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Contexts and complications
The central aim of this work is to explore how Swami Vivekananda engaged with non-Hindu religious traditions and to examine how this affected his own interpretation and systematisation of Hinduism. This work demonstrates that Vivekananda was no simplistic pluralist, as portrayed in hagio-graphical texts, nor narrow exclusivist, as portrayed by some modern Hindu nationalists, but a thoughtful, complex inclusivist. His was a position which necessitated interaction with, rather than damnation of, the non-Hindu, and empathy for the universal human religious condition, rather than sympathy for individual traditions per se.
I will argue that Vivekananda formulated a hierarchical and inclusivistic framework of Hinduism, based upon his interpretations of a fourfold system of yoga. This framework valorised Advaita (a non-dualist Hindu tradition) and devalued aspects of Hinduism that were associated with what Vivekananda perceived to be ‘low levels’ of spiritual awareness, such as Gauni Bhakti (theistic devotion). I will further argue that Vivekananda understood his formulation of Vedanta to be universal, applying it freely to non-Hindu traditions. An exploration of his engagement with non-Hindu traditions is therefore essential to a full understanding of his ‘Hindu’ framework. In light of this, I will detail how Vivekananda applied his framework to non-Hindu traditions and, in so doing, will demonstrate that Vivekananda was consistently critical of ‘low-level’ spirituality, not only in non-Hindu traditions but also within Hinduism, thus refuting claims in some recent scholarship that Vivekananda was a Hindu chauvinist. I will argue that Vivekananda is best understood within the context of ‘Advaitic primacy’ rather than ‘Hindu chauvinism.’
Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) was a Hindu raised within the middle classes of Bengali society, who received Western-style education in Calcutta and became a devotee of the mystic Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–1886). After Ramakrishna’s death in 1886, Vivekananda wandered throughout India as a sanyassin (renouncer) before travelling to America in 1893, during which time he spoke at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago. After the Parliament, Vivekananda embarked upon a lecture tour of America and Western Europe, attracting large audiences and a number of Western ‘converts’ to Vedanta. He founded the Vedanta Society of New York in 18941 and published monographs and lectures in both New York and London, ensuring his place as the first high-profile Indian to preach Vedanta in the West. He returned to India to popular acclaim in 1897, before embarking on another tour of America and Europe from 1899–1900. He died in India in 1902.
Vivekananda and his legacy remain of central importance both within India and the West, long after his premature death at the age of 39. This continued importance is reflected in the central place his name occupies in contemporary Indian society and politics, in the continuing spread of Indian traditions to the West and in the burgeoning academic scholarship on his social and political significance in contemporary ‘globalised’ contexts.
Vivekananda is a source of pride as a ‘Father’ figure in India to this day. National Youth Day is celebrated annually on his birthday,2 and the Vivekananda Memorial at Cape Comorin on the southernmost tip of India has grown from a small shrine to an international centre of pilgrimage. Numerous schools, hospitals and research centres are named after Vivekananda, and the annual publication of a best-selling calendar ensures that this high-profile Indian ‘saint’ is venerated through popular culture. The Ramakrishna Math and Mission, founded by Vivekananda in 1897, remains one of India’s highest profile charitable organisations. Providing famine relief, promoting human rights and women’s rights, and running medical services, schools and orphanages, the Ramakrishna Movement is in many ways the embodiment of Vivekananda’s vision of social service and religion.3
Vivekananda remains an influential figure in modern interfaith dialogue. Popular understandings of his performance at the Chicago Parliament, fuelled by hagiographical accounts, have placed Vivekananda at the centre of the genesis of the interfaith movement. Whilst this work will question this popular view, it remains the case that Vivekananda is consistently posthumously valorised for his role as a pioneer of modern approaches to religious dialogue.4 Vivekananda is also associated with the growth of ‘alternative spiritualities’ in the West. De Michelis has provided a systematic survey of Vivekananda’s influence on the growth of modern yoga,5 and van der Veer notes that Vivekananda’s “effort to systematize disparate notions of ascetic practice [i.e. Yogas] … is now India’s main export article on the ‘spirituality market.’”6 Vivekananda is also credited with originating the popular notion of the East as a ‘spiritual’ society and the West as a ‘materialistic’ society – a theme that can be seen to have influenced later thinkers such as Radhakrishnan.7
Vivekananda remains an important cultural icon in contemporary manifestations of Hindu nationalism within right-wing Indian politics. Indeed, van der Veer notes that Vivekananda’s dualistic construction of the ‘material’ West and the ‘spiritual’ East was the “source and inspiration for the RSS/BJP/VHP brand of Indian nationalism.”8 Importantly for this work, however, is Radice’s note of warning that it is necessary for scholarship to focus upon “Vivekananda’s social and religious ideals, to rescue them from the distortions that were being worked on them by fundamentalists keen to co-opt Vivekananda to their cause.”9 Radice’s comment is at the heart of this work’s aim to contribute to this debate. I argue that a gap exists in the scholarship on Vivekananda, concerning his treatment of non-Hindu traditions which, if explored, may prove supportive of Radice’s desire to re-appropriate Vivekananda from the clutches of Hindutva ideologues and activists.
