7.52. from India went to different parts of the world 2. Will Durant, The toryS Of Civilization (New York: Simon And Schuster, 1954), 1.401. to spread a more civilized way of life. This seems 3. Complete Works, 4.296. plausible because the Dravidians, believed to have 4. A L Basham, The Wonder That Was India (New covered most of the earth, are in Swamiji’s per- York: Macmillan, 1959), 29–30. ception, non-different from the Aryans. Their 5. Complete Works, 4.301. message was of peace and progress through the 6. S Radhakrishnan, The Hindu View Of Life, (London: Unwin, 1980), 76. division into varnas, which is a ladder to rise 7. Complete Works, 4.372. above ‘in proportion to one’s learning and cul- 8. R C Majumdar, H C Raychaudhury, Kalikinkar ture’. Swamiji’s appraisal about them is lofty. ‘The Datta, An Advanced History of India (New York: Aryans were kind and generous; and in their Macmillan, 1970), 23. 9. , 7.366–7. hearts which were large and unbounded as the Complete Works 10. An Advanced History of India, 14. ocean, and in their brains, gifted with superhu- 11. Complete Works, 3.292. man genius, all these ephemeral and apparently 12. The Story Of Civilization, 1.394.

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—No bleed here— Harmony through the Fine Arts Swami Madhurananda

n the context of ‘Unity in Diversity’1 in principles, certain essentials. Each field of know- the fine arts, we will use the traditional clas- ledge or science has as its object of study one Isification of the fine arts, which includes the or more of these universal principles. In Swami seven basic arts: music, dance, drama, literature, Vivekananda’s words: architecture, painting, and sculpture.2 The reason Every science must end where it finds a unity, is that all the fine arts have one essential element in because we cannot go any further. When a per- common. Moreover, we are discussing this topic fect unity is reached, that science has nothing from an Indian perspective, where the relation more of principles to tell us. … Take any sci- among all the arts is closer than in other cultures. ence, chemistry, for example. Suppose we can To quote from the Encyclopaedia Britannica: find one element out of which we can manu- The relation of the various arts to each other facture all the other elements. Then chemistry, is very close in South Asia, where proficiency as a science, will have become perfect. What in several arts is necessary for specialization will remain for us is to discover every day new in any one. Thus, it is believed that without a combinations of that one material and the ap- good knowledge of dance there can be no pro- plication of those combinations for all the pur- ficiency in sculpture, for dance, like painting or poses of life.4 sculpture, is a depiction of all the world. For its rhythmic movements and exposition of emo- In the field of physics the essential elements tion, dance also requires musical accompani- are akasha and prana, matter and energy—or ments; hence, knowledge of musical rhythm is vibration as Swamiji preferred to translate the essential. For the stirring of emotion either in word prana. All of physics is the study of the music or in dance, knowledge of literature and variations and permutations of these two elem- rhetoric is believed to be necessary; the flavour ents, akasha and prana. The moment it was (rasa) to be expressed in music, dance, sculp- mathematically proved that they are exchange- ture, or painting requires a literary background. able, that one is the other in a different form, Thus all the arts are closely linked together.3 physics touched its bottom, it reached its unify- We are about to deal with harmony through ing factor. Beyond akasha and prana there is only the fine arts, but before finding the harmony in one thing, Brahman. From the angle of physics them, we need to find that common factor, that then, we say that Brahman has manifested itself unity behind the diversity of the fine arts, that first through akasha andprana . without which no art is worth being called so. Take another example: what is the unifying factor in the social sciences, their basic object Brahman in the Arts of study? It is the human mind. All the social Brahman is the unity behind the diversity in sciences—from anthropology and sociology to creation and it manifests itself first in certain politics and economics—are the study of the

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—No bleed here— Harmony through the Fine Arts 41 variations of the human mind, the individual to appreciate or connect with any artistic pro- and the collective mind. Beyond that there is duction. If we try to explain bhava as ‘being in only one thing, the Atman. tune or in contact with the essence of art or the Now, what is that through which Brahman spirit of a particular art’, we may be still closer has manifested itself in the fine arts? What is to grasping its import, but this sounds a bit too that unifying factor behind all the arts? As we ambitious, like something reserved for a few gif- are, in one sense, made of akasha and prana, as we ted people; and again we miss the point, because all have a mind, the essential element common to anyone can interact at different levels with any the fine arts is in us too, and that isbhava . The work of art. unifying factor in the fine arts isbhava . Without Bhava and Rasa bhava there is no art. Swami Vivekananda said: ‘All poetry, paint- The wordbhava has different connotations ac- ing, and music is feeling expressed through words, cording to the context in which it is used—in the through colour, through sound’ (7.31). Swamiji bhakti schools it means one thing, while in yoga used the word ‘feeling’ because he was address- philosophy it means quite another. In the field of ing a varied non-Indian audience. But there is no aesthetics it helps to understand that the word is proper equivalent in English for the Sanskrit word derived from the Sanskrit root bhu, which means bhava. In the fine arts, if we translate this word ‘to be’, ‘to exist’, ‘to become’. Therefore,bhava has as ‘feeling’ or ‘mood’ or ‘emotion’, we miss some to do with existence, with becoming, with some- of its important aspects. For example, we would thing very essential in us, and not merely with a never associate feeling or emotion with algebra or taste for the arts. geometry or mathematics. However, the exact sci- Bhava is not rasa. This is known to anyone ences are part of the artistic bhava as well. An ar- acquainted with Indian aesthetics, but unfortu- chitect, or anyone who is able to understand fine nately these two concepts are generally confused architecture, is forced to have knowledge of alge- in common parlance. Rasa is the aesthetic experi- bra and physics. True painters and sculptors have ence derived from any form of art by both the an intuitive knowledge of geometry to handle the artist, at the time of artistic production, and the tensions and the forms in any media they use to rasika, the one who experiences art, by being in express their particular bhava. Fine musicians may contact with an artwork. Rasa is evoked by bhava; not be good at solving mathematical equations, so bhava is at the centre of rasa. To philosophize, but they have a high sense of mathematics—to it can be said that in the arts bhava is the univer- some Greek philosophers like Pythagoras, music sal principle, as akasha and prana are to physics is another form of mathematics. Therefore,bhava or the human mind—in this case the mahat, uni- is much more than feeling or mood or emotion. versal mind—is to the humanities; while rasa is Again, if we translate this word as ‘artistic sen- the varied expressions of that universal principle. sitivity’ or ‘the quality to produce or perceive In the Indian tradition of art, the aesthetic art’, we may be closer to the concept, but imme- experience that comes through the bhava of the diately many may feel that ‘I am not artistically rasika, of the perceiver, is considered as important sensitive’ or ‘I may be sensitive with regard to as the bhava of the artist or the bhava expressed some of the arts, but not to all of them’, while in an artwork. Only in the last century the West the truth is that all of us can develop our bhava started to discuss, in what is called modern art,

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—No bleed here— PAINTING: ‘NARADA’ / PURNACHANDRA SINHA - - - s, and s, and PB December 2014 is to try to is and be to more 6 of this form of art. And art.of And form this of ten to the music with attention attention with music the to ten and study it minutely, I came came I it minutely, study and more and more to understand understand to more and more admiration. in lost I was it, and every case with is the art.Such In glancing at a highlyglancing at finished paint ing we cannot understand where its its where understand cannot we ing beauty lies. Moreover, unless the eye the unless beauty lies. Moreover, is, to a certain extent, trained, one trained, one extent, a certain is, to cannot appreciate the subtle touches touches subtle the appreciate cannot genius of a blendings, inner and the of art. work One more personal story to share in in story personal share more to One sort of impression, but when I began I when lis but to - sortof impression, singers howl like jackals. I also had the same jackals. same the I also like had singers howl hence we do not like it, and think that the the that think it, and do not like we hence Oh, it is very good; it a perfection is in there Only, attained. not have which we harmony, of well, it does ears, not sound untrained our to no intellectual approach at first. ‘Just listen listen ‘Just first. at approach no intellectual you feel until listening on Keep music. the to this regard. Long back I wanted to go to deep wanted back I regard. Long this you have been able to achieve an intuitive un been achieve able to intuitive an have you I have done this for several years. He gave me a several years. for He this done I have In other words, he was encouraging me to be me to encouraging he was in words, other In bhava the with contact main of the maestros Indian great by lot of music that years many only was after It instruments. of Indian structure the about reading I started classical music. into Indian classical music and asked an Indian Indian an asked and classical music Indian into guideto to musician give me, to something me ragas, ragini structure—the its about read anything,read to told me not talas.artist The said. he classical music,’ of Indian derstanding to develop artistic bhava developartistic to art the to general,in arts first exposed the to more those to then and culture one’s of productions istic finethe regular Thiswith cultures. contact of other gradually arts Once gives them. for basic a taste Vivekananda: Swami asked Shivananda Swami replied: like?’ Swamiji music and ‘What is Western

