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Re: Vedanta, the Neo-Hinduism!
The word Hindu had a secular meaning before it started connoting
members of a series of faiths that people loosely called Hinduism,
This attempt at classification is I think fairly recent in origin.
The outlines were there in the Varnashrama Dharma, but people generally
calssified themselves by their caste or creed. Thus one was Vaishnava,
Saivite, Smartha, Madhwa and in terms of philosophy, a dvaitin, a
vishishtadvaitin or a advaitin.
Vedanta was preached in the West by Vivekananda and he he brought his
towering intellect to bear on Hindu
philosophy and beat it palatable to westren thinkers and even to
(unfortunately for this purpose) westernized beings such as myself.
Western thinkers who are attracted to Vedanta do not want to associate
it with Hinduism, which to them has been caricatured by Christian
missionaries and bigoted fundamentalists such as Pat Robertson. Vedanta
is a convenient categorzation that for them does not have the
psychological baggage. I think in the 1890's Vivekananda must also have
perceived it as a harmless tool, to use a philosophy rather than
a religion, as a vehicle for
dchakrav@netserv.unmc.edu (Dhruba Chakravarti) wrote:
>Dear Friends:
>
>Western scholars declare that Swami Vivekananda has preached some form
>of Neo-Hinduism in the west, that is irrelevant in mainland India. This
>new religion is called Vedanta.
>
>It is a nice hypothesis indeed. Except that it is totally untrue. To my
>knowledge, Maharshi VedaVyasa was the first author of a Vedantic book,
>and he was born only a few thousand years before Swami Vivekananda. In
>chapter 12 of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna described the
>Vedantists too.
>
>ye tvaksharamanirddeshyamvyaktam paryupAsate.
>sarvatragamachintyancha kUtasthalamachalam dhruvam. 12.3
>
>samniyamyendriyagrAmam sarvatra samabuddhayah.
>te prApnuvanti mAmeva sarvabhutahite ratAh. 12.4
>
>Sri Krishna too, described Swami Vivekananda's neo-Hinduism. I hope that
>these western scholars would see the light and not make such fanciful
>charges.
>
>With best regards,
>
>Dhruba.
>
>
>--
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