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YOGA BUDDHI: STEADY INTELLECT

ÔgJmtgtÂÀbfUt cwr°hufuUn fwUh¥là=l >cnwNtFt Êlà;t´t cw°gtu~ÔggmtrgltbT >>In this (path of yoga), O scion of the Kurus, there is but one-pointed de ter mi na tion.The thoughts of the ir res o lute, how ever, are di verse and un end ing. (Bhagavadgita, 2.41)

;uMtk m;;gwÿUtltk Cs;tk v{er;vqJofUbT >==trb cwr°gtudk ;k gul btbwvgtÂà; ;u >>To them, ever stead fast and serv ing Me with af fec tion, I grant the yoga of un der -stand ing (buddhi yoga), by which they come to Me. (Bhagavadgita, 10.10)

Cq;ihtf{UögbtKtu~rv Ætehtu =iJJNtlwdi& >;rÅÅtªt ajuàbtdto=àJrNGk rG;uJ{o;bT >>The man of steady in tel lect (dhira) should not swerve from his path even when op -pressed by other crea tures, know ing them to be un der the sway of des tiny; this isthe les son I have learnt from the earth. (Uddhava Gita, 2.37)

There are two signs of knowl edge. First, an un shak able buddhi. No mat ter howmany sor rows, af flic tions, dan gers, and ob sta cles one may be faced with, one’s mind does not un dergo any change. It is like the black smith’s an vil, which re ceives con -stant blows from the ham mer and still re mains un shaken. And sec ond, man li -ness—very strong grit. (The Gos pel of Sri Ramakrish na, 410)

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life—think of it, dream of it, live on thatidea. Let the brain, mus cles, nerves, ev ery part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave ev ery other idea alone. This is the way to suc cess, and this is the way great spir i tual gi ants are pro duced. (The Com plete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 1.177)

11 PB - FEBRUARY 2005

PRABUDDHABHARATA

Arise! Awake! And stop not till the goal is reached!

Vol. 110 FEBRUARY 2005 No. 2

Wrút²;std{;ŒtËgJhtrªtctuÆt; >

Towards a Casteless India

EDITORIAL

In di vid ual free dom, so cial equal ity and de -moc racy are con sid ered the de fin ing vir -tues of mod ern civ i li za tion. They are the

benchmarks against which so cial think ers judgethe prog ress of na tions and peo ples. These val -ues are of ten found to be com pro mised in thede vel op ing world and such ar eas have pro -vided fo cal points for in ter ven tion by the North.Whether these in ter ven tions have been in tel -lec tual, socio-eco nomic, po lit i cal or mil i tary,they have in vari ably been con tro ver sial andcon tested. For, al though few in tel lec tu als wouldar gue against the uni ver sal de sir abil ity of theseval ues, few so ci et ies can boast of al low ing afree play to these. In fact, nu mer ous ex tant and vig or ous so cial in sti tu tions con found and chal -lenge the uni ver sal ity of these val ues. Caste isone such in sti tu tion.

To speak of caste with out con demn ing itis a sure way to in vite cen sure, yet caste as anin sti tu tion has proved re mark ably en dur ing.If the Con sti tu tion of free In dia abol ished un-touchability and made caste dis crim i na tion il -le gal, the pro vi sion of res er va tions for sched -uled castes and tribes has tended to re in forcethe caste iden tity of at least a large sec tion ofthe In dian pop u la tion. Elec tions in In dia re -peat edly con firm the fact that even pro gres -sive and lib eral-minded in di vid u als can hard -ly af ford to ig nore caste equa tions if they are to be suc cess ful in elec toral pol i tics. Caste re -mains a cru cial de ter mi nant in a ma jor ity ofIn dian mar riages, even when the in di vid u alscon cerned are well ed u cated and are oth er -wise lit tle con cerned about caste. It has beenpointed out by so cial think ers that caste servedas a so cial bul wark that pro tected and pre -served the Hindu so ci ety in the face of in va -sions, but the same bul wark also cramped theHin dus with re stric tions, thus sap ping their

vi tal ity and chok ing their growth. This par a -dox i cal na ture of caste has in trigued schol arsand so cial ob serv ers and ex cited their imag i -na tion down the cen tu ries. This has spawnedhun dreds of writ ings and ob ser va tions on thesub ject with out the last word be ing said yet.

The Sociology of Caste

Caste is es sen tially about so cial di vi sionsand gra da tions, about the for ma tion of classesand ranks based on dif fer ences in lin eage, oc -cu pa tion or wealth. In re cent times, Louis Du -mont’s book Homo Hie rarchicus has pop u lar -ized the con cept of hu man beings as es sen tially hi er ar chi cal in their so cial for ma tions. It hasbeen ar gued that so cial hi er ar chy is an in ev i ta -ble out come of ba sic bi o log i cal dif fer ences be -tween hu mans—both as in di vid u als as well asgroups—and these dif fer ences are of ten ac cen -tu ated by en vi ron men tal mod i fi ers. That suchgra da tions are nat u ral is sup ported by theirex is tence amongst a wide range of so cial an i -mals. Ants, ter mites and bees pro vide a strik -ing ex am ple of or ga nized di vi sion of func tionand la bour. The queens, nymphs, work ers,sol diers and drones amongst these in sectshave very spe cial ized roles and these di vi -sions are there fore termed ‘castes’ by en to mol -o gists.

Most peo ple iden tify caste with Hinduso ci ety, but dis cern ing ob serv ers have point -ed out that the Hindu caste sys tem is only aspe cial case of a much more gen eral, if not uni -ver sal, phe nom e non of class dis tinc tion andhi er ar chy. So cial strat i fi ca tion ap peared earlyin the course of so cial evo lu tion. The four var-nas of Ve dic In dia had their equiv a lents inother con tem po rary civ i li za tions. En dog amy,commensality and oc cu pa tional spe cial iza -tion are taken by so cial an thro pol o gists to de -


fine caste, and these were vir tu ally the de ter -mi nants of all so cial strat i fi ca tion in pre-mod -ern so ci et ies.

In mod ern so ci et ies, oc cu pa tional di ver -sity, in creased so cial mo bil ity, loos en ing offam ily ties and eco nomic ex pan sion have ledto the re place ment of the tra di tional de ter mi -nants of caste by eco nomic sta tus as the solede ter mi na tive of so cial dif fer ence. We nowhave eco nomic classes—the up per, the mid dleand the work ing—that are in no way less hi er -ar chi cal than the tra di tional caste or theranked feu dal or der. What dif fer en ti ates themod ern class from its me di eval or an cientcoun ter part is the the o ret i cal lack of ex clu sive -ness and the in di vid ual as the unit of strat i fi ca -tion. Un for tu nately, in prac tice, not many in -di vid u als man age to rise from the lower ranksof so ci ety to its higher ech e lons, and so classdi vi sions are not as la bile as one would oth er -wise ex pect them to be.

Marx ism rep re sents a mod ern ideo log i -cal at tempt at de vel op ing a class less so ci ety.How ever, the in ev i ta bil ity of class strug gleand the rule of the pro le tar iat as pre dicted byMarx never re ally ma te ri al ized in the in dus -trial na tions of Eu rope. Cap i tal ist so ci et ies cir -cum vented this prob lem through wel fare mea -sures and ‘class co op er a tion’. Marx ism suc ceed -ed as a po lit i cal move ment in agrar ian so ci et -ies through dic ta to rial mea sures that not onlycurbed in di vid ual en ter prise and de moc racy,but also led to the re place ment of the feu dal hi-er ar chy with its bu reau cratic com mu nist coun -ter part.

A more sin is ter form of so cial di vi sion isthe one on ra cial and eth nic lines. At a globallevel this is cur rently one of the lead ing causesof con flict. Even af ter the ab o li tion of slav eryand apart heid ra cial bias in sub tle forms re -mains ap par ent in af flu ent so ci et ies, while inal most all re cent large-scale armed con flictseth nic is sues have played a sig nif i cant role.

Caste, then, as it is found in In dia, is hard -ly unique. Yet it has dis tinc tive fea tures thatde serve at ten tion. When the Por tu guese first

used the term caste they de rived it from casta,mean ing ‘pure or un mixed’. They were prob a -bly im pressed by the rules seg re gat ing thecastes and the pro hi bi tions against inter-mar -riage. That a se ries of Smriti texts down thecen tu ries had been for mu lat ing rules to reg u -late so cial or ga ni za tion, and in the pro cessrou tin ize and per pet u ate the ex ist ing seg re ga -tion, is also unique to In dia.

Evolution of Castes

In ter est ingly, the or i gins of the varna di -vi sions as found in the Rig Veda ap pear to bera cial. Early verses of this Veda speak of twovarnas, the arya and the dasa (or dasyu), as twodis tinct and in im i cal groups, dif fer ing in phys i -cal fea tures, skin col our and cul ture. The dasaswere later con quered and as sim i lated even asthe four varnas with their tra di tional du ties asknown to us crys tal lized by the later Ve dic pe -riod.

Al though ac cord ing to texts like the Bha-ga vadgita varna di vi sions are based on in di -vid ual char ac ter traits (guna) and oc cu pa tion(karma), these di vi sions had turned he red i -tary in the late Ve dic pe riod it self, even as oc -cu pa tions be came he red i tary. Here it may beworth not ing that even in mod ern so ci et ies the like li hood that chil dren will choose the vo ca -tion of their par ents, or a re lated vo ca tion, isquite high. That oc cu pa tions should be he red -i tary in an cient times was, there fore, only nat -u ral.

De spite the re stric tions im posed by theSmritis on inter-varna mar riages, caste di vi -sions in an cient In dia re mained fairly fluid. Inthe M ahabharata we find Yudhishthira com -ment ing: ‘It ap pears to me that it is very dif fi -cult to as cer tain the caste of hu man be ings onac count of con fu sion of all varnas … hence thewise con sider char ac ter the prinicipal de sir -able.’1 Acharya Shankara ech oes a sim i lar viewabout the then ex ist ing caste struc ture in hisBrahma-su tra-bhashya.2

The pro lif er a tion of vo ca tions and inter-varna mar riages led to the for ma tion of nu mer -

PB - FEBRUARY 2005 14

100 Prabuddha Bharata

ous oc cu pa tional groups, each of which be -came, by the me di eval times, a caste or a sub- caste called jati which, as the name it self im -plies, was he red i tary.

Caste and Privilege

If so cial hi er ar chy is uni ver sal and ifcaste is sim ply one form of so cial hi er ar chy,what has made the In dian caste sys tem ananach ro nism and anath ema in mod ern times?For one, as stated ear lier, eco nomic fac torsare the prime de ter mi nants of the so cial or -der—the so cial and po lit i cal re la tions, andthe class di vi sions that char ac ter ize mod ernso ci et ies. The rise of ‘vai sh ya power’, asSwami Vi ve ka nan da put it, was co in ci dentwith the In dus trial Revo lu tion and has beenthe chief driv ing force for cap i tal ist so ci et iesboth in the co lo nial and the post-co lo nial era.The jati hi er ar chy, how ever, is not con so nant with eco nomic sta tus, and has of ten been atodds with the ris ing eco nomic or der. Sec -ond, the free mar ket cap i tal ist econ omy al -ways leaves room for up ward socio-eco-nomic mo bil ity, al though in prac tice suchrise may not be com mon. The pre de ter -mined na ture of jatis, how ever, tend to dis -cour age so cial change. Finally, it was thepre scrip tion of he red i tary priv i leges and so -cial dis crim i na tion, man i fest ing in its worstform as ‘untouchability’, that re ally madethe caste sys tem an eye sore.

In ter est ingly, schol ars have ar gued thatthe crys tal lized caste sys tem as it ob tained inthe nine teenth and early twen ti eth cen tu rieswas ‘nei ther an un changed sur vival of an cientIn dia nor a sin gle sys tem that re flected corecul tural val ues’. Rather, caste as a mod ern so -cial con struct is ‘the prod uct of a con crete his -tor i cal en coun ter be tween In dia and Brit ishco lo nial rule’. Not only did the Brit ish priv i -lege caste dis tinc tions over all other forms ofso cial iden tity but they also played upon casteiden ti ties to en sure co lo nial con trol. The sig -nif i cant changes ush ered into In dian so ci etyaf ter in de pend ence both through con sti tu -

tional and so cial mea sures pro vide some sup -port for this view.

On Breaking Privileges

Class, caste and priv i lege hap pen to beclosely linked en ti ties. It is this link that is thesource of all dis crim i na tion and op pres sion.As Swami Vi ve ka nan da put it suc cinctly, ‘Casteis a nat u ral or der. … That is the only nat u ralway of solv ing life. Men must form them -selves into groups and you can not get rid ofthat. Wher ever you go, there will be caste. Butthat does not mean there will be these priv i -leges!’3

Un for tu nately, priv i leges are as per va sive as caste. ‘Priv i lege is the bane of hu man life,’said Swa mi ji, while analysing its dy namic re -la tion ship with the so cial or der in his fa mouslec ture on ‘Vedanta and Priv i lege’:

Two forces, as it were, are con stantly at work,one mak ing caste, and the other break ing caste;in other words, the one mak ing for priv i lege,the other break ing down priv i lege. And when -ever priv i lege is bro ken down, more and morelight and prog ress come to a race. This strug glewe see all around us. Of course there is first thebru tal idea of priv i lege, that of the strong overthe weak. There is the priv i lege of wealth. If aman has more money than an other, he wants alit tle priv i lege over those who have less. Thereis the still sub tler and more pow er ful priv i legeof in tel lect; be cause one man knows more thanoth ers, he claims more priv i lege. And the last ofall, and the worst, be cause [it is] the most ty ran -ni cal, is the priv i lege of spir i tu al ity. If some per -sons think they know more of spir i tu al ity, ofGod, they claim a su pe rior priv i lege over ev ery -one else. (1.423)

Swa mi ji was in full agree ment with the ed -u cated, re form-minded in di vid u als of his time about the ne ces sity of a thor ough over haul ingof so ci ety, for he felt that the nar row, re stric tiveand sep a ra tive caste dis tinc tions were a bar -rier to In dia’s prog ress. But his plan was notde struc tive. He be lieved that each so ci ety fol -lowed its own line of growth and all that neededto be done was to re move bar ri ers that im peded


Towards a Casteless India 101

this nat u ral evo lu tion. He noted that the in tro -duc tion of ‘new modes of ed u ca tion’, the open -ing of ‘new chan nels for the com ingin of wealth’,and mod ern com pe ti tion, es pe cially tradecom pe ti tion with Eu rope, had al ready bro kendown caste bar ri ers to a great ex tent. What hewanted to add to this pro cess was the in tro -duc tion of ideas, for he was con fi dent thatcaste dis tinc tions will ‘crum ble be fore the ad -vance of ideas’.

By ‘ideas’ Swa mi ji did not mean mod ernsci en tific and lib eral so cial ideas alone. For, al -though most pro gres sive mod ern so ci et ies are built upon these ideas, they have not provedsuf fi cient in break ing down bar ri ers and priv i -leges. What is needed is Vedanta, and a cul -ture based on the Vedantic spirit. This is be -cause ‘none can be Vedantists, and at the same time ad mit of priv i lege to any one, ei ther men -tal, phys i cal, or spir i tual; ab so lutely no priv i -lege for any one.’ Vedanta pro claims that ‘thesame power is in ev ery man, the one man i fest -ing more, the other less; the same po ten ti al ityis in ev ery one. Where [then] is the claim topriv i lege?’ (Ibid.)

The Vedantic mes sage, when it spreadsamong the lower ranks of so ci ety, en sures bot -tom-up re form, for ‘if you teach Vedanta tothe fish er man, he will say, I am as good a manas you; I am a fish er man, you are a phi los o -pher; but I have the same God in me, as youhave in you.’ (3.246) All grass-root work erscan tes tify to this po tent trans form ing ef fect ofVedantic cul ture. In fact, Swa mi ji was cat e gor -i cal that when ev ery one was taught that di vin -ity is within, ev ery one will work out his ownsal va tion. (Ibid.)

Shudra-jagarana: The Rise of the Shudras

To Swami Vi ve ka nan da the varnas werenot sim ple de scrip tive cat e go ries of the In dianso cial or der. He used these cat e go ries to re-pres ent In dian his tory, to con cep tu al ize theevolv ing world or der, and even to make his -tor i cal pre dic tions. In one of his let ters to hisAmer i can host Mary Hale he writes, ‘Hu man

so ci ety is in turn gov erned by the four castes— the priests, the sol diers, the trad ers, and the la -bour ers’, and af ter a brief dis cus sion of thechar ac ter is tic fea tures of each of these states heob serves, ‘Last will come the la bourer (shu dra)rule. Its ad van tages will be the dis tri bu tion ofphys i cal com forts—its dis ad van tages, (per -haps) the low er ing of cul ture. There will be agreat dis tri bu tion of or di nary cul ture, but ex -traor di nary ge niuses will be less and less.’(6.380-1)

In the sem i nal es say ‘Mod ern In dia’, hedwelt more elab o rately on this is sue and sug -gested:

A time will come when there will be the ris ing of the shudra class, with their shudra hood, that is tosay, not like that as at pres ent, when the shudrasare be com ing great by ac quir ing the char ac ter -is tic qual i ties of the vai sh yas or the kshatriyas;but a time will come, when the shudras of ev erycoun try, with their in born shudra na ture andhab its—not be com ing in es sence vaishya orkshatriya, but re main ing as shudras—will gainab so lute su prem acy in ev ery so ci ety. (4.468)

The last few de cades have seen a sig nif i -cant rise in so cial and po lit i cal aware ness amongthe un der priv i leged sec tions of In dian so ci etyas also in their at tempts at self-em pow er ment.In his lat est book The Si lent Rev o lu tion, theFrench scholar Christophe Jaffrelot ar guesthat this trend con sti tutes a gen u ine ‘de moc ra -ti za tion’ of In dia and that the so cial and eco -nomic ef fects of this ‘si lent rev o lu tion’ arebound to mul ti ply in the years to come.

This as ser tive ness has also brought intofo cus the prob lem of class con flict es pe cially in ar eas where ul tra-left ide ol o gies have beendom i nant. Swa mi ji had warned against con -flict for two rea sons: one, it would fur ther di -vide an al ready heterogenous na tion; two, itwould pre vent the dif fu sion of cul ture to thelower strata of so ci ety. The lat ter is cru cial be -cause cul ture is in dis pens able for any group to be sus tain able, for ‘it is cul ture that with stands shocks, not a sim ple mass of knowl edge.’ Swa-mi ji there fore laid great em pha sis on the dif fu -



sion of cul ture. In his fa mous Ma dras lec tureon ‘The Fu ture of In dia’, he ex horted: ‘Teachthe masses in the ver nac u lars, give them ideas, they will get in for ma tion; but some thing more is nec es sary, give them cul ture. Un til you givethem that there can be no per ma nence in theraised con di tion of the masses.’ (3.291)

It is worth not ing that the shudras al ways had their own cul ture. In his mon u men talwork His tory of Dharmasastra, P V Kane ob -serves that if the shudras la boured un der cer -tain grave dis abil i ties they had cer tain com -pen sa tory ad van tages too. They could fol lowal most any pro fes sion ex cept the few es pe -cially re served for the brahmanas. They werefree from the daily round of rit u als man da tory for the other varnas, they had to un dergo nosam s karas ex cept mar riage, no pen ances were nec es sary for them in case of moral lapses andthey had no re stric tion to ob serve re gard ingfood and drink or gotra and pravara (in mar -riage). They were en ti tled to purta-dharma(char i ta ble acts) and also the pancha maha-yajnas.4 Swa mi ji not only en dorsed most ofthese cul tural fea tures but ac tu ally pre scribedthem for ev ery body, ir re spec tive of caste. Hewas as much against mean ing less rit ual as hewas in fa vour of inter- caste mar riages. He wasall for free dom of choice in mat ters of food and oc cu pa tion; and ser vice as en vi sioned inpurta-dharma and the pancha mahayajnas, hecon sid ered man da tory for all. But Swa mi jialso wanted the masses to ap pro pri ate theSanskritic cul ture that had all along been thepriv i leged pos ses sion of the up per castes, forSan skrit had been the source of the power andpres tige wielded by the up per classes. Ofcourse, by Sanskritic cul ture Swami ji meant thelife-giv ing ideas con tained in the Upanishadsand re lated texts, and not the ‘mass of su per sti -tion’ that of ten passed as Hin du ism.

De spite all the re cent changes and up -heav als, legislations and so cial pro tests, there

is lit tle to sug gest that caste in In dia is on itsway out. From Bud dha to Narayana Guru toMa hatma Gan dhi, a whole host of pow er fulspir i tual per son al i ties have cam paigned againstcaste, but the sys tem has en dured. In her es sayon Sri Ra ma kri sh na and the Caste Sys tem in thisis sue, Dr Krishna Verma notes Sri Ra ma kri sh -na’s preg nant com ment: ‘The caste sys tem canbe re moved by one means only, and that is thelove of God. Lovers of God do not be long toany caste.’ The bhakti move ment bears his tor i -cal tes ti mony to this fact, and Swa mi ji ech oesthis spirit of Vedantic bhakti when he says,‘Live in any caste you like; but that is no rea son why you should hate an other man or an othercaste. It is love and love alone I preach, and Ibase my teach ing on the great Vedantic truthof the same ness and om ni pres ence of the Soulof the Uni verse.’ (3.194) The so lu tion to thevexed is sue of caste, there fore, may lie not inan icon o clas tic at tack on caste but in the abil ity of communities to tran scend these bar ri ers.

The mes sage of Vedanta as ex em pli fiedin the lives and teach ings of Sri Ra ma kri sh na,Sri Sarada Devi and Swami Vi ve ka nan da con -tains this call for tran scen dence. It has playeda sig nif i cant his tor i cal role in weak en ing castedis tinc tions and it will con tinue to break castebar ri ers as it per co lates among the masses. Tothe ex tent that we are able to con trib ute to thispro cess, we may con sider our selves priv i -leged. ~

References1. ‘Vanaparva’, M ahabharata, 180.31-3, cited in P

V Kane, His tory of Dharmasastra (Pune: Bhan-darkar Ori en tal Re search In sti tute, 1997), 2.61.

2. Acharya Shankara’s com men tary on BrahmaSu tras, 1.3.33.

3. The Com plete Works of Swami Vi ve ka nan da, 9vols. (Cal cutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9,1997), 3.245.

4. His tory of Dharmasastra, 2.164.

Towards a Casteless India 103


The high est ex pres sion of love is uni fi ca tion. —Swami Vivekananda

Prabuddha Bharata— 100 Years Ago

February 1905

Occasional Notes

Lives which dem on strate that age and death are only debts of na ture and noth ing more are the

world’s pil lars of spir i tu al ity. Such a life ceased to in form its earthly ten e ment from the 19th of

last month. Born in 1817, Maharshi DevendranathTagore lost his pow ers of hear ing and sight

years ago, with the re sult that what he lost in the gross he gained in the fine. His spir i tual in sight be -

came clearer and stron ger, while his in tel lec tual per cep tion and men tal en ergy re mained un im paired

to the end. In pro por tion as he ceased to par tic i pate in the world of the senses he found his ac tiv ity in

the spir i tual world. If the whole of a long life of pu rity, phi lan thropy and prayer— a youth of won der ful

ear nest ness and work for re li gious and so cial prog ress, a mid dle age ma tured in the love of God and

man, and an old age ‘lived in the pres ence of God’— end ing in eu tha na sia can be called vic tory over

death, it was Devendranath’s. He was a unique ex am ple of a house holder rishi of mod ern times.