Sources
Scholarship on Vivekananda relevant to this work falls into three main categories. First, there are biographical works on Vivekananda that provide an account of his life and times. The problem of hagiography undermines the validity of early biographies of Vivekananda. In recent years, however, several authors have published reliable texts detailing the life of Vivekananda. Most notable in this field are Narasingha Sil,10 Amiya Sen11 and Rajagopal Chattopadhyaya.12 Whilst Sil writes from a psycho-analytical background, Sen and Chattopadhyaya write with a socio-historical understanding of the subject. This work aims to add to these recent biographical endeavours by detailing events that are not covered in detail by these works – in particular by analysing Vivekananda’s speeches at Chicago, which are largely overlooked in modern biographies, suggesting that the legend surrounding Vivekananda’s performance at Chicago is occasionally accepted rather uncritically, even by modern biographers. Indeed, an almost mythical narrative has emerged surrounding Vivekananda at the Chicago Parliament, which depicts Vivekananda as a ‘champion of Hinduism’ and/or as a proponent of a form of pluralistic religious dialogue that foreshadowed twentieth-century inter-religious discourse. I will argue that that neither of these views is borne out by the evidence.
Alongside biographical work, there is much extant literature exploring Vivekananda’s formulation of ‘practical Vedanta.’ Among the early studies exploring this subject is Nalini Devdas’s Svami Vivekananda,13 where the author outlines Vivekananda’s construction of a practical form of Vedanta. Devdas understands Vivekananda to have encompassed a diversity of Hindu traditions, including bhakti and yoga traditions, which he placed within a universalistic framework. Devdas examines Vivekananda’s hierarchical understanding of religiosity, and includes a brief outline of Vivekananda’s understanding of Buddhism. In the 1970s, George Williams14 examined the sources of Vivekananda’s religious authority and the evolving nature of Vivekananda’s understanding of his own faith and his approach to various forms of ‘Hinduisms.’ Williams outlines Vivekananda’s understanding of a universal principle of eternal religion, which leads to a practical form of Vedanta, and examines Vivekananda’s relationship with different forms of Hinduism, including his view of scriptural authority and the role of the Guru, highlighting the shifts in perspective that occurred throughout Vivekananda’s life.
More recently, Vivienne Baumfield, in Swami Vivekananda’s Practical Vedanta,15 provides a survey of the background influences to Vivekananda, from the Brahmo Samaj to the Positivist movement and the Theosophical Society. The latter part of the work concentrates upon Vivekananda’s conception of ethical duty as the manifestation of Practical Vedanta, and explores Vivekananda’s understanding of Christ, the Buddha and Mohammed. Anantanand Rambachan, in The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda’s Reinterpretation of the Vedas,16 provides a well-argued and coherent account of Vivekananda’s construction of a yoga-based path to realisation. Eloquently raising the problems of Vivekananda’s re-interpretation of Sankara, this study is key in understanding Vivekananda’s approach to, and treatment of, different yogas within an Advaitic tradition. Elizabeth De Michelis, in A History of Modern Yoga: Patanjali and Western Esotericism,17 provides a systematic assessment of Vivekananda’s construction of a fourfold yoga system of religion. Examining the influences upon Vivekananda and his treatment of raja, bhakti, jnana and karma yoga, De Michelis positions Vivekananda within the movement towards Western occultism and esotericism that was growing in late nineteenth-century America.
Missing in much of this scholarship is an engagement with Vivekananda’s application of his religious framework to non-Hindu traditions. Devdas goes some way towards exploring this when she assesses Vivekananda’s understanding of Buddhism. However, the scope of her investigation is limited to Buddhism, and she does not take into account Vivekananda’s views on Christianity and Islam. Baumfield too takes a step towards examining Vivekananda’s approach to non-Hindu traditions when she examines his views on s...