- - - - 5 Prabuddha Bharata Prabuddha - - of the rasika of the - , however, has no frontiers, no frontiers, no has , however, —No bleed here— —No bleed bhava in relation to the fine arts? step fine the to first The relation in Artistic Artistic not stop at the theory;- it prac the at make stop not to have we develop we can how is then question The tical. bhava Till now we have discussed the theory. But we can we But theory. discussed the have we now Till Harmony with Creation Harmony ground, would be so sensitive and and would beground, so sensitive clas Indian knowledgeable about remark the felt artist the Perhaps, sical music. more, hour an so he played half and for true was recital good was the time this and indeed. they never imagined that people they imagined never the in that a such with world, side of the other musical back and cultural different India to perform for free and yet you yet free and for perform to India best!’ not given your The sitarist have I guess stunned. were hisand retinue ence stood up and said to the artist: artist: said and the stood to ence up from come all way the you have ‘Sir, tion after the exam. When exam.the When after tion a middle- recital over, was the aged- audi local the in person that the play was neither deep neither was play the that this attributed skilful, but nor - exhaus mental feeling my to in a South American country. It was was It country. American a South in I felt theatre. a free a small concert in pleting a difficult exam. Today Indian Indian Today a difficult exam. pleting the all perform around classical musicians years ago wasrare twenty-five it but world, playing India from a sitarist to listen to student in Buenos Aires, I listened to to listened I Aires, Buenos in student com after recital immediately a sitar has beenhas acknowledged millennia. from prin is a universal It borders. limiting cultural - illus to all in incident An of us. ciple present trate: Several ago, years as a university cess of art, while in India the bhava the India of art,cess while in the importance of the aesthete’s capacity ex to aesthete’s of the importance the pro the completes that art factor as the perience 42 682 Harmony through the Fine Arts 43

And one never stops learning, grasping nu- people who have sensitivity for and knowledge ances at deep levels. Because it is the deep level of of the arts and that is developed better from an bhava that take us to the spiritual dimension of early age. Sister Nivedita, one of the foremost dis- any art, that keeps us in contact with God. This ciples of Swami Vivekananda, could have chosen is another important reason for using the word to work through any of the multiple fields that bhava in art without translation, as in this word is Swamiji worked in, but she chose mainly two: edu- implied the final spiritual dimension of all the arts. cation and the arts. She not only supported many To quote again from the Encyclopaedia Britannica: Indian artists but also introduced appreciation of ‘The arts were cultivated in South Asia not only art in her school. She knew that teaching appreci- as a noble pastime but also in a spirit of dedica- ation of the arts to the masses, instead of only to tion, as an offering to a god.’7 Through an intense, the elites, is essential to recover and then reaffirm deep, authentic bhava in the arts we can approach a cultural identity, an identity that contributes to the Truth, we can realize God, which is the goal of the culture of the whole world. human life. And an effective way to intensify our To conclude, one quote from Swami Vive- bhava through the fine arts is to follow the same kananda: ‘The artistic faculty was highly devel- process we use for the study of the Shastras: shra- oped in our Lord, Shri Ramakrishna, and he used vana, manana, and nidi­dhyasana. First we should to say that without this faculty none can be truly be exposed to the arts, as much as possible; then spiritual.’8 We all have that artistic faculty in us; we study them, reflect on them; and finally we go let us develop it at a higher level. P deep in a constant tune with their essence. If this Notes and References process is followed, we achieve harmony not only 1. This article is based on a talk given by the author within us but also with other cultures and their in the session ‘Unity in Diversifed Arts’ of the ways of producing art. In the end, through art, we seminar on ‘Unity in Diversity’ held at Rama- find harmony with the whole creation. krishna Ashrama, Rajkot from 6 to 8 February 2014. A Request 2. See accessed 18 October Please do not discourage your children, do not dis- 2014. courage any youth from pursuing an artistic career 3. accessed 18 October 2014. push them to be doctors or lawyers or engineers if 4. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, in their hearts they do not want to be that. There is 9 vols (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1–8, 1989; a lot of prestige in an artistic career. Of the last ten 9, 1997), 6.10. Bharat Ratnas—the highest civil award granted by 5. There is a modern treatise on this point, ana- the Government of India, four went to performers lysed from the Kashmir Shaivism perspective and based on the Shilpa Shastras, the Vastu of the fine arts, unlike in previous cases where the Shastras, and the Natya Shastras: Harsha V De- award was granted mainly to statesmen or phil- hejia, The Advaita of Art (New Delhi: Motilal osophers. This is a sign that people appreciate the Banarsidass, 1996). fine arts a lot. A dedicated artistic career is a great 6. Complete Works, 5.361–2. 7. accessed 18 duce good artists, good teachers are also required. October 2014. Patronage of the fine arts comes generally from 8. Complete Works, 5.259.

PB December 2014 683 Forgive and Forget—A Riddle Swami Kritarthananda

The Paradox round the neck of the meditating sage, and left the avana, sorely stricken with grief place in a huff. The sage had a young son who had at the ghastly death of his son Indrajit in gone outdoors on an errand. On his return he was R the hands of Lakshmana, appeared in furious to see the humiliating sight. Meanwhile battle array before Rama to settle the final score. his father came back to normal consciousness and But the mental shock made him tired and weak. innocently asked the reason for his son’s wrath. This did not elude the eyes of Rama. The em- When his son angrily told him of the king’s of- bodiment of mercy that he was, Rama ordered fence, sage Shamika only stuck to the noble virtue his arch-rival, who abducted his beloved wife of forgiveness. But before the father could warn Sita, to go back and rest until he regained his him, the enraged son had spat out his curse: ‘The strength and vigour, and then come back for king will no more see the light of the earth after the decisive battle. This was a signal example of seven days. He will be fatally bitten by a venomous forgiving the enemy who was at his mercy. The snake.’ Here the father forgave but the son did not. brave Hindu kings of yore are said to possess this The author of the Bhagavata beautifully depicted distinct, legendary quality of forgiveness. and concluded this epoch-making event in just a In striking contrast, in a fierce battle between couple of verses with these comments: Arjuna and Karna, when the wheel of Karna’s Iti putrakritaghena so anutapto mahamunih, chariot got stuck in the mud, he begged Arjuna svayam viprakrito rajna naivagham tadacintayat. , for a few moments’ ceasefire. Arjuna wanted to prayashah sadhavo loke parairdvandveshu yojitah na vyathanti na hrishyanti yatatma’gunashrayah. comply, but Sri Krishna prodded him to van- Thus the sage regretted on hearing the enraged quish the enemy in that unguarded moment. curse of his son; yet he never dwelt on the wrong The upshot is known to all. Karna succumbed to done to him by the king [Parikshit]. It is quite fre- the fatal injury on his back—a breach of battle- quent that in this world there are holy men who codes! In other words, forgiveness was not ac- do not feel miserable or happy at the contradict- corded to Karna. ory behaviours from others. To them the atman The Bhagavata narrates the story of King Parik- is free from all attributes of nature [Prakriti].1 shit, the descendant of the Pandava clan. Once he Sri Ramakrishna’s shadow companion Hriday went out on a hunting spree in a forest. After a had served him a lot. But in later days he became wild chase he became tired and overcome with puffed up with vanity and every now and then thirst and hunger. A little while later he espied a hurled insolent comments at Sri Ramakrishna. hermitage in which the sage Shamika was sitting, Once the offence crossed the limit of his toler- lost in ecstasy. The king’s repeated calls met with ance. Yet Sri Ramakrishna did not revile him. no response. Impatient with the sage, the king Months later, as ill luck would have it; Hriday collected a dead snake from the vicinity, hung it incurred the wrath of the temple authorities on

684 PB December 2014 Forgive and Forget—A Riddle 45 some other grounds and was dismissed from the temple forever. One day, a repentant Hriday came to his senses and went to Dakshineswar to meet Sri Ramakrishna. As he was refused entry into the temple precincts, Sri Ramakrishna himself went to the gate and enquired of his welfare. The poor, repentant Hriday fell flat at his uncle’s feet, crying aloud. Sri Ramakrishna consoled him, and in mercy his eyes also became flooded with tears. In other words, he forgave his tormentor. Some of the above stories are outstanding examples of forgiveness while others are excep- tions. These examples, again, give rise to certain pertinent questions. To put it in the poet’s lan- guage, ‘to forgive or not to forgive; that is the question’. Our great epics and scriptures must guide us in the way of living. And in all our inter- personal dealings one of the important points that comes up is, ‘when to forgive and when not to’. The apparently conflicting stories above may confuse us. At times in our life we forgive others; but they revile us in return. Naturally the ques- Hriday holding Sri Ramakrishna in samadhi tion comes: should we have rather not forgiven? So in the final analysis, though people know Was it a mistake to forgive? clearly that to forgive is a noble quality, though The phrase ‘forgive and forget’ has, of late, people in general flippantly sermonise about this become almost a cliché. Most parents, with a great quality, they fail to practise forgiveness. We view to settling certain issues, and in fear of shall now proceed to discuss the reasons thereof. losing peace, advise their children to ‘forgive and forget’ when the latter flares up against some- Reasons for Failure to Forgive one due to some valid reason. Or when superi- The first reason is human weakness. Weak people ors find themselves at the losing end in a heated can never forgive others. Within their hearts they exchange of words, finding no other avenues of nurture the deep-seated sense of deprivation. To escape, they use this sort of chicanery to bring forgive others one has to be stronger than others. the debate to a dead stop. But ironically enough, Swami Vivekananda said that only that person when their turn comes to forgive and forget, who can give a blow for a blow, who can hit back, they miserably fail to hold on to the maxim and has the capacity to forgive. This was precisely the rationalize their attitude of retaliation. Little do reason why he was so vociferous on developing they realise that such lapses on their part only inner strength first. His concept of education was betray their malice and impotence—both these to restore the lost confidence of the race. For a traits are poorly suited to be human qualities, weakling the only logical course of action will be to much less divine. hold a grudge, backbite, or complain perpetually.