Mrs Besant in the CHC mag a zine for Jan u ary men tions an amus ing in ci dent il lus tra tive of the

sense of the word na tive as ap plied by Eu ro pe ans to the peo ple of this coun try. ‘There was a

large gath er ing to which a num ber of In dian gen tle men were in vited, and on the fol low ing day

a re tired An glo-In dian of fi cial said to one of the Hindu guests: “Were there many na tives pres ent?”

“Oh yes,” an swered the In dian, “many hun dreds of na tives were pres ent, and about fifty In di ans.” The

of fi cial had for got ten that the Eng lish man is a na tive in Eng land! The term con notes con tempt, and

has come to mean sav age, and it will be re mem bered that Lord George Ham il ton pro tested, in the

House of Com mons, against the use of the term na tive troops when a mem ber spoke of the splen did

In dian army.’

That is one ex treme, this is an other. The ‘good old gen er a tion’ of In di ans, now fast dis ap pear ing,

had also their pe cu liar con cep tions of a sav age. Here is an il lus tra tion. An old, much ven er ated sadhu

was once speak ing in re ply to a ques tion on the sub ject of the cen tu ries of for eign sub jec tion of In dia.

He be gan by say ing that he did not mind the sub jec tion so far as the kshatriya power was con cerned.

Earth-hun ger, love of con quest and pos ses sion, he thought, were sav age in stincts, which dis ap -

peared from a na tion in pro por tion as it be came civ i lized. The sav age in man was bound to own the

earth, whether the sav agery was ex pressed in brute force or in cun ning mech a nism. Civ i li za tion

tamed a peo ple down; it re fined and spir i tu al ized the blood, as it were, and weeded out from it the

brute im pulses of self ish ness, de pri va tion and de struc tion of oth ers.

No, he went on, he would not mind that In dia should be a sub ject na tion if her cul ture and ide als

were not put down by brute force ei ther in the shape of the sword or in that of money. The mil i tary and

po lice forces of the world were bound to be more sav age than civ i lized and they were the real own -

ers— so far as own er ship went— of the earth. There fore it mat tered lit tle who ruled over you— the sav -

ages of your own col our or those of an other. But the real dan ger came when the spir i tual ide als and

in sti tu tions of a na tion, evolved and per fected through cen tu ries, were sought to be swamped by the

power of the sword or the or ga ni za tion of money. It ought to be the look out of the whole civ i lized world

that en no bling ide als and be liefs and spir i tual in sti tu tions are not swept out of ex is tence by sav age

ones, the same as it ought not to per mit the de struc tion of an other Al ex an drian, or to come to later


times, an other Chi nese li brary.

The power, con tin ued he, of the sword was bad enough, but the power of money was worse. For

in stance, the work of the won der fully or ga nized Chris tian mis sions, with the power of money at their

back, was good so far as it im parted ed u ca tion to and re lieved the suf fer ing of the poor. But when that

was made only the means to the end of proselytization, noth ing could be more re gret ta ble. For what

of re li gion could they give to In dia? Ab so lutely noth ing. The whole world knew that. All that they could

give were cer tain sav age ideas, as, a wild God who did not know his own mind, eter nal hell, a Devil

about as pow er ful as God, the in her ent sin ful ness of man, res ur rec tion of all the world’s corpses on a

cer tain day, sal va tion by proxy, etc. They wanted to make Je sus great and holy and they must needs

do it by bring ing him into the world in an un nat u ral way! Poor Mary! The imag i na tion of a child and a

sav age was very sim i lar. Chris tian ity claimed an other unique po si tion. It ar ro gated to it self the sole

po si tion of truth and the whole of it. No other at ti tude could be more child ish and more in im i cal to the

prog ress of knowl edge and truth.

In his So cial Con fer ence ad dress the Maharaja Gaekwad re ferred to sadhus as fol lows: ‘We have

al ready a large body of men who might be do ing some of this work for the coun try, just as the re li -

gious or ders of the Mid dle Ages did so much for Eu rope. I re fer to the count less body of sadhus

who are roam ing over the coun try. But they must be trained, and they must have some thing use ful to

say. For as cet i cism is evil un less it can be a hu mane as cet i cism, one not di vorced from phi lan thropy.

He who sur ren ders life to help his fel lows is a saint, but not he who be comes a beg gar to avoid la bour

or re spon si bil ity, or re tires to a jun gle to save what Kingsley would have called “his own dirty soul”.’

In the gen eral de gen er a tion of the coun try which af fected all classes from the prince to the peas -

ant, the sadhus were no ex cep tion. The ill they are af flicted with is ex actly the same as of the oth -

ers— lack of ed u ca tion. They are just as im por tant an item in the move ment for re form or prog ress as

any other in the pro pa ganda. The point is, there fore, not why they do not do their duty, but what steps

has so ci ety, and chiefly lead ers like His High ness, who rec og nizes their value as a fac tor in the na -

tion, taken to train them?

Kingsley’s phrase not with stand ing, we have the te mer ity to think that it is nec es sary for many a

man to re tire into a jun gle to cleanse ‘his own dirty soul’, be fore he is fit to em bark on help ing his fel -

lows. A pe riod of train ing is need ful in ev ery work: most so in phi lan thropy. A man who would save the

souls of oth ers should be gin by sav ing his own. How else could he know what the soul was and how

to save it? And re tire ment for a time, to qual ify for a knowl edge of the soul, to know it first hand and

not merely gather an ac a dem i cal knowl edge about it, we re peat, is an ab so lute re quire ment for even

the best of us. It is only the free soul, freed from the chains of per sonal am bi tion and at tach ment, who

can do the great est amount of good to the great est num ber. The guid ing prin ci ple of a sadhu’s life is

the Ve dic phrase atmanahmokshaya jagaddhitaya, ‘for the free dom of self, for the good of the world’.

We are sur prised that His High ness should take a one-sided view of the mat ter.

TheMy sore Her ald, not long ago, pub lished in for ma tion re gard ing the open ing of a pathashala

by the head of the Shivagange mon as tery (Bangalore). In con for mity to the old In dian cus tom,

the schol ars would be pro vided with board, lodg ing and tu i tion, free of cost. We no ticed that

only San skrit would be taught. We gather that the swami is a man of cul ture and in touch with the

times. We can there fore hope much from him. The ob ject of the pathashala is to spread a wider

knowl edge of our an cient re li gion and phi los o phy. Would not the ex cel lent ob ject be better se cured if

a lib eral Eng lish ed u ca tion was in cluded in the cur ric u lum of stud ies of the in sti tu tion? ~


Prabuddha Bharata—100 Years Ago 105

Reflections on the Bhagavadgita

SW AM I ATULANANDA

Chap ter 11 (con tin ued)

21. Ver ily, these hosts of devas are en ter ing into You; some praise You in fear with fold -ed hands. Hosts of great rishis and Siddhas, say ing ‘Svasti, Peace, may it be well’ are sing ingYour glory in beau ti ful hymns.

When ever God in car nates on earth, it is for a great di vine pur pose. To carryout that pur pose the Lord brings with

Him the de voted free souls, who al ways re-joice in be ing in His pres ence. These free souls,who come with the avatara and al ways re -main with Him and sur round Him as the sat -el lites stay with the planet, re turn to God whenthe di vine pur pose is ful filled. And so whenSri Krishna came to es tab lish righ teous ness on earth, these bhaktas who came to as sist in thework ing out of God’s plan, ful filled that pur -pose in the form of war riors on the field ofKurukshetra. The war riors fight ing with andagainst Arjuna were none other than freesouls, who in car nated to lighten the earth’sbur den.

Arjuna re al izes this in his vi sion. He seesthat those who stand against him are no lessin stru ments in God’s hands than those whofight on his side, and that by kill ing these war -riors God’s plan is also be ing ful filled. For thosewho are slain re turn to their ce les tial abode fromwhere they came.

Again, other per fected be ings, the rishisand Siddhas, wit ness ing the bat tle from dif fer -

ent spheres, of fer their prayer in splen didhymns, and, dread ing the un timely de struc -tion of the uni verse, cry out ‘Svasti.’

The war as it is be ing en acted and as itwill de velop, now passes in re view be fore Ar -juna’s men tal eye, or rather, spir i tual eye. Thefilm un rolls. Scene af ter scene is thrown onthe can vas of his mind. Time and space havechanged their rel a tive val ues. They still ex ist,but in a dif fer ent way. The fu ture co mes nearand al most merges in the pres ent. Space also is al most elim i nated. Arjuna sees heaven andearth and all the spheres at once. And he seesthe fu ture and also the pur pose of things, thetrue ob ject and char ac ter of the war. It isGod-or dained. It is a war for righ teous ness.All his fear and anx i ety had been in vain. It allhad to hap pen, just as it hap pened.

We are so ig no rant, we have no faith,hence all our fear and anx i ety in life. Had Ar -juna trusted in God from the be gin ning, hewould not have hes i tated to per form his dutyon the bat tle field. But he be came ego tis tic. Hethought that he was the cause of the war, thathe would kill and cause oth ers to kill their en e -mies. He for got for an in stant that God is the

only ac tor on the world-stage,that it is all His play and thatthrough us He acts. When were al ize this, life changes its as -pects. The anx i ety, the bit ter -ness, the fear, the heartburninggo for ever. We be come Hisplay mates. He is the gen eral


He sees that those who stand against him

are no less instruments in God’s hands than

those who fight on his side, and that by

killing these warriors God’s plan is also

being fulfilled.

and we are the sol diers. ‘Oursnot to ques tion why, ours but todo and die.’ We be come re signed.Life is sweet and death is sweet;joy is sweet and sor row is sweet;vic tory is sweet and de feat isjust as sweet when we are trulyre signed to God’s will. Pro por -tions change. What seems somo men tous now, be comes very or di nary;what seems so all-im por tant be comes an in -dif fer ent mat ter when the light of un der stand -ing falls on it. It is not such an aw fully weightyaf fair to us now, whether our col lege teamwins the ball game or the other. But when wewere in col lege, life and death seemed to de -pend on that.

And so it is now in our life. Play with allyour might, fight with ev ery ounce of strength

that is in you, but re mem ber that it is all God’splay. No re venge, no ha tred, no in jury to oth -ers. It is all fun, a play in which we take ourshare. And your soul and my soul look on andqui etly take it all in and see the joke of it all.

And now Arjuna con tin ues. First he re -lates the won der ful side of the Uni ver salForm, then the ter ri ble side and fi nally, itssplen dour.

22. The Rudras, Ádityas, Vasus, Sádhyas, the Vishvas, the Ashvins, the M aruts, the Ush -ma pás, the host of the Gandharvas, Yakshas, Asuras, Siddhas— they are all look ing at Youwonder struck.

These dif fer ent classes of ce les tial be ings,look ing on from their dif fer ent spheres, are

filled with won der.

23. O M ighty-armed, see ing Your im mea sur able form, with many mouths and eyes,with many arms, thighs, feet and stom achs, and fear ful with many tusks, the worlds are ag i -tated with ter ror and so am I.

As it trans lates it self to Arjuna’s mind,the great vi sion takes dif fer ent as pects.First came won der. He saw the Lord,mighty and glo ri ous, in His friendly as -

pect, the Abode, the Ref uge of all. Now co mesthe ter ri ble side, the De stroyer, who swal lowsup the whole uni verse, who, with a turn of Hiswrist, an ni hi lates worlds. It is not strange thatArjuna is fright ened. It was an un heard-of vi -sion. The saints some times be hold fear ful sightsin their med i ta tion. There is a sect of tantrics in

In dia who court these ter ri ble vi sions in or derto con quer fear, be cause fear is a great ob sta cle to re al iza tion. We are al ways sur rounded byfear in a thou sand dif fer ent forms. If we cancon quer fear, sam adhi co mes at once. With the body-idea co mes fear; with the Spirit-idea co -mes fear less ness. The eas i est, the saf est, themost nat u ral way to con quer fear is throughbhakti, be cause the bhakta throws his bur denupon the Lord and puts him self un der Hispro tec tion. Arjuna con tin ues:

24. O Vishnu, be hold ing You touch ing the heav ens, shin ing in many colours, withmouths wide open and with large blaz ing eyes, my heart is ter ri fied and I find nei ther peacenor cour age.


Reflections on the Bhagavadgita 107

W e are always surrounded by fear in a

thousand different forms. If we c an

c onq uer fear, samadhi c omes at onc e. W ith

the body-idea c omes fear; with the

S pirit-idea c omes fearlessness.

25. O Lord of gods! Seeing Your mouths, ter ri ble with long teeth, blaz ing like the fire ofpralaya (de struc tion), I know not the four quar ters, nor do I find peace. Have m ercy, O Abodeof the Uni verse!

Arjuna is a war rior in his body, mind and soul, so his fear shapes it self in the form of a gi gan tic, im mea sur able op po nent,

ter ri ble to be hold; whose eyes flash fire, whose many mouths are wide open, ready to de vourwhom so ever he may get in his clutches. Even

Arjuna quakes be fore this vi sion and be comescon fused. There is no way of es cape. Wher -ever he turns, the Ter ri ble One faces him. Hepleads for mercy, that peace may re turn to hisag i tated mind.

Now see what hap pens.

26-7. All these sons of Dhritarashtra, with the m ul ti tude of m on archs, Bhishm a, Drona,andSétaputra (Karna), as well as our own prin ci pal war riors en ter pre cip i tately into Yourm outh, ter ri ble with long teeth and fear ful to be hold. Som e are seen hang ing be tween Yourteeth, with their heads crushed to pow der.

Sri Krishna sees that the vi sion is morethan Arjuna can en dure. He gives it a dif -fer ent turn. It re mains as ter ri ble as be -

fore, but Arjuna’s per sonal safety is en sured.What Arjuna feared for him self hap pens to the en emy. It means their de struc tion and his safety:the war will end in his fa vour. His mind be -

comes calm, less ag i tated and then he be comes ex ul tant. The Lord is on his side. Con fi dence is re stored and the vi sion (as we shall see) closesin great splen dour and great hap pi ness forArjuna.

What is it like? Can you give an il lus tra -tion? Yes.

28. Ver ily, as the many tor rents of rivers flow to wards the ocean, so do these heroes inthe world of men en ter Your fiercely flam ing mouths.

What a beau ti ful psy cho log i cal pic turewe get here, of the work ing of the hu-man mind—very re al is tic, very true.

The same vi sion of de struc tion, but the re la -tion ship is changed. There is no more rea son for

Arjuna to fear. He is safe! Now let hap pen whatwill! From fear ing and trem bling Arjuna be -comes qui es cent: he be comes the ob server. Nowhe can draw com par i sons. He even gives beau -ti ful il lus tra tions of what is tak ing place.

29. As moths rush into the burn ing fire head long to de struc tion, in the same man ner dothese crea tures rush head long into Your mouths, only to per ish.

Hurried on by their own karma, by theirown na ture, these war riors rush to theirown de struc tion, blindly or know ingly.

Noth ing can pre vent them. The cos mic Law is

tak ing its course. No body is to blame. There isno cru elty on any one’s part. It is the law of kar -ma. The Uni ver sal Form swal lows up ev ery -thing and He seems to en joy it.

30. O Vishnu! W ith blaz ing m ouths You are lick ing and swal low ing all the worlds onev ery side. Fill ing the whole uni verse with ra di ance Your fierce rays are burn ing it up.

What an ex traor di nary vi sion! God theDe stroyer, who swal lows up the uni -verse; the Di vine Mother of the uni -

verse danc ing Her dance of de struc tion; Time,de vour ing all; Death, slay ing and ex e cut ing

His power. All the days of our lives we havehad it chanted into our ears that God is goodand God is love and God is beauty! But howabout this vi sion? What is there good or lov -able or beau ti ful in this car nage? Wars or



floods or fam ines or ep i dem ics are with us al -ways; if not where we live, in some other partof the globe. Dare we still go on chant ing Godis good and all is good? No, that would be in -sin cer ity. The ter ri ble side in na ture is as realas the lovely side, death is as real as life, andsor row is as real as joy. And if we ac cept (andwe can not very well do oth er wise) that there is but one God, the source of all that is, we mustcon clude that good and evil both pro ceedfrom Him.

We are afraid to ac knowl edge it. We arescared by the ter rific as pect; we fear death.‘The deadly fright ful sword, reek ing withblood,/ They take from Her hand, and put alute in stead!’ as Swami Vivekananda puts it.1

We shrink back in fright at the thun der ofMother’s aw ful laugh ter, at Her nudeness, atthe drip ping sword. We dare not ac knowl edgethat it is She who scat ters plague and sor row and dis ease. Wecheat our selves; like the os trichwe hide our face in the sandwhen dan ger ap proaches. Andthere fore we do not prog ressspir i tu ally. Our fear, our cow -ard ice, holds us back. Our beau -ti ful im ages are smashed topieces. Our God of love and all-good ness re -ceives a few knocks, and then we are stranded. We trem ble. That is the com mon ex pe ri ence.

Arjuna does not un der stand. What doesit mean, this awesome Form? ‘Who are You,Lord? Ex plain to me, I pray, the mean ing ofthis ter ri ble vi sion. You swal low ev ery thingand, as it ap pears, with a good ap pe tite are al -ways ready for more. Be mer ci ful and ex plain.What is Your pur pose? I do not un der stand it.Where is Your mercy, Your feel ing, Your sym -pa thy? I de sire to know You, O Pri me val One,for Your pur pose I know not.’

The first ex pe ri ences in the re li gious lifeare usu ally of a peace ful, en joy able na ture.Many con verts mis take this for the high eststate and they never strive for any thinghigher. They are afraid to lose that lit tle bliss.

They think that when that goes, ev ery thing islost. But the cou ra geous soul, the true bhakta,does not stop at a lit tle pleas ant, peace ful feel -ing. He wants God, the Truth, as it is. Hepushes on and then he may meet the Mother in Her ter ri ble form. There, many re coil in fear,as did Arjuna. But great trea sures of Truthawait those who per se vere. They do not askfor a God of just fa vours; they are ready tomeet what co mes, de struc tion as well as goodtimes. Pass ing through that state of ter ror thestrong be hold the High est, the re splen dentOne. The fire has burned the dross. The mindhas be come crys tal clear. They have passedthe or deal, come out sanc ti fied and are readyfor the high est sam adhi.

Weak minds, it is said, may come to grief.Fear and ter ror and the ter ri ble strain may snapthe cords of the weak brain. But spir i tual gi -

ants un daunt edly push on through good andevil till they reach the high est sum mit, fromwhere they look down on all dualistic con cep -tion, as the moun tain eer does on the cloudsspread be neath him. These clouds may meanso much to the peo ple of the val ley. They maymean a har vest or a crop fail ure, but to themoun tain climber who is above them theymean noth ing. The jivanmukta, or the lib er atedsoul, rises above good and evil. He may comedown again to the world of strife and di vi sion,but never can he for get his ex pe ri ence on themoun tain top. Never can he for get the cloudsspread be neath him, un able to af fect him inany way.

Just as at an ear lier stage time and spacelost their rel a tive val ues and the past and thepres ent seemed to melt into one, even so goodand evil ap proach each other here and be come



W e dare not ac knowledge that it is She who

sc atters plague and sorrow and disease. W e

c heat ourselv es; like the ostric h we hide our

fac e in the sand when danger approac hes.

A nd therefore we do not progress spiritually.

re lated as the ob verse and re verse sides of thesame coin. Both are maya; both en cir cle andde lude us. The one is sattvic, the other tama sic,but both are gunas. But we have to rise be yond the gunas. And as we grow spir i tu ally, we be -come more and more de tached from the gunas.We rise above their sphere of power. We ap -proach the Spirit, where maya is not. All chainsand bond ages break, golden chains and ironones, sweet bonds and bit ter ones. We riseabove all lim i ta tion. Good and evil be long tothe ma te rial plane. There they both ex ist andthere alone. And on that plane both serve theirpur pose. They co ex ist; where the one is, theother is too.

We must jump out side the cir cle of maya.Then we can never be caught like the youngsnakes; we are free out side the cir cle, which is

noth ing but na ture. It is said that the mothersnake has eggs in a cir cle around her while theyare hatch ing. And as soon as an egg hatches she quickly catches the baby snake and swal lowsit. But some baby snakes are very quick andclever and the mo ment they hatch, they jumpout side the cir cle. And then they are safe. Butas long as they are in side the cir cle the motherwill catch them, no mat ter how quick they are.So it is with the soul. In maya lies dan ger. Weare safe only when we jump out side maya.Then we are in the arms of the Di vine Motherand she lifts us be yond na ture.

It is a hard les son. We have strug gled sohard to be good and vir tu ous. And now welearn that the value of good ness was fic ti tious.We have re peated our mantras, spent hours inour med i ta tion rooms, read vol umes of scrip -

tures, have taken so many vows, per formedour duties so faith fully! Is all that lost? No! Noef fort is in vain. That is the teach ing of thekarma-kanda. But un less it is all done out of love and love alone, it will not bring us a high vi -sion of God. Un less it is done with great hu -mil ity, it may only in crease our van ity. Wemay think that we have be come saints andthen we are so ea ger to crit i cize oth ers. Wemay be come self-righ teous. That is why greatsouls of ten ex press greater love for so-calledsin ners than for those who are re garded assaints by so ci ety. Sin ners have true re pen -tance. They know that they are sin ners andthat they have not the strength to give up sin.There fore they fall at the feet of the Mas ter and re sign them selves to Him in all hu mil ity. Suchhum ble souls the Lord loves.

The rich young man hadfol lowed all the com mand -ments from his youth. Whatbetter man could be found? Buthe could not fol low the Mas ter,Je sus. When the test came, heturned away. Je sus said to him,‘If thou wilt be per fect, go andsell that thou hast, and give tothe poor, and thou shalt have

trea sure in heaven.’2 That was too much forhim. Per haps he thought (as so many of us do), ‘Why should I sell all? Am I not un at tached?Af ter all, does the Mas ter know so much morethan I do?’ How eas ily the self-righ teous mindis turned! We love and have faith so long asour self-es teem is not hurt. But let there be oneun pleas ant word and the critic is brought out.Is the guru so much greater than us? And thenand there the bond that held mas ter and dis ci -ple to gether is snapped.

And so let us ex am ine our selves and seethat no pride en ters our heart. Let us not behasty in crit i cism, for af ter all, we may bewrong. We may mis judge. Let us watch our -selves more closely and be less mind ful of oth -ers’ faults. When we watch our own weak -nesses and insincerities and short com ings, we



W e lov e and hav e faith so long as our

self-esteem is not hurt. B ut let there be o n e

unpleasant word and the c ritic is brought

out. Is the guru so muc h greater than us?

