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Hindu scholarship and Vivekananda
There is a very interesting book review in a recent (August '95)
issue of the Journal of Asian Studies. The book is "The Limits of
Scripture: Vivekananda's Reinterpretation of the Vedas," By
A. Rambachan (Univ. of Hawai Press). The review is by Harold
Coward, a professor at the University of Victoria.
The main issue discussed in the review is Vivekananda's influence
on contemporary Hindu scholarship. The assessment of both the
author and the reviewer is that this influence has been mainly
negative. Prof. Coward writes:
"This book brought answers to puzzles which had been in my mind
for years: why do Hindus not show much serious scholarly interest
in dialogue?; why has Hindu scholarship in this century become so
flabby?"
The latter observation is certainly a cause of concern to us all
(though I am not entirely sure about what Coward means by `Hindu
scholarship'). I wonder if many Western Indologists feel this
way. The reason given by Rambachan, and enthusiastically
endorsed by Coward, is that
"Whereas Sankara gave top priority to Sruti as the only (?) valid
way to obtain knowledge of brahman and release (moksha),
Vivekananda ... superimposes direct personal experience
(anubhava, samAdhi) of brahman above scripture as its ultimate
validation."
In conclusion, Coward says
"Vivekananda's downgrading of scriptural scholarship to mere
intellectual theory, requiring supplementation by the samaadhi of
raajayoga, has led to the glossing over of differences of
doctrine as unimportant (e.g., differences between Sankhya and
Advaita, between Hinduism and other religions). It asserts too
easily that all religions lead to the same goal. The uncritical
embracing of this view has not served Hinduism well in the
religious pluralism of the twentieth century, for it fails to
take _difference_ seriously, something Sankara always did. It has
led to a lack of rigor in scholarship (since intellectual
differences do not really matter) and to a failure to take the
differences between religions seriously"
and that Vivekananda's legacy is "flawed."
I would like to see a serious discussion of this. It will be too
easy to dismiss Rambachan's and Coward's arguments as prejudiced.
Narendran
