Those of you who have studied that most beautiful of all the Upanishads, the Kaiha, will leinember liow the king was going to make a great saciifice, and, instead of giving away things that were of any woith, he was giving away cows and horses that were not of any use, and the book says that at that time ShraddM entered into the heart of his son Nachiketa. I would not translate this woid Shraddhd. to you, It would be a mislako; iL is a woiidciful word to undei.sland, and much depends on 11, we will see how it woik.*:, for immediately w'e find Nachiketa telling himself, “ I am superioi to many, I am infeiioi to few, but riowheio am 1 the last, I can also do something.” And this boldness increased, and the boy wanted to solve the problem REPLY TO THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME IN CALCUTTA 119 which was in his mind, the problem of death. The solution could only be got by going to the house of Death, and the boy went. Thcie he was, brave Nachiketa, waiting at the house of Death for three days, and you know how he obtained wliat he desiied. What we want, is this §hraddhih Unfortunately, it has neaily vani.^hed from India, and this is why we aie in our piesenl state. What makes the dilTerenre between man and man is the difference in this shraddhh, and nothing cl.se. What makes one man great and another W'eak ami low, is this shraddhd. My Master used to say, he who thinks himself w-eak will become w'cak, ami ih.it is tiue. This diraddht\ must enter into you. Whatevei of maleiial power you see manifested by the Western races is the outcome of this <ihiaddha, because they believe in ihcii muscles, and if you believe in your spiiit, how ijiuch moie will it woik Believe in that Infinite Soul, the Infinite Pow'er, which, with consensus of opinion, your books and sages pi each. That Atman which nothing c.an desiioy, in It is Infinite Bowei only waiting lo be called out. For here is the gieat dilfeiencc between all othei philosophies, and the Indian Philo.sophy. Whethei Dualistic, qualified Monistic, 01 Monistic, they all firmly believe that cveiything is in the soul itselt, it has only to come out and manifest itself. Theiefoie, this shraddha is what I want, and wdiat all of us here want, this faith in ourselves, and befoie )ou IS ibc gie.al task to get that f.iith, (b\e up the awful disease that is creeping into oui national blood, that idea of lubculiog cverylbing, that loss of seiiousncss. Give that up. Be sliong and have this shaddhd, and everything else is bound to follow.
I have done nothing as yet; )0u have to do the task. If I die to-monow the woik will not die. I.sinceiely believe that llieic will be ihous.ands coming iqi liom the lanks to take up the w'Oik.111(1 cairy It fill tbci and fuithci, l)e)ond all my most hopeful iniagiu.il ion evei p.iiuUHl I h.ive f.uth in in) counliy, and espcciall) in the youth of my country. The )outh of Bcng.il have the gicatesl of all tasks that has ever been pl.iced on the sbouldcis of voung m.in 1 have liavelled for the last ten years 01 so ovei the whole of India, and my coiiMclion is, that fiom the youth of Bengal will come the pow-ei which will laise India once moie lo liei pio[)cr spiritual pl.icc. Aye. fiom the youth of Beng.il, with tins immense amount of feel- ing and cntluisi.isin in the blood, will come those heroes, who will niarcli fiom one conier of the eaith to th(‘ oiIhm. pitMcbing and leai hmg the elein.d spiiiUi.il tmlbs of our forefathers. And this is the gieai woik beloie )ou. Theiefoie, let me con- clude by icmimhng you ome moie, “Aiise, aw.ike, and stop not till the desned end is icached.” Be not ali.iid, for all gieat pow-ei, ihiouglioul the histoiy of linm.iiiily, has been w'lth the people. Fiom out of then lanks h.ue come all the giealest geniuses of the w'orld, and bisloiy can only lepc.il itself Be not afi.ud of anything. You will do maivdlons woik. The moment )ou feai, you are noliody.
It IS fear "that is the great cause of miseiy m the woild. It is feai that is the gieatcst of all superstitions. It is fear that is the cause of our woes, ami it i.s fcailcssnc.s.s that biings heaven even in a moment. Therefoie, “ Aiise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached.”, t 1 Gentlemen, allow me to thank you once more foi all the kindness that I have received at youi hands. It is my wish— my intense, sinceie wish to be even of the least SCI vice to the woild, and above all to my own counliy and countiymen.
