VEDĀNTΑ WESTERNIZED

MENTION MUST NOW BE MADE of certain 'movements' belonging to an order of ideas more or less akin to Theosophism; in these movements, the inspiration of which was entirely Western even though they arose in India itself, an important part was played by the political influences alluded to in the preceding chapter. Their origin goes back to the first half of the nineteenth century, when Rām Mohun Roy founded the Brahma-Samāj or 'Hindu Reformed Church', the idea of which had been suggested to him by Anglican missionaries, and in which a 'religious office' was organized, closely modeled on the pattern of Protestant services. Up to that time there had never existed anything meriting the denomination of 'Hindu church' or 'Brahmanic church', for the essential point of view of the Hindu tradition and the nature of the organization corresponding to it were incompatible with such an assimilation; it marked in fact a first attempt to convert Brahmanism into a religion in the Western sense, and at the same time it showed that its promoters wished to make of their venture a religion animated by the self-same tendencies that characterize Protestantism. As was to be expected, this 'reforming' movement was warmly encouraged and supported by the British government and by British missionary societies in India; but it was too openly anti-traditional and too flatly opposed to the Hindu spirit to succeed, and people plainly took it for what it really was, an instrument of foreign domination. Furthermore, as an inevitable consequence of the introduction of 'free private judgment', the Brahma-Samāj soon split up into numerous 'churches', like Protestantism, which it came to resemble more and more, to the point of earning the designation of 'pietism'; and after many vicissitudes that it would be pointless to recount, it ended by dying out almost completely. However, the spirit that had presided over the birth of this organization did not confine itself to this one appearance, for other similar attempts were set on foot as opportunity offered, though generally with no better success; we will mention one only, the Arya-Samāj, an association founded about half a century ago by Dayānanda Saraswati, who has sometimes been spoken of as the 'Luther of India', and who was in touch with the founders of the Theosophical Society. It is noticeable that here, as in the Brahma-Samāj, the anti-traditional tendency took as its pretext a return to primitive simplicity and to the pure Vedic doctrine. In order to judge the value of this claim it is enough to note how foreign to the Veda is the 'moralism' that forms the chief concern of all these organizations; but Protestantism also claims to restore primitive Christianity in all its purity, and this point of likeness is anything but a simple coincidence. A certain cleverness in getting innovations accepted is not lacking in such an attitude, especially in a society that is strongly attached to tradition, with which it would be imprudent to make too open a break; but if the basic principles of that tradition were truly and sincerely accepted, it would follow that all developments that are logically and regularly derived from them would also be admitted; however, the so-called 'reformers' do not accept this, and thus those who possess a sense of tradition can easily see that the real deviation is in no wise to be laid to the charge of those against whom the 'reformers' level the accusation.

Rām Mohun Roy, in particular, aspired to interpret Vedānta according to his own ideas. Though he rightly stressed the conception of 'divine unity', which however no competent person had ever thought of contesting, he expressed it in terms that were much more theological than metaphysical, and in order to accommodate the doctrine to Western ways of thinking, which had also become his own, he distorted it to such an extent that he ended by reducing it to something like a mere philosophy tinged with religiosity, a kind of 'Deism' decked out in Eastern phraseology. Such an interpretation is in its spirit as far removed as possible from tradition and pure metaphysics; it represents nothing but a private theory devoid of the least authority, and it entirely ignores realization, which is the sole object of the whole doctrine. This movement became the prototype of various distortions of the Vedānta, for others were destined to arise in due course and on the invariable plea of drawing closer to the West; in every case, however, it was the East that was to bear the cost of this accommodation, to the marked detriment of doctrinal purity. It was indeed a foolish enterprise and one diametrically opposed to the intellectual interests of both civilizations; but on the whole it has produced little effect on the Eastern mind, which looks on such attempts as quite insignificant. Truly, it is not for the East to approach the West through copying its mental deviations or by yielding to the insidious but vain persuasions of the propagandists of every hue that Europe sends out to it; but it is on the contrary for the West to return, when it is able and willing, to the pure sources of intellectuality which the East, for its part, has never deserted; on that day agreement on all secondary and contingent matters will come of itself almost unsought.

To return to deformations of the Vedānta—although no one of consequence in India pays much attention to them, as we said before, some exceptions must be made in the case of persons who have a special interest in perpetrating them, but one in which intellectuality plays not the slightest part; in fact some of these deformations have arisen from purely political motives. We shall not try to describe here under what circumstances a certain usurping Mahārāja of the Shūdra caste, actuated by the desire to receive the semblance of an otherwise unobtainable traditional investiture, was led to dispossess the authentic school of Shankarāchārya and to install in its place another school, falsely displaying Shankarāchārya's name and authority and giving to its head the title of Jagad-guru or 'world instructor', which only belongs legitimately to the true spiritual successor of the founder. The new school, as was to be expected, only teaches a defective and partly heterodox doctrine; in order to adapt its expounding of Vedānta to present-day conditions, it pretends to base it on the conceptions of modern Western science, which have nothing to contribute in this field; and in fact it chiefly addresses its teachings to Westerners, even going so far as to confer on several of them the honorific title of Vedānta-Bhūshana or 'ornament of the Vedānta', a fact that is not without its own irony.

Another still more completely aberrant branch, better known in the West, is that founded by Vivekananda, the disciple of the illustrious Rāmakrishna, though unfaithful to his teaching; it has recruited its adherents mostly in America and Australia, where it runs 'missions' and 'temples'. There Vedānta has become, like Schopenhauer's conception of it, a sentimental and 'consoling' religion, with a strong dose of Protestant 'moralism'; in this degenerate form, it approaches very close to Theosophism, toward which it stands in the position of a natural ally rather than a rival or competitor. The 'evangelical' attitude assumed by this pseudo-religion has earned it a certain success, chiefly in Anglo-Saxon countries; while its inherently sentimental character is well attested by the ardor for propaganda animating its votaries; for, as might be expected, an altogether Western propensity for proselytism rages intensely in these organizations, which are Eastern in nothing but the name, apart from a few merely outward signs, calculated to interest the curious and to attract dilettantes by playing on their taste for an exoticism of the feeblest type. This so-called Vedānta, which is a product of that queer American and characteristically Protestant creation called the 'Parliament of Religions', and which pleases the West all the better the more completely it is distorted, has practically nothing left in common with the metaphysical doctrine the name of which it bears. No more time need be wasted on it; but it seemed best at least to mention its existence, in order to put people who have heard of it on their guard against possible false assimilations; as for those who have not come across these movements, it is best that they should be made aware of them, since they are not nearly so harmless as might appear at first sight.