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Book Review: Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies Volume 8 Article 11 January 1995 Book Review: "The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda's Reinterpretation of the Vedas" Harold Coward Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Coward, Harold (1995) "Book Review: "The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda's Reinterpretation of the Vedas"," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 8, Article 11. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1116 The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. Coward: Book Review: "The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda's Reinterpretation of the Vedas" Book Reviews 45 only by socio-religious factors. The theo­ various possibilities for enriching dialogue. monistic experiences of mystics like While the issue of liberation (mok~a), for Eckhart, Ruusbroec, Ramanuja, Aurobindo, example, goes beyond the scope of Stoeber's and others can be explained only by positing work, it is central to all Hindu traditions and a divine which is "both passive and active, it needs to be raised in connection with non-dualistic and distinctive, impersonal and Stoeber's characterization of monistic personal" . mysticism vis-a-vis theo-monistic mysticism. In this work, however, Stoeber does not If monistic experiences are preliminary to argue only for the reality of the theo­ the theo-monistic ones, are the former still monistic type experiences. Even more liberative? What do theo-monistic importantly, he proposes, in chapters 3 and experiences reveal to us about the meaning 5, a theistic mystic typology which of mok~a? If the divine is both personal and culminates in theo-monistic experiences but impersonal, non-dualistic and distinctive, we which authenticates the monistic experience need to consider also the value of and can account meaningfully for hierarchies, monistic or theo-monistic. There experiences of the paranormal, of nature and is little doubt that the theo-monistic category of the numinous. Monistic hierarchies, on is an appropriate one for viewing a wide the other hand, fail to fully authenticate variety of experiences in the Hindu tradition theistic experiences and relegate them finally and Stoeber's work is a catalyst for the to the realm of the illusory. clarification of the significance of such Theo-Monistic Mysticism is a fine experiences from the Hindu point of view. example of a creative scholarly work which draws deeply from the rich resources of Anantanand Rambachan Christianity and Hinduism while offering Saint Olaf College The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda's Reinterpretation of the Vedas. Anantanand Rambachan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994, xi+ 170pp. EVERY NOW AND then one encounters a which had been in my mind for years: why book which brings unexpected illumination do Hindus not show much serious scholarly to long-standing questions. This is such a interest in dialogue?; why has Hindu volume. Rambachan's critical analysis of scholarship in this century become so Vivekananda's thought and its legacy in the flabby?; and why does Vivekananda use this Hinduism of today is as important a extra category of rlijayoga? Rambachan's contribution as Wilhelm Halbfass' India and critical study of Vivekananda's view of Europe. While others have highlighted scripture (sruti), in comparison with that of Vivekananda's influence on Indian Sankara, provides surprising and convincing nationalism and the impact of the answers to these questions. Ramakrishna mission, this is the first critical Whereas Sankara gives priority to sruti assessment of his thought and its influence as the only valid way to obtain knowledge of on contemporary Hinduism - especially brahman and release (mok~a), Vivekananda, Advaita Vedanta of which Vivekananda responding to the enlightenment critique of claimed to be a contemporary exponent. For the authority of scripture, superimposes me this book brought answers to puzzles direct personal experience (anubhava, Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 1995 1 Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 8 [1995], Art. 11 46 Book Reviews samtulhi) of brahman above scripture as its religions point. As a follower of Keshub and ultimate validation. And for Vivekananda, then Ramakrishna, Vivekananda absorbed direct personal experience (samiidhi) also these influences which paved the way for his provides the verifying capstone of the presentation of a non-scripturally based alternate paths to release of karma and Hinduism. ~akti. This insertion by Vivekananda of In Chapter 2 Rambachan unfolds . personal experience as the extra and final Vivekananda's view of sruti as having no step in the achievement of knowledge of authority in and of itself but only in terms of brahman and moksa raises the question as to the purity of the r~i who "sees" it. Such a how such samtulhi is achieved? In answer scriptural direct perception is valid Vivekananda presses into service the eight knowledge only if the r~i is pure, if the steps of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, of which content is unavailable through the senses, samtulhi is the last. The fact that this and if the content is not contradicted by introduces a dualistic system (Sankbya) other sources of valid knowledge (e.g. which hangs loose to scripture is not dealt reason and science). For us as hearers, the with by Vivekananda. He is more interested Vedas (or any other scripture) act as "maps" in seeing the direct supersensuous samiidhi pointing the way to a direct perception of experience of brahman as a parallel to the God, which, when experienced, makes the perceptual verification of knowledge offered scripture valid (p. 44). Chapter 3 contrasts by modern science. While Vivekananda's this view with that of Sankara and move of giving priority to samtulhi over demonstrates the significant changes· that sruti may seem compatible with modern Vivekananda introduces - especially his science, it introduces significant changes into claim that scripture (sruti) is not a valid Sankara's understanding of Vedanta and source of knowledge (pramiil}a) but must be Hinduism - yet these are glossed over by verified by the further step of direct personal Vivekananda and this followers. But this is experience. Chapter 4 is devoted to an much more than just an academic squabble assessment ofVivekananda's riijayoga as the between Sankara and Vivekananda, as method by which such personal experience Rambachan's analysis makes clear. is to be achieved. It is through Patanjali's In Chapter 1 Rambachan traces the eight yoga steps, detailed in the Yoga gradual ascendance of personal experience Sutras, that this capstone samiidhi (anubhava, samtulhi) over scripture (sruti) in experience of Brahman (or other religions) the Indian Renaissance thinkers that is to ~e realized. The difficulties for both preceded and influenced Vivekananda - Advaita and Hinduism of this critical Rammohun Roy, who places reason above divergence from Sankara are elucidated in scripture; Debendranath Tagore, who Chapters 5 and 6. For Sankara nothing can rejected the miihiivakyas of the Upanishads or needs to transcend sruti as the means for (e.g. "that thou art") as undercutting the knowing brahman. For Vivekananda, sruti separation of the devotee and God necessary not only can be but must be transcended by for worship; Keshub Chandra Sen, who the samtulhi experience of riijayoga if rejected books, priests, and rituals as knowledge of brahman is to be known. stultifying forms of authority and instead Implications of this shift for the theory of embraced direct individual perception of error, for the jivanmukta and for the mind as God (darsan) as the way to spiritual an independent source of knowledge of knowledge; and Ramakrishna, who judged brahman are detailed by Rambachan. He sacred scripture to be simply a map which concludes that in spite of its radical pointed the way to God but required the inconsistency with Sankara , Vivekananda's confirmation of direct "seeing" for true thought has been uncritically adopted by knowledge of that to which the texts of all https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol8/iss1/11 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1116 2 Coward: Book Review: "The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda's Reinterpretation of the Vedas" Book Reviews 47 Hindus of this century and is not serving (since intellectual differences do not really them well. matter) and to a failure to take the Vivekananda's downgrading ofscriptural differences between religions seriously. scholarship to mere intellectual theory, While Vivekananda's attempt to respond to requiring supplementation by the samiidhi of the nineteenth-century challenge of science rajayoga, has led to the glossing over of was commendable, his solution of replacing differences of doctrine as unimportant (e. g. Sankara's faith in sruti with an uncritical differences between Sankbya and Advaita, embracing of samiidhi as the only valid between Hinduism and other religions). It religious knowledge has left Hinduism with asserts too easily that all religions lead to the a flawed legacy that needs critical same goal (p.135). The uncritical embracing reexamination. Rambachan's book is a first of this view has not served Hinduism well in and most important step in this
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