A nd then and there the bond that held

master and disc iple together is snapped.

will be come hum bler. And that hu mil ity willbe our strength. On it we will soar higher tillwe reach the feet of Him who is the ref uge ofall.

Arjuna has told Sri Krishna all that hehad seen and ex pe ri enced. It was a won der fulrev e la tion, a vi sion grand and sub lime, but alsoter ri fy ing. And what is its mean ing? How toin ter pret it? Who is that Be ing, ter ri ble to be -hold, yet wor thy of all praise? It must be theHigh est of be ings, for ev ery thing en tered intoit. It is the source of all. But what is its pur -pose? These ques tions arise in Arjuna’s mind.

In Arjuna we al ways find the true dis ci -ple. When ever he ex pe ri ences some thing heco mes to Sri Krishna and re lates to Him withgrat i tude and hu mil ity all that he has seen.

This is pleas ing to the Mas ter. He sees the ef -fect of His teach ing and in struc tions and itgives Him a clue on how to pro ceed. This con fi -dence draws the Mas ter and the dis ci plecloser, and both re act upon each other. Itdraws the Mas ter out, bring ing out the best inHim. Yes, Ar juna is the skil ful dis ci ple whoknows how to please the teacher, not by flat -tery, but by show ing Him the re sult of his ef -forts. He knows how to spur Him on to fur ther rev e la tions of Truth. And he also knows how to ques tion in tel li gent ly. ‘The true preacher of re -li gion has to be of won der ful ca pa bil i ties,’ says the Upanishad, ‘and clever shall his hearerbe.’3

What then is Arjuna’s question? We findit in the next verse.

31. Tell me, who are You, in this ter ri ble form? Sal u ta tion to You! O Su preme De ity,have m ercy. O Pri m e val One, I de sire to know You, for in deed I know not Your pur pose.

Be mer ci ful, O Lord. You have shown meYour won der ful form; now kindly ex -plain the mean ing, for that is not yet

clear to me. And who are You? This ques tiongives Sri Krishna an op por tu nity to fur ther en -

lighten Arjuna. Lis ten, I will tell you what the vi -sion means. You have wit nessed Me in the formof Time and Death and the De stroyer. Andyou have seen Me act in that ca pac ity.

32. The Blessed Lord said:I am mighty, world-de stroy ing Time, here made man i fest for the pur pose of de stroy ing

these peo ple. Even with out You, none of these war riors ar rayed here in the hos tile ar mies,shall live.

I am mighty Time, that is to say, I am the di-vine power that causes all changes. I amDeath; I de stroy the worlds. And at pres ent

I am made man i fest for the pur pose of slay ingthese war riors. Should you re fuse to fight,even then, with out you, with out your in stru -men tal ity, all these heroes will die. There fore,do not be fool ish. Take My ad vice. This war isnec es sary for the unfoldment of My plans. Ihave come to es tab lish righ teous ness. I havein car nated for that pur pose. Why can not yoube hum ble and re signed! Does any thing de -pend on you? Out of dust I can cre ate mymighty work ers. I do not de pend on you. Do

not be idle; do not ne glect your duty. It will not avail any thing. The law will take its course.There fore be calm and hum ble and obe di ent,and then act see ing still ness in strife, life indeath, peace in war.

(To be continued)References

1. The Com plete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9vols. (Cal cutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9,1997), 4.509.

2. St M at thew, 19.21.3. Áùcaryo vaktákuùalo’sya labdhá’’ùcaryo jðátá ku-

ùa lánuùiøôaë. — Katha Upanishad, 1.2.7.



Sri Ra ma kri sh na and the Caste System

DR KRISHNA VERM A

In mod ern In dia the caste sys tem is con sid -ered by many to be one of the most se ri ousso cial prob lems hin der ing the prog ress of

the whole na tion. In the be gin ning the aim was di vi sion of la bour. Peo ple were di vided intofour castes: brahmana, kshatriya, vaishya andshudra, ac cord ing to their in ner ten dency andca pa bil ity. Wis dom was the main char ac ter is -tic of the brahmana, strength of the kshatriya,busi ness tal ent of the vaishya, and shudraswere those who lacked all these three char ac -ter is tics, but were good at man ual work. Thescrip tures pre scribed sim ple liv ing and highthink ing for the brahmana. ‘Se ren ity, self-con -trol, aus ter ity, pu rity, for bear ance, and alsoup right ness, knowl edge, realization and faithare the du ties of a brahmana, born of his na -ture.’1 Ini tially, caste de pended on one’s na -ture, but grad u ally it be came he red i tary, andthe con cept of caste hi er ar chy evolved in so ci -ety. Brahmanas were con sid ered the high estof all classes, as they were to guide the otherthree castes through their wis dom. But be ingin tox i cated by this su preme power, theystarted ex ploit ing the lower castes. They want -ed to grab all the so cial priv i leges, de ny ing ev -ery thing to the oth ers. This ex ploi ta tion wasworst in the me di eval pe riod. Even for smallmat ters, in their day-to-day life, the non- brah -manas had to get the sanc tion of the brah ma -nas. How ever, the kshatriyas by vir tue of theirphys i cal strength, and the vaishyas their eco -nomic power, were not so much af fected. Thecon di tion of the shudras was re ally piti able.They were sup pressed by all the three up percastes. Hence the re ac tion in mod ern times.

The Caste System in M edieval Bengal

In ter est ingly, in Ben gal, in the me di evalpe riod, the caste di vi sion was re duced to two:

brahmanas and shudras; there were no sig nif i -cant kshatriya or vaishya castes. Any bodywho was not a brahmana was con sid ered ashudra.2 Of course, among the so-called shud-ras there was some hi er ar chy. There were vai d -yas (a caste that fol lowed Ayurveda and prac -tised medicine) and kayasthas (be lieved bysome to be a line of kshatriyas in Ben gal), whocon sid ered them selves su pe rior to peo ple likegold smiths, black smiths, weav ers, peas ants,washer men and fish er men. Then there werecob blers, tan ners, burn ing- ghat work ers andsweep ers, who were known as untouchables.The di vi sion was not based on their fi nan cialpo si tion. A brahmana might be poorer than akayastha zamindar or a gold smith (and in most cases he was), but his so cial po si tion wasmuch higher than theirs. They had to show re -spect to him in ev ery way, and he had au thor -ity over them. All re li gious and so cial ac tiv i -ties that a non-brahmana wanted to per formhad to be sanc tioned by the brah ma na, andonly a brahmana could func tion as the priestand spir i tual teacher. How ever, there weresome more staunch brahmanas, who wouldnot per form priestly ac tiv i ties in anon-brahmana house and would not ac ceptany thing from them. Ac cepting cooked foodand drink ing wa ter from a shudra was ab so -lutely out of the ques tion. All these dis tinc -tions be tween brahmanas and non- brahmanas were ob served by women also. Abrahmana woman, while men tion ing hername, would use the suffix devi (di vine per -son), whereas a non-brahmana would use dasi(ser vant). Such were the caste con cep tionsdur ing Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s time.

Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s Lineage

Sri Ra ma kri sh na was born in a brahmana


fam ily known for its pi ety and spir i tu al ity. His fa ther fol lowed all the prin ci ples of a truebrahmana as pre scribed by the scrip tures. Allthe brahmanic qual i ties men tioned in theBhagavadgita (quoted above) could be found in him. He led a very sim ple, pure life, spend ingmost of his time in spir i tual ac tiv i ties andscrip tural study. At the same time, he alsostrictly ob served all the so cial rules of a brah-mana. Though poor, he did not ac cept any -thing from a non-brahmana, not even fromthose brahmanas who ac cepted gifts fromshudras. His fam ily mem bers were also not al -lowed to do so. His ad her ence to brahmanicrules and his re nun ci a tion and as cet i cismmade him so dis tin guished that ev ery body inthe vil lage had great re spect for him. No bodybathed in the pond be fore he took his bath, nor would any body pass him by with out show inghim proper re spect.

His Attitude towards Other Castes

Born in such an or tho dox brahmana fam -ily, what was Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s at ti tude to -wards non-brahmanas? How did he deal withthem? Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s first con tact with ashudra was at the dawn of his birth. Dha niKamarini, a black smith woman, was the firstper son to touch him and in tro duce him to theworld. How ever, there is noth ing un usual init. In those days only a shudra woman func -tioned as a mid wife. But later the re la tion shipthat de vel oped be tween the two was his tory,both for the fam ily as well as for so ci ety. When Sri Ra ma kri sh na reached the age of nine, thefam ily de cided to per form his upanayana, sa -cred thread cer e mony. It is a cus tom amongbrahmanas that when a male child at tains acer tain age he is in vested with the sa credthread (worn di ag o nally across the trunk) andgiven the Gayatri man tra. This func tion is per -formed with great so lem nity. It is a very im -por tant oc ca sion in the life of the boy, be causeit is only af ter this func tion that the boy be -comes a full-fledged brahmana. Be fore this hedoes not have the right to any re li gious ac tiv -

ity. A num ber of rit u als are as so ci ated withthis cer e mony, and many peo ple are in vited to at tend this func tion. Af ter he is in vested withthe sa cred thread he has to live as a brahma-charin for a cer tain pe riod of time, beg ging hisfood and sleep ing on the floor. The first ladywho gives him alms is known as his bhiksha- mata, the ‘alms-giv ing mother’. This is in deedthe priv i lege of a brahmana woman. Now,Dhani Kamarini had a se cret de sire to be comeSri Ra ma kri sh na’s bhiksha-mata, which, ofcourse, was noth ing more than a wild dreamon her part. She also knew it. But some how SriRa ma kri sh na came to know about it andprom ised to ac cept his first alms from her.When he made his de ci sion known to the fam -ily there was nat u rally a lot of hue and cry. Ac -cepting the first alms from a shud ra womanand mak ing her the bhiksha-mata when thefam ily was so or tho dox as not to ac cept any -thing even from a shudra-yajin brah mana (onewho of fi ci ated for the shudras)? Im pos si ble!But the boy was ad a mant. His only ar gu mentwas this: hold ing on to truth is the prime vir -tue of a brahmana. If he can not keep his prom -ise, he has no right to be called a brahmana.His fam ily peo ple tried to per suade him butwith lit tle suc cess. Ul ti mately they had toagree; and the upanayana took place with theblack smith woman as the bhiksha-mata.3

There is an other in ci dent from the Gos pelof Sri Ra ma kri sh na: Sri Ra ma kri sh na used tohear from the vil lage black smiths that dal (len -tils) cooked by them had some spe cial taste.They used to say that brahmanas do not knowhow to cook dal prop erly. So he had a de sire to taste that dal. We have al ready seen that brah-manas were very par tic u lar in not ac cept ingany cooked food from a non-brahmana house. But Sri Ra ma kri sh na was dif fer ent. He asked a black smith woman, most prob a bly Dhani, tocook dal for him. Of course, his com ment onthat dal was quite witty: ‘I ate the dal but itsmelt of the black smith.’4

Chinu Shankhari, an old man of the vil -lage, was his child hood friend. Sri Ra ma kri sh -


Sri Ra ma kri sh na and the Caste System 113

na used to call him ‘dada’ (el der brother) andwas very fond of him. Though Chinu be -longed to the ar ti san caste (shankharis are those who cut conch-shells and make conch ban -gles), con sid ered low in Ben gal, Sri Ra ma kri -sh na never hes i tated to take food from him.Chinu was also one of the first few who re al -ized the di vin ity of the child Gadadhar. Wealso read in the Ra ma kri sh na Punthi that a cer -tain Khetir Ma, who be longed to the car pen tercaste, once de sired to feed Sri Ra ma kri sh na ather home, but did not dare to ex press her wishbe cause of her low so cial po si tion. Some how,the di vine child came to know of it and in -sisted on tak ing food sit ting at her place. Theau thor of the Punthi points out how sur pris ing it was that though born in an or tho dox fam ily,very strict in caste mat ters, Gadadhar ig noredcaste dis tinc tions al to gether when they clashedwith love and af fec tion!5

These, how ever, are his child hood in ci -dents. Pres ently, we will see his at ti tude to -wards other castes when he grew up and be -came aware of so cial dis tinc tions. Sri Ra ma -kri sh na came to Cal cutta at the age of sev en -teen. His el der brother had opened a San skritschool there and was also work ing as a priestin the neigh bour hood. Sri Ra ma kri sh na cameto as sist him and also to study un der his tu te -lage. This was the time when Rani Rasmani, avery rich lady of the kaivarta caste, was build -ing the fa mous Dakshineswar Kali tem ple.Though the Rani was very rich and pow er fuland re spected by all, there arose a tech ni calprob lem in wor ship ping the im age in the tem -ple. In Ben gal of that time, no brahmana of fi ci -ated as priest in a tem ple con structed by akaivarta. Kaivartas were fish er men by pro fes -sion and were con sid ered low in the castestrata. So the Rani in vited pun dits for a so lu -tion ac cord ing to the shastras, but none couldpro vide one. When Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s brotherRamkumar was con sulted, he told her to ded i -cate the tem ple in the name of her guru, whowas a brahmana. Still no body came for wardfor the con se cra tion of the tem ple or to be come

a priest there. Ul ti mately, Ramkumar was ap -proached to take up the job, and he agreed.How ever, Sri Ra ma kri sh na, then a young man of nine teen, was not will ing to ac cept the foodof a kaivarta. Hav ing grown up in an or tho doxbrahmana fam ily, he was well aware of the so -cial prac tices of that time and did not wish tobreak them with out rea son. But when his el -der brother con vinced him through ar gu -ments that there was no harm in tak ing food atsuch a holy place like the tem ple of the Di vineMother sit u ated on the bank of the Gan ga, hestarted liv ing in the Kali tem ple com plex andgrad u ally be gan tak ing food there too. Rea son al ways had great ap peal for him. Af ter sometime he was en trusted with dec o rat ing the im -age in the Kali tem ple, and later be came thepriest there. Thus be gan his wor ship of theUni ver sal Mother, which grad u ally turnedinto an in tense sadhana. Such sadhana andsuch God-in tox i ca tion the world had not seenbe fore. An ac count of his sa dha na is be yondthe scope of this es say. We shall touch only afew as pects of his re li gious prac tices, whichwill re veal his at ti tude to wards caste sys tem.

HisSadhana to Remove Caste Pride

The brahmana be ing the high est caste inso ci ety, the other castes treat a brahmana withgreat hon our and re spect. Nat u rally, thismight make him con scious of his so cial po si -tion and give rise to a feel ing of su pe ri or ity.More over, we have seen that Sri Ra ma kri sh nabe longed to a brahmana fam ily held in highes teem even by other brahmanas. Hence, inor der to crush his caste pride com pletely, thefirst thing he did as a part of his tapasya was tore move his sa cred thread at the time of med i -ta tion. Ac cord ing to Sri Ra ma kri sh na, jaty-abhi mana, the pride of caste or lin eage, was one of eight ties that bind the self to the world ofmaya. Then, as his sadhana be came more andmore in tense, the urge to de mol ish the ego and feel one with all also grew in him. To at tain this ob jec tive he used unique meth ods un heard ofin the realm of spir i tual prac tice. He would



clean the places where the poor of all casteswere fed by the tem ple man age ment, re movetheir used plates, and some times even eat their leav ings. In In dia scav en gers are con sid eredto be long to the low est caste, theuntouchables. Sri Ra ma kri sh na would go tothe dwell ing place of the tem ple scav en gerand clean his toi let stealth ily, lest the ownershould ob ject. This was his way of get ting over the feel ing of caste su pe ri or ity. Shame, ha tredand fear are con sid ered to be ob sta cles in thespir i tual path. This sin gle act shows how hegot over these ob sta cles. He felt no shame inclean ing the hut of a low-caste per son; he hadno ha tred to wards any body, nor any aver sionfor me nial jobs; he had no fear of so cial dis ap -proval and was not afraid of ex com mu ni ca -tion.

The fear of oth ers’ opin ion—‘What willpeo ple think of me?’—is the worst form ofweak ness in man. We al ways want the ap -proval and ap pre ci a tion of oth ers. Be hind thispsy chol ogy is the ego of the in di vid ual. Sri Ra-ma kri sh na had no such weak ness in him. Hewas ab so lutely in dif fer ent to the opin ion ofthe world. He would not hes i tate to sac ri ficeany thing for a righ teous cause. He was of theopin ion that the pride of be ing born in an up -per-caste fam ily in flates the ego and bars thevi sion of equal ity to wards all crea tures ofGod. He vir tu ally saw God in ev ery body,even in the pros ti tute, the pa riah and the mle c -cha (a mem ber of an alien race). The con cept of equal ity, that God re sides in ev ery body, thatall are His chil dren, is not new in re li gion.Many saints have de clared this truth. But inthe his tory of the world one does not comeacross an other ex am ple where such meth odswere adopted to re move caste con scious ness.Unique in deed were the ways of Sri Ra ma kri -sh na.

His Disciples

Among Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s six teen sann-ya sin dis ci ples nine were non-brahmanas; ofthese eight were kayasthas and one be longed to

a shep herd fam ily. Again, among his twen ty- five in ti mate house holder dis ci ples whosenames we find in the Sri Ra ma kri sh na Bhakta ma -lika, nine teen were non-brahmanas. Most ofthem were kayasthas while some be longed to thevaidya caste and some to the vaishya caste. How -ever, in nine teenth-cen tury Ben gal, all non- brahmanas were termed shudras, as noted ear -lier. When Swami Vi ve ka nan da be came fa -mous, many of the or tho dox Hin dus ob jected tohis el i gi bil ity for sannyasa. Their point was thata shudra had no right to san n ya sa.6

Transcending Caste Considerations

For Sri Ra ma kri sh na, pu rity of mind andde vo tion to God were the only cri te ria forjudg ing a man. In his es ti mate Narendranath(Swami Vi ve ka nan da) and Rakhal Chandra(Swami Brahmananda) were spir i tu ally muchhigher than many brahmanas, though both ofthem were kayasthas. Latu, the shep herd boyof Chapra who was a do mes tic help at Ram-chan dra Datta’s house, was trans formed intoSwami Adbhutananda, a great sadhu, by thegrace of Sri Ra ma kri sh na. Adhar Sen and Ma-ni Mallick were dev o tees of Sri Ra ma kri sh nathough they be longed to the so-called lowercastes: one was a subarna-banik and the otherwas a teli. Sri Ra ma kri sh na used to visit theirhouses and take food there.

An in ci dent re veal ing Sri Ra ma kri sh na’sat ti tude to wards the caste sys tem is re cordedin the Gos pel of Sri Ra ma kri sh na. Once, on theoc ca sion of Durga Puja, Sri Ra ma kri sh na went to Adhar’s house. Kedar Chatterjee, an or tho -dox brahmana dev o tee, came to meet himthere. But when the time for par tak ing prasadap proached, Kedar hes i tated to take food atAdhar’s place. He and sev eral dev o tees stoodup; they were about to re turn home. Kedar sa -luted the Mas ter and bade him good bye. TheGos pel men tions the fol low ing con ver sa tionthere af ter:

Mas ter: ‘Should you go away with out bid -ding Adhar good-bye? Would n’t that be an actof dis cour tesy?’



Kedar: ‘”When God is pleased, the world ispleased.” You are stay ing; so in a sense we areall stay ing. I am not feel ing well. Be sides, I am alit tle ner vous about my so cial con ven tions.[Adhar be longed to a lower caste. Kedar, abrahmana, could not dine with him or eat at hishome.] Once be fore I had trou ble with our com -mu nity.’

Vijay (point ing to the M as ter): ‘Should we goaway and leave him here?’

Just then Adhar came in to take the Mas terto the din ing room, for the meal was ready. SriRa ma kri sh na stood up and said, ad dress ingKedar and Vijay: ‘Come. Come with me.’ Theyfol lowed him and par took of the din ner to -gether with the other dev o tees.

Af ter din ner they all re turned to the draw -ing room, where the dev o tees sat around theMas ter. Kedar said to him with folded hands,‘Please for give me for hes i tat ing to eat here.’Per haps the thought had come to his mind thathe should not have hes i tated, since the Mas terhim self had no scru ples about eat ing at Adhar’shouse. …

Mas ter: ‘One can eat food even from an un -touch able if the un touch able is a dev o tee of God.’7

(Em pha sis added)

This small in ci dent not only shows thelib eral mind of Sri Ra ma kri sh na, but also re -flects his sense of pro pri ety. Though ap par -ently an un let tered vil lager, he was very con -scious of et i quette and man ners. He knew thatonce you visit some body’s house, it is un man -nerly to go away with out say ing good bye tothe host, while Kedar, a city-bred ed u catedman, was ig nor ing this fac tor. Sec ond, the con -ver sa tion also re veals Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s highes teem for a dev o tee. Again and again we hear him say, ‘De votees do not be long to any caste’; ‘Blessed is he who feels long ing for God,though he eats pork. But shame on him whosemind dwells on “woman and gold”, thoughhe eats the pur est food—boiled veg e ta bles,rice, and ghee.’8

We find the same at ti tude in his treat -ment of shudras. There used to be a mis con -cep tion that un less one was born a brah mana,one could not at tain lib er a tion. It was also be -lieved that a non-brahmana who had per -

formed sadhana for the re al iza tion of God and had led a very pi ous life would have to waitfor the next birth to be born as a brahmana.Only then could he get the re sult of his pastsadhana and be lib er ated. The case of Rasikthe sweeper be lies this be lief. Be ing a scav en -ger, he was con sid ered an un touch able. Thosewere days when low-caste per sons weretreated very in hu manly. If a low-caste manhap pened to cross an up per-caste man’s pathhe would be pun ished, but no ac tion could betaken against the lat ter. Rasik used to seemany peo ple come to Sri Ra ma kri sh na and get his bless ings. He too wanted to go to him andask for his bless ings, but be ing an un touch able dared not ap proach him in front of oth ers. One day, when Sri Ra ma kri sh na was com ing fromthe Panchavati all by him self, he took the op -por tu nity to go near and kneel down be forehim and say, ‘Fa ther, what will hap pen to me!’Hear ing his cry for spir i tual grace, Sri Ra ma -kri sh na went into deep sam adhi, and Rasikfell at his feet. Af ter some time, when Sri Ra-ma kri sh na re gained outer con scious ness, hetold Rasik, ‘Do not be afraid, you will have it.At the time of death you will see me.’ Ex actlythe same thing hap pened: just be fore his death he saw Sri Ra ma kri sh na. His face beamedwith de light and he shouted, ‘Fa ther, you have come! You have not for got ten me!’ Say ing thishe passed away.9

We also find Sri Ra ma kri sh na say ing,‘Hazra said that a man could not be lib er atedun less he was born in a brah min body. “Howis that?” I said. “One at tains lib er a tion through bhakti alone. Ùabari was the daugh ter of ahunter. She, Ruhidas, and oth ers be longed tothe sudra caste. They were lib er ated throughbhakti alone.”’10

Caste and Spirituality

Sri Ra ma kri sh na was not a so cial re -former in the or di nary sense of the term. Hewas a mas ter of spir i tu al ity. In the Gos pel,where his words are re corded, we find veryfew ref er ences to the caste sys tem. But what -



ever lit tle is there gives us a glimpse of his at ti -tude to caste. Even this is al ways placed in thecon text of spir i tu al ity. Sri Ra ma kri sh na livedin God alone. His talks and acts were neverout side the realm of di vin ity. Hence, when -ever the topic of caste came up he dis cussed itfrom the spir i tual point of view. For ex am ple,while talk ing about Cap tain VishwanathUpadh yay, he says:

Cap tain is a strong up holder of or tho dox con -ven tions. Be cause of my vis it ing Keshab Chan -dra Sen, he stopped com ing here for a month.He said to me that Keshab had vi o lated the so -cial con ven tions: he dined with the Eng lish, had mar ried his daugh ter into an other caste, andhad lost his own caste. I said to Cap tain: ‘Whatdo I care for such things? Ke shab chants thename of God; so I go to him to hear about God.’(651)

While de scrib ing the na ture of a God-re al izedman he says, ‘He be comes like a child. … Allper sons are the same to a child. He has no feel -ing of high and low in re gard to per sons. So hedoes n’t dis crim i nate about caste. If his mothertells him that a par tic u lar man should be re -garded as an el der brother, the child will eatfrom the same plate with him, though the manmay be long to the low caste of a black smith.’(171) We find in his life also the same type ofsame-sight ed ness. When the storm of God-in -tox i ca tion en vel oped him, he for got ev ery -thing: his caste, his high so cial po si tion, hishighly re spected fam ily. All dis tinc tions wereoblit er ated. He ob served, ‘I be came mad. … In that state I could not ob serve any caste re stric -tions. The wife of a low-caste man used tosend me cooked greens and I ate them.’ (548)Again, ‘Oh, what moods I passed through! AtKamarpukur I said to Chine Shankhari andthe other chums of my boy hood days, “Oh, Ifall at your feet and beg of you to ut ter thename of Hari.” I was about to pros trate my selfbe fore them all. There upon Chine said, “Thisis the first out burst of your di vine love; so youdon’t see any dis tinc tion be tween one manand an other.”’ (549) As we have men tioned

ear lier, Chinu Shan khari be longed to a lowercaste and we are talk ing of a time when castecon scious ness was so strong in Ben gal thateven touch ing a low-caste man was con sid -ered to be sac ri le gious, what to speak of an up -per-caste brah ma na pros trat ing be fore him!