THE VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES.
( Delivered in Calcutta. ) Away back, where no lecorded histoiy, nay, even the dim light of tradition, carl pencil. He, has been steadily shining the light, sometimes dimmed by external circnm- slanccs, at otheis elTalgent, but undying and steady, shedding its light not only over India, but permeating the whole ihought-woild with its power, silent, unpercei\ed, gentle, yet omnipotent, like the dew that falls in the moinmg, unseen and unnoticed, yet bunging into bloom the fairest of roses— this has been the thought of the Upani- shads, the philosophy of the Vedanta. Nobody knows when it first came to flourish on the soil of India, (kicss-woik Ha^> been vain. The guesses, especially of Western writers, have been so conflicting that no certain date can be asciibed to them. But we Hindus, from the spiritual standpoint, do not admit that they had any origin. This Vedanta, the philosophy of the Upanish.idS, I would make bold to stale, has been the fiist, as well as the final thought on the spiritual plane that has evci been vouchsafed to man. Fiom this ocean of the Vedanta, waves of light from lime to tune have been going Weslwaid and Eastward. In the days of yore it travelled Westward and gave its impetus to the mind of the Greeks, cilhci in Athens, oi in Alexandiia, or in Antioch. The S.tnkhya system must clearly have made its maik on the minds of the ancient Gieeks, and the Sankhya, and all other S} stems in India, had that one authoiily, the Upanishads, the Vedanta. In India, too, in spite of all these jailing sects that we see lo-d.\y and all those that have been in the past, the one authoiity, the basis of.til these systems, has yet been the Upariisliads, the Vedanta, Whcthei you arc a Du.tlisi, oi a Qualified IVIoni.sl, an Advaiiist, oi a Visishtadvaitist, a Shuddhadvailist, or any other Advailisi or Dvaitisi, oi whatever you may c.all youiselt, theie.stands behind you as authority, )Oui Shasiras, your sciip- tures, the Upanishads. Wh.xtevci.sy.stcni in India does not obey the Upanishads cannot be called oithodo.x, and even the systems of the J.nns and the Ihiddhisis have been lejecled from the soil of India, onlj because they did not beai allegiance to the Upanishads. Thus the Vedanta, whethei ae know it or not. has penetialed all the sects in India, and what \vc call Hinduism, this mighty Banyan with its immense, almost infinite ramifications, has been thioughouL inlei pencil ated by the influence of the Vedanta. Whethei we aie conscious of it oi not, we think the Vedanta ve live in the Vedanta, we breathe the Vedanta, and we die in the Vedanta, and eveiy Hindu does that. To preach Vedanta in the land of India, and befoie an Indian audience, sccm.s, therefore, to be an anomaly. But it is the one thing that has to be ])i cached, and it is the necessity of the age that it must be pieaclied. For, as I have just told you, all the Indian sects must bear allegiance to the Uiianishads, but among these sects there are many appaient contradictions. Many times the gieat sages of yoie themselves could not undeistand the undeilying haimony of the Upanishads. Many limes, even sages quarrelled, and so much so that at times it became a proveib, that there aie no sages who do not differ. But the time requires that a belter interpretation should be given to this undeilying harmony of the Ujianishadic texts; w'helher they are dualistic, or non-dualislic, quasi-duali.stic, or so forth, it has lo be shown before the woild at huge; and this woik is lequiicd as much in India as out- "THE VEDANTA IN ALT ITS PHASES tit side of India, and I, through the grace of God, had the great good fortune to sit dt the feet of one) whose whole life was such an interpretation, whose life, a thousand- fold more tham whose teaching, was a living commentary on the tests of the Upani- shads, was in fact, the spirit of the Upanishads living in a human form* Pethaps I have got a little of that harmony; I do not know whether I shall be able to express it or not. But this is my attempt, my mission in life, to show that the Vedantic Schools are not contradictory, that they all necessitate each other, all fulfil each other, and one, as it were, is the stepping-stone to the other, until the goal, the Advaita, the TaHvahUhi, is reached. There was a time in India when the Kanna-kanda had its sway. Theie ale many grand ideals, no doiibt, in that poition of the Vedas. Some of our present daily woiship is still according to the piecepts of the Kaima-kanda. But, with all that, the Karma-kanda of the Vedas has almost disappeared ^m India. Very little of our life to-day is bound and regulated by the ordcis of the Karma-kanda of the Vedas. In our ordinary lives we are mostly Pauranics of Tantrics, and, even where some Vcdic texts arc used by the BiJihmans of India, the adjustment of the texts is mostly not according to the Vedas, but according to the Tanlias or the Puranas. As such, to call ourselves Vaidiks in the sense of following the Kaima-kanda of the Vedas, I do not think, would be proper. But the other fact stands, that we aie all of us Vedantists. The people who call themselves Hindus had better be called Vcdanlisis, and, as I have shown you, under that one name Vaidantika, come in all our various sects, whether dualists or non-dualists.
