A Lecture on Vedanta Philosophy: By Swami Vivekananda

Greetings:

 

The enclosed lecture by Swami Vivekananda (Delivered at Harwad

Philosophical Society in 1896) is a general introduction to the Western

audience. It is quite likely that some may disagree with his view

points on certain statements. For example, he states, "The Vedanta and

the Sankhya philosophy are very little opposed to each other." However,

these two philosophical systems have significant differences on several

key issues. We can fully understand the context of this lecture and the

focus was more on simplicity for understanding and definitely not on

details!

 

Ram Chandran

 

 

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A Lecture on Vedanta Philosophy: By Swami Vivekananda

 

Ignorance or Maya, as it is called, is the cause of all this

phenomenon--the Absolute, the Unchangeable, being taken as the

manifested universe.

 

What Vedanta Is

 

The Vedanta philosophy, as it is generally called at the present day,

really comprises all the various sects that now exist in India. Thus

there have been various interpretations, and to my mind they have been

progressive, beginning with the dualistic or Dvaita and ending with the

non-dualistic or Advaita. The word Vedanta literally means the end of

the Vedas--the Vedas being the scriptures of the Hindus.

 

Sometimes in the West by the Vedas are meant only the hymns and rituals

of the Vedas. But at the present time these parts have almost gone out

of use, and usually by the word Vedas in India, the Vedanta is meant.

All our commentators, when they want to quote a passage from the

scriptures, as a rule, quote from the Vedanta, which has another

technical name with the commentators--the Shrutis.

 

Now, all the books known by the name of the Vedanta were not entirely

written after the ritualistic portions of the Vedas. For instance, one

of them--the Isha Upanishad--forms the fortieth chapter of the

Yajur-veda, that being one of the oldest parts of the Vedas. There are

other Upanishads which form portions of the Brahmanas or ritualistic

writings; and the rest of the Upanishads are independent, not comprised

in any of the Brahmanas or other parts of the Vedas; but there is no

reason to suppose that they were entirely independent of other parts,

for, as we well know, many of these have been lost entirely and many of

the Brahmanas have become extinct. So it is quite possible that the

independent Upanishads belonged to some Brahmanas, which in course of

time fell into disuse, while the Upanishads remained. These Upanishads

are also called Forest Books or Aranyakas. The Vedanta, then,

practically forms the scriptures of the Hindus, and all systems of

philosophy that are orthodox have to take it as their foundation. Even

the Buddhists and Jains, when it suits their purpose, will quote a

passage from the Vedanta as authority. All schools of philosophy in

India, although they claim to have been based upon the Vedas, took

different names for their systems. The last one, the system of Vyasa,

took its stand upon the doctrines of the Vedas more than the previous

systems did, and made an attempt to harmonise the preceding

philosophies, such as the Sankhya and the Nyaya, with the doctrines of

the Vedanta. So it is especially called the Vedanta philosophy; and the

Sutras or aphorisms of Vyasa are, in modern India, the basis of the

Vedanta philosophy. Again, these Sutras of Vyasa have been variously

explained by different commentators.

 

In general there are three sorts of commentators in India now; from

their interpretations have arisen three systems of philosophy and sects.

One is dualistic, or Dvaita; a second is the qualified non-dualistic, or

Vishishtadvaita; and a third is the non-dualistic, or Advaita. Of these

the dualistic and the qualified non-dualistic include the largest number

of the Indian people. The non-dualists are comparatively few in number.

Now I will try to lay before you the ideas that are contained in all

these three sects; but before going on, I will make one remark--that

these different Vedanta systems have one common psychology, and that is,

the psychology of the Sankhya system. The Sankhya psychology is very

much like the psychologies of the Nyaya and Vaisheshika systems,

differing only in minor particulars. All the Vedantists agree on three

points. They believe in God, in the Vedas as revealed, and in cycles. We

have already considered the Vedas. The belief about cycles is as

follows: All matter throughout the universe is the outcome of one primal

matter called Akasha; and all force, whether gravitation, attraction or

repulsion, or life, is the outcome of one primal force called Prana.

Prana acting on Akasha is creating or projecting the universe.

 

At the beginning of a cycle, Akasha is motionless, unmanifested. Then

Prana begins to act, more and more, creating grosser and grosser forms

out of Akasha--plants, animals, men, stars, and so on. After an

incalculable time this evolution ceases and involution begins,

everything being resolved back through finer and finer forms into the

original Akasha and Prana, when a new cycle follows. Now there is

something beyond Akasha and Prana