His Observations on Some Castes

Sri Ra ma kri sh na was in deed aware of the caste dis tinc tions prev a lent in so ci ety, butnever paid any im por tance to it. In fact, in thewhole of the Gos pel, very rarely do we find SriRa ma kri sh na men tion ing any body’s caste.Once while ask ing Mani Mallick to build a res -er voir in a cer tain vil lage where peo ple weresuf fer ing from acute wa ter short age, he saidsmil ingly, ‘You have so much money; whatwill you do with so much wealth? But they say that telis are very cal cu lat ing.’ But in thecourse of the con ver sa tion he was rep ri -manded by Manilal: ’Sir, you re ferred to a res -er voir. You might as well have con fined your -self to that sug ges tion. Why al lude to the“oil-man caste” and all that?’ Sri Ra ma kri sh nalaughed. (202) This was a sim ple hu mor ouscom ment by Sri Ra ma kri sh na, and ev ery bodywas amused.

Sim i larly, when Balaram Bose quotedsome brahmanas as say ing that Annada Guhawas a very ego tis tic man, Sri Ra ma kri sh nareplied, ‘Never lis ten to what the brahmanassay. You know their na ture very well. If a mandoes not give them money, they will call himbad; on the other hand, if a man is gen er ous tothem, they will call him good. (All laugh.) Iknow Annada. He is a good man.’ (727) Theseare the only two places in the Gos pel where wefind Sri Ra ma kri sh na talk ing about some pe -cu liar i ties of par tic u lar castes; but even therehe does not ap pear to mean of fence.

Caste in His Parables

Sri Ra ma kri sh na was well ac quaintedwith the life style and work ings of the peo plesof dif fer ent castes and pro fes sions. While ex -plain ing some ab struse philo soph i cal or spir i -



tual point, he used ex am ples from theirday-to-day life to make the con cept easy tocom pre hend. Take for ex am ple the car pen terwoman pound ing paddy, an il lus tra tion ofabh yasa yoga, the yoga of prac tice. With onehand she turns the paddy in the hole wherethe pes tle of the husk ing-ma chine is pound ing the paddy; at the same time she nurses thebaby and also talks to pro spec tive buy ers. Butfif teen parts of her mind out of six teen arefixed on the pes tle, lest it should pound herhand. Sim i larly, wood cut ters, peas ants, pot -ters, weav ers, wives of gar den ers and fish er -men— all fig ure as il lus tra tions in his con ver -sa tions. It is re mark able how, in those days ofcaste re stric tions and seg re ga tion, he freelymixed with these peo ple of so-called lowercastes and ob served their ac tiv i ties!

On Obliterating Caste Distinctions

But what was his view re gard ing castedis tinc tion as such? Did he want the sys temabol ished al to gether be cause it was a so cialevil? Or did he jus tify it? In the lat ter half of the nine teenth cen tury, at the time of Sri Ra ma kri -sh na, so cial re forms had started tak ing placein ur ban Ben gal. Raja Rammohan Roy, withthe help of the Brit ish Gov ern ment, al readyhad banned sati. The Brahmo Samaj wasformed and im age wor ship was de nouncedby the Brah mos. Their next at tack was on thecaste sys tem. The Brahmos did not be lieve incaste dis tinc tions. They prac tised inter-castedin ing and mar riage. Though they con sti tuted a small por tion of the to tal pop u la tion, theirin flu ence on ‘Young Ben gal’ was great. Withthem the evils of the caste sys tem were a topicof hot dis cus sion. Sri Ra ma kri sh na was oncecat e gor i cally asked by Ashwini Kumar Datta,‘Do you ob serve caste?’ The an swer that Sri

Ra ma kri sh na gave is as sig nif i -cant as it is in ter est ing:

How can I say yes? I ate curry atKeshab Sen’s house. Let me tell you what once hap pened to me. A manwith a long beard brought some icehere, but I did n’t feel like eat ing it.

A lit tle later some one brought me a piece of icefrom the same man, and I ate it with great rel ish. You see, caste re stric tions fall away of them -selves. As co co nut and palm trees grow up, thebranches drop off of them selves. Caste con ven -tions drop off like that. But don’t tear them offas those fools do. (1023-4)

The last sen tence is very im por tant and showshow much Sri Ra ma kri sh na was against any -thing ar ti fi cial. Noth ing should be done forc -ibly. If one has not risen above the feel ing ofsu pe ri or ity or in fe ri or ity re gard ing one’s caste or so cial po si tion, mere eat ing to gether ormar ry ing in a dif fer ent caste will not help.Out wardly one may make a show of equal itybut in side there will be ha tred and jeal ousy.Sri Ra ma kri sh na was very much against anytype of hy poc risy. What ever co mes in a nat u -ral way is wel come. If one tears off the scabfrom a raw wound it causes trou ble but whenthe wound is dry the scab falls off au to mat i -cally. It is the same with so cial rules. So cialcon ven tions are deep-rooted in our minds.When the mind be comes ab so lutely pre paredto ac cept a new idea, only then is so cial changepos si ble. Ac cord ing to Sri Ra ma kri sh na castedis tinc tions can be re moved only throughbhakti, de vo tion to God. In tense love for Godmelts away all dis tinc tions. In Sri Ra ma kri sh -na’s lan guage:

The caste sys tem can be re moved by one meansonly, and that is the love of God. Lovers of Goddo not be long to any caste. The mind, body, andsoul of a man be come pu ri fied through di vinelove. Chaitanya and Nityananda scat tered thename of Hari to ev ery one, in clud ing the pa riah,and em braced them all. A brah min with out thislove is no lon ger a brah min. And a pa riah withthe love of God is no lon ger a pa riah. (155)



A c c ording to S ri R a ma kri sh na c aste

distinc tions c an be remov ed only through

bhakti, dev otion to God. Intense lov e for

God melts away all distinc tions.

This, how ever, is the last word about thecaste sys tem. The su pe ri or ity or in fe ri or ity of a man does not de pend on his caste or his po si -tion in so ci ety. It de pends upon his men tal pu -rity.

~ ~ ~

We have al ready men tioned that Sri Ra -ma kri sh na was not a so cial re former in the or -di nary sense of the term. But the work of suchgreat souls is done si lently. When we lookback, we see what a tre men dous change hasal ready taken place in mod ern In dia. By theirwords and deeds Sri Ra ma kri sh na, Sri Ma Sa-ra da Devi and Swami Vi ve ka nan da have si -lent ly tried to re move this age-old ha tred basedon caste dis tinc tions. The Ra ma kri sh na Mis -sion, which is an em bodi ment of their ideas, isfol low ing the re li gion of ser vice to hu man ity,ir re spec tive of caste, creed or re li gion. ~

References

1. Bhagavadgita, 18.42.2. Shankari Prasad Basu, Vi ve ka nan da O Sama ka -

lin Bharatvarsha, 7 vols. (Kolkata: Sunil Man-dal, 1-6, 1983; 7, 1988), 3.123.

3. Swami Saradananda, Sri Ra ma kri sh na the Great Mas ter, trans. Swami Jagadananda (Chennai:Sri Ra ma kri sh na Math, 2001), 63-4.

4. M, The Gos pel of Sri Ra ma kri sh na, trans. SwamiNikhilananda (Chennai: Sri Ra ma kri sh na Math,2002), 564.

5. Akshay Kumar Sen, Sri Sri Ra ma kri sh na Pun thi(Kolkata: Udbodhan Of fice, 1953), 32.

6. Samakalin Bharatvarsha, 3.117-8.7. Gos pel, 576.8. Ibid., 564.9. Nibodhata (Kolkata: Sri Sarada Math, July 2002),

86.10. Gos pel, 591.



Not by mat ted locks, nor by fam ily, nor by birth does one be come a brahmana; but in whom

there ex ist both truth and righ teous ness—pure is he, a brahmana is he. —Bud dha

The true fail ure of caste oc curs when ever it es tab lishes such an as cen dancy of so cial opin ion

over the in di vid ual’s con science that his power of ad vance is im peded and he be comes less

of a man, or less re ally be nef i cent so cially. —Sis ter Nivedita

Class war is for eign to the es sen tial ge nius of In dia, which is ca pa ble of evolv ing com mu nism

on the fun da men tal rights of all on equal jus tice. Ramarajya of my dream en sures rights

alike of prince and pau per. —Ma hatma Gan dhi

To ideal ise the real, which more of ten than not is full of in eq ui ties, is a very self ish thing to

do. It is only when a per son finds a per sonal ad van tage in things as they are, that he tries to

ideal ise the real. To pro ceed to make such an ideal real is noth ing short of crim i nal. It means

per pet u at ing in eq uity on the ground that what ever is set tled is set tled for all times. Such a view

is op posed to all mo ral ity. No so ci ety with ideal con science has ever ac cepted it. On the con -

trary what ever prog ress in im prov ing the terms of as so ci ated life be tween in di vid u als and

classes has been made in the course of his tory, is due en tirely to the rec og ni tion of the eth i cal

doc trine that what ever is wrongly set tled is never set tled and must be re set tled. —B R Ambedkar

I have a dream that my four lit tle chil dren will one day live in a na tion where they will not be

judged by the col our of their skin, but by the con tent of their char ac ter. —Mar tin Lu ther King Jr

Bioethics for Science and Technology: A Hindu

Perspective

SW AM I JITATM ANANDA

Why an in ter na tional con fer ence onbioethics? An i mals of Af ri can for estsdo not need any such con fer ences.

They live, hap pily or un hap pily, prey ing onone an other, sur viv ing on each other’s flesh andblood, liv ing for the sake of eat ing and pro cre -at ing, for sense grat i fi ca tion and per pet u a tionof spe cies. We hu man be ings need to day aglobal con fer ence on bioethics to cre ate a sus -tain able global civ i li za tion, in this age whenthe in for ma tion rev o lu tion brought on bycom puters, the Inter net, sci ence and tech nol -ogy has made the world a global vil lage.

Why do sci en tists need a sys tem of bio-ethics? Be cause eth ics aims at cre at ing high erhu man be ings and a higher level of civ i li za -tion. That so ci ety is the most eth i cal which pro -duces the larg est num ber of Christs and Bud-dhas; or an Ein stein who turned into a cos micman; or great sci en tists, art ists, paint ers, writ -ers and phi los o phers who have in spired hu -man be ings to reach su per hu man and super -sen su al lev els of ex is tence. ‘Civ i li za tion is theman i fes ta tion of that Di vin ity in man,’ said the great est in ter preter of Hin du ism in mod erntimes, Swami Vi ve ka nan da, in his Har vardUni ver sity talk of 1896. Civ i li za tion does notcon sist in mak ing newer ma chines or pro ject -ing man as a ‘tool-mak ing an i mal’, as Benja -min Frank lin said. Nor does it lie in the cre -ation of an ‘eco nomic an i mal’, as Alvin Tofflersaid, or just a Freud ian sense-bound an i malwho jumps at ev ery sensate plea sure pro videdby to day’s consumerist so ci ety, com mits blun -ders, suf fers from a sense of guilt and de pres -sion, and then com mits sui cide.

Sci ence means knowl edge. Knowl edgefor what? Knowl edge for evolv ing higher hu -

man be ings who can bring out the in fi nite po -ten ti al ity of the Christs and Bud dhas hid denin side them (’sávidyáyávimuktaye’). Hin du -ism con tin u ously as serts, ‘Átmánaó viddhi,Know thy Self.’ This is the goal of hu man evo -lu tion: not the cre ation of global kill ers, butglobal sav iours— the Christ-man and the Bud -dha-man, as Pi erre Tielhard de Chardinshowed in his bril liant book The Phe nom e non of Man. The amoeba evolves into Christ, be causethe end of hu man evo lu tion is Christogenesis.

‘Each soul is po ten tially di vine. The goalis to man i fest (re al ize) this Di vin ity within,’taught Swami Vi ve ka nan da. Ac cord ing toHin du ism, there are two great aims of knowl -edge: ex ter nal per fec tion in life through sci -ence and tech nol ogy and in ter nal per fec tionthrough higher Knowl edge (‘Dve vidye vedi ta -v ye … parácaiva-apará ca’, Mundaka Upanishad,1.1.4). Of these two, pri mary im por tance hasbeen given to the su pe rior Knowl edge (para vid-ya) for the man i fes ta tion of the Christs andBud dhas within us.

The sec ond goal of sci ence is to bring wel -fare to the whole world. I re mem ber talk ing toagro-sci en tist Dr Nor man Borlaug, who usedto spend sleep less nights in the deserts of Mex -ico to de velop drought- and dis ease-re sis tantstrains of wheat. He did suc ceed, and thussaved one third of hu man ity from a sure fam -ine pre dicted by world econ o mists, for whichhe got the No bel Peace Prize. This is the gloryand beauty of sci ence.

Hin du ism con tin u ously as serts that hap -pi ness lies not in in di vid u al is tic liv ing, how -ever ex cel lent that may be, but in liv ing a ho lis -tic life for the wel fare of en tire hu man ity, be -cause each one of us is in ex tri ca bly con nected


Bioethics for Science and Technology:

A Hindu Perspective

with the uni verse. ‘I con nect the whole uni -verse like a thread con nect ing pearls,’ says SriKrishna in the Bhagavadgita. Hap pi ness, ful fil -ment and peace come to an in di vid ual or a na -tion when they know how to live for the wel -fare of all hu man ity. ‘Bhémaiva su kham, In fin i -tude is bliss,’ says the Chandogya Upa nishad(7.23.1).

From the per spec tive of Hin du ism the en -tire is sue of bioethics re volves round two pri -mary ques tions:

(1) Is sci ence help ing to cre ate highlyevolved hu man be ings or is it only cre at inghigh ly pow er ful Frankensteins?

(2) Is sci ence ca ter ing to the wel fare of en -tire hu man ity, or is it only try ing to en rich onena tion, one race or one group at the cost ofothers?

If our an swers are in the af fir ma tive andwe ori ent all of our sci en tific re search, in ves ti -ga tions, find ings and dis cov er ies to wards thisend, we would have fol lowed the uni ver sallaws of bioethics.

Dur ing the suc cess ful ex plo sion of the firstatom bomb in Alamogordo, Rob ert Oppen -hei mer, its maker, spon ta ne ously be gan to re -cite the hymn from the Gita where God’s ef ful -gence is com pared to the ef ful gence of a thou -sand suns. A few days later a spe cial party was hosted in hon our of the sci en tists led by MrOppenheimer. He found that the party was a‘dis mal flop’. A cool-headed sci en tist came outsud denly and be gan to vomit. ‘The re ac tion hasbe gun,’ wrote a stu pe fied Oppenheimer.1 Hismem o ra ble speech af ter the first atomic ex plo -sion is a cry for mo ral ity and eth ics for sci en -tists work ing in a ther mo nu clear age: ‘Butthere is an other thing— we are men too; wecan not for get our de pend ence on our fel low- men. I mean also our deep moral de pend ence… the value of sci ence must lie in the world ofmen … all roots lie there. There are the stron -gest bonds in the world, stron ger than thoseeven that bind us (atomic sci en tists) to one an -other, deep est bonds that bind us to our fel -low-men.’2

The Hindu Concept of Ethics: DharmaIn a beau ti ful story from the Brihad aran -

yaka Upanishad we find that even af ter cre at ing brahmanas, kshatriyas, vaish yas and shudras,the Cre ator did not feel happy. He fi nally cre -ated the ‘ex cel lent form’ of law and jus ticecalled dharma, or righ teous ness. Says theUpa nishad, ‘There is noth ing greater thandhar ma, righ teous ness or jus tice. So even aweak man hopes (to de feat) a stron ger manthrough righ teous ness, as with the king’shelp. That righ teous ness is ver ily truth.’(1.4.14)

Ac cord ing to the Manu Smriti, the kingmust pro tect the coun try through an ef fi cientad min is tra tion. The king who has suc cess fully rooted out vi o lence from his king dom, com -mands the high est re spect. (8.386-7) By theking’s or der, pun ish ment alone gov erns all cre -ated be ings. … The whole world is kept in or derby pun ish ment meted out to evil-do ers. (7.18,22) The king must pun ish thieves and thewicked by lashes, fines or se vere cor po ral pun -ish ment. (8.324) Any as sas sin should be im -me di ately killed. (8.350) A truly spir i tual manshould never be hurt. (8.380-1)

The Cre ator as sured hu man ity that hehad cre ated dharma, a sys tem of law or moralor der by which the weak would be able to getjus tice against the strong. The moral or der, orìta as de scribed in Ve dic Hin du ism, is in vi o la -

ble. Its vi o la tion means self-de struc tion.Macbeth brought de struc tion on him self be -cause he vi o lated the moral or der by kill ingthe in no cent guest Duncan. Ac cord ing to Ve -dic Hin du ism, a guest has to be re spected likea god just as one’s fa ther, mother and teachershould be re spected as gods. Swami Vi ve ka -nan da ex tended this Upanishadic limit, andde clared that the new Vedantic Hin du ismmust re spect the God in the sin ner, the ig no -rant, the sick and in the have-nots of all coun -tries and climes, ev ery where, ir re spec tive ofcaste, creed or na tion al ity. It is on this ba sis ofuni ver sal re spect for the In fi nite in the fi nite,for God in hu man be ings ev ery where, that the

Bioethics for Science and Technology: A Hindu Perspective 121


new eth ics of hu man civ i li za tion must bebased.

Hin du ism as serts that there is the sameCon scious ness per vad ing all crea tures, plantsand even non-liv ing en ti ties. Manu rec om -mended fines for in jur ing small an i mals, cat -tle, wild quad ru peds and birds. (Manu Smriti,8.296-8).

In 1901, the In dian bi ol o gist J C Bosedem on strated his ep och-mak ing ex per i -ments of hu man-like re sponse in met alsbefore the phys ics sec tion of the Brit ish As so -ci a tion at Brad ford. Sci en tists saw with won -der the sim i lar curves ob tained from hu manmus cles, met als and plants when they werere spond ing to the ef fect of fa tigue, de pres -sion and poi son ous drugs. Bose’s dis cov erycon clu sively proved that the sameconsciousness pul sates in men, plants andeven met als in var i ous ways. He summed upthe es sence of his find ings thus: ‘In many in -ves ti ga tions on the ac tion of forces on mat ter,I was amazed to find bound ary lines van ish -

ing and to dis cover points of con tact emerg -ing be tween the liv ing and the non-liv ing.’3

Can W e Use This Holistic Ethicsin Practical life?

Sri Ra ma kri sh na, the mod ern saint ofHin du ism, tells us that al though God is pres -ent in ev ery liv ing be ing like man, ti ger orsnake, we can not em brace a ti ger; we have toavoid it and cre ate bar ri ers to pre vent the ti -ger from tak ing in no cent lives. Again, Ra ma -kri sh na teaches us that our duty is not to killthe wrong doer, but take suf fi cient steps sothat he re frains from wrong do ing. A snakewas taught by its guru not to bite oth ers.When it left bit ing, peo ple be gan to hit it mer -ci lessly and left it half-dead. The guru cameback and taught the snake, ‘Do not bite. But

who told you not to hiss?’ The snake got theman tra for sur vival in an an tag o nis tic world.This is the Hindu view of eth ics in prac ti callife.

Unity, the Basis of Ethics

It is from the re al iza tion of the one sin gleCon scious ness ev ery where that sages havefelt their in ex tri ca ble in ter con nec ted ness withthe rest of the uni verse. It is only af ter such re -al iza tion that true love, love for oth ers, dawns. Then the higher man goes on to live a ho lis ticlife. Only then are eth ics and mo ral ity born.All eth ics is based on the per cep tion of the ba -sic unity of life. Vi ve ka nan da ex plained, ‘Whyshould you do good to oth ers? Be cause that isthe only con di tion of life; thereby you ex pandbe yond your lit tle self; you live and grow. Allnar row ness, all con trac tion, all self ish ness issim ply slow sui cide.’4

The ra tio nal world of sci ence is ear nestlybent upon seek ing out the ra tio nal ity, the rai -son d’etre, of all its phi los o phy and eth ics. Eth -

ics can not be de rived from themere sanc tion of any per son -age, how ever great and di vinehe may have been. Such an ex -pla na tion of the au thor ity of

eth ics ap peals no more to ra tio nal think ers.They want some thing more than hu man sanc -tion for eth i cal and moral codes to be bind ing;they want, in the words of Vi ve ka nan da,‘some eter nal prin ci ple of truth as the sanc tionof eth ics’. (3.189) Vi ve ka nan da as serts that inor der to reach the real ba sis of mo ral ity or eth -ics one ‘must have the high est philo soph i caland sci en tific con cep tions’. (2.355)

Two eter nal prin ci ples gov ern ing the uni -verse stand out in the Vedanta phi los o phy ofHin du ism:

(1) The In fi nite is the back ground be hindthe fi nite (At man = Brah man).

(2) An es sen tial ho lis tic unity and in ter -con nec ted ness is al ways there be hind all ap -par ently dis pa rate re al i ties of the uni verse and the life therein (ekam-eva-advitiyam).