The sects that are at the present time in India, Come to be divided in geneial into the two great classes of dualists and monists. The little dilTercnces which some of these sects insist upon, and upon the authority of which want to take new names, as pure Advaitists, or qualified Advaitists, and so foith, do not matter much. As a classification, either they are dualists or monists, and of the sects existing at the present time, some of them are very new, and olheis seem to be reproductions of very ancient sects. The one class, I would present by the life and philosophy of Ramanuja, and the other, by Sankaracharya. Ramanuja is the leading diulistic pliilo- §oplier of later India, whom all the other dualistic sects have followed, diieclly or indiiectly, both in substance of their teaching, and in the oiganisations of their sects, even down to some of the most minute points of their organisation. You will be astonished, if you compare Ramanuja and his woik with the other dualistic Vaishnava sects in India, to see how much they resemble each other in organisation, leaching, and method. There have been the great Southern preacher IM.idhva Muni, and following him, our great Chaitanya of Bengal, who took up the philosophy of the Madhvas, and preached it in Bengal. I’here have been some other sects in Southern India also, as the qualified dualistic Shaivas. The Shaiv.as in most pails of India arc Advaitists, except in some portions of Southern India, and in Ceylon. But they also only substitute Shiva for Vishnu, and are Ramaniijists in eveiy sense of the term except in the doctrine of the soul. The followers of Ramanuja hold that the soul is Ann, like a particle, very small, and the followers of Sankaracharya hold that it is Vib/iu, omnipresent. There have been several non -dualistic sects. It seems that there have been sects in ancient limes which Sankara’s movement has entirely swallowed up and assimilated. You find sometimes a fling at Sankara him- self in some of the commentaries, especially in that of Vijnana Bhiksliu who, although an Advaitist, attempts to upset the Mdydvdda of Sankara. It seems there were schools who did not believe in this Mdydvdda, and they went so far as to call B tij LECTURE^—FnoM COLOMBO TO ALMORA Sankara a crypto-Buddhist, Prachhchhanna Bauddha^ and they thoughtUhis Mh'dvddd was taken from the Buddhists, and brought within the Vedanlic fold. However that may be, in modern times the Advaitists have all ranged themselves under Sankaracharya; and Sankaracharya and his disciples have been the great preachers of Advaita, both in Southern and in Northern India. The influence of Sankara- charya did not penetrate much into our country of Bengal, and in Cashmere and the Punjab, but in Southern India the Smarlhas are all followers of Sankarachaiya, and with Benares as the centre, his influence is simply immense, even in many pails of Northern India.
Now both Sankara and Ramanuja laid aside all claim to originality. Rama- nuja expressly tells us he is only following the great commentary of Bodhkyana.