PB December 2014 685 46 Prabuddha Bharata

A person once approached Swamiji and superiors as the sworn enemy of humankind. divulged his desire to know God. Seeing his Far from forgiving, these oppressed people, out emaciated structure Swamiji understood his in- of deep hatred, will seek every opportunity to capability; so he asked, ‘Can you tell a lie?’ The upset their opponents. scandalized person answered in the negative, As a third reason it can be said that when we at which Swamiji said, ‘Then you must learn feel hurt at others’ adverse comments or behav- to do so. It is better to tell a lie than to be a iour, we go on reliving the experience by repeat- brute, or a log of wood. You are inactive; you edly remembering it or narrating it to others. have not certainly reached the highest state, Each time we remember, the impulses that which is beyond all actions, calm and serene; should have come out at the time of its happen- you are too dull even to do something wicked.’2 ing bubble up in the mind making it a slave of In other words, Swami Vivekananda insisted the impulse. A lot of our energy gets siphoned that strength, and not weakness, should be the off in this way. The pictures associated with the prerequisite to spiritual life. memory go on adding impulses each time we The second reason is the deep-seated feeling relive it. At last it takes the form of a huge wave of hatred towards others. This may be rooted in and hooks our will which, thus enslaved by the a humiliating insult from others or come from wrongly directed mental waves, makes a sam- being badly victimized by evil-minded people kalpa, resolve, to take revenge. An enslaved will or from suppression by superiors or a powerful cannot forgive others. To forgive in the right authority. A large number of the world’s popu- spirit one needs to be a master of the will. lace harbour, in psychological parlance, a typ- Once a disciple asked Jesus Christ, ‘Lord, how ical instinct in them known as ‘death instinct’. It often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive expresses itself in unreasonable domination over him?’ He gave a significant reply: ‘Seventy times others, suppression of others’ talents, causing hu- seven.’3 Why did he say so? Because though, per- miliation to others, and so on. This trait may also haps, the sin was committed only once, we go on be triggered by people in power through their mentally reliving the offence for the umpteenth studied neglect, refusal to recognize others’ tal- time. This is not only meaningless but also harm- ents, and in many other ways. ful on a subjective basis. A monk, while bathing For such people with a ‘death instinct’, even in a river saw a young lady being helplessly carried forgiving others implies conditional forgive- away by the current and crying out for help. He ness. The other name for this is making slaves swam to her and rescued her. The news spread of others. These people use such high-sounding with some aspersion on the monk. He was sum- words as ‘obedience like a dog’, ‘unconditional moned to a covey of his brother monks and was obedience’, and so on only in order to hoodwink challenged for his breach of monastic conduct. naive people. They want their subordinates to do But the monk gave a rejoinder indifferently: ‘I everything at their whimsical command in re- have left the woman on the bank, while you are turn for some physical comforts and false sense carrying her still in your heart!’ of security from the world. Most of their victims Why are we not able to digest the hurts and give in just for the sake of the little comforts of misbehaviours inflicted on us by others? It is be- life they get. But those who cannot be content cause we fail to make our heart large enough to with such petty achievements will treat such merge all such petty feelings into it. And in order

686 PB December 2014 Forgive and Forget—A Riddle 47 to make our heart spacious enough to contain what ought to be done and what ought not be others’ feelings we must know the art of loving done in a particular situation: ‘Karyakarya-vish- others. It is the lack of mature love that forces aya-viveka-yogyam, fit to distinguish between us to recoil from forgiving others. This, then, what ought to be done and what ought not be is the fourth reason of our failure to forgive. To done.’ Lack of this discrimination renders one love another person, a deep understanding is ne- unfit to be called a human. cessary—understanding of my own capacities In the long course of evolution, human beings and limitations, and also those of the person I have succeeded in differentiating themselves love. Tussles are unavoidable in interpersonal from all other species; they have come out of dealings. None is born perfect. Awareness of this their animal sheath and are lording over other truth helps us cement the bonds of love. With- lower species. But how far have they truly suc- out this awareness, all temporal loves get reduced ceeded in establishing their human identity? to love-hate relationships. That is indeed a relevant question. On close scru- The fifth reason is our inability to hold fast tiny it is found that Darwin’s epochal theory of to our human identity. On analysis it is found the survival of the fittest holds true at the human that people take advantage of our foolishness level also, only in different forms like cut-throat or lack of knowledge in certain worldly affairs. competition, keeping up with others, jealousy, Most people are hell-bent on growing at others’ going ahead of others, and so on. The animal cost. In the name of love they use sweet, sugar- propensities sneak out in these forms from be- coated lip-service to exact from us our rich re- hind the human cloak. Acharya Shankara, the serve. When we realize the breach, it is already advocate of Advaita, and many other sages and too late; we have been already duped. People seers of India, used terms like jantu, creature, take the upper hand with us not for our good- martya, mortal, and so on to hint at people of ness—the inherent asset of all of us—but for our this nature. Jantu means that which takes birth foolishness. One is hit on one’s vulnerable aspect and dies, while martya means a mortal being. of character. So, instead of howling at others’ The human species shares these traits with ani- misdemeanours, if we concentrate more on mals. If you want to be rooted in your distinction patching the chink in our armour, if we take just as a human being, you must be cautious about the needed lesson from our bitter experiences vying for supremacy and such other ‘drawbacks’ and insist on holding on more to our human of human life. The tendency to go ahead of identity, forgiveness will stop being a cause of others is like a canker in human civilization. It is conflict in us. By ‘holding on to human iden- the most crucial factor in our inability to forgive tity’ is meant learning the correct lesson from others. Hence we earmark it as the sixth reason. our failures, making ourselves immune to further The last reason, though not the least, is our onslaughts, and forging ahead instead of dwell- inability to forgive ourselves. Sounds strange? ing on others’ depravity, which may degrade us Indeed, many people, for all their good qualities, from our human nature. Acharya Shankara, in foster a deep hatred for themselves since child- his comments on the sixty-third verse of the sec- hood. This is not an inherent trait. Rather, such ond chapter of the Bhagavadgita, clearly states traits are thrust upon people by the other mem- that one can hold on to one’s human identity bers of the family by way of negative, pessimistic only as long as she or he can distinguish between training, sharp criticism at the slightest lapse or

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inadvertence, jeering at others’ failure, corner- Many parents are not themselves groomed ing or expressly boycotting of one person by all properly from their childhood; so they are not others as a single unit, or making one the butt clearly aware of the problems on the path of life. of ridicule of all others. All these actions stunt Very few people will wholeheartedly accept this the mental growth of a child who develops self- fact. But mere acceptance or rejection cannot hatred as an outcome of all these horrible experi- disprove a truth. The long and short of it is that ences. One who does not love oneself, but fosters children and youngsters must be made aware deep self-hatred within, cannot be expected to of the facts of both good and evil and their dif- forgive others under any circumstance. This is ference from the perspective of higher human the most important of all the factors and, un- values. Without a clear knowledge of the differ- fortunately, modern society bristles with people ence between good and evil, human beings can- of this sort. not transcend them or even grow in life. Most of the tragedies and stunted growth in human Fields of Exception life may be traced to ignorance of the ideas of Forgiveness is indeed a great quality. And it is good and evil and their distinction. Moreover, also a fact, as discussed before, that we fail to if by lethargy or indulgence of habit youngsters forgive others due to many reasons. But now we repeatedly commit the same offence, they must shall discuss certain fields wherein the trite ‘for- be dealt with sternly and firmly. The purpose give and forget’ must not be applied if we value is not to intimidate them but just to put them human development and love human beings. on the right track. The affectionate mother may The world is badly in need of people with blaz- sometimes have to spank the unreasonably im- ing characters who may live in the world but not portunate child. She is not called a cruel mother become of the world. or devoid of forgiveness on that score. The first is the area of children and young- The second is the field of work. Our work- sters. They have no mind of their own; it is all ing places are replete with men and women of an unconscious flow of vital forces acting in and the protean type. They behave in a highly for- through their persons. Every moment they go on mal manner while their hearts are set to crass identifying themselves with the surroundings. selfishness. Examples are not lacking where the This is no fault on their part. Yet they should be colleague, with a veneer of sweet speech, cooks taught right from childhood to struggle against accounts in such a way that the boss, even though the stream—rather than floating with the cur- suspicious—maybe even confident—of the rent or conforming to the ways of the majority. breach of trust of the colleague, feels either shy When they commit something evil out of ignor- or nervous to approach the accused. Well has it ance, imitate bad gestures, covet others’ posses- been said by a great thinker of the West in satiric sions, or feel unreasonably jealous of others, they terms: ‘Lord, save me from my friends; I shall must be dissuaded by their parents or guardians take care of my enemies!’4 In the long run this in a way conducive to their all-round develop- may pave the way for psychic unsettlement in ment. This seldom happens. Parents either feel the honest boss. Hence such cases must be han- emotionally upset at such off-track behaviour of dled with firmness and prior mental preparation. their ward or remain callously indifferent to such Last of all, we must be very frank with our harmful behaviour on the plea of love. own self. Our mind must be forcibly weaned