Hinduism asserts that there is the same

Consciousness pervading all creatures,

plants and even non-living entities.

Eth ics is the foun da tion of any so ci ety orciv i li za tion. With out eth ics life would be gov -erned by the law of the jun gle. The ends of mo -ral ity are ful filled by the rec og ni tion of one’sown Self in oth ers. The Gita de clares, ‘He thatsees one God ex ist ing ev ery where can not in -jure an other who is his own Self, and so at tains the high est goal.’ (13.28)

Vedanta phi los o phy, which is the crown -ing glory of Hin du ism, en cour ages an in di vid -ual to re al ize the in fi nite God in the fi nitebody, then see His pres ence ev ery where, andthus turn his life into a cease less ser vice to hisown Self in oth ers. Dualistic phi los o phies,which make a dis tinc tion be tween God andman, can not jus tify this ho lis tic vi sion. A rul -ing Per sonal God prom is ing re ward in heaven or pun ish ment in hell for His dev o tees canpun ish the vi o la tors of eth ics and en cour agefel low feel ing for the be liev ers of the same faith,but can not in spire uni ver sal love for man kind at large. Un for tu nately, in some re li gions, a clan -nish at ti tude made the kill ing of non-be liev ersre spect able.

The Ten Com mand ments of Mo ses withcat e gor i cal im per a tives like ‘Thou shalt not kill’,‘Thou shalt not bear false wit ness’ and so onform the fun da men tal ba sis of eth ics in Se miticre li gions. The teach ings of Christ re turned topure eth ics and re duced the Ten Com mand -ments to two cen tral teach ings:

(1) Love the Lord thy God with all thineheart and soul.

(2) Love thy neigh bour as thy self.Why does a new born baby get so much

love from her mother? Be cause a day ear lierthe two were one. All eth ics, all al tru is tic andhu man is tic val ues, as op posed to jin go is tic, fun -da men tal ist and dog matic val ues, are based onthe per cep tion of this ba sic unity of ex is tence.

This ho lis tic per cep tion of life forms theba sis of eth ics in all ma jor re li gions. In the Jainre li gion paropakára (do ing good to oth ers) andpa rahita-cintá(think ing of oth ers’ good) are the first two val ues for joy ful liv ing. The samepath of ho lis tic liv ing was voiced by Bud dha

to his in ti mate dis ci ples: ‘Bahujana hitáya,bahu jana sukháya, lokánukampayá, hitáya,artháya, su kháya, devamanuøyáîám; for thegood of the many, for the hap pi ness of themany, with com pas sion, for bring ing good nessand the good things of life to all, both for thegods and the com mon masses.’

In the Sufi mys ti cism of Is lam, the samevoice is heard in the ut ter ance ‘ana‘l-haq, I amGod’ in stead of ‘ana’l-ab’d, I am the ser vant ofGod.’ Jalaluddin Rumi says, ana’l-haqmeans Iam not, He is all; there is no be ing but God’s.That is ex treme of hu mil ity and self-abase ment.5

Science Brings Us a Single Universeof Unbroken W holeness

Rel a tiv ity phys ics shows us that ma te rialob jects are not dis tinct en ti ties, but are in sep a -ra bly linked to their en vi ron ment or the so- called empty space; prop er ties of one ma te rialsub stance can only be un der stood in terms oftheir in ter ac tion with the rest of the world. The uni verse of clas si cal phys ics has been sweptaway by rel a tiv ity, whose main hall mark is uni-fi ca tion, join ing to gether space, time, en ergyand mat ter in an in dis sol u ble con tin uum.6 Inthe state of sin gu lar ity of blackholes, as RogerPen rose calls it, en ergy-mat ter and space- timeare all fused into one sin gle en tity, a unity be yondspace and time.7

If Ein stein in ter con nected time, space,field and mat ter, Heisenberg’s un cer tainty prin -ci ple broke down for the first time the Car te -sian du al ism of mind and mat ter by prov ingthat the ob jec tive out side in sub atomic phys ics is in ex tri ca bly re lated to the sub jec tive di men -sion of the sci en tists. The re al ity to day is nomore ob jec tive but ‘omnijective’ (sub jec tiveand ob jec tive) ac cord ing to Mi chael Tal bot inhis book Mys ti cism and the New Phys ics.

Ilya Prigogine, win ner of the No bel Prizefor Chemistry, writes in the in tro duc tion to his book Or der out of Chaos, ‘Pres ent-day re searchleads us fur ther and fur ther away from the op -po si tion be tween man and the nat u ral world.’8

Ac cord ing to him, the main pur pose of his dis -

Bioethics for Science and Technology: A Hindu Perspective 123


cov ery is to show ‘in stead of rup ture and op -po si tion, the grow ing co her ence of our knowl -edge of man and na ture’. ‘We are liv ing in asin gle uni verse,’ says Prigogine.9

Thomas S Kuhn, in one of the most in flu -en tial books of mod ern times, The Struc ture ofSci en tific Rev o lu tions, shows how the sci en tificworld has turned to a new par a digm of in ter -con nec ted ness of the en tire uni verse, and anin sep a ra ble con nec tion be tween mind andmat ter. It is the new ho lis tic par a digm of sci ence.

The suc cess ful ex per i men tal dem on stra -tion of Bell’s the o rem by Da vid Bohm in 1972proved that twin, paired quan tum par ti clessomehow com mu ni cate with each other in -stan ta neously, even at a space-like dis tance.Da vid Bohm says: ‘Parts … are seen to be inim me di ate con nec tion in which their dy namic re la tion ship de pends in an ir re duc ible way onthe whole sys tem, and in deed that of a broad -er sys tem in which they are con tained, ex tend -ed ul ti mately into the en tire uni verse. Thus,one is led to a new no tion of un bro ken whole -ness which de nies the clas si cal idea of anal-ysability of the world sep a rately.’ Bohm writeswith an other phys i cist, Ba sil Hiley, that the ex -per i men tal ver i fi ca tion of non-lo cal cau sal ityin phys ics ‘leads to a rad i cally new no tion ofun bro ken whole ness of the uni verse’.10

The quan tum rev o lu tion, as Ken Wilberwrote in 1993, has es tab lished a ho lis tic par a -digm as the fi nal ba sis of sci ence, in stead of the old dualistic par a digm, which sep a rated Godfrom men, man from man, mat ter from mind,and ob vi ously na tion from na tion and re li gion from re li gion. It has in spired and has led to amo nis tic and not mono the is tic vi sion of un -der ly ing re al ity. ‘It is per haps the most out -stand ing cul tural phe nom e non of our time,’writes Amaury de Riencourt in his book TheEye of Shi va. ‘It might well be that man kind isnow on the thresh old of a psy cho log i cal andphys i o log i cal rev o lu tion of a mag ni tude thatwill over shadow all the so cial and po lit i cal rev -o lu tions of our cen tury, made pos si ble by theseem ing ly in con gru ous, yet per fectly log i cal,

mar riage be tween sci ence and east ern mys ti -cal in sights.’11

Echoing the high est Hindu philo soph i cal sen ti ments, Vi ve ka nan da de clared that in theul ti mate anal y sis ‘the whole uni verse, men taland ma te rial, will be fused into one. It is thefind ing of unity to wards which we are go -ing.’12 Again, he said:

One atom in this uni verse can not move with outdrag ging the whole world along with it. Therecan not be any prog ress with out the whole worldfol low ing in the wake, and it is be com ing ev eryday clearer that the so lu tion of any prob lem cannever be at tained on ra cial, or na tional, or nar -row grounds. Ev ery idea has to be come broadtill it cov ers the whole of this world, ev ery as pi -ra tion must go on in creas ing till it has en gulfedthe whole of hu man ity, nay the whole of lifewithin its scope.13

(To be concluded)References

1. Rob ert Oppenheimer, Let ters and Rec ol lec tions(Cam bridge: Har vard Uni ver sity Press, 1980), 292.

2. Ibid., 328.3. Swami Jitatmananda, Ho lis tic Sci ence and Ve-

dan ta (Bom bay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1991),1-15.

4. The Com plete W orks of Swami Vi ve ka nan da, 9vols. (Cal cutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989; 9,1997), 7.476.

5. Claude Alan Stark, God of All (Mas sa chu setts:Claude Stark, 1974), 77.

6. Amaury de Riencourt, The Eye of Shiva (Wil -liam Mor row, 1981), 22.

7. Ibid., 72.8. Ilya Prigogine and Isabella Stengers, Or der

Out of Chaos (Lon don: Fla mingo, 1986), 16.9. Ibid., 4, 9.

10. Fred Allen Wolf, Taking the Quan tum Leap (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 177.

11. The Eye of Shiva, 196-7.12. Ho lis tic Sci ence and Vedanta, 1-15, 149.13. CW , 3.269.



A Christian Looks at the Life of Vivekananda

DR S SUNDER DAS

I am sure many of you will be fa mil iar withthe ac count of the first mir a cle that Je sus per -formed at the wed ding in the vil lage called

Cana in Gal i lee. Je sus was a guest at this wed -ding. The wine gave out, to the dis com fi ture of the mas ter of cer e mo nies. Mary, the mother ofJe sus, some how felt her son could help. Whenshe asked him to do some thing to pro ducewine, he got the ser vants to fill the troughs with wa ter. The wa ter im me di ately turned into wine.The guests asked the mas ter of the feast as towhy he had kept the good wine till the end. Ithas been said that when Rob ert Browning wasa lit tle boy at school, the teacher had set theclass a com po si tion en ti tled ‘The Miracle atCana’. While the rest of his class mates werebusy writ ing fu ri ously, lit tle Rob ert just satdream ing. Just be fore the com po si tion wasdue to be handed in, he wrote just one sen -tence: ‘The wa ter saw its Lord and blushed.’Need less to say, he got the high est marks forhis ef fort. If I were asked to sum up in one sen -tence the es sence of Swami Vivekananda’swork, this is what I would say: ‘He brought the aware ness of the di vin ity of man to the com -mon peo ple all over the world.’

The cru ci fix ion of Je sus at the in sti ga tionof the chief priest of the Jew ish peo ple had enor -mous re per cus sions. Na ture it self re belledagainst the in hu man crime: there was pitchdark ness for three hours. When the spirit of Je -sus left his body many mo men tous thingshap pened. There was a se vere earth quake and the graves opened, and peo ple who had beendead for a long time awak ened and went intothe city. The most sig nif i cant thing that hap -pened was that the veil of the tem ple was rentin twain from top to bot tom. Many Chris tianseven to this day do not un der stand the sig nif i -cance of the torn veil. From the time Mo ses lib -

er ated the chil dren of Is rael from the clutchesof the Pha raoh of Egypt, no one could ap -proach God ex cept through the in ter ces sion of the priests. The veil rep re sented the par ti tionbe tween the com mon peo ple and God. Thead vent of Je sus changed all that. Any one, poor or rich, sin ner or righ teous, could ap proachGod. It has been so with the Hin dus too. For avery, very long time, the priestly class held theright to in ter pret to the com mon peo ple thepro lific rit u als in her ent in Hindu wor ship. Forone thing they were the only ones who knewSan skrit, the lan guage of the sa cred Hindu lit -er a ture. They were the ed u cated peo ple of thetime and only they could in form the peo ple asto what rit u als were re quired to ap pease thede ity. Not only was there a princely liv ing forthe priests, they also wielded enor mouspower and in flu ence over the lives of in nu -mer a ble peo ple.

It could be said with con vic tion that thelife of Swami Vivekananda was de voted to theil lit er ate poor peo ple of In dia who were down -trod den by the ap pli ca tion of the caste sys tem. In that way he also sought to bring the com -mon peo ple to an ap pre ci a tion of how ev eryhu man be ing had the ca pa bil ity to reach theheights of spir i tual aware ness. Vedanta phi los -o phy holds that di vin ity re sides within eachand ev ery hu man be ing and the aim of a suc -cess ful life is to ac quire not only a knowl edgeof this fact but also to feel this con vic tion. Theveil that Vive ka nan da rent was the bring ing to the aware ness of the poor peo ple that theyneeded no priest to in ter cede for them and thatthey could ap proach God di rectly with out any hu man in ter ven tion.

Why was Swami Vivekananda cho sen totake the mes sage of Vedanta to the West? Wehave to look at the con cepts of ex tro ver sion


and introversion. The ex tro vert is out ward look -ing and has the ca pac ity to in ter act ac tively withthe world of peo ple; the in tro vert, on the otherhand, is in ward look ing and can be said to livein a sub jec tive world. Some im por tant re searchfind ings on introversion are:

· In tro verts have higher lev els of cor ti calarousal and better abil ity to learn con di tionedre sponses, and they seem to be better learn ersus ing for mal, di rect teach ing meth ods.

· They seek stim u lus avoid ance, are cau -tious and tend to over-so cial ize.

In tro verts may be seen to show stim u lusaver sion in the sense that they al ready have ahigh cor ti cal arousal, any fur ther stim u la tionbe ing per ceived as un pleas ant. It is per hapsthe introversive char ac ter is tics of the re clu sive yogi which makes him spend a mas sive sliceof his life en sconced in a cave, obliv i ous to thehus tle and bus tle of ev ery day life.

· They are pro cess ori ented and tend toavoid com pet i tive sit u a tions. An in ter est ingcor re la tion may be drawn with the the ory ofkarma pro mul gated by the an cient sages of In -dia which pos tu lates re birth thou sands or mil -lions of times un til the in di vid ual At man isready to merge with the Di vine Con scious -ness. Once Swamiji asked Pavhari Baba whatthe se cret of suc cess in work was, to which here plied, ‘The means should be loved and cared for as if it were the end it self.’ This is an otherway of say ing what the Gita teaches: ‘To ac tion man has a right; he has no right to the fruits ofac tion.’ This is in con for mity with the pro cessori en ta tion, that in tro verted In dian cul turestands for.

· They have a rich fan tasy life and thismay be of aid to peo ple of re clu sive hab its.

· They do not usu ally suf fer from bore dom.· The thresh old for pain is lower for the in -

tro verts and there fore it may be found thattheir suf fer ing is dis pro por tion ate to the in ten -sity of the pain ful stimuli.

· In tro verts are more sus cep ti ble to pun -ish ment.

· The body tem per a ture of in tro verts is

high er in the morn ing and early af ter noon.This has sev eral prac ti cal im pli ca tions.

In tro verted peo ple seem to func tion best in the early morn ing and fore noon. As the day pro -gresses, their body tem per a tures and their ef -fi ciency tend to wane, whereas ex tro ver tedpeo ple come alive in the af ter noon and eve -ning. It is in ter est ing to note that in Vedan taand Yoga phi los o phies the pre-dawn hours,re ferred to as brah ma-muhurta, are said to bethe best time for con tem pla tion and study.

Ex tro verts, on the other hand, have a crav -ing for stim u la tion; they of ten need change ofac tiv ity and rest pauses. They are very sus cep-ti ble to re wards. They are im pul sive and areslower to learn the rules of so ci ety.

The in tro ver sion-ex tro ver sion di chot omyis of ten over looked by the lay man who thinksthat ev ery seeker af ter truth is fit to be a san-nya sin. Many yo gis and holy men have spent a life time try ing to fit their per son al ity into apat tern of re nun ci a tion which is not in theirna ture. Some of them have had to be con tentwith be ing karma yo gis. Ramakrishna Para-ma hamsa, al though he did not put it in thesewords, was nev er the less aware of the fact thatde spite the spir i tual evo lu tion of Swami Vi-vekananda he was cut out to be a mes sen ger of spir i tu al ity not only to the West ern world butalso to In dia. He had the nec es sary out go ingna ture to re late to peo ple of all faiths. One ofthe es sen tial at trib utes he had was his in nategift for su perb pub lic re la tions. His tar get pop -u la tion could be rich or poor, white or brownor black, athe ists or be liev ers. He could re lateto all of them with great suc cess.

Swami Vivekananda had al ways beenex tro verted and he would never ac cept any -thing with out ques tion ing. Very of ten he need -ed pos i tive proof about ev ery thing. For ex am -ple, dur ing the early days of his dis ci ple ship, it was re ported to him that Ramakrishna Para-ma hamsa had re nounced wealth, money inpar tic u lar, and that the very con tact with moneywould cause him dis com fort. Vi ve ka nandahid a coin un der his guru’s mat tress. Ra ma -



krishna, when he oc cu pied his bed, jumped upas if in pain. He made a search of the mat tresswhen the of fend ing coin was found. This wasjust one of the tests he sub jected his guru to.Swami Vivekananda’s food pref er ences havecaused a great deal of fu rore among his crit ics,who have ac cused him of pam per ing to hisbodily needs at the ex pense of spir i tu al ity.Some or tho dox Hin dus even ac cused him ofeat ing for bid den food at the ta ble of in fi dels.He re torted by say ing: ‘Do you mean to say Iam born to live and die as one of those caste- rid den, su per sti tious, mer ci less, hyp o crit i cal,athe is tic cow ards that you only find amongstthe ed u cated Hin dus? I hate cow ard ice. I willhave noth ing to do with cow ards.’ Fur ther, ‘Ibe long as much to In dia as to the world, nohum bug about that. … What coun try has anyspe cial claim on me? Am I any na tion’s slave?… I see a greater power than man, or God, orDevil at my back. I re quire no body’s help. Ihave been all my life help ing oth ers.’ This isrem i nis cent of what peo ple said about Je suswhen he par tic i pated in the so cial life of hiscom mu nity, eat ing and drink ing with thecom mon peo ple. It has to be pointed out thatse vere re nun ci a tion is very of ten sought by in -tro verted peo ple whereas the karma yogi,who is usu ally an ex tro verted man, does nothave to re nounce any thing but live the life of ahouse holder bear ing in mind that ev ery actthat he does is for the di vin ity which re sideswithin and which is all around him. Thismeans that a rad i cal at ti tu di nal change has tobe brought about. And this is ex actly whatSwami Vivekananda did. It has been re cordedthat once he came across an out caste puff ingaway at his pipe. He craved for a smoke andre quested a draw from the pipe and en joyed it, very much to the dis com fi ture of the man,who was hor ri fied that a high caste manshould share a pipe with him.

Many peo ple talk glibly about the bane of untouchability and how ev ery one is equal inGod’s eyes. But when it co mes to the crunchmany so-called up per class peo ple would shud -

der to par take of the food pre pared by a per -son of lower caste. Not Swa mi ji. He not onlyprac tised what he preached, he also ac ceptedev ery body as equal with out any hint ofpatronization. Once when he was in Khetri,Rajasthan, peo ple came to him all day longwith their ques tions. Three days and threenights passed in that way. Swamiji was so en -grossed in talk ing about spir i tual mat ters thathe did not even stop to eat. No one even askedhim whether he wanted to eat or rest. On thelast night when all the vis i tors had left, a poorman came for ward and said lov ingly, ‘Swami-ji, I have no ticed that for three days you havenot even taken a glass of wa ter! This haspained me very much.’ Swamiji felt as if Godhim self had come to suc cour him. He said tothe man, ‘Will you please give me some thingto eat?’ The man, a cob bler by trade, said, ‘Myheart yearns to give you some bread, but howcan I? My touch will de file the food. If you per -mit I will bring you some coarse flour and daland you can pre pare them as you please.’ Swa-miji said with out hes i ta tion, ‘No, my child,give me the bread you have baked. I shall behappy to eat it.’ At first the poor man was fright -ened be cause he thought the Maha ra ja wouldpun ish him if he did as Swamiji asked. But theea ger ness to serve a monk over pow ered hisfear. He hur riedly went home and re turnedwith freshly baked bread, which Swa miji atewith rel ish. It goes to show that in In dia thereare mil lions of poor peo ple of hum ble or i ginwho are no ble and large-heart ed and that,given a chance, they would help other peo ple.

But Swami Vivekananda also had tolearn his les son about pu rity and im pu rity thehard way. Just be fore his im pend ing de par -ture to Amer ica, he was in vited by the Maha -ra ja of Khetri to a mu si cal en ter tain ment inwhich a nautch girl was to sing. Swamiji prompt -ly re fused to go since he was a monk and notper mit ted to en joy sec u lar plea sures. Thesinger was hurt and sang that he should notlook upon her sins. In her song she said, ‘Is notsame-sight ed ness Thy name?’ Swamiji re al -

A Christian Looks at the Life of Vivekananda 127


ized that the girl whom so ci ety con demned asim pure was nev er the less a pre cious per son inthe sight of God. Be fore God there is no dis -tinc tion of good and evil, pure and im pure.Such pairs of op po sites be come man i fest onlywhen the light of Brah man is ob scured bymaya. In this con nec tion we have to re mem ber the story of the woman caught in adul terywho was brought to Je sus. The pun ish mentamong the Jews for adul tery was death byston ing. Je sus said to the hos tile mob, ‘He thatis with out sin among you, let him first cast astone at her.’ Soon the crowd dis ap peared,each one be ing con victed in his own heart!

It might be worth while to re late an otherof the ex pe ri ences of Je sus, a Jew by birth andthere fore sup posed to be su pe rior to the gen -tiles. A pub li can named Levi hosted a very bigfeast for Je sus. The scribes and Phar i sees, thecream of Jewry, took Je sus and his dis ci ples totask, say ing, ‘Why do you eat and drink withpub li cans and sin ners?’ Je sus an swered, ‘They that are whole need not a phy si cian; but theythat are sick. I came not to call the righ teous,but sin ners to re pen tance.’

One of the out stand ing gifts Swamiji hadwas the abil ity to chas tise his friends and dis ci -ples with out caus ing of fence, al though it wasnot al ways so. His host ess in Amer ica, MissDut cher, a con sci en tious Meth od ist Chris tian,could not take in with equa nim ity Swami Vi-ve kananda’s rev o lu tion ary ideas. She be camephys i cally ill and was not seen at the meet ingsfor a num ber of days. One some times won -ders how Swamiji could be so tact less as to of -fend a lady who had be friended him and whohad placed at his dis posal her own large man -sion, even build ing an an nexe for him to stay.Miss El len Waldo, an other of his dis ci ples,was once in tears. On be ing asked why, she re -plied, ‘I seem un able to please you. Even when other peo ple an noy you, you scold me for it.’He said, ‘I do not know those other peo plewell enough to scold them. So I come to you.Whom can I scold if I can not scold my own?’When Swamiji had to speak in Boston, he

looked at the ar ti fi cial and worldly crowd ofpeo ple and con trasted it with his mas ter’s pu -rity and re nun ci a tion. He be rated them mer ci -lessly for the hy poc risy and shal low na ture ofWest ern culture. The au di ence was re sent fuland many left the meet ing in an ger. How ever,on re turn ing home, Swamiji re called whatRamakrishna Paramahamsa had said abouttol er ance, and he wept. His mas ter had neverut tered a word of con dem na tion against any -one.