I “ Ancient teachers abridged that extensive commentary on the Brahma Sutras which was composed by the Bhagavan Bodhayana; in accordance with their opinion the words of the Sutra are explained.” That is what Ramanuja says at the beginning of his commentary, the Sri-Bhashya. He takes it up and makes of it a Satikshipiivn, and that is what we have to-day. I myself never had an opportunity of seeing this commentary of Bodhayana. The late Swami Dayananda Saraswati wanted to reject every other commentary of the Vyasa Sutras except that of Bodhayana, and although he never lost an opportunity of having a fling at Rama- nuja, he himself could never produce the Bhodhayana. 1 have.sought for it all over India, and never yet have been able to see it. But Ramanuja is very plain on the point, and he tells us that he is taking the ideas, and sometimes the very pass- ages, out of Bodhayana, and condensing them into the present Ramanuja Bhashya. It seems that Sankaracharya was also doing the same. There are a few places in his Bhashya which mention older commentaiies, and when we know that his Guiu, and his Guru’s Guru, had been Vedantists of the same school as he,.sometimes even more thorough-going, bolder even than Sankaia himself on certain points, it seems pretty plain that he also was not preaching anything very original, and that even in his Bhashya he himself had been doing the same work that Ramanuja did with Bodhayana, but from what Bhashya, cannot be discovered at the present time. All these Darsanas that you have ever seen or hcaid of are based upon Upanishadic authority. Whenever they want to quote a Sruli, they mean the Upanishads. 'rhey are always quoting the Upanishads. Following the Upanishads there come other philosophies of India, but every one of them failed in getting that hold on India which the philosophy of Vyasa got, although the philosophy of Vyasa is a develop- ment out of an older one, the Sankhya, and every philosophy and every system in India— I mean throughout the world— owes much to Kapila, perhaps the greatest name in the history of India in psychological and philosophical lines. The influence of Kapila is everywhere seen throughout the world. Wherever there is a recognised system of thought, there you can trace his influence; even if it be thousands of years back, yet he stands there, the shining, glorious, wondeiful Kapila. His psychology and a good deal of his philosophy have been accepted by all the sects of India, with but very little differences. In our own country, our Naiyayik philosophers could not make much impression on the philosophical world of India. They were too busy with little species and genus, and so forth, and that most cumbersome termi- nology, which it is a life’s work to study. As such, they were very busy with logic, and left philosophy to the Vedantists, but every one of the Indian philosophic sects the VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES 1*3 in modern times has adopted the logical terminology of the Naiyaylks of Bengal. Jagadish, Gadadhar, and Siromani are as well-known at Nnddea as in some of the cities in Malabar. But the philosophy of Vyasa, il»e Vyasa Sutras, Is firm-seated, and has attained the permanence of that which It intended to present to men, the orthodox and Vedantic side of philosophy. Reason was entirely subordinated to the Srutis, and as Sankaracharya declares, Vyasa dfd not care to reason at all. His idea in wiiting the Sutras was just to bring together, and with one thread to make a gailand of the flowers of Vedantic texts. His Sutras are admitted so far as tliey are subordinate to the authority of the Upanishads, and no further.
And, as I have said, all the sects of India now hold these Vyasa Sutras to be^ the great authority, and eveiy new sect in India starts with a fiesh commentary on the Vyasa Sutras according to its light. The difference between some of these com- mentators is sometimes very great, sometimes the texl-lortuiing is quite disgi^cfeig; The Vyasa Sutras have got the place of aulhoiity, and no one can expect to found a sect in India, until he can write a fresh commentaiy on the Vyasa Sutias.
Next in authority is the celebivUcd Gita. The gieat glory of Sankaiacharya was his preaching of the Gita. It is one of the greatest woiks that this great man did among the many noble woiks of his noble life— the pleaching of the Gita, and writing the most beautiful commentary upon it. And lie luvs- bcciv followed by cvciy founder of an oithodox sect in India, each of whom has wiiltcn a commentary on the Gila.
Tlie Upanrshads are many, and said to be one hundred and eight, but some- declaie them to be still huger in niHiiber. Some of them aic evidently of a much later date, one, for- instance, called the Allopani.shad, in' which Allah is pi aised, and Mahomet is called the Rajasulla. I have been told tluat this was written dining the reign of Akbar, to biing the Hindus and Mahommedans logethei, and sometimes they got hold of some word, as Allah, or Ilia in the Samhilas, and made an Uiianisliad on It. So in this Allopanishad, Mahomet is the Rajasulla, whatever that may mean. Thcie are othci sectarian Upanisliads of the same species, whfeh you find to be enliiely modern, and it has been so easy to wiite them, seeing that this langira,ge of the Samhita portion of the Vedas is so arclwic that ihcie is no grammar to it. Years- ago I had an idea of studying the grammar of the Vedas, ami I began with alf earnestness to study Panrni and the Mahabhashya, but to* my surpri.se 1 found that the best pail of the Veche giammar consists only of exceptions to rtries. A rule is made, and after that comes a statement in tlie Vedas, — “ Ttws rule will be an excep- tion.’' So you see what an amount of hberty there is for anybody to write tmy- Ihing, the only safeguard being the dictionary of Ydslca. Still, iiv this you> will find, for the most part, but a large number of synonyms. Given all that, Im>cv easy it IS to write any nunrber of Upanishads you please-. Just have a little knowledge of Sanskrit, enough to make words look like the old archaic woids, and you- have no* fear of grammar. Then you biing in RajasullUy or rwiy other SfA/a you- like.^ In that way many Upanishads have been manufactured,, ami, I anv told- that, tlmt is being" done even now. In some parts of India, I am perfectly cetlain, they are trying to manufacture such Upanishads, among the diffeient sects. But among the Ui>ani- shads are those, which, on the face of them, bear the evidence of genuineness, and these have been taken up by the great commentators and commented upon, especiall/ those which have been taken up by Sankara, followed by Ramanuja, and all the rest.
