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Re: Hindu scholarship and Vivekananda
dran@panini.cs.albany.edu (Paliath Narendran) wrote:
> "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."
Shankara certainly did emphasize the sruti, but did not mean debating and
conducting dialogues on the sruti as a means of salvation. In the Upadesa
Sahasri Shankara totally rules out the possibility that any action can lead to
realization of the self. He says even meditation cannot (explicitly). So one
can imagine his views on debates based on Sruti.
> "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
Vivekanada never downgraded scholarship, but only mere book learning without
implementing any of the stuff. Anyone who goes through V's works even
cursorily can understand this simple fact.
> 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.
Coward's thesis is totally flawed. He has neither understood what Shankara said
nor what V said.
Ramakrishnan.
--
That it does not see in that state is because, though seeing then, it does not
see; for the vision of the witness can never be lost, because it is imperish-
able. But, there is not that second thing separate from it which it can see.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - IV.iii.23