How ever, Swamiji tried hard to ad here to the prin ci ple of see ing God in ev ery liv ing be -ing, which is what his mas ter was at pains toteach him. His per sonal ideal was that of thesannyasin who dur ing the First War of In de -pend ence (known as the Sepoy Mu tiny in theWest), when he was stabbed by a Brit ish sol -dier, said to his mur derer with his dy ingbreath, ‘And thou also art He.’ Then there isthe tale of the saint who ran af ter a thief withthe ves sels he had dropped in his ter ror at be -ing dis cov ered. The saint then said, ‘O Lord, Iknew not that Thou wast there! Take them,they are Thine! Par don me, Thy child.’ This isrem i nis cent of the story of the bishop’s can dle -sticks in which the thief, who was the bishop’sguest, stole his sil ver can dle sticks and tried toab scond with them. The po lice ap pre hendedhim with the booty where upon the bishopmade the re mark that the sil ver was his gift tothe man. The idea of recognizing an en emywould have seemed to Swa miji’s mind a proof of ha tred.

Swamiji’s rev er ence for Bud dha was oneof the pas sions of his life. Sis ter Nivedita re -lates with con sid er able feel ing, how one eve -ning Swamiji sat with his dis ci ples re con -struct ing the story of Siddhartha’s re nun ci a -tion as it must have ap peared to his wife Ya-sho dhara. On the night of the fate ful fare wellPrince Siddhartha re turned again and again to the bed side of his sleep ing wife. It was shewhom he was about to sac ri fice for the sake ofthe world. That was his strug gle. Then the fi -nal fare well with that gen tle kiss on the foot of



the prin cess. Dur ing the seven years of theprince’s ab sence , Yashodhara had lived cladin the yel low cloth, eat ing only roots andfruits, and had not used a bed. On his re turn as Bud dha, she took the hem of his gar mentwhile he told their son the Truth. When thechild asked, ‘Mother, who is my fa ther?’ heran swer was, ‘The lion that passes down thestreet, lo, he is thy fa ther.’ When the lad, at hismother’s be hest, asked his fa ther to give himhis in her i tance, he had to ask thrice be foreBud dha turned to Ananda, his dis ci ple, andsaid, ‘Give it.’ There upon the dis ci ple threw the gerua cloth over the child. On Ananda’s ask inghis mas ter whether he should also be stow onYa sho dha ra the ochre cloth, Bud dha as sented. Thus Yashodhara be came his dis ci ple. One ofthe first things that Swami Vive kananda didaf ter receiving the ochre cloth from his mas terwas to go to Bodh Gaya and sit un der the great tree where Bud dha was said to have at tainedhis en light en ment.

There were many rea sons why Swamijiwas so im pressed by Bud dha. The fact thatBud dha kept in abey ance his own at tain mentof nirvana till all sen tient be ings on earth hadat tained that state, ap pealed to the sense of fair play that Swamiji es poused at all times. Thework that Bud dha did for help ing the poorpeo ple, es pe cially the out castes, was some -thing Swami Vivekananda had al ways done.To this day, Bud dhists ab hor the ex is tence ofthe caste sys tem. The very es tab lish ment of the Ramakrishna Mis sion was the cul mi na tion ofSwami Vivekananda’s de sire to up lift the In -dian masses. He be lieved, for in stance, that itwas im por tant to help other peo ple even at the risk of re tard ing his own spir i tual growth. Onone oc ca sion he re marked, ‘Of course I wouldcom mit a crime and go to hell for ever, if bythat I could re ally help a hu man be ing.’ LikeBud dha he also be lieved that the Truth shouldbe ac ces si ble to ev ery hu man be ing. He wasfond of giv ing the ex am ple of Ramanuja, whobroke his vow of se crecy and pro claimed thesa cred man tra to all. One won ders whether

any hu man be ing is ever un wor thy or un -ready to hear the Truth!

It is per haps a mark of the sannyasin thathe is not afraid of phys i cal dan gers. Swami Vi -ve kananda had to learn this fact per haps thehard way. The first ex pe ri ence was when as ayoung swami he was pur sued by a band ofmon keys. He was afraid they would harmhim. An old sannyasin, who hap pened to benearby, said to him, ‘Face the brutes.’ This iswhat Vivekananda did and the mon keys ranaway. He never for got this les son. Much laterwhen Swamiji was in Eng land, he hap penedto visit a farm in the com pany of an Eng lish -man and Miss Mul ler. An en raged bullcharged at the lit tle group. The Eng lish manran for his life and reached the safety of a hill.Miss Mul ler ran as fast as she could but fell, be -ing in ca pa ble of fur ther ef fort. Swamiji, see ingher pre dic a ment, stood in front of her withfolded arms. When it neared him, the bull sud -denly stopped, turned and walked away. Oneof the thoughts that had pre oc cu pied Swamiji’s mind then was the dis tance that the bullwould be able to toss him and whether he wasto die in such a vi o lent man ner. It is also on re -cord how he, as a young boy, had saved a child from be ing tram pled un der the hooves of ahorse in Cal cutta.

One of the im por tant things that Swamijidid dur ing the last few years of his life wasthis: he paid more at ten tion to peo ple do ingso cial work to raise the liv ing con di tions of the poor and down trod den. He scoffed at the ideaof peo ple look ing for their own sal va tion byaus teri ties and med i ta tion. This is in ac cor -dance with his ex tro verted per son al ity, whichde ter mined his pref er ence for ac tion ratherthan con tem pla tion alone. It has to be re mem -bered that he was a karma yogi, which issymbolized by his or ga ni za tional ca pac ity re -sult ing in the es tab lish ment of theRamakrishna Mis sion in In dia and by hiswork in Amer ica and Eng land. The Ramakri-shna Mis sion as it is con sti tuted now has anim por tant arm which deals with the up lift of



the poor and il lit er ate. How ever, when he wasnot en gaged stren u ously in his ac tive work, he could med i tate for a long time. It is on re cordthat in In dia and in the USA he experiencednirvikalpa samadhi many times. In this re gard one may say that he is not a typ i cal ex am ple ofan ex tro verted man. I has ten to add that ev eryrule has its ex cep tion. It has been said thatwhen he was a young nov ice un der the wingof the Pa ra mahamsa, Ramakrishna asked himwhat he wanted most in life. Naren, as he wasknown then, promptly re plied, ‘To remain al -ways in sam adhi’. Ramakrishna re marked, ‘Ithought you had been born for some thinggreater, my boy.’ This set Swamiji think ing.Thus he stood for work with out at tach ment orwork for im per sonal ends as one of the high est ex pres sions of the re li gious life. Very soon anor der of monks was formed with their facesset pri mar ily to wards new forms of civic duty. This was the be gin ning of the RamakrishnaMis sion.

Ev ery think ing per son who reads SwamiVivekananda’s life would be in trigued to findthat he rarely spoke about his men tor and pre -cep tor in pub lic, es pe cially in Amer ica. Onewon ders why he did not, for in stance, pub li -cize the teach ings of Ramakrishna Parama-ham sa at the Par lia ment of Re li gions. Sis terNi vedita had this to say: ‘He never in pub licmen tioned his own Mas ter, nor spoke in spe -cific terms of any part of Hindu my thol ogy.’At one stage Max Mul ler, the orientalist, asked him what he was do ing to make his guru Ra-ma krishna Paramahamsa known to the world.At that time Max Mul ler was writ ing a bi og ra -phy of the Mas ter and he en quired whether Vi-vekananada could pro cure some ma te rial forthis endeavour. In stead of di rectly ac qui esc -ing to this re quest Swamiji asked a col league,namely Swami Sarada nan da, to write downthe say ings of Sri Rama krishna and the bio -graph i cal facts of his life. Later Max Mul ler in -cor po rated these in his book Ramakrishna: HisLife and Say ings. Vive kananda ex plained in thefol low ing words why he him self had not writ -

ten about the Mas ter’s life:

I have such deep feel ings for the Mas ter that it isim pos si ble for me to write about him for thepub lic. If I had writ ten the ar ti cle Max Mul lerwanted, then I would have proved, quot ingfrom phi los o phies, the scrip tures and even theholy books of the Chris tians that Ramakrishnawas the great est of all proph ets born in theworld. That would have been too much for theold man. You have not thought so deeply aboutthe Mas ter as I have; hence you could write anun bi ased ac count that would sat isfy Max Mul -ler. There fore I asked you to write.

What ever ex pla na tion Swamiji was ableto of fer in this re gard re mains shrouded in mys -tery. In deed no sat is fac tory ex pla na tion ex istsor is pos si ble.

Swamiji had his share of heck lers too.For tu nately, these peo ple were not shal lowtrouble mak ers but sin cere seek ers af ter truth.Once a white-haired phi los o pher said toSwami ji at the end of a lec ture, ‘You have spo -ken splen didly, sir, but you have told us noth -ing new.’ Swamiji was quick to re ply, ‘Sir, Ihave told you the Truth. That, the Truth, is asold as the im me mo rial hills, as old as hu man -ity, as old as creation, as old as the Great God.If I have told you in such words as will makeyou think, make you live up to your think ing,do I not do well in tell ing it?’ Vivekanandawas a mas ter of rep ar tee. Once dur ing ques -tion time, a na tive of Scot land made a snide re -mark by ask ing, ‘What is the dif fer ence be -tween a ba boo and a ba boon?’ Swamiji’s in stan -ta neous re ply was: ‘Oh, not much, it is like thedif fer ence be tween a sot and a Scot— just thedif fer ence of a let ter.’ Al though Swamiji wasabrupt with fa ce tious, in sin cere peo ple, hewas never known to show the slight est im pa -tience at be ing in ter rupted by sin cere seek ersaf ter truth, of whom there were many in hisau di ence.

One of the things we have to re mem ber isthat Swami Vivekananda was born en dowedwith cer tain gifts, one of which was his phe -nom e nal mem ory and an abil ity to speak inpub lic. Even as a school boy these char ac ter is -



tics came to light. At school one day, he was re -gal ing his class mates with a story. When theteacher came into the room and started teach -ing, the chil dren were still lis ten ing to Na ren -dra’s story. All this whis per ing and in at ten -tion to his teach ing en raged the teacher, whoques tioned his pu pils as to what he was say -ing. No one could an swer. But Narendra wasable to re peat word for word what the teacherhad said. This proved that he could at tend totwo things at the same time. Psy chol o gists will tell you that it is im pos si ble to do this. How -ever, In di ans have al ways spo ken about somegifted peo ple who could have what is calledashtavadhana, the abil ity to at tend to eight dif -fer ent things at the same time! Later on, whileat Belur Math, Swamiji wanted to go throughthe Encylopaedia Bri tan nica. Af ter pe rus ingsome of these vol umes for a few days, he could ac cu rately re mem ber much of the con tents.

Dur ing the early days of his ex plo ra tions, Swami Vive kananda trav elled widely all overIn dia, many a time with out food. His aim wasto travel to Kanyakumari. He al ways pro-ceeded alone on these jour neys quot ing the fa -mous words of Bud dha: ‘Even as the lion nottrem bling at noises, even as the wind not caughtin a net, even as the lo tus leaf un touched by the wa ter, so do thou wan der alone like the rhi -noc eros.’ Af ter reach ing Kanyakumari hewor shipped Devi Kanyaku ma ri in the shrineand then swam across the shark-in fested wa -ters to med i tate on the rocks where, ac cord ingto the Puranas, the Devi had per formedtapasya.

Any ac count of the life of Vivekanandacan not be com plete with out a nar ra tion of whathap pened at the Par lia ment of Re li gions inChi cago. To start with, the Maharaja of Khetriwas re spon si ble for in tro duc ing two im por -tant things into the life of Swamiji. It was hewho sug gested that he take the name of Vive-kananda, per haps to emphasize his wis domand knowl edge. Sec ondly, the prince bought a first-class ticket on the ship SS Pen in su lar of

the P & O Com pany. Be sides this he also pro -vided a robe of or ange silk, an ochre tur banand a hand some purse. Swamiji en joyed thevoy age be cause he could go sight see ing at var -i ous ports of call, Co lombo, Sin ga pore, HongKong and Yokohama. From Van cou ver inCan ada, he trav elled by train to Chi cago. Hear rived too early for the Par lia ment and didnot have the nec es sary ac cred i ta tion from awell-known in sti tu tion. More over, his fundswere dwin dling. It is to the credit of Amer i canwomen that some of the very wealthy onescame to his help and ex tended their hos pi tal -ity to him. Al though he had stage fright in thebe gin ning, when he did speak to the gath er -ing, his first words, ‘Sis ters and Broth ers ofAmer ica’, drew the peo ple to a stand ing ova -tion. What he did was open the eyes of theAmer i cans to the mes sage of Vedanta. Swami-ji made clear to the peo ple there that un likemany other re li gions, Hin du ism was a tol er -ant ap proach to life which ad mit ted the di vin -ity of many re li gious lead ers like Je sus,Muhammad and oth ers. It is not pos si ble hereto go into de tails about his mes sage to theWest but it can be summed up in the words ofSt Paul, ‘And now abideth faith, hope andlove: but the great est of these is love.’

Some Pithy Sayings of Swamiji

· ‘It is well to be born in a church, but it ister ri ble to die there.’

· ‘What the world wants is char ac ter. Theworld is in need of those whose life is one burn -ing love, self less. That love will make ev eryword tell like thun der bolt. … Awake, awake,great ones! The world is burn ing with mis ery.Can you sleep?’

· ‘Si lence! ye teach ers of the world, and si -lence! ye proph ets! Speak Thou alone, O Lord,unto my soul!’ (In the con text of Thomas aKempis’ Im i ta tion of Christ.)

· ‘It is a sin even to think of the body.’· ‘It is wrong to man i fest power.’ ~




ParabrahmaUpaniøadTRANSLATED BY SW AM I ATM APRIYANANDA

fUboK& raútNwrõv{tvfUÀJbTAttainment of purification of mind through karma (selfless action)

v½tvt=c{ÑKtu l rfUkal > a;w˜vt=à;Jor;oltu~à;seoJc{ÑK& ô:tltrl aÀJtrh > ltrC†=gfUãXbqrÆot¿Mwstd{ÀôJ v ¿mwMwr¹t;wgtoJô:t&, ytnJlegdtnovÀg=rGKtmÇgtrd¿Mw > stdrh;u c{Ñt ôJv¿u rJ˜Kw& mwMw¹tti h¥={ô;wheg-bGhk raàbgbT > ;ôbt”t;whJô:t a;whETdwjJu˜xlrbJ MãKJr;;úJtrl ;à;wJrÅCßg, ;=trn;k rºtdwKef]UÀg Åt-rºt kNútúJrl˜fUMobtvt‘, Òttlvq;k rºtdwKôJÁvk rºtbqr;oÀJk v]:ÂÉJÒttg, lJc{ÑtÏglJdwKtuvu;k ÒttÀJt, lJbt-lrb;k rºt& vwlr¯tdwKef]UÀg mqguoàÅrd¿fUjtôJÁvÀJulifUef]UÀg, yt‘à;fUÀJbrv bÆgu rºthtJÀgo c{ÑrJ˜Kw bnuˆJ hÀJ -b l wmàÆttg, yt‘à;bufUef]UÀg ra=Td{à:tJÅi;d{Âà:k f]UÀJt, ltÇgtr= c{Ñrcjv{btKk v]:¢v]:¢m¹t rJkN r; ;úJ mkc àÆtkrºtdwKtuvu;k rºtbqr;ojGKjÂG;bËgufUÀJbtvt‘, Jtbtkmtr==ÂGKfUxÓà;k rJCtÔg, yt‘ à; d{n mkbu j lbuJk Òtt À JtbqjbufUbT, ImÀgk b]àbgk rJÒtt;k ôgtÅtathöCKk rJfUthtu ltbÆtugk b]rútfUuÀguJ mÀgbT,O… >>5>>

5. There is noth ing (else) other than the five-footed Brah man (paðcapáda-brah man).1 Thereare four places [for re al iz ing] the in ner jæva-brah man con tained within [or con sist ing of] fourpádas.2 In the na vel, heart, throat and head there are [the four] states of wak ing, dream ing, deepsleep and turæya.3 [Fur ther, the At man is to be con tem plated in so far as the con nec tiv ity goes] inthe áha vanæya, gárhapatya, dakøiîa and sabhya fires.4 In the wak ing state [the pre sid ing de ity is]Brah má, in the dream state [the de ity is] Viøîu, in deep sleep [the de ity is] Rudra [and] turæya[the fourth state] is the im mu ta ble (in de struc ti ble), of the na ture of [pure] Con scious ness.5

Hence, the four states [wak ing, dream ing, deep sleep and turæya] [may be con ceived of] as afour-fin ger unit mea sure [in terms of which] the en cir cling thread [is mea sur able];6 [just as thesa cred thread is ninety-six fin ger-breadth units in length, even so the in ner brahmasétra may becon sid ered to be com posed of] ninety-six cat e go ries (tattvas) fol low ing an anal o gous di vi sion ofthe [ex ter nal] thread;7 [sim i lar to the ex ter nal sa cred thread tri par tite in com po si tion, even so the in ner brahmasétra is to be] brought to the state of thirty-two cat e go ries (tattvas) by a three fold[ap pli ca tion] of the three qual i ties (guîas of prakìti);8 [this tri par tite na ture of the in ner sa credthread] pu ri fied by [di vine] Knowl edge should be re al ized sep a rately as of the na ture of thethree guîas [namely, sattva, rajas and tamas] and as the es sence of the triad of gods [the trimértis,namely, Brahmá, Viøîu and Ùiva]; this is to be known as what could be des ig nated as nava- brah -man9 pos sessed of nine at trib utes; this nine fold mea sure, be ing ren dered into three, each againhav ing the three guîas, should be iden ti fied with [and thought of] as the very na ture of the[three] com po nent parts (kalás), [namely] the sun, the moon and fire;10 the first and the lastshould be ro tated thrice by the mid dle and in quir ingly con tem plated as the states of be ing ofBrah má, Viøîu and Maheùvara;11 again, the first and the last should be joined to gether in theknot of Con scious ness made into a knot of non-du al ity;12 that which ex tends from the na vel upto the brahmarandhra (at the top of the head) and con nected sep a rately with the twenty-seven ta-tt vas,13 pos sessed of the three guîas and dis tin guished by the char ac ter is tics of the Trin ity (tri-mér tis) should, nev er the less, be uni fied into one; [this in ner brahmasétra should be] con sid eredas [hang ing from] the left shoul der [and reach ing] up to the right loin; the con join ing of the firstand the last14 should be un der stood in such a way [that it is clearly per ceived that they have but]

Parabrahma Upaniøad 133


one [com mon] source; the truth that is clay [be ing the cause of ob jects made of clay] hav ing beenknown, [the ef fects in the form of clay ob jects] are seen to be [il lu sory], be ing merely a mass ofwords (in sub stan tial ver bos ity), the trans for ma tion [be ing merely of] names, [while the causebe hind all this, namely] clay, is alone the Re al ity (the Truth);15 …

(To be continued)

Notes

1. Upaniøad Brahmayogin re fers to this paðcapáda-brah man as turæyátæta. In re gard to this turæyátæta pað ca -páda-brah man, there is no avidyá, of the na ture of de lu sion (about ex is tence or non-ex is tence) dif fer entfrom It self.

2. There are four places for the re al iza tion of the inner jæva-brah man re sid ing in the four pádas con sti tutedof their microcosmic (vyaøôi) and macrocosmic (samaøôi) as pects. Those in the vyaøôi as pect of the fourpádas are viùva, taijasa, prájða and turæya, while those in the samaøôi as pect of the four pádas are: vi ráj,sétra, bæja and turæya.

3. Al though the Upaniøadic text speaks of the na vel (nábhi) as cor re spond ing to the wak ing state,Upaniøad Brahmayogin con tends that the eye (netra) is the place for ex pe ri enc ing the wak ing state,in vok ing the fol low ing ùruti pas sage in sup port of this con ten tion: ‘Netrasthaó jágaritaó vidyát kaîôhesvapnaó samáviùet; suøuptaó hìdayasthaó tu turæyaó mérdhni saósthitam.’ (Brahmopaniøad, 21)

4. These fires are dif fer ent names of the con se crated fire oblig a to rily main tained all through his life by ahouse holder (gìhastha). The áhavanæya fire is a con se crated fire taken from the house holder’s per pet -ual fire, and burns on the east ern side in a sac ri fice; the dakøiîa fire is the sa cred fire placed south -wards in a sac ri fice; the gárhapatya fire is the sa cred fire per pet u ally main tained by a house holder. The sabhya is a sa cred fire be lieved to be pres ent in the body.

5. In the pas sage that fol lows, in or der to ex pound the brahmasétra (lit er ally, ‘the thread or string ofBrah man’), its sim i lar ity with the ex ter nal yajðasétra, the sa cred thread worn by the twice-born(dvija), is brought into play and the im ag ery of the ex ter nal thread is used with tell ing ef fect in or der to de velop a pro found in sight into the true im port of the brahmasétra, which is the in ter nal and spir i tualcoun ter part of the ex ter nal and ma te rial yajðasétra. At this point Upaniøad Brahmayogin com mentsbeau ti fully as fol lows: ‘If one holds on to the yajðasétra in the course of [Ve dic] kar mas in this fash ionby con tem plat ing its na ture as brahmasétra, then that kind of karma will lead to cittaùuddhi, or pu ri fi ca -tion of mind.’ The idea is that the at ti tude with which one per forms karma, or ac tion, is re spon si ble forpro duc ing el e va tion of mind. We should bring brahma-buddhi, that is, the feel ing and thought of theDi vine, to bear upon all our ac tions and in stru ments of ac tion. Ref er ence may be made to the very first verse of the Æùávásya Upaniøad, which says that all that ex ists should be cov ered by the di vine Con -scious ness or God. Bond age and lib er a tion are es sen tially in the mind and the men tal at ti tudes. Thisim por tant mes sage ought to be re mem bered when we study the elab o rate anal ogy of the yajðasétraand the brahmasétra, al though some points of this anal ogy might ap pear some what pe cu liar and in -trigu ing.

6. The pro cess of in ter nal iz ing, in med i ta tive aware ness, the sa cred thread (which a sannyásin dis cardswhile tak ing the vow of sannyása) is elab o rated here through the well-known Upaniøadic method ofnum ber anal ogy. The ex ter nal sa cred thread usu ally con sists of six strands of cir cu lar loops, eachstrand ap prox i mately six teen units long (one unit be ing taken to be four fin ger-breadths in length).Thus the to tal length of the sa cred thread works out to 6 loops x 16 units in each loop = 96 units al to -gether. Now the med i ta tive pro cess of in ter nal iza tion con sists in con tem plat ing each of the fourstates (wak ing, dream ing, deep sleep and turæya) as cor re spond ing to one-fourth part of the unit ofmea sure just men tioned, so that the en tire sa cred thread worn ex ter nally may be thought of as the



four-state-unit re peated twenty-four times. Since the num ber 24 cor re sponds to the cos mic prin ci ples (tat tvas) of Sáïkhya phi los o phy, the ninety-six units com pris ing the sa cred thread may be con tem -plated, by num ber anal ogy, as the ninety-six tattvas, that is, 24 x 4— the twenty-four cos mic prin ci plesas ap plied to each of the four states.