There are one or two more ideas with legard to the Upanishads which I want to bring to your notice, foi these are an ocean of knowledge, and to talk, about the LECTURES-FROM COLOMBO TO ALMORA Upanishads, even by an incompetent person like myself takes years, and not one lecture only. I want, therefore, to bring to your notice one or two points in the study of the Upanishads. In the fiist place, they are the most wonderful poems in the world. If you read the Samhita portion of the Vedas, you now and then find passages of most marvellous beauty. For instance, the famous Sloka which describes Chaos — ffif “ When daikncss was hidden in darkness,” so on it goes. One reads and feels the wondeiful sublimity of the poetry. Do you mark this, that outside of India, and inside also, there have been attempts at painting the sublime, But outside, it has always been the infinite in the muscles, the external world, the infinite of matter, or of space. When Milton or Dante, or any other great Euiopean poet, either ancient or modern, wants to paint a picture of the Infinite, he liies to soar outside, to make you feel the Infinite thiough the muscles. That attempt has been made heie also. You find it in the Samhitas, the Infinite of exten- sion, most marvellously painted and placed before the readers, such as has been done nowhere else. Mark that one sentence Tama tuti tama^i) gudham^zxiCi the description of darkness by tluee poets. Take our own Kalidasa— “ Darkness which can be penetiated with the point of a needle”; then INIilton — “ No light but rather darkness visible,” but come now to the Upanishad,“Darkness was covering dark- ness,” “ Darkness was hidden in daikness.” We who live in the tropics can under- stand it, the sudden outbuist of the monsoon, when in a moment, the horizon becomes darkened, and clouds become covered with moie and more rolling black clouds. So on, the poem goes, but yet, in the Samhita portion, all these attempts arc e.stcrnal. Like everywhere else, the attempts at finding the solution of the great problems of life have been through the external wojld. Just as the Greek mind, or the modem Fuiopean mind wants to find the solution of life and of all the sacred problems of Being by searching into the e.xternal world, so also did our foiefathcrs, and just as the Europeans failed, they failed also. But the Westerns never made n move more, they remained there, they failed in the search for the solution of the great problems of life and death in the external world, and theie they remained, stranded 5 our foiefathcrs also found it impossible, but woie bolder in dcclaiing the Utter helplessness of the senses to find the solution. Nowhere else was the answer better put than in the Upanishad. I “ From whence the word comes back reflected by the mind,” ^ ^ ^ I Thetc the eye cannot go, nor can speech reach.” There arc vaiious sentences which declaicd the utter helplessness of the senses, but they did not stop there; they fell back upon the internal nature of man, they went to get the answer from their own soul, they became introspective; they gave up external nature as a failure, as- nothing could be done there, as no hope, no answer, could be found; they discovered tliat dull, dead matter would not give them truth, and they fell back upon the shining soul of man, and theio, the answer was found, “ Know this Atman alone ” they de- clared, “ give up all other vain words,” and hear no other. In the Atman they found the solution — the greatest of all atmans, the God, the Lord of this Universe, Jiis relation to the atman of man, our duty to Him, and through that our relation to each oiherr And herein you find the most sublime poetry in the world. No more Is the attempt made to paint this Atman in the language of matter. Nay, even for It they have given up all positive language, No moie is there attempt to come to the senses tQ give them the itlea pf the Infinite, no moie \$ there an external, dull, THE VEDANTA IN ALL ITS PHASES