> There are three separate questions here:
>
> (1) Whether the masses of common, non-urban, traditional Hindus
> (who constitute the vast majority of Indian Hindus) find Vivekananda's
> teachings relevant
Certainly many more people would find Vivekananda's teaching relevant than
Ramanuja's teachings, which are pretty much confined to Iyengars, who
themselves are a minority in the brahmin population itself. But I am sure you
wouldn't use that as a yardstick to judge Ramanuja's philosophy, would
you? :-) For that matter I am quite confident more people will find Swamiji's
teachings relevant than sha.nkara's also. That doesn't mean anything. Take for
ex, the population in TN. It is a fact that most peeple worship murukan and
then shakti and shiva. For them Vivekananda, Ramanuja and sha.nkara are all
equally useless. The masses care more about their darshan at pazani or
pazamuthircholai than philosophizing from any of the three mentioned above.
Similarly the common man in UP finds it more important whether the Ram Mandir
is allowed to be built. For him sublime philosophies are of no concern. In
fact, more people will have access to Swamiji's teachings because they are in
English as opposed to traditional philosophies which are in Sanskrit.
> (2) Whether Vivekananda's teachings accurately reflect the traditional
> understanding of Vedanta
Maybe, maybe not. But I am afraid you did not talk about that in your previous
post.
> (3) Whether the Ramakrishna Mission today performs an important service
The point was that Vivekananda is completely irrelevant. His setting up of the
mission, which has quite an influence, makes him relevant.
> stotras, etc. I find it hard to believe that an orthodox smArta
> will place Vivekananda's Voice of Freedom style writing and
> speaking on the same pedestal as the sublime philosophy of
> Sankara and his successors.
The two of them address totally different audiences, though. One is as you say
talking sublime philosophy. sha.nkara _assumes_ that the sAdhaka has the
prerequisites, like discrimination etc. Freedom etc would be of no concern to
him, which is in the vyAvahArika level anyway. Swamiji's Voice of Freedom
stuff is more towards the common man, who still has to attain the mental
purity to even get to the stage of reading sha.nkara's works. I hope you see
that you are comparing apples and oranges here.
> In other words, the relevancy to the traditional, non-alienated
> smArta is the core text, not Vivekananda's smudging of the
> text.
The voice of freedom stuff is, as I mentioned, addressed to a completely
different audience.
> Let me next address the first question, that of relevance to
> the average, non-elite Hindu. You may not realize this from
> your position as an educated, English-speaking brahmin, but
> the average Hindu never felt alienated from his or her religion
> or culture and did not feel the need to be inspired by a
> chicken-soup reformulation of traditional philosophy. I know
> Vivekananda took Madras by storm after his return from America,
> but who was his audience? Once again, the educated,
> English-speaking elites of Madras who had an inferiority
> complex about their religion.
Of coure, who finds Ramanuja's or sha.nkara's philosophy relevant? The Iyers
and Iyengars only.
> A perfect example is Swami Gambhirananda's translation of
> the BrhadAranyaka Upanishad. The last section of the Upanishad
> deals with rituals designed to ensure the birth of a son.
> Sankaracharya, a serious philosopher if there ever was one,
> comments on it as he would any other text of Vedanta. In
> Gambhirananda's translation of the text and commentary,
> he completely bypasses it, leaving only the Sanskrit text.
Hmm, I seem to remember that the translation of the commentary was complete?
May be we are talking about different translations here. I'll check this up.
> Why is this? Is he ashamed of what the Upanishad contains?
> Why would he leave out what even Sankara did not?
> A further example is Vivekananda's treatment of Ramanuja.
> Time and time again, Vivekananda does an injustice to the
> philosopher by misunderstanding his Visishtadvaita philosophy
> and claiming that it is identical to a lower stage of
> Advaita realization. Not a single Advaita philosopher
> in the 1500 years before him has made such a claim, because
> it does neither justice to Ramanuja nor Advaita.
But then gauDapAda himself says that all other dualistic systems are present
as a step for persons of inferior quality. Please see GK I and II. I can
understand your outrage at the statement that Ramanuja's philosophy is
inferior to Advaita. But then gauDapAda also makes such statements, like the
"student with his inferior intelligence understands only what is preseneted to
him" etc. Note that this attitude is nothing new. See the yaGYa vaibhAya
kha.nDa in the sUta sa.nhitA. There it says (paraphrased) "How can the Lord
Maheshvara be a deceiver? The Agama-s shaiva, vaishhNava, the arhats, the
buddhists, the mImA.nsaka etc are all given by the Lord himself. However
vedAnta is the most direct path. Like leading a cow with grass maheshvara
leads persons into this path gradually".
Note: Vedanta here refers to advaita, as amply demonstrated by the text.
If Ramanuja and Ananda Tirtha had been born before the writing of the sUta
sa.nhitA, I am quite sure it would have mentioned them also. So this attitude
is nothing new, in fact I believe it has always been present. Sectarian
dogmatism is a later happening, IMO intensified by contact with Muslims and
christians.
If you read "Dialogs with the Guru" , the guru being H.H Chandrashekhara
bharati swamigal you'll see the exact same attitude as in the sUta sa.nhitA.
I believe Swamiji was demonstrating the same kind of attitude. Note that this
is not to say that I agree with Swamiji on everything or that he was a scholar
par excellence. He was more oriented towards practice and did not care much
for theory. He was honest enough to say this openly also.
Not everyone needs to be a scholar to deserve respect. For eg,
thirujnanasampanthar could hardly be called as expounding any systematic
philosophy. However he and the other shaivite saints are held in high regard
by saints like H.H abhinava Vidyatirtha Swamigal also. Similarly there is
nothing wrong in acknowledging the good points of Swamiji also.
Ramakrishnan.
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