The mean ing of this in ter nal iza tion programme of med i ta tion seems to be that a sannyásin, be ingan ear nest seeker of lib er a tion, should aban don the ex ter nal and, with draw ing his mind and senses as much as pos si ble from the ex ter nal world, con tem plate the ex ter nal as a sym bol of the in ter nal. Hismind would thus al ways try to live ab sorbed in the in ter nal world through a tran scen den tal aware -ness.

7. The di vi sion of the ex ter nal sa cred thread into ninety-six units and its cor re spon dence with theninety-sixtattvas have been fairly elab o rately dis cussed above.

8. The same num ber anal ogy as men tioned above is ex tended to a dif fer ent level of in ter pre ta tion as fol -lows: 32 cos mic prin ci ples (tattvas)— ac counted for, prob a bly, as the 24 tattvas of Sáïkhya phi los o phy+ puruøa (1) + sapta dhátus (7)— in in ter ac tion with each of the three gunas, thus mak ing up 32 x 3 = 96,could be taken as an other type of med i ta tion in the pro cess of in ter nal iza tion of the sa cred thread.

9. The nine as pects or modes of Brah man (des ig nated as nava-brah man) are, prob a bly, the five-footedpað ca páda-brah man and the four-footed catuøpáda-brah man.

10. The sun, the moon and fire are the three es sen tial sources of light, by day or by night. The Átman/Brah man, spo ken of in the Upaniøads as the Light of all lights (jyotiøáó jyotië — Muîõaka Upaniøad,2.2.9), is of ten med i tated upon in and through these lower man i fes ta tions of light.

11. The mean ing of this ‘ro ta tion’ is not quite clear. Per haps it means that the three states of con scious -ness, namely, wak ing, dream and deep sleep (jágrat, svapna and suøupti), keep re volv ing in a cy cle,one fol low ing the other like a wheel fixed at the centre and ro tated by mov ing the ‘two’ edges. Also, itmay be noted that the Trin ity— Brahmá, Viøîu and Maheùvara— have al ready been men tioned as thepre sid ing de i ties of wak ing, dream and deep sleep states, re spec tively.

12. The ex ter nal knot cer e mo ni ally tied dur ing the prep a ra tion of the sa cred thread is thought of here asthe knot of Con scious ness lead ing ul ti mately to non-du al ity. In Vedántic ter mi nol ogy, the mix-up ofcit (Con scious ness, or caitanya) and jaõa (mat ter), that has ‘some how’ taken place on ac count of avidyáor ajðána (ig no rance), is spo ken of as cid-jaõa-granthi (the knot of Con scious ness and mat ter) and this‘knot’ is the es sence of saósára, or in volve ment of the pure Spirit or Self, which is our true na ture, inthe world of mat ter . The cut ting of this knot (much like ‘cut ting the Gordian knot’) is the met a phor i -cal ex pres sion for mukti, or lib er a tion, from the bond age of saósára. The Upaniøad here uses the sameim ag ery to high light the im por tance of the re al iza tion of non-dual (advaita) Con scious ness.

13. The twenty-seven tattvas per haps mean the twenty-four cos mic prin ci ples (caturvióùati tattvas) to -gether with the three guîas of Sáïkhya.

14. The first and the last could mean jágrat (wak ing) and suøupti (deep sleep), both of which have theirfoun da tion or source in the tran scen dent turæya state of con scious ness.

15. Cf. Chándyoga Upaniøad, 6.1.4, and Ùaïkara’s com men tary thereon.

Upasana according to Shankaracharya

Med i ta tion (upasana) means ap proach ing the form of the de ity, or the like, as it is pre sented

by the eu lo gis tic por tion of the Vedas re lat ing to the ob jects of med i ta tion, and con cen -

trat ing on it, ex clud ing all worldly thoughts, till one is com pletely iden ti fied with it as with

one’s body, con ven tion ally re garded as one’s self. Com pare: ‘Be ing a god, he at tains the gods.’

Glimpses of Holy Lives

Sadhu Mathuradas

Many In di ans think that the age of thesaints is long over, that their coun tryno lon ger pro duces saints. How ever,

the be lief is largely un founded. How does aman find a saint if he is not look ing for one?One can not walk into a saint, surely! If onlypeo ple were gen u inely in ter ested in spir i tuallife and de served holy company, there is nodoubt that they would, sooner or later, findthem selves liv ing with saints. As a mat ter offact, there have been many who took the trou -ble to find what they were look ing for. Mahen-dranath Datta, Swami Viv ekanan da’s youn -ger brother, was one such— and he cameacross not one but several saints, all of whomhad at tained to a state so high that to them thein junc tions and pro hi bi tions of so ci ety weremean ing less. These ex alted souls, em bodi -ments of re li gion and spir i tu al ity, are the ‘saltof the earth’. Whether we re al ize it or not, theyare the con science of our so ci ety. In or der tomake it known that such spir i tual gi ants stilllived and walked the length and breadth of In -dia, Mahendranath re corded his ex pe ri encesin a small Ben gali book, Sadhu- chatushtay. Whatfol lows is a re tell ing of his ac count.

~ ~ ~

Kankhal, March 1924. As Mahendranathsat on a wooden bench in the court yard ofRamakrishna Mis sion Sevashrama en joy inghis early morn ing smoke, an old sadhu ar -rived and sat down be side him. Even for asadhu, he was quite un kempt: his shock ofgrey hair was un tidy and a sparse beard grewon his cheeks. Ex cept for a nar row kaupina hewore noth ing. Mahendranath looked at thesadhu ques tion ingly and was re warded with atooth less grin. The sadhu looked quite strongfor his age; he seemed to be a Punjabi.

Not show ing any fur ther in ter est, Mah-endranath turned his at ten tion to his hoo kah.He had only taken a few puffs when, with outwarn ing, the sadhu tried to grab the pipe fromhis hand. Star tled, Mahendranath with drewhis hand just in time, and then, without show -ing sur prise— or any cour tesy to the sadhu—con tin ued with his smok ing. And the sadhusat there looking like a small boy in a sulk.

Af ter some time, Swami Kalyananandaji,the head of the Sevashrama, en tered the court -yard ac com pa nied by Swami Nischayananda-ji. Both of them were dis ci ples of Swami Vive -kananda. The sadhu walked up to them and,at the end of a fairly long con ver sa tion on noth -ing in par tic u lar, left the place.

When the sadhu had gone away, somework ers of the Sevashrama, who had beenwatch ing all this from a dis tance, ap proachedMahendranath and asked, ‘Mathuradasji justwanted a smoke, but why did you re fuse him?’They sounded as though he had made a verygrave er ror. But Mahendranath saw things dif -fer ently: how could he, a Ben gali who ate fishand meat, have let a sadhu smoke from a pipehe was us ing?

Be that as it may, Mahendranath came toknow the iden tity of the sadhu. Mathuradasjiwas a highly revered monk in Hardwar andcom manded great re spect from Sevashramawork ers. Count less sadhus lived in tem plesand mon as ter ies that dotted the holy city ofHardwar, and all of them came to the Sev-ashrama for med i cal treat ment. None of them, how ever, en joyed the hon our that was ac -corded to Mathuradasji.

Three or four days later the sadhu againcame to the Sevashrama. This time there wereother peo ple sit ting in the court yard smok ing.But the sadhu made straight for Mahendra-


nath. Some thing in Mahendra nath’s hoo kahseemed to have cast a spell on him. But Mah-endranath’s man ner was still cold and dis tant.Af ter wait ing for a while, the sadhu made along pipe from the stem of a ba nana leaf and,stick ing it into the hoo kah bowl with out ask -ing, be gan to smoke, look ing at the pipe in -tently all the while. This time also not a wordpassed be tween the two.

Mahendranath watched the sadhu’s be -hav iour mi nutely. He had seen too many sa -dhus to be eas ily taken in. Most of them werecom mon gos sips, un asham edly money- mind -ed, and not a few were em broil ed in ashramapol i tics and other such con tro ver sies; somewere even li ti gious! Mahendra nath wouldhave noth ing to do with their ilk. He pre ferredto be alone rather than in such ‘holy’ com pany.

W ho Is a Paramahamsa?

Mathuradasji, how ever, was dif fer ent.He was en tirely art less, un worldly. There wasab so lutely no at tempt at im press ing oth ers.The more Mahendranath ob served him, themore Mathuradasji’s child like sim plic itystood out. Ev ery thing about him was so nat u -ral and yet he seemed strangely un touched bythe world. When he was not talk ing, the sadhu sat si lently, his se rene gaze fixed on some thing deep within him self. At such times he lookedde tached from his sur round ings. Then hewould ex change a few words with oth ers andgo away just as he had come. He walked with a spring in his step, like a cheer ful boy.

‘Where does this sadhu live?’ Mahendra-nath en quired of some young men at the Sev-ashrama. ‘Near Satikund,’ they re plied. ‘There is an aban doned hut at the edge of the lake.’‘Where is Satikund?’ ‘You have to cross thesmall ca nal be hind the ashrama and go be -yond the large patch of jun gle on the otherside. It is quite a dis tance from here. The placeis as in ac ces si ble as it is in hos pi ta ble, the wholearea over grown with thick for est and tan gledveg e ta tion. Even the lake is rimmed with thorny

bushes and dries up in sum mer.’ ‘So he lives in that hut?’ ‘Yes, Mathuradasji sleeps there atnight. He does n’t need a bed; the bare floor isgood enough for him. Why, the hut does n’t evenhave doors or win dows.’ ‘Then what does hedo in win ter, how does he keep him self warm? Win ters are so cold here.’ ‘Sum mer or win ter,Mathura dasji does n’t seem to feel the dif fer -ence. We have never seen him use a shred ofcloth other than his kaupina, let alone a blan -ket! He just lies down on the floor and goes tosleep. It does n’t bother him whether it is burn -ing hot or freez ing cold.’ ‘And where does heeat?’ ‘Mathuradasji does n’t go about with abeg ging bowl, nor does he eat at alms housesor ashramas. He ac cepts only what is of feredwith love and affection.’ Mahendranath wasim pressed.

A few days had passed. Mathuradasji re -turned to the Sevashrama once again at mid- morn ing and found Mahendranath sit ting onthe bench drag ging on his hoo kah! This wastheir third meet ing. With out a hint of in hi bi -tion, Mathuradasji sat next to Mahendranathand reached for the pipe. Mahendranath didnot re sist this time, but wiped the pipe cleanbe fore Mathuradasji put it to his mouth. Theice was bro ken. ‘Well, well,’ said Mahendra-nath, ‘have your smoke, sir. I am an aghori,and so are you. Go ahead, en joy your self.’(Aghoris are a Shaiva sect to whom noth ing ishor ri ble. Mah endranath used the term be -cause he ate fish and meat, and Mathur adasjiwas above the no tions of clean li ness and un -clean li ness.) Oth ers joined in: ‘So Mathura-dasji got his hoo kah at last! Carry on, have anice time.’ But Math uradasji was in no moodfor talk. He bus ied him self with the pipe, jig -gling his knees as he sat on the bench. Af tersev eral long puffs, his mouth split in a broadsmile and he looked as happy as a boy whohad won a bet. When he had sat is fied him selfthor oughly, Mathura dasji rose to his feet andwalked away.

(To be continued)



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& Reviews&

Pho to graphs of Swami Vi ve ka nan da.Compiled and re searched by mem bers of theVe dan ta So ci ety of North ern Cal i for nia. SriRa ma kri sh na Math, 16 Ra ma kri sh naMath Road, Mylapore, Chennai 600 004.E-mail: [email protected]. 2002. xvii + 286pp. Rs 200.

This is an in valu able vol ume which we owe to the ded i cated, me tic u lous re search of the mem bers

of the Vedanta So ci ety of North ern Cal i for nia. ‘Thepur pose of this’ al bum, say the com pil ers, ‘is three -fold: one, to serve as a vi sual med i ta tion on one ofthe great est spir i tual teach ers who ever lived; two,to pres ent chro no log i cally all the known pho to -graphs of Swami Vi ve ka nan da ac com pa nied bywhat ever his tor i cal back ground is avail able; and,three, to por tray the tenor of Swa mi ji’s life dur ingthe time that the pho to graphs were taken throughbrief bio graph i cal sketches of him and through hisown words.’

The re sult is a vi su ally amaz ing and in te ri orlyil lu mi nat ing col lec tion of the most ma jes tic fig urethat has ever sub jected his lu mi nous form to the hu -man eye see ing through the tech nol ogy of a lens.Ho ly Mother once ob served re gard ing the GreatMas ter get ting pho to graphed: ‘In car na tions of God have ap peared on earth again and again; but onlythe peo ple of the pres ent age have been in tel li gentenough to in vent a new de vice for re cord ing andpre serv ing their like ness— the cam era.’ In deed, one can, look ing at this col lec tion, even say that the arte -fact of a cam era is te le o log i cal, ris ing to the full stat -ure of its po ten ti al i ties when a lu mi nous be ing likeSwa mi ji faces it. If ‘writ ing with light’ is the rootmean ing of a photo, then where can one find a moreen chant ing and el e vat ing fig ure to ‘write’ aboutthan Swa mi ji?

We are so ac cus tomed to ver bal texts that weby pass the fact that vi sual texts have a dif fer ent di -men sion of re cep tion, and ab sorp tion is of ten a by -passed fact. Here is a vol ume that tran scends eventhe vi sual and evokes the vi sion ary eye. Ev ery photo

cre ates a res o nance, a spandana that sets in mo tion acon tem pla tive rich ness rarely seen in or di nary vi -sual texts.

If this ap pears a ro man tic im pres sion, re call whatPaul Capanigro, the cel e brated mas ter of land scape pho tog ra phy, says: ‘For me pho tog ra phy pro videsan in ter sec tion of time, space, light, and es sen tialstance. One needs to be still enough, ob ser vantenough and aware enough to rec og nize the life ofthe ma te rial, to be able to hear through the eyes.Clar ity of pro cess and sim plic ity of pur pose arecom pro mised by the heat of in tel lect. But once Ihave achieved this com mu nion, I can hear the voiceof the print as it forces its way through ideas andma te ri als.’ (Pa rab ola, is sue on ‘Truth and Il lu sion’,Win ter 2003, 61)

This mag nif i cent al bum is a glow ing tes ti monyto the re sponses and re cep tion, con tent and com po -si tion of pho to graphs as iden ti fied by Paul Capa ni -gro. Ar ranged in five sec tions— Sec tion One: In dia1886-1893, Sec tion Two: The West, 1893-1896, Sec -tion Three: In dia 1897-1899, Sec tion Four: The West, 1899-1900 and Sec tion Five: In dia, 1900-1901— eachsec tion has a nar ra tive, quo ta tions from Swa mi ji andback ground con cern ing the pho to graph(s). The al -bum is a com pre hen sive col lec tion that pro vides,both for the cul tural his to rian and the dev o tee, rarespec i mens of Swa mi ji’s var ied and var ie gated‘moods’ and mo ments.

The first thing that strikes one is the im menseva ri ety: the very first pho to graph of ‘this shore lesssea of ra di ant knowl edge’ evokes a state of un -shake able poise and strength that is still na scent.With a lo tus pos ture and the torso draped with atyp i cal dhoti-like cloth, the photo pres ents ob vi -ously the light hid ing un der a bushel. By the timewe reach pho to graph 8, the stand ing fig ure with astaff and ochre robes is sig nif i cantly re ve la tory ofwhat is to man i fest it self in the years to come. If onewere in clined, one way to con tem plate this vol umewould be to sim ply gaze into the eyes of Swa mi ji asa pro gres sive un fold ing of that in ner fire, that ‘burn -ing, roar ing fire, con sum ing all im pu ri ties to ashes!’



To re al ize the unique ness of Swa mi ji is to see pho to -graphs (14, for in stance) in which he ap pears withoth ers. His ca sual ap pear ance sets him apart fromthe rest, for Swa mi ji shows a poise, a grace andabove all, a le o nine strength that stare you in theface! Even look at the way Swa mi ji places his hands! Per haps, one who is an ad ept in mudras may findmean ing and sig nif i cance usu ally un avail able toca sual on look ers of pho tos! See the grace of thefolded hands in pho tos like 21, 23 and 25.

But quite of ten one no tices— if I can phrase myre sponses ad e quately— an Olympian de tach mentin Swa mi ji that is odd con sid er ing his ex traor di -nary warmth and love. This is best il lus trated (forme) in photo 80 taken dur ing the ‘great sum mer’ of1899 at Ridg ley Manor where Swa mi ji spent tenweeks. Swa mi ji is seen sit ting in photo 80 with theface slightly low ered(?) and eyes closed(?). Onegets the im pres sion that he was im mersed in some -thing like an un charted sea of con scious ness wherefew ven ture! One won ders whether he is the sameper son who ap pears so gre gar i ous and burst ing withthe ‘party spirit’ that marks some pho to graphs. Per -haps, the ex pres sion that ap pears on the face issome thing that Capanigro calls ‘hear ing through’(here, the closed) ‘eyes’.

Sim i larly, the im pres sion that ap pears of Swa-mi ji in pho to graphs 73 and 74 (74 fac ing the mostcel e brated of Swa mi ji’s po ems ‘Kali the Mother’) is,in deed, like the print, ‘shad owy’! Did the spirit ofKali blot out the light so that we have only a faintim print? Is Swa mi ji gaz ing into the ter ri fy ing butdy namic emp ti ness that hov ers on the ho ri zon asone be gins to ‘dare to love mis ery’, the sor row thatsor row is? But then, there are pho tos where Swa mi -ji smiles dazzlingly and dis arm ingly but with aglint of amused tol er ance, in deed ac cep tance, ofhu man folly stem ming from Mother’s Cos mic Play! (See pho tos 83, 88, 90 and 103). Again, some pho tosac quire a ra di ant dis tinc tion and grace by sim plythe shock of his hair! I find pho to graph 91 ir re sist -ible: the hair is wavy, thick and lush, parted in themid dle, the eyes gaz ing steadily, the hands folded,with three fin gers of the right hand set off againstthe ‘dark shade’ of the ‘coat’ Swa mi ji is wear ing. Forthe same rea son, I find pho to graph 104, if one canput it that way, very cute.

In short, as Re vered Swami Ranganathanandajiputs it in his il lu mi nat ing ‘Pref ace’, ‘the qual ity of the eter nal sat u rates’ the pho to graphs. As such the al -bum is ‘a vivid, vi sual feast— get ting a glimpse into

the blend ing of the eter nal and the tem po ral’. Thisis, in deed, the se cret of the great im pact of this vol -ume which is fas cina tingly re ve la tory and com pul -sively, vi brantly vi sual. (Per haps, all the more sosince it is in black and white!)

Dr M SivaramkrishnaFormer Professor and Head, Department of English

Osmania University, Hyderabad

Phi los o phies of Com mu ni ca tion andM e dia Eth ics: The ory, Con cepts and Em -pir i cal Is sues. Kiran R N. BR Pub lishingCor po ra tion, 3779 1st Floor, Kanhaiya Na -gar, Tri Nagar, Delhi 110 035. E-mail: [email protected]. 2000. xxxiv + 342 pp. Rs750.

Liv ing be ings sus tain them selves by com mu ni ca -tion. Like the urge for food, com mu ni ca tion is

in her ent in all be ings. The ques tions how and whywe com mu ni cate have en gaged phi los o phersdown the ages. Kiran has done a tre men dous job ineval u at ing the ma jor West ern and East ern phi los o -phies of com mu ni ca tion with em pir i cal ver i fi ca -tion.

It is said that com mu ni ca tion is cul ture and cul -ture is com mu ni ca tion. With the grow ing im por -tance of in for ma tion and de vel op ment of tech nol -ogy, com mu ni ca tion has dom i nated the pres entworld but with out leav ing any last ing im pact; ratherit is more in volved with the friv o lous and the sen sa -tional. We need to cor rectly ap ply the great ideas andprin ci ples be hind com mu ni ca tion to make it moreef fec tive.

Di vided into three parts, this book is based onthe au thor’s in ter views with a se lect sam ple of me -dia peo ple. The first part dis cusses the var i ous phi -los o phies of com mu ni ca tion like prag ma tism, ex is -ten tial ism, her me neu tics, the pre-re flec tive and thefour the o ries of the press. The sec ond part gives thethe o ret i cal per spec tives on val ues and value sys -tems that guide mass com mu ni ca tion. The thirdpart is ‘Value Sys tems and Eth i cal Di lemmas: Em -pir i cal Is sues in Print and Elec tronic Me dia’. Therel e vant fig ures and ta bles are a great help in clar i -fy ing things.

Most peo ple are pas sive and gull ible while theme dia, both print and elec tronic, are proactive. This book will be ex tremely use ful to peo ple in the printand elec tronic me dia. Be sides its rel e vance to the

Reviews 139


me dia pro fes sion, the book can greatly in flu encethe masses and mould fu ture ac tion. The au thor ex -plores the val ues, bi ases and prin ci ples that gov ernme dia own er ship, re port ing, re spon si bil ity, com mit -ment and cul pa bil ity.

Peo ple whose pro fes sions hinge on com mu ni -ca tion, like teach ers, law yers, doc tors, ex ec u tives andpol i ti cians, will find this book very use ful in un der -stand ing the phi los o phy be hind com mu ni ca tion andbe com ing better com mu ni ca tors.

The au thor is a lec turer in com mu ni ca tion andjour nal ism at Sri Padmavathi Mahila Uni ver sity, Ti -ru pati. She was also a UGC re search fel low at the De -part ment of Studies in Phi los o phy, Bangalore Uni -ver sity. Her cre den tials and list of re search pa persare im pres sive. She has done well in re cord ing thegreat strides of Indian cul ture and its con tri bu tionto world civ i li za tion, made pos si ble by San skrit,which is un par al leled as a ve hi cle for com mu ni ca -tion.

The first of its kind, the pres ent work shouldplay a sig nif i cant role in fur ther ing cul ture-spe cificre search in the field of com mu ni ca tion.

Swami SatyamayanandaAdvaita Ashrama, Kolkata

SreemadBhagwadGeeta.Debabrata Bose.Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Kulapati Mun-shi Marg, Mumbai 400 007. 2001. E-mail:[email protected]. xxiii + 115 pp.Rs 100.

The Gita still in spires many a scholar to writeabout it, trans late it or com ment upon it. It still

in spires sadhakas to un der take spir i tual dis ci plines based upon its teach ings. The Gita is the knowl edgeof the Upanishads in a con densed form as told tohu man ity by Lord Krishna through Arjuna.

What in spired Debabrata Bose to trans late theGita into mod ern Eng lish? In the pref ace, he saysthat the rea son for trans lat ing the book was be cause his niece had not come across a sat is fac tory Eng lishtrans la tion and com men tary on the Gita. Dis -courses, or bha sh yas, writ ten by Shankaracharyaand Ramanu ja char ya are, ac cord ing to Bose, ‘out -stand ing and in deed pre-em i nent. But they werewrit ten many hun dred years ago. The world hasevolved much since then. There are many learnedmod ern com men tar ies.’

One is not con vinced about the com men tar ies

of the great Acharyas hav ing be come out dated! The age-old truths of the Upanishads and the Gita mayap pear to have be come ir rel e vant, but the fact re -mains that Truth is eter nal and will never be comestale or out dated.

In the book un der re view, the au thor has givenan in tro duc tion which in cludes com ments on ‘thepeo ple of an cient In dia, the Hindu con cept of God,idol wor ship, the bat tle of the Mahabharata and theGita’. But the main book is a chap ter-wise Eng lishtrans la tion of each verse. In each chap ter the au thorhas in tro duced its sub ject mat ter be fore tak ing upthe trans la tion. Cer tain verses have been groupedto gether for trans la tion.

An other ad di tion to the ex ist ing cor pus of Gitatrans la tions.

Dr C S Shah (late)Aurangabad

Re li gious Re viv al ism as Na tion al ist Dis -course: Swami Vi ve ka nan da and NewHin du ism in Nine teenth-Cen tury Ben -gal. Shamita Basu. Ox ford Uni ver sity Press,YMCA Li brary Build ing, Jai Singh Road,New Delhi 110 001. E-mail: or [email protected]. 2002. xi + 213 pp. Rs 525.

At a time when it is fash ion able to con sider Vi ve -ka nan da as an icon or re strict him to a canon

for get ting his thoughts and in sights, the pres entvol ume is wel come. Its well-re searched and clearlydoc u mented struc ture takes Vi ve ka nan da’s con tri -bu tions quite se ri ously. ‘Mo der nity’ and its pre sup -po si tions are the frame work the au thor uses withan ac cent on re cent the o ries of re lated so cialchange. This is claimed as ‘the first at tempt of itskind’. The ba sic aim is to ‘read the text of Vi ve ka -nan da’s neo-Hin du ism as an at tempt to con structthe unity, his tory, mor als and the des tiny of’ the na -tional self.

Shamita Basu traces her ar gu ment by em pha -siz ing the sig nif i cance of the his tory of Vi ve ka nan -da’s life be fore he went to the Par lia ment of Re li -gions. This is seen as ‘the con text of Vi ve ka nan da’scon ver sion from a Brahmo ra tio nal ist to a Hinduna tion al ist’. More over, the swami’s views on Hin -du ism are treated ‘as a doc u ment, and his ap pear -ance in Amer ica as a form of performative ut ter -ance’.

Given this kind of ap proach, it is to be ex pectedthat the book steers clear of the many and of ten ster -



ile dis cus sions about what is na tion al ism and itsman i fest or la tent forms. She rightly em pha sizes acru cial el e ment which many re cent stud ies (spe -cially the ones by Amiya Sen and Indira Chow dhu -ri) ig nore or at best dis miss with tau to log i cal ar gu -ments. In con trast, the au thor as serts un am big u -ously the fact that ‘na tion al ism, to Vi ve ka nan da,was an act of self-rev e la tion, a go ing back to the or i -gin of this Hindu self, and a Hin du ism ris ing toself-con scious ness’. In deed, she notes that in thesub se quent na tion al ist strug gle ‘those who adopt -ed the re li gious id iom and rose in the de fense ofHin du ism of ten bor rowed from Vi ve ka nan da thisgi gan tic con cep tion of Hin du ism as the cus to dianof uni ver sal en light en ment’. This is seen as ‘a ge ne -a log i cal ac count of this uni ver sal Hin du ism’. At the same time, as an ac a demic she is cau tious in not at -tempt ing to ‘say any thing mean ing ful about the au -then tic ity of Vi ve ka nan da’s Hin du ism’, or to whatex tent ‘he fol lowed clas si cal texts, trea tises and doc -trines’.

From this point of view, the chap ter on ‘TheUni ver sal iza tion of Hin du ism’ vis-à-vis the con -struc tion of the na tion seems to me a very bal ancedand com pre hen sive ap proach. In a cli mate whenboth the sec u lar ists and the re viv al ists beat thedrums of their own uni lat eral the ses about Vi ve ka -nan da, it is heart en ing to see some body who writeswith hon esty and in teg rity avoid ing bla tant gen er -al iza tions. The two im bal ances of ei ther san i tiz ingor sanc ti fy ing a re li gious fig ure are avoided. Evenwhen very in tri cate ar eas such as rea son and rit ualin Vi ve ka nan da are dis cussed, there is an at temptto pres ent one’s per spec tive with out mak ing it toosub jec tive. Re fresh ingly, the au thor is aware of butnot over awed by the schol ars in the field such as Su-mit Sarkar. In this re gard the au thor’s study of en -light en ment and the place of sci ence, eth ics andphi los o phy seems to me to open up ar eas for fur -ther study spe cially in the light of the com moncharge that Hin du ism does not have eth ics as such.The only point one can make about this is that thedis cus sion could have been more ac ces si ble to thegen eral reader who is in ter ested in Vi ve ka nan da,but is put off by the spe cial ist ac a demic vo cab u lary.

‘Re fresh ing rather than seg re gat ing the an cientso ci ety from the rest of the world,’ says the au thor,‘Vi ve ka nan da’s na tion al ism sought to en sure that a form of En light en ment was ush ered in through themod ern use of Hindu re li gion which could en terinto a di a logue with West ern ra tio nal ism.’ This Vi-

ve ka nan da did be cause, as the au thor rightly says,he avoided ‘of fer ing any ro man tic cri tique of de vel -op ment and mo der nity’ and em pha sized the ‘ul ti -mate lib er a tion of the spirit through self less ac tionfor hu man ity’. But, dif fer ing from the au thor, onecan say that this is valid not only for a co lo nial so ci -ety but for hu man ity as a whole, what ever the con -cep tions of En light en ment. This as pect needs fur -ther at ten tion in a guarded and cau tious way with -out de i fy ing or de fy ing the con tri bu tion of this greatar chi tect of mod ern In dia. The book needs to beread by all those who are in ter ested in na tion al ismat this cru cial mo ment. One may dif fer or con tro -vert a few points, but the study is marked by rarebal ance of ac a demic neu tral ity and per sonal per -spec tives.

Dr M Sivaramkrishna

Sree Satyanáráyana SwámiVrata Kal -pam. Kalluri Suryanarayana. SankhyayanaVidya Parishat, 2-12-34 Annapurna Col -ony, Uppal, Hyderabad 500 039. 2002. viii+ 147 pp. Rs 108.

The wor ship of Lord Satyanarayana is verywidely prac tised in In dia and even in for eign

lands with a size able Hindu pop u la tion. The orig i -nal vrata is de scribed in the ‘Reva Khanda’ of theSkanda Purana, which is one of the eigh teen chiefPuranas.

Though there is noth ing new about the con -cepts con tained in the book un der re view— scoresof books in vir tu ally ev ery In dian ver nac u lar havebeen pub lished— the au thor has to be com pli -mented for its sheer exhaustiveness and me tic u lous ad her ence to the Ve dic an gle of Satyanarayanawor ship.

The book be gins with an enu mer a tion of thecus toms be hind the wor ship, its sig nif i cance andthe ben e fits that ac crue from it. Then co mes a rather lengthy list of ar ti cles re quired for the vrata, a listlong enough to dis cour age even peo ple of mod er -ate means! This is fol lowed by the ac tual San skrittext along with the Eng lish trans la tion. The lastchap ter of the book con tains the SatyanarayanaSahasranama.

It is sur pris ing that the au thor has not in cludedthe arati hymn, for no wor ship is con cluded with -out the man da tory arati. But for this one draw back

Reviews 141


the book is fairly com plete.

Santosh Kumar SharmaKharagpur

The M i rage and the M ir ror. Rich ard CPres cott. 1st Books Li brary, 2511 West 3rdStreet, Suite #1, Bloomington, IN 47404,USA. 1998. xix + 210 pp. Price not men -tioned.

In her ent So lu tions to Spir i tual Ob -scurations. Rich ard C Prescott. 1st BooksLi brary. 1999. xxxiv + 524 pp. Price notmen tioned.

These two books by Rich ard Prescott are an at -tempt to ex plore, un der stand and ex plain a

wide range of spir i tual top ics from dif fer ent an gles. It en com passes a large gamut of ideas and is sues,of ten trav el ling through un known ter ri to ries, andtries to un cover the hid den mean ings, fi nally open -ing up some in sight here and there. Ob vi ously theau thor is a keen stu dent and dev o tee of Sri Ra ma -kri sh na, try ing to com pre hend Sri Ra ma kri sh na,his mys ti cal ex pe ri ences, his ref er ences to Ve danticand Tantric con cepts of re al ity, and so on. The au -thor also tries to weave in Bud dhist teach ings andYogic ten ets into his ex pla na tions.

But un for tu nately, the au thor is not very fo -cused as to whom he is ad dress ing his writ ing to. Isit to a stu dent of Vedanta? Then the per spec tive isun clear and the ex pla na tions mixed up. Or is it to aspir i tual as pi rant? Though he does re fer to his ex -pe ri ences in the light of Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s teach -ings, no sys tem atic ex po si tion from a spir i tualstand point has been at tempted.

The books are at the most an endeavour of ahighly cu ri ous West ern mind to de code cer tain Ve-dantic, Tantric, Yogic and Bud dhist ter mi nol o gies,vis-à-vis Sri Ra ma kri sh na’s mys ti cal ex pe ri ences.‘In my spir i tual work’, says Prescott (Mi rage andMir ror, 102), ‘I see Sri Ra ma kri sh na as a most ex cel -

lent and di vine pro to type of the dy namic pos si bil -ity within each liv ing be ing. … For the one half of acen tury that he oc cu pied in this re gion of mor tal be -ings, his en tire per son and his per sonal life was ul ti -mately a most as tound ing jour ney and in nate dis -cov ery of the God dess Ex pe ri ence in the shape ofKali.’

The au thor also ex plores women’s role inHindu cul ture through myth o log i cal ide ol o giesprev a lent in Hin du ism which have, ac cord ing tohim, wed ded them ‘to be good moth ers who, for ex -am ple, must care for and feed the naughty boy- king Krishna, and that their sole pur pose and iden -tity is to bring forth the boy-king. … These ide alshave cre ated the his tor i cal sit u a tion of a cul tur allycaged lion.’ (103)

At some places, the books ex plain Ra ma kri sh -na’s prayers (103) and at oth ers, vi sions and in ci -dents re lated to Sri Ra ma kri sh na. In fact, many ofthe Hindu ideas of con scious ness, cos mic moralprin ci ple, moth er hood of God and so on have beencom mented upon.

The au thor makes co pi ous ref er ences to Bud -dhist con cepts and tra di tions, though he is not veryclear and pre cise about what he wants to say (In her -ent So lu tions to Spir i tual Obscurations, 164). Hespeaks of his dream ex pe ri ences as also some spir i -tual vi sions and im ag er ies which are rather dif fi cult for a com moner to de ci pher.

A lit tle more care ful copy-ed it ing of the text(cap i tal iza tions, ital ics, foot notes on San skrit andBud dhist terms, etc) will add to the util ity of thebook.

Monastic Sojourner

Book Received

In dia and ‘The Ded i cated’: To wards theRise of a Na tion.Mamata Ray and Anil Ba -ran Ray. Manu script In dia, 166/3 SNNGan guly Road, How rah 711 104. 2003. 336pp. Rs 320.

Given the sort of prac ti cal ide al ism that Nivedita out lines for In dia, In dia can achieve ad e -

quate, if nor per fect, in te gra tion as a na tion and take gi ant steps in all spheres of life—so -

cial, po lit i cal, moral, ma te rial and in tel lec tual—and hav ing thus ‘arisen’ she can use the united

strength of a re sur gent na tion to wards achiev ing a world or der based on the es sen tial one ness of

hu man ity. —from In dia and ‘The Ded i cated’

Reports

New M ath CentresSri Ramakrishna Ashrama, Mekhliganj,

which had been a sub-centre of the un af fil i -ated Sri Ramakrishna Ashrama, Cooch Behar,was taken over by the Ramakrishna Math inOctober 2004. It has been made a sub-centre ofRamakrishna Math, Cooch Behar, and re -named Ramakrishna M ath, M ekhliganj. Itsaddress is: Ramakrishna Math, Mekhliganj,Dt Cooch Behar, West Bengal 735304 (Phone:03584-255272).

A new branch cen tre of the RamakrishnaMath came into be ing in Bindweide, Ger -many, in No vem ber. Its ad dress is: Vedanta- Gesellschaft e.V., Bindweide 2, D-57520, Stein-e bach/Sieg, Ger many (Phone: 49-2747- 930493;Fax: 49-2747-930494). Swami Banesha nandajihas been ap pointed head of the cen tre.

DurgaPuja

Durga Puja was cel e brated at Belur M athfrom 20 to 23 Oc to ber 2004 with so lem nity and joy. Tens of thou sands of dev o tees throngedthe pre cincts of the Math on all four days to re -ceive the bless ings of the Di vine Mother. TheKumari Puja held on the 21st drew hugecrowds as usual. Cooked pra sad was served to about 74,000 dev o tees on Puja days. The Pujawas tele cast live by Kolkata Door darshan atdif fer ent times dur ing the four days.

Holy M other Sri Sarada Devi’s150th Birth Anniversary Celebrations

In con nec tion with the cel e bra tion, Ram-akrishna M ath, Rajahmundry, or ga nized a28- day- long ratha yatra from 19 Sep tem ber to20 Oc to ber. Pass ing as it did through nearly100 towns and vil lages of 7 dis tricts of coastalAndhra Pradesh, the 3000 km yatra ful filledthe pur pose of tak ing Holy Mother’s mes sageto the max i mum num ber of peo ple pos si ble.

Thanks to en thu si as tic pub lic re sponse and in -volve ment, the meet ings and cul tural eventsor ga nized all along the route were a grandsuc cess. At ev ery place the ratha, led by 3monks and 11 vol un teers, was re ceived withaus pi cious mu sic and flower gar lands, andhun dreds of peo ple, from stu dents to dig ni tar -ies, at tended the meet ings that fol lowed.60,000 cop ies of Sara da Devi Suk ti Sudha, abook let pub lished spe cially for the oc ca sion,were given away, apart from 15,000 cop ies of 3 other ti tles; 60,000 pic ture post cards con tain -ing a beau ti ful photo and say ings of HolyMother were also dis trib uted.

A con ven tion of the of fice-bear ers of theRamakrishna-Vivekananda Bhava PracharPa rishads was held at Belur M ath on 29 and30 Oc to ber to dis cuss var i ous as pects of HolyMother’s 150th birth an ni ver sary cel e bra tionsbe ing or ga nized by dif fer ent un af fil i ated cen -tres un der the Parishads, and to guide andhelp them to take up some fol low-up prog -rammes for women’s wel fare. The con ven tionwas ad dressed by se nior monks of the Ra ma -krishna Or der.

News from Branch Centres

Sri S Jaipal Reddy, Min is ter for In for ma -tion, Broad cast ing and Cul ture, Gov ern ment of In dia, vis ited Ramakrishna M is sion Stu dents’ Home, Chennai, on 11 Sep tem ber and ad -dressed a meet ing or ga nized on this oc ca sion.As part of its cen te nary cel e bra tions, the cen trealso or ga nized a dev o tees’ con ven tion on 19Sep tem ber and a sem i nar on ‘Pov erty Al le vi a -tion’ on 20 No vem ber.

Sri Vikas Shridhar Sirpurkar, Chief Jus -tice, Uttaranchal High Court, vis ited AdvaitaAshrama, M ayavati, on 25 Sep tem ber.

Srimat Swami Gahananandaji Maharaj,Vice Pres i dent, Ramakrishna Math and Rama -


krishna Mis sion, laid the foun da tion stone forthe pro posed guest-house build ing at Ra ma -krishna M ath, Puri, on 8 Oc to ber.

Swami Smarananandaji, Gen eral Sec re -tary, Ramakrishna Math and RamakrishnaMis sion, laid the foun da tion stone for the pro -posed ex ten sion of the school build ing at Ra-makrishna M is sion TB San a to rium, Ran chi,on 8 Oc to ber.

Srimat Swami Atmasthanandaji Maha raj,Vice Pres i dent, Ramakrishna Math and Ra -makrishna Mis sion, in au gu rated the newlybuilt guest-house at M atrimandir,Jayram bati,on 10 Oc to ber.

Ramakrishna Mis sion Sevashrama, Vrin-daban, opened a blood bank in its hos pi tal on 6No vem ber.

Achievement

A stu dent of the school run by Ramakri-shna M is sion, Viveknagar, bagged the goldmedal at the Abantika In ter na tional Es say,Paint ing and Slo gan Com pe ti tion held in New Delhi in De cem ber. 9 more stu dents of theschool won med als at the com pe ti tion: 4 sil verand 5 bronze.

Foreign News

Sev eral dis tin guished per sons, in clud ingMr Ab dul Mannan Bhuiyan, Min is ter for Lo -cal Gov ern ment and Ru ral De vel op ment; MrMoudud Ahmed, Min is ter for Law; Mr SadeqHossain Khoka, Mayor of Dhaka; and MrHossain Mu ham mad Ershad, for mer Pres i -dent of Ban gla desh, at tended Durga Puja atRa makri shna M ath, Dhaka, on dif fer ent days of the cel e bra tion.

Durga Puja at Ramakrishna M is sionAshrama, Narayanganj, Ban gla desh, was at -tended by Bri ga dier Hafizuddin, Min is ter forWa ter Re sources; Mr Abul Kalam, MP; andsome other dig ni tar ies.

Relief W ork

In Oc to ber, Ramakrishna Math and Mis -sion cen tres in West Ben gal and Ban gla desh

con tin ued re lief op er a tions among flood vic -tims by dis trib ut ing food, cloth ing and es sen -tial items like halazone tab lets, can dles andmatch boxes: Ramakrishna M ath, Barasat, dis -trib uted khichuri to 19,005 per sons for 5 days in North 24 Parganas; Ramakri shna M is sionAshrama, M alda, dis trib uted 700 kg chira, 225kg gur, 250 kg salt and 50 kg bis cuits among1200 per sons in Malda, and 2565 kg rice, 210kg dal, 1600 kg chira, 200 kg sugar, 100 kg gur,500 kg salt and 120 kg bis cuits among 4346per sons in Birbhum; Ramakrishna M is sionAsh rama,Sargachhi, dis trib uted 1000 kg chi raand 200 kg gur among 1844 per sons in Mur-shidabad; Rama kri shna M is sion, Sikra- Ku -lingram , dis trib uted 15,834 kg chira, 2892 kggur, 750 kg rice and 150 kg dal among 10,467fam i lies in North 24 Parganas; Rama kri shnaM is sion Head quar ters dis trib uted 80 kg chi-ra, 20 kg gur, 40 blan kets and an equal num berof dho tis and sa ris among 40 home less fam i -lies in Nadia; Ramakrishna M is sion, Dhaka,dis trib uted 15,107 kg rice, 1755 kg dal, 4510 kgchira, 905 kg sugar, 1609 pack ets of baby food,690 kg milk, 4000 halazone tab lets, 100 sa ris,1207 can dles and 1152 match boxes among24,110 peo ple be long ing to 37 vil lages spreadover 9 dis tricts.

Be sides the above-men tioned re lief ser -vices, the fol low ing cen tres helped the poorand needy in their lo cal i ties: RamakrishnaM is sion, Vivek na gar, dis trib uted 100 dho tis,100 sa ris and 458 chil dren’s gar ments; Rama-krishna M ath, Pu ri, dis trib uted 140 gar ments;and Ramakrishna M is sion Ash ra ma, Ram-haripur, dis trib uted 400 dho tis, 1100 sa ris and150 sets of chil dren’s gar ments.

In De cem ber, as a fol low- up to re liefwork, our cen tres in Assam, Bihar and WestBen gal dis trib uted blan kets, dho tis, sa ris andas sorted gar ments among the flood vic tims ofthose states.

Relief W ork by Belgharia Students

For the peo ple of West Ben gal, Durga Pu-ja is a most aus pi cious and ea gerly awaited


Reports 143

fes ti val. Last year’s Puja, how -ever, brought only tears to thoseliv ing in low-ly ing ar eas likeBongaon in North 24 Parganas.Heavy show ers lashed the areadur ing the first week of Oc to ber and man-made block ages in the Jamuna’s course caused se verewaterlogging. Soon the ar easaround Bongaon were sub -merged un der wa ter as high as6 feet!

The stu dents and dev o tees of Ramakri shna M is sion Cal -cutta Stu dents’ Home, Bel-gharia, de cided to spend theirPuja hol i days try ing to help thevic tims. They could have eas ilyspent the time par ty ing andmak ing merry, but bring ing re lief to their af -flicted breth ren gave them more ful fil ment.

The nu mer ous vil lages in be tween Bon-gaon and the Jamuna were badly hit, of which53 were iden ti fied as the worst af fected. Theen tire area be ing in un dated, vil lages could onlybe reached by boats. This ar du ous work wasmade eas ier by mo tor boats do nated to the Ra-ma kri sh na Mis sion by the peo ple and gov ern -ment of Ja pan. Vol un teers vis ited each homein these vil lages and dis trib uted iden tity cards to those who needed help most. Food andmed i cal fa cil i ties had to be pro vided ur gently.As of No vem ber, 21,259 kg of chira and 5644kg of gur was dis trib uted among 37,383 per -sons. A tem po rary med i cal camp was alsostarted with lo cal help, and 460,000 wa ter-pu -ri fy ing tab lets were dis trib uted.

Tsunami Relief

The dev as tat ing tsu nami that crashedinto the In dian east coast and Sri Lanka on 26De cem ber de stroyed hun dreds of kilo metresof coast line kill ing tens of thou sands of peo pleand in flict ing in de scrib able mis ery upon in -nu mer a ble oth ers. The fol low ing cen tres of the Rama krishna Mis sion launched re lief op er a -

tions right from the day the di sas ter struck.Ramakri shna M is sion, Port Blair, dis trib -uted cooked food, baby food and cloth ing,bot tled drink ing wa ter among 1500 peo ple inAndaman;Ramakri shna M ath, Chennai, dis -trib uted cooked food, dho tis, sa ris, bed sheets, mats and uten sils and so on to about 22,000peo ple and also pro vided med i cal aid to27,500 peo ple in Cheng alpattu, Chennai, Cud -dalore, Kanya kumari and Nagapattinam. Theex tremely af fected vic tims were pro videdshel ter. Ramakrishna M ath, M adurai, pro -vided food to fish er men in Rameshwaram;Ramakrishna Advaita Ashrama, Kalady, dis -trib uted: clothes, uten sils, and food inErnakulam dis trict. Ramakri shna M is sion,Co lombo, dis trib uted to more than 25,000peo ple cooked food, stoves, uten sils, clothes,mats, bed-sheets, dry-foods, med i cines, etc.af ter fanned out in about 20 camps in Batti -caloa and nearby places. Steps were be ingtaken to ex tend the re lief work to more placesand reach more peo ple in the worst-af fectedar eas. Fur ther re ports will fol low. Rama-krishna Math, Belur Math, re lief is over see ingall op er a tions. The to tal ex pen di ture till10.1.2005 was about 1.30 crores. Do na tions re -ceived are about 0.73 crores. ~



Tsunami Relief being done in Nagapattinam by Ramakrishna Math, Chennai

traditional wisdom - advaita ashrama · 2018-12-05 · c traditional wisdom c yoga buddhi: steady...

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