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—No bleed here— Forgive and Forget—A Riddle 49 from all types of harmful indulgence. We must to change themselves, if forgiven. Those who dis- learn to say an emphatic ‘no’ to our own mind. play a slavish nature and beg pardon for every This, however, is more easily said than done. detected fault are found later to become more The mind, by nature, is like the child mentioned crooked by nature. They cut a sorry figure as far above; it has no sense of good or bad until ‘some- as humaneness is concerned. And these are the one’ points it out. This someone, again, is the people who are more dangerous than animals. person himself. So the task is all the more diffi- They will seek every opportunity to overturn the cult, though not impossible. person who forgave them. This class of people comprises even the power-wielders whom Sri Forgive, but Don’t Forget Ramakrishna equated with snakes. Warned he, ‘To err is human, to forgive divine’, goes the say- ‘Some people have the nature of a snake: they ing. But judging by human standards it seems will bite you without warning. You have to dis- that if to err is human, to forgive also is human. criminate a great deal in order to avoid the bite; Forgiving implies inner strength which is an otherwise your passion will be stirred up to such inherent quality of human beings. It has been an extent that you will feel like doing injury in found that even when two animals of the same return.’5 When the question of forgiving such or different species fight with each other for -su people arises, one has to be wary so as not to take premacy, and one of them accepts defeat in the any false step. If forgive we must, we must not decisive duel, the loser makes a gesture by falling forget. We must learn to shield ourselves from flat on the ground. The winner then stomps away the crooked person. The great battle of Kuru- in pride, forgiving the enemy. What holds true kshetra in the Mahabharata taught us how to for the animal world should apply all the more remain awake in the midst of battle and even to human relations. during sleep in the night. But human society is a complex network of Swamiji said that this world is similar to a a wide variety of people with angularities and gymnasium. We come here to strengthen our idiosyncrasies. The animals invariably abide by soul from the incessant attacks of alien forces. the jungle law; whoever violates it must be pun- There is a saying that the world can best be ished. Not so, however, with the human species. enjoyed by the strong. The weak will crumble When one forgives another, the person forgiven under so many adverse forces. As we have already may also turn hostile against the forgiver and seen, only the strong can forgive. Only a strong revile him at an opportune moment. Indeed, person knows how much to hit back, because she human beings sometimes behave in a strangely or he has full control over her or his strength and chimerical manner. Judging by certain behaviour power. Again, the really strong and brave have a it becomes difficult to define humanity. Why do creative bent in them. They know how to make people behave in such a queer way? We get no use of the available and reserved resources. plausible answer except that the suppressed im- pressions come up in that way. Conclusion The problem before us is whether or not to We have just seen that there are people, the weak- forgive. The great power of forgiveness should lings, who flatly ask for pardon when caught red- be showered only on those who seek forgiveness, handed with their harmful intentions. But when not as a slave but with the implicit determination relieved of charges, they again attack through

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—No bleed here— 50 Prabuddha Bharata

some other loophole in an exceptionally shrewd us notwithstanding our failures and lapses. Bhar- manner. We should rather not forgive such people. trihari has classed them in his hundred verses Indian history has been stained by such traitors. on ethics as ‘Tribhuvanam-upakara-shrenibhih There are, however, another kind of people prinayantah, the three worlds are propitiated who may not verbally beg pardon but whose by those who do good to others’.7 Even amidst mute gesture and face will tell you in clear terms excruciating pain in his throat due to cancer that they are full of remorse for their wrongs. Not and despite the doctor’s admonition, Sri Rama- only that, their attitude will speak of their readi- krishna could not be dissuaded from imparting ness to change. Such people should, of necessity, spiritual advice to sincere seekers. He said, ‘I will be forgiven. The Queen of England was once ap- give up twenty thousand such bodies to help one proached for mercy by some convicts on whom man. It is glorious to help even one man.’8 These the apex court had pronounced a death sentence. people never cared for the black spots on other Her Majesty pardoned them. The result was, in persons. Their unconditional grace flowed spon- later years they completely changed themselves taneously in a perennial stream. It is such people so much so that they were put in the posts of the who can really forgive; others only make a mock- personal bodyguards of Her Majesty! ery in the name of forgiveness. Great men do forgive others every now and Finally, let us summarize certain points. First, then. They do not dwell on the shortcomings of in our daily interpersonal dealings, clashes are people. Rather, they make us feel repentant at unavoidable. Still we must forge ahead with our our misgivings through their purity and strength human dignity and emerge victorious. Second, of character. Those who do not understand such we should not nurture the wounds of hurts by great men through their own intellect are really bearing malice against the wrongdoers; for that hapless creatures. Such people only try to torture will degrade us and not the bad persons. Third, those great souls, and as a result, heaven’s curse we must become sensitive to others’ feelings. descends on them. Jesus Christ was tortured and And finally, let us remember that there are still convicted, and people sentenced him to death some good people in the world who tolerate and for all the good he did to humanity. How did forgive us; we should neither ignore nor under- he react to that verdict? That is really import- mine their importance. P ant and unparalleled. He prayed, ‘Father, forgive References them; for they know not what they do.’6 Jesus 1. Bhagavata, 1.18.49–50. did not utter these words out of helplessness or 2. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, any weakness. Rather he spoke out of fullness, 9 vols (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1–8, 1989; out of the bounty of his love. 9, 1997), 1.40. There is still among us a rare class of people 3. Matthew 18:21–2. 4. George Canning, John Hookham Frere, George who know only to forgive, who can give love for Ellis, and William Gifford, Poetry of the Anti- no return. They are brave enough to go to any Jacobin (New York: J Wright, 1801), 242. length for doing good to others. They are the 5. M, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. Swami salt of the earth. The wind carries the fragrance Nikhilananda (Chennai: Ramakrishna Math, 2002), 560. of their character. What little goodness we still 6. Luke 23:34. find in the world can be ascribed to their contri- 7. Bhartrihari, Nitishatakam, 79. bution. They never hesitate to forgive and help 8. Complete Works, 4.185.

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—No bleed here— The Meaning of Brahman Explored Alan Jacobs

he great world religion of Hin- description’, but as a pointer they postulate Sat- duism offers a wide variety of choices for Chit-Ananda which means Reality, Conscious- Tits millions of devotees by whose worship ness-Awareness-Bliss. According to Acharya they can practise their faith according to their Shankara, Brahman is not a god but the ab- preference and need. Most worshipers choose solute reality. ‘That’ is the substrate of ‘all and their favourite god or goddess from the many everything’, which means ‘That’ contains and available in the vast Hindu pantheon. One permeates the whole of the universe, envelops, or the other god or goddess will satisfy every and holds it altogether. need, often presented pictorially, sculpted, and Maya, the delusionary power, causes each personified for temple or domestic worship. jiva or soul to superimpose on whatever he or No sage has ever criticised this widespread she perceives in their dreamlike life, an appar- practice because they know fully well, that in ently real world, appearing on the screen of order to understand and worship God ultim- their consciousnes-awareness. But it is really ately as the formless One, a practice of such all Brahman, unrecognised as such, because of worship is needed. The question then arises primal ignorance, which has been caused by as to what is the real meaning of the formless the jiva’s identification with the egotistic mind deity? The formless deity is not God in the and body, and which makes one believe that conventional sense, but rather the principle one is experiencing a real world and is the doer called Brahman, and never to be confused with of one’s actions. the creator god Brahma, who is one amongst We can truthfully say that all we see as the the many gods and goddesses available for per- seer, the seeing, and the seen is actually Brah- sonal choice. man, acting as both the substrate and the power The Upanishads describe and identify Brah- of delusion at the same time. At the point of man as the highest supreme Being, the one in- death we should contemplate on Brahman. divisible eternal universal Self, present in all This will possibly grant us enlightenment at and in whom all are present. Its name is derived the end of this life, or else we shall be reborn from the word ‘brih’ meaning to grow, expand, in a future life into a more auspicious spiritual extend, or envelop. As the underlying substra- environment. tum of the universe it underpins the whole. It A foremost expression of the way to lib- is the pinnacle of divine power and plays an in- eration is found in Shankara’s famed seminal credibly important part in the life of the world work entitled Vivekachudamani or ‘Crest Jewel and humanity. So what does this word Brah- of Discrimination’, a condensation for every- man actually mean? one who is not scholastically trained to read his Sages say that it is ‘beyond verbal extensive commentary on the Brahma Sutra,

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the consolidating text of Advaita Vedanta or When enquired into deeply, all the multitude non-dualism. The basis and method of this of differences will be seen to be never existent. high teaching is devotion, discrimination, and All is the undivided supreme Brahman, which self-enquiry. One soon recognises that the sad- is not different from the Self. And That Am I. By always correctly practising in this exalted or supreme teacher is there within each guru certitude and relinquishing all else. Be in the devotee’s spiritual heart, indicated temporarily Bliss of being ever That itself (26.3). for us by intimations, until we are finally pulled That in which there is nothing bad or good. to enter the spiritual heart in its fullness, and In which there is neither sorrow nor pleasure. then the inner ruler or guru guides one grad- In which there is neither silence nor speech, in ually and gracefully to eventual liberation. The which there are no pairs of opposites, in which final key after absorbing the teaching of the there is no distinction of ‘I’ or ‘body’, and in Vivekachudamani is to gain the understanding which there is not the least thing to perceive. that ‘All is Brahman, both inside and outside, Ever abide in Bliss, without a trace of concept, and I am That’. in That itself as That itself (26.6). Brahman is the substratum of the ‘All’. As That in which there is no appearance of il- Shankara has stated, the dream of life is grace- lusion, in which there are no effects of delu- fully preordained by Ishvara or almighty God, sion, in which there is neither knowledge nor ignorance, in which there is neither Lord nor an agent of Brahman, for one’s spiritual devel- individual, in which there is neither reality nor opment or evolution. Therefore, all that is per- unreality, and in which there is not the least ceived on one’s screen of conscious awareness appearance of the world. Ever abide in Bliss, is a superimposition on Brahman, followed by without a trace of a concept, in That itself as the knowledge that ‘I am That’. One needs to That itself (26.9). fully realise that all one perceives inside and out That in which there is no desire and no is Brahman and ‘I Am That’, with great faith, anger, in which there is no covetousness and persistence, and determination until the inner deluded infatuation. In which there is no ar- guru pulls one fully into the spiritual heart or the rogance and envious malice. In which there are Self which is Brahman, and leads to liberation no other impurities of the mind, and in which or self-realisation. This method is clearly stated there is no delusive notion of bondage, and in which there is no delusive notion of liberation. in Vivekachudamani, which clearly explains the Ever abide in Bliss, without a trace of concept, jiva’s dilemma and how to get the final solution in That itself as That itself (26.13). of self-realisation from suffering and rebirth in That in which there is no disputation, in this world. which there are no victories or defeats. In As the Ribhu Gita fully explores all aspects of which there is no text or its meaning. In which Brahman I have selected some important verses there are no words with which to give expres- to shed authoritative light on this topic. They sion. In which there is no differentiation of in- are taken from chapter twenty-six, which Sri Ra- dividual and the Supreme, and in which there mana Maharshi often designated as the heart of are no conditionings. Ever abide in Bliss, with- the Ribhu Gita. These verses are indications of out a trace of concept, in That itself as That itself (26.17). our true nature, Brahman, and guide us about the essential aspects of a life of contemplation That which can be easily attained in an and meditation. unimpeded manner, by the certitude I Am

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Brahman, in which, by quiescence after such itself with the body, mind, and its egotism, certitude, One completely full, ineffable Bliss which it mistakenly believes to be one’s Self. This will reveal itself, and by merger of the mind in is a gross error and to be freed from this prison which One will be joined with incomparable, house of life and death, one needs to recover unsurpassed contentment. Ever abide in Bliss, one’s real Self, pure Consciousness-Awareness- without a trace of concept, in That itself as That itself (26.26). Bliss, which is Brahman, unfortunately veiled by the subconscious latent tendencies or vasanas That which is indeed of the nature of un- differentiated Existence, which is indeed of acquired through many lifetimes. the nature of undifferentiated Consciousness, These vasanas can be equated with the re- which is indeed of the nature of undifferen- pressed subconscious mind and are gradually tiated Bliss, which is indeed, of the nature of and gracefully removed through the persistent non-duality, which is indeed, not different from spiritual practices of devotional surrender to the the Self, and which is indeed, the undivided guru or God in our heart, and investigation into supreme Brahman. In the firm certitude that ‘I the ‘I’ thought which constitutes egotism. All Am That’’, abide in the Bliss of ever being That this is achieved by the grace of the guru. It may itself (29.26). take considerable time as the inner guru must be Casting aside all impure tendencies, by the certain that the devotee is sufficiently attuned to pristine tendency left by the constant practice the Consciousness-Awareness. It has up to now of the mantra ‘The Absolute Existence Con- sciousness Bliss Is All and That I ever Am Brah- been living from chid-abhasa or reflected con- man”. Then subsequently effacing even that sciousness caused by the vasanas. tendency. So, son or daughter, you shall soon So we see that the first essential step is to be fully established in the perfect, full absorp- make an inner or outer acquaintance with the tion in and as the non-dual supreme Parabrah- great spiritual masters such as Shankara, Sri man itself, and thus attain liberation of being Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramakrishna, or Swami the undifferentiated undivided One (40.26). Vivekananda, and others who teach us the Therefore, one can here attain the undiffer- high principles of Advaita Vedanta, and the entiated liberation by abiding as just That it- necessary spiritual practices for the removal of self and with a purified mind arising out of the the latent tendencies or vasanas which occlude meditation that whatever is known is Brahman and that am I. Whatever is stated here is the the real Self. Truth (44.26). The bases of their teachings, as already stated, are devotion, discrimination between It is the undivided form of our supreme Lord in a state of sublime, joyous dance that the real and unreal, and self-enquiry. The says: ‘By the conviction that I am ever the Real- guru then guides one for eventual self-reali- ity, which is Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, and sation after our intense efforts in self-enquiry by abiding at one with That, being That itself, and devotional surrender. The final key after the empty bondage of the world can be cut fully absorbing the instructions of the Viveka- asunder and pure liberation attained (45.26). chudamani is to reach the conviction that ‘All We see that the poor suffering jiva or individ- is Brahman’ inside and out. Liberation is not to ual has somehow fallen into the world, the sad be achieved through endless cycles of time by dream of life, and its repetitive cycle of births reading the scriptures or worshipping gods or and rebirths, out of primal ignorance identifying by anything else than knowledge of the unity

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of Brahman and Atman. This is stated poeti- existence the entire cosmic manifestation of its cally in the Ribhu Gita itself, which consistently own Being in time and space. It is infinite, attrib- and persistently beats the drums of the ultimate uteless, and without name and form. truth that ‘All is Brahman’. In conclusion we must accept that in Advaita By the conviction that all is Brahman, Vedanta it is not possible to explain Brahman The misapprehension that this world and others precisely in words. It transcends all attempts exist, will disappear. at verbal description and ideas. It is therefore Hence, son! Reaching the deep steadfast awareness without qualities and beyond conceptualisa- That all is that Brahman and That Am I, tion. It is, however, declared to be the only And devoid of any differences, Truth. Words may never explain exactly what Be steeped in serenity (27.33). Brahman is or is not, but they can describe its Brahman is supreme, transcendent, and be- glorious attributes, and is therefore termed yond all dualities. It is this supra-cosmic Divine with qualities, which are its great powers— who supports with its timeless and space-less Ishvara and Maya. P

694 PB December 2014 REVIEWS

For review in Prabuddha Bharata, publishers need to send two copies of their latest publications

Postcolonial Reason on a specifc thinker going on a tangent and im- and Its Critique mediately assures us that this volume is free from Eds Purushottama Bilimoria such a defect. The frst essay is by Bilimoria who and Dina Al-Kassim situates Gayatri in relation to Kant and Bimal K Matilal, thinkers whose thoughts she juxtaposes Oxford University Press, ymca Li- in cpr. Bilimoria stresses that Gayatri’s gift is ‘a brary Building, 1 Jai Singh Road, New Delhi 110 001. Website: www.oup.com. genuine critique of the rational’ (1) missed by both 2014. xxiv + 258 pp. ` 1,310. Kant and Matilal. Al-Kassim focuses on the trans- isbn 9780198075561. national scenario, where the ‘Native Informant’ undermines the very cause the ‘civilizing mission’ ayatri Chakravorty Spivak asked a question vowed to advocate. The Subaltern is not correctly in 1988: ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ That ques- represented because the ‘representative intellec- Gtion was the expression of a lifetime of observation tual, in wanting to/attempting to speak for the of the marginalized and witnessing of attempts to other, inevitably rebounds into a descriptive rep- civilize the ‘aborigine’. Eventually, this question resentational depiction of that other’s speech’ (15). led to A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward The historiography of a critique is examined by a History of the Vanishing Present (cpr) in 1999. A Ritu Birla, who connects the female subjectivity seminal work, this book unsettled and reoriented and subalternity to the ‘inside and outside’ (24) the thoughts of scholars, brought up new ques- limits of history. She critiques the historical burying tions and insights, and the very construct of civ- of the Rani of Sirmur—who resisted colonial au- ilization and culture was challenged. In 2000 a thority—as a mere widow who wanted to become a group of scholars, of whom many were Gayatri’s sati. Patriarchal patterns are questioned when Bhu- students—the frst name of the celebrated thinker baneshwari Bhaduri, upon failing to do a political is being used in this review in keeping with her assassination, ‘hangs herself while menstruating radical spirit—came together as a panel in the an- to prevent her political act from being read as the nual meeting of the International Association for pathology of an unmarried pregnant woman’ (35). Philosophy and Literature at Stony Brook Univer- Derrida’s ‘lever’ and Kantian ‘subreption’ are read sity in Long Island, New York, to deliberate on in Gayatri’s work by Forest Pyle (39), who tells us cpr. The panel discussions were engaging and elic- of her ‘passion of a teaching and a reading of rigour ited extraordinary response. This encouraged the and of rule-breaking that demands of all who en- publication of the proceedings as a special sym- counter it the most rigorous forms of rule-breaking’ posium in 2002 in the journal Interventions: Inter- (40). Of all the hats that Gayatri dons and of all her national Journal of Postcolonial Studies. The present faces that emerge from this volume that of a teacher book is a result of further working on these pro- is the strongest in character. Thomas Keenan analy- ceedings for more than a decade. ses this statement of Gayatri: ‘The push and pull This book has become a reality due to the un- of rights and responsibilities unevenly agonize the tiring efforts of Purushottama Bilimoria, ably as- feld of différance between capitalism and socialism’ sisted by Dina Al-Kassim, who has also written (51). Mark Sanders postulates the ‘reading-other- a wonderful introduction. Bilimoria vividly re- wise as response to the call of the wholly other’ (63) counts the unfolding of this book in his preface. as another formulation of ‘the permanent parabasis Al-Kassim points to the possibility of deliberations of darstellen and vertreten’ (ibid.).

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—No bleed here— 56 Prabuddha Bharata

Drucilla Cornell talks about the ‘art of witness- being burnt up by acid’ but ‘are with the movements ing’ and that women’s ‘journey can be understood that have been in place for decades now’ (225). Nei- as an allegory for how difficult it is not only for ther does Gayatri consider ‘sati empowering’ but historical voices that have been suppressed but holds only that ‘the criminalization of sati was an also for new voices to fnd the means of repre- unquestioned good’ (ibid.). She has complaint only sentation to be seen and heard’ (90). Mieke Bal against the ‘impatience of human rights’ (226) and delineates the necessity of reading csr though remembers her roots when she remarks that ‘Bimal it is difficult to read, thus compelling reading was perhaps the only person in the world who could other-wise. Multiple levels of reading, academic work with the established tradition of rational cri- or otherwise, prompts Bal to posit a ‘Three-way tique within Indian philosophy’ (ibid.). Misreading’ of csr, where she refuses to ‘follow Responding to the papers individually, Gayatri the author’s “intention”’ (105). She presents ‘read- fnds that ‘Kant needed to foreclose the tribal to ings in … archival-ardor mode … as evidence of philosophize, that Hegel had a foregone conclusion’ the referential will of deconstructionist reading’ (233). Gently chiding Bilimoria that ‘he might have (119). However, it is the ‘teacher-image’ that lin- ventured forth into the wide outside’ (234), Gay- gers ‘“imaged” in much the same way that’ Gay- atri concurs with Dina Al-Kassim for sensing that atri ‘unpacks other-determination’ (128) because ‘there is no document of civilization which is not the ‘classroom is’ her ‘site of passion’ (120). at the same time a document of barbarism’ (234). Stephen Morton tries to position csr from the Gayatri then confesses that she ‘will have to think perspective of the Kantian critique and attempts … for a long time’ about ‘history or historiography to fnd reason in ‘postcolonial reason’. He discovers as the secret encounter’ (235) as posited by Ritu the ‘clandestine inclusion of woman as a mascu- Birla. Gayatri’s comments are not without candour. line fgure in the dominant political philosophy of She is incisive and fnds the review of Chetan Bhatt democracy’ (158). Maria Koundoura revisits rights with ‘problems’. Apart from many misleading state- and ‘Kantian vision’s contemporary life’ (170) in ments Bhatt’s paper has totally missed possibilities the process of becoming a citizen as opposed to the such as that of reterritorializing ‘the project of a othering of the Aborigines of Australia. Chetan just and secular world’ (243). His paper also suf- Bhatt interprets Gayatri’s ethics as ‘the interpret- fers from contradictions like though he says that ation of narrative as ethical instantiation’ (199) and Gayatri reads Kant wrongly, in a footnote he af- is critical that ‘in allowing Kant’s privileging of frms that she is interesting, leading her to wonder philosophical time’ Gayatri’s ‘critique can be seen to whether at all he is serious. Gayatri is convinced do the same’ (195). Adrian Parr insists that we ‘con- that ‘any readerly connection between the raw man sider the success or failure of politics in terms of … and the inadvertent example of the West Austra- affectivity’ as Gayatri and Deleuze ‘invite us to do’ lian and Fuegan is not thereby annulled’ (245) and (203). He reminds us that ‘as we encounter expres- is left with ‘embarrassment’ after reading Bhatt. sions of freedom we are all presented with the terri- Diligently edited, elegantly printed, this handy fying prospect that subjectivity, including our own, volume is an interesting and thought-provoking can be disposed of once potestas is strengthened read for anyone even remotely interested in the through the exploitation of our potentia’ (219). humanities. On the cover is the painting ‘Spivak The best part of this book is the section with with Bear’, which is part of a series named ‘Exit, Gayatri’s responses to the panel, which include Pursued by a Bear’—featuring leading thinkers— the replies she gave during the conference, and the by Gordon Lester. As Bilimoria points out in the additions she wrote leisurely, eight years later. She preface, this ‘volume is also an offering to cele- begins with an expression of being overwhelmed brate her being made a laureate of the Kyoto Prize at the series of papers and a fond remembrance of in Art and Philosophy in late 2012’ (x). In sum, tutoring her student Forest Pyle or Tres. This is fol- this work is a ftting tribute to one of the most lowed by a clarifcation: Gayatri Chakravorty Spi- brilliant minds of our time. vak and Dina Al-Kassim ‘are not for women’s faces PB

696 PB December 2014 Reports

Commemoration of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda Inauguration of kitchen-cum-reception block at Mayavati The following centres held various programmes Durga Puja, in image, was celebrated at the to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary following 24 centres: Antpur, Asansol, Barasat, of Swami Vivekananda. Bhubaneswar: Dr S C Contai, Cooch Behar, Dhaleswar (under Agar- Jamir, Governor of Odisha, inaugurated the sem- tala), Ghatshila, Guwahati, Jalpaiguri, Jam- inar on education on 19 October 2014 which was shedpur, Jayrambati, Kamarpukur, Karimganj, attended by 400 teachers, professors, and others. Lucknow, Malda, Medinipur, Mumbai, Patna, Cherrapunji: 103 youth counselling programmes Port Blair, Rahara, Shella (under Cherrapunji), in 7 states in the north-east from 3 August to 28 Shillong, Silchar, and Varanasi Advaita Ashrama. September which were attended by 1,128 youths. News of Branch Centres Rahara: A students’ convention on 11 September in which 898 students participated. Swamiji’s The lower primary school building of Rama- Ancestral House, Kolkata: Two public meet- krishna Mission Ashrama, Cherrapunji at ings at the centre on 10 and 16 October which Maraikaphon was declared open on 27 Septem- were attended by 1,400 people. On the centre’s ber. Srimat Swami Smarananandaji Maharaj, Vice initiative, two public meetings were held at two President, Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna places in Kolkata on 22 and 30 September. In Mission, inaugurated the new kitchen-cum-re- all, about 650 people attended the programmes. ception block at Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati on 22 October. Srimat Swami Vagishanandaji Durga Puja Maharaj, Vice President, Ramakrishna Math and Durga Puja was celebrated at Belur Math from 1 Ramakrishna Mission, inaugurated the reno- to 4 October with due solemnity and joy. About vated Dilaram Bungalow, sanctified by Swamiji’s two lakh devotees attended the Puja to receive the Hudhud Cyclone Relief by Visakhapatnam centre blessings of the Divine Mother. The Kumari Puja performed on 2 October drew huge crowds, and the Sandhi Puja on that day was also attended by many devotees. The Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, Smt J Manjula Chellur, attended the Puja on the Ashtami day. Doordarshan Kolkata telecast live the Puja on all the days. The Kumari Puja was telecast by several private channels also, and the entire celebration was streamed live on Belur Math website. Cooked Prasad was served to about 49,000 devotees on Ashtami day and to about one lakh devotees during the four days.

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stay, at Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda of 74 villages in Rajouri, Reasi, and Udhampur Memorial, Vadodara on 28 October. A student districts on 28 September and 6 October. The of Ramakrishna Mission Boys’ Home, Rahara centre also distributed 540 blankets and an equal number of shawls and jackets among 540 fam- has secured first rank in the B.Ed. Examination ilies in Poonch and Rajouri districts on 17 and 18 2014 conducted by West Bengal State University. October. In spite of its own precarious condition following the foods, Srinagar centre conducted Relief relief work in its adjoining areas. The centre dis- Hudhud Cyclone Relief · Andhra Pradesh: tributed 10 kg rice, 2 kg lentils, 1 kg tea powder, The devastating cyclone Hudhud which struck a 2 kg salt, 4 l of edible oil, 4 kg assorted spices, major portion of the coastal Andhra Pradesh in 3 utensil-sets, toiletries, and assorted clothing the month of October left widespread destruction among eight neighbouring poor families and pro- in its wake. Visakhapatnam centre conducted pri- vided medical care to 291 food-affected patients. mary relief work in the affected areas as per the Distress Relief · The following centres distrib- following details: (i) Supply of nearly 94,000 l of uted various items, shown against their names, to drinking water to Uppada, Bimli, Jalari Peta, Relli needy people: India: Cherrapunji: 410 saris and Veedhi, Vasavani Palem, Pedda Waltair, and Sat- 657 sets of garments from 30 September to 12 Oc- gal Nagar localities of Visakhapatnam city among tober. Gadadhar Ashrama (Kolkata): 105 saris on 380 families from 16 to 19 October, (ii) 1,500 kg 29 September. Garbeta: 275 saris, 215 dhotis, 320 rice, 300 kg onions, 240 kg edible oil, 300 packets sets of children’s garments, 25 lungis, 35 vests, 20 of rusks, 150 kg detergent powder, and toiletries shirts, and 20 pants from 23 to 30 September. Jal- distributed among 300 families in Pudimadaka paiguri: 400 saris on 23 September and 200 mos- village near Visakhapatnam on 16 October, (iii) quito-nets on 26 October. Malliankaranai: School 1,500 kg rice, 300 kg lentils, 300 kg four, 150 kg uniforms, pens, pencils, erasers, and scales among sugar, 300 l of edible oil, 600 packets of biscuits, 293 students on 9 October. Manasadwip: 600 300 bed covers, and 20,000 l of drinking water saris and 100 dhotis in the month of September. distributed among 300 families in Gangavaram Naora: 900 saris, 200 dhotis, 800 children’s gar- village near Visakhapatnam on 19 October, (iv) ments, and 89 solar lanterns in the month of Sep- 3,710 kg rice, 530 kg lentils, 265 kg sugar, 265 kg tember. Silchar: 2,295 saris, 1,328 dhotis, and 500 salt, 530 l of edible oil, 1,060 packets of biscuits, chaddars in the month of September. Bangladesh: 530 bars of washing soap, 530 matchboxes, and Dhaka: Saris, dhotis, and lungis to 650 families in 530 bed covers distributed in 16 villages in Ma- the month of October. Dinajpur: 991 saris, 513 dugula Mandal area of Visakhapatnam district dhotis, and 32 chaddars in the month of October. among 530 families on 22 October. Jessore: 200 dhotis and 50 saris on 29 September. Flood Relief · Assam: From 27 to 29 Septem- Winter Relief · The ariousv items were distrib- ber Cherrapunji centre distributed 770 kg milk uted to poor people through the following centres: powder, 1,500 packets of biscuits, 558 polythene Cherrapunji: 500 blankets and 380 shawls from sheets, 1,500 buckets, 1,500 packets of mosquito- 30 September to 12 October, Jam­tara: 250 blan- repellent coils, 3,000 matchboxes, and 7,200 can- kets on 25 and 26 September, Khetri: 50 blankets dles among 1,500 families of 18 villages in Balijana on 26 October and 242 sweaters on 29 Septem- and Agia blocks of Goalpara district in Assam ber, Ranchi Morabadi: 400 blankets from 28 to affected by severe foods. Jammu & Kashmir: 31 August. Jammu centre continued its relief work among Rehabilitation · West Bengal: Naora cen- the victims of fash foods and landslides in the tre built a shed and 11 low-cost toilets and sunk state. The centre distributed 3,000 corrugated a tube well at Bhangar-I and Canning-II blocks sheets, 850 bags of cement, 260 iron pipes—20 in South 24 Parganas district and handed over 2 feet each—and 85 blankets among 150 families cycle rickshaws to needy people. P

698 PB December 2014 rabuddha P harata B or Awakened India A monthly journal of the Ramakrishna Order started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896

Volume 119 · January – December 2o14 Title Index

A Acharya Shankara: Delineator of India—Dr V Vasanthakumari 278 B Business and Ethical Leadership—Rhyddhi Chakraborty 383 C Challenges to Religion in the Twenty-first Century—Swami Atmarupananda 27 Circle—Tracy Lee Kendall 511 Comparative Study of Swami Vivekananda and St Paul, A—Asim Chaudhuri 269 Comprehensive Education in the Light of Swami Vivekananda—Rajeshri Trivedi 440 Concluding Programme of Swami Vivekananda’s 150th Birth Anniversary Celebrations: A Retrospect—Swami Satyamayananda 288 D Dynamics of Vivekananda’s Global Harmony, The—M Sivaramkrishna 35 E Editorial—Swami Satyamayananda Challenges for Religion, The 4 Experience and Expression 267 Maya at Its Best 317 Ramakrishna’s Grand Unification, Sri 413 Understanding One's Existence 365 Universal Reverence 171 Vedanta for the Modern Age 219 Editorial—Swami Narasimhananda Apologetic Believers 653 Seeds of Corruption, The 509 Svadharma, One’s Duty 557 To Die or Not To Die 605

Index · 1 60 Prabuddha Bharata

True Spirituality 461 Eternal Words—Swami Adbhutananda; comp. Swami Siddhananda, trans. Swami Sarvadevananda 256, 304, 352, 398, 448, 497, 547, 595 Evolution: Darwin, Sufism, and Sri Aurobindo—Dr K V Raghupathi 569 Exhibition on Swami Vivekananda 88 Experiencing a Seminar—Sarbasri Goswami 623 F Forgive and Forget—A Riddle—Swami Kritarthananda 684 Franklin B Sanborn: A Reassessment—Somenath Mukherjee 542, 574 H Harmony through the Fine Arts—Swami Madhurananda 680 Holy Mother and God’s Motherhood, The—Sudesh Garg 173 I Imagining the Real—Amarendra Srivastava 237 India’s Ethnicity in the Eyes of Swami Vivekananda—Swami Sandarshanananda 673 Indian View of Interdisciplinarity, An—Dr Ravindra K S Choudhary 516 Isha Upanishad in Gandhi’s Ahimsa, The—Joseph Nicholas 329 J Jesus in the Eyes of Vivekananda—Father Anthony Susai Raj 392 L Life and Death—Prof. Kaulir Kisor Chatterjee 246, 299 M Mahasamadhi of Srimat Swami Gitanandaji Maharaj 319 Many Voices—Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak 655 Many-splendoured Vivekananda’s Vedanta, The—M Sivaramkrishna 231, 292, 347 Mashan: Deity of the Rajbanshis—Subrata Sanyal 388 Meaning of Brahman Explored, The—Alan Jacobs 691 Memory—Swami Satyamayananda 559, 638 Moral Philosophy of Swami Vivekananda, The—Prof. Dikshit Gupta 91 N Nag Mahashaya: King of Lovers—Nileen Putatunda 181 O Open Arms of Religious Congeniality, The—Babaji Bob Kindler 131 P Path to an Ideal Society—Jashobanta Roy 185 Perceiving Other Religions—Åke Sander 531, 585 Philosophy of God According to Vedanta—Prof. Arun Chatterjee 221

2 · Index Title Index 2014 61

Pilgrimage to Mount Kailash—Swami Damodarananda 282, 342 Power of Yoga to Counter Obstacles, The—Brahmachari Purnachaitanya 378 Practice of Devotion, The—Swami Pavitrananda 626 R Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda's Mission, Sri—Swami Aparananda 373 Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One?—Arpita Mitra 65, 194, 251 Ramakrishna Bhava: Reflection of the Infinite, Sri—Swami Samarpanananda 367 Ramakrishna: Confluence of Jnana and Bhakti, Sri—Dr I S Madugula 415 Ramakrishna: Transforming Lives, Sri—Sibatosh Bagchi 422 Reflections on Hindu Theology—Subhasis Chattopadhyay 664 Religious Dimensions of Karl Popper’s Philosophy—Joe E Barnhart 523, 579, 634 Reports 163, 214, 262, 311, 360, 408, 457, 505, 553, 601, 649, 697 Reviews 159, 211, 260, 309, 357, 404, 453, 501, 550, 599, 645, 695 Role of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda in Human Development— Dr Anil Baran Ray and Dr Sukanya Ray 153, 204 Role of Reason in Vivekananda’s Philosophy of Religion— Dr Lekshmi Ramakrishnaiyer 97 S Sachchidananda of Bhavnagar, Swami—Dr Shyamali Chowdhury 537 Sands of Performance, The—Carolyn Roark 478 Search for Meaning through Prayer—Swami Satyamayananda 487 Significance of Shodashi Puja—Brahmachari Chandikachaitanya 444 Spiritual Practice of Sri Ramakrishna, The—Swami Pavitrananda 463 Sri Chakra: A Blend of Science and Mythology, The—G Siva Reddy 475 Sri Vidya Mantra: Unravelling the Cosmos—Niraj Kumar 332 Struggle for Bhakti, The—Ajoy Kumar Bhattacharjee 339 Swamiji’s Influence on the Religion of the Future—Pravrajika Shuddhatmaprana 117 T Tantra and the Sri Vidya—Pradeep Kumar Pandey 471 This Month 170, 218, 266, 316, 364, 412, 460, 508, 556, 604, 652 Those Who Defected from Swami Vivekananda—Sudesh Garg 430 Tracing Sister Nivedita’s Family—Sarada Sarkar 617 Traditional Wisdom Boat of Knowledge, The 459, 507, 555, 603 Divine Transformation 411 Eight Stanzas on Parabrahman Vivekananda 1 Emergent Behaviour of Life 217 Journey, The 315 Meditation on Om 169 One-Verse Wisdom 651 Path and The Goal, The 265

Index · 3 62 Prabuddha Bharata

Reality's Attributes 363 Translating the Word—Medha Bhattacharyya 564 V Vedanta and Ecology—Dr Pankaj Jain and Ms Rena Mammen 607 Vedanta’s Syncretism—Brahmachari Suvimalachaitanya 228 Vivekananda as a Social Scientist, Swami—Dr Biswaranjan Chattopadhyay 187 Vivekananda in Chicago: New Findings, Swami—Asim Chaudhuri 420 Vivekananda: A Creative Genius, Swami—Dr Gururaj Karjagi 53 Vivekananda: A Presence and a Power, Swami—Prema Nandakumar 45 Vivekananda: Bridging Tradition and Modernity, Swami—Benulal Dhar 123 Vivekananda: The Prophet of New India—S Srinivasachar 240 Vivekananda’s ‘3 Hs’ Formula, Swami—Dr Alpana Ghose 437 Vivekananda’s Concept of Nature, Swami—Ms Rajani Rao U 427 Vivekananda’s Concept of Religion—Swami Narasimhananda 101 Vivekananda’s Ideas Applied to Science—Ananda Mohan Ghosh and Ashok Banerji 143 Vivekananda’s Message for Modern Times—Pravrajika Vrajaprana 79 Vivekananda’s Message to Humankind—Swami Harshananda 17 Vivekananda’s New Religion: The Yoga of Virat Worship—Swami Samarpanananda 57 Vivekananda’s Theoretical Foundations of Oneness—Ben Todd Baker 111 Vivekananda’s Unique Philosophy of Life—Swami Gautamananda 7 Vivekananda’s Words on Vedanta, Swami—Swami Aparananda 491 W Women and Environment Conservation—Dwaita Hazra 612 Women Seer-saints of India and Their Songs—Dr Subhadra Desai … … … … … 323 Y Yoga Therapy of Compassion—Pravrajika Brahmaprana 190 Youth Speaks of Challenges, A—Atri Mallick 52 Author Index

A Adbhutananda, Swami; comp. Siddhananda, Swami; trans. Sarvadevananda, Swami Eternal Words 256, 304, 352, 398, 448, 497, 547, 595 Anthony Susai Raj, Father Jesus in the Eyes of Vivekananda 392 Aparananda, Swami Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda's Mission 373 Swami Vivekananda’s Words on Vedanta 491 Atmarupananda, Swami Challenges to Religion in the Twenty-first Century 27

4 · Index Author Index 2014 63

B Bagchi, Sibatosh Sri Ramakrishna: Transforming Lives 422 Baker, Ben Todd Vivekananda’s Theoretical Foundations of Oneness 111 Banerji, Ashok and Ghosh, Ananda Mohan Vivekananda’s Ideas Applied to Science 143 Barnhart, Joe E Religious Dimensions of Karl Popper’s Philosophy 523, 579, 634 Bhattacharjee, Ajoy Kumar The Struggle for Bhakti 339 Bhattacharyya, Medha Translating the Word 564 Brahmaprana, Pravrajika Yoga Therapy of Compassion 190 C Chakraborty, Rhyddhi Business and Ethical Leadership 383 Chandikachaitanya, Brahmachari Significance of Shodashi Puja 444 Chatterjee, Prof. Arun Philosophy of God According to Vedanta 221 Chatterjee, Prof. Kaulir Kisor Life and Death 246, 299 Chattopadhyay, Dr Biswaranjan Swami Vivekananda as a Social Scientist 187 Chattopadhyay, Subhasis Reflections on Hindu Theology 664 Chaudhuri, Asim A Comparative Study of Swami Vivekananda and St Paul 269 Swami Vivekananda in Chicago: New Findings 420 Choudhary, Dr Ravindra K S An Indian View of Interdisciplinarity 516 Chowdhury, Dr Shyamali Swami Sachchidananda of Bhavnagar 537 D Damodarananda, Swami Pilgrimage to Mount Kailash 282, 342 Desai, Dr Subhadra Women Seer-saints of India and Their Songs 323 Dhar, Benulal Swami Vivekananda: Bridging Tradition and Modernity 123

Index · 5 64 Prabuddha Bharata

G Garg, Sudesh The Holy Mother and God’s Motherhood 173 Those Who Defected from Swami Vivekananda 430 Gautamananda, Swami Vivekananda’s Unique Philosophy of Life 7 Ghose, Dr Alpana Swami Vivekananda’s ‘3 Hs’ Formula 437 Ghosh, Ananda Mohan and Banerji, Ashok Vivekananda’s Ideas Applied to Science 143 Goswami, Sarbasri Experiencing a Seminar 623 Gupta, Prof. Dikshit The Moral Philosophy of Swami Vivekananda 91 H Harshananda, Swami Vivekananda’s Message to Humankind 17 Hazra, Dwaita Women and Environment Conservation 612 J Jacobs, Alan The Meaning of Brahman Explored 691 Jain, Dr Pankaj and Mammen, Ms Rena Vedanta and Ecology 607 K Karjagi, Dr Gururaj Swami Vivekananda: A Creative Genius 53 Kendall, Tracy Lee Circle 511 Kindler, Babaji Bob The Open Arms of Religious Congeniality 131 Kritarthananda, Swami Forgive and Forget—A Riddle 684 Kumar, Niraj Sri Vidya Mantra: Unravelling the Cosmos 332 M Madhurananda, Swami Harmony through the Fine Arts 680 Madugula, Dr I S Sri Ramakrishna: Confluence of Jnana and Bhakti 415 Mallick, Atri A Youth Speaks of Challenges 52

6 · Index Author Index 2014 65

Mammen, Ms Rena and Jain, Dr Pankaj Vedanta and Ecology 607 Mitra, Arpita Ramakrishna and Vivekananda: Two Teachings or One? 65, 194, 251 Mukherjee, Somenath Franklin B Sanborn: A Reassessment 542, 574 N Nandakumar, Prema Swami Vivekananda: A Presence and a Power 45 Narasimhananda, Swami Vivekananda’s Concept of Religion 101 True Spirituality 461 The Seeds of Corruption 509 Svadharma, One’s Duty 557 To Die or Not To Die 605 Apologetic Believers 653 Nicholas, Joseph The Isha Upanishad in Gandhi’s Ahimsa 329 P Pandey, Pradeep Kumar Tantra and the Sri Vidya 471 Pavitrananda, Swami The Spiritual Practice of Sri Ramakrishna 463 The Practice of Devotion 626 Purnachaitanya, Brahmachari The Power of Yoga to Counter Obstacles 378 Putatunda, Nileen Nag Mahashaya: King of Lovers 181 R Raghupathi, Dr K V Evolution: Darwin, Sufism, and Sri Aurobindo 569 Ramakrishnaiyer, Dr Lekshmi Role of Reason in Vivekananda’s Philosophy of Religion 97 Rao U, Ms Rajani Swami Vivekananda’s Concept of Nature 427 Ray, Dr Anil Baran and Ray, Dr Sukanya Role of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda in Human Development 153, 204 Reddy, G Siva The Sri Chakra: A Blend of Science and Mythology 475 Roark, Carolyn The Sands of Performance 478

Index · 7 66 Prabuddha Bharata

Roy, Jashobanta Path to an Ideal Society 185 S Samarpanananda, Swami Vivekananda’s New Religion: The Yoga of Virat Worship 57 Sri Ramakrishna Bhava: Reflection of the Infinite 367 Sandarshanananda, Swami India’s Ethnicity in the Eyes of Swami Vivekananda 673 Sander, Åke Perceiving Other Religions 531, 585 Sanyal, Subrata Mashan: Deity of the Rajbanshis 388 Sarkar, Sarada Tracing Sister Nivedita’s Family 617 Satyamayananda, Swami The Challenges for Religion 4 Universal Reverence 171 Vedanta for the Modern Age 219 Experience and Expression 267 Concluding Programme of Swami Vivekananda’s 150th Birth Anniversary Celebrations: A Retrospect 288 Maya at Its Best 317 Understanding One's Existence 365 Sri Ramakrishna’s Grand Unification 413 Search for Meaning through Prayer 487 Memory 559, 638 Shuddhatmaprana, Pravrajika Swamiji’s Influence on the Religion of the Future 117 Sivaramkrishna, M The Dynamics of Vivekananda’s Global Harmony 35 The Many-splendoured Vivekananda’s Vedanta 231, 292, 347 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty Many Voices 655 Srinivasachar, S Vivekananda: The Prophet of New India 240 Srivastava, Amarendra Imagining the Real 237 Suvimalachaitanya, Brahmachari Vedanta’s Syncretism 228 T Trivedi, Rajeshri Comprehensive Education in the Light of Swami Vivekananda 440

8 · Index Book Reviews Index 2014 67

V Vasanthakumari, Dr V Acharya Shankara: Delineator of India 278 Vrajaprana, Pravrajika Vivekananda’s Message for Modern Times 79 Book Reviews

Ayurvedic Nutrition—Vaidya Atreya Smith 261 Balanced Yoga: The Twelve-week Programme—Svami Purna 212 Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahāyāna—Daniel Boucher 502 Celebrating Swami Vivekananda: Essays for the 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda—Swami Tathagatananda 599 Classic Wisdom of Srimad Bhagavatam, The—Swami Gurudasananda 600 Classical and Contemporary Issues in Indian Studies: Essays in Honour of Trichur S Rukmani—Eds P Pratap Kumar and Jonathan Duquette 309 Culinary Fictions: Food in South Asian Diasporic Culture—Anita Mannur 162 Essence of the Spiritual Instruction, The—Trans. with commentary by Nome 260 Exploring Mysticism: A Methodological Essay—Frits Staal 404 Garland of Letters: Essays on Tantra/Mantra Śāstra, The— Sir John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon) 406 Hindu Samskaras: Socio-religious Study of the Hindu Sacraments—Rajbali Pandey 501 History of Buddhist Philosophy, A—David J Kalupahana 359 How to Overcome Depression and other Heart-to-Heart Talks—J P Vaswani 261 Indian and Western Philosophies: Unity in Diversity— Fernando Tola and Carmen Dragonetti 357 Is India Civilized? Essays on Indian Culture—Sir John Woodroffe 453 Journal of Oriental Research, Madras, 2010–2012, The— Eds. Dr V Kameswari, Dr K S Balasubramanian, and Dr T V Vasudeva 504 Kena Upanishad—Anirvan 160 Kriyā-yoga: The Science of Life-force—Swāmī Nityānanda Giri 160 Kundalini: Stilled or Stirred?—Swami Veda Bharati 407 Lectures on Patañjali’s Mahābhāṣya Volumes IX and X—P S Subrahmanya Sastri 405 Management A New Look—Lessons from Sarada Ma’s Life and Teaching— Dr Abani Nath Mukhopadhyay 552 Mandala: The Art of Creating Future—June-Elleni Laine 454 Mantra Yoga and Primal Sound: Secrets of Seed (Bija) Mantras— David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastri) 161 Nomenclature of The Vedas—Swamini Atmaprajnananda Saraswati 645 Postcolonial Reason and Its Critique— Eds Purushottama Bilimoria and Dina Al-Kassim 695 Prosperous India—Prof. P Kanagasabapathi 551

Index · 9 68 Prabuddha Bharata

Rainforest or From Protozoa to God, The—Parimal Mukhopadhyay 551 Ramakrishna: Love That Knows No Limits, Sri—M Sivaramkrishna 159 Ramakrishna’s Ideas and Our Times: A Retrospect on His 175th Birth Anniversary— A Commemorative Volume, Sri—Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira 550 Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun: Myth and Ritual in Ancient India, The— Stephanie W Jamison 162 Reviewing Hindutva: A Historic Perspective in the Light of Vivekananda— Manoj Shankar Naik 455 Sañkhya Sañketa Koshah (Volume 1)— Eds Dr V Kameswari, Dr K S Balasubramanian, and Dr T V Vasudeva 359 Sarada Devi: The Holy Mother, Sri—Sumita Roy 357 Social Message of Mahayana Buddhism, The—Satya P Agarwal and Urmila Agarwal 211 Sri-yantra and the Geophilosophy of India—Niraj Kumar 646 Theory and Practice of the Maṇḍala, The—Giuseppe Tucci, trans. Alan Houghton Brodrick 310 Vivekananda and Swami Abhedananda on Buddha and Buddhism, Swami— Subhas Chandra Saha 211 Vivekananda’s Neo Vedanta in Theory and Practice: A Critical Study, Swami— Dulal Chandra Panday 648

List of Reviewers

Bhudevachaitanya, Brahmachari 160 Chattopadhyay, Subhasis 309, 405, 502 Sivaramkrishna, Dr M 407, 648 Hariharan, N 211, 310, 359, 455, 600, 647 Mandavia, Dr Chetana 260 Nair, Aparna 160 Patil, Narendranath B 212, 407, 646 PB 162, 261, 359, 504, 551, 552, 696 Nandakumar, Prema 454, 552 Purneshananda, Swami 359 Shantichaitanya, Brahmachari 357 Sharma, Santosh Kumar 213, 261, 456, 551, 600 Shrutisiddhananda, Swami 162 Narasimhananda, Swami 405 Talukdar, Moumita 161

Managing Editor : Swami Tattwavidananda Editor : Swami Satyamayananda (January – July) Editor : Swami Narasimhananda (August – December)

10 · Index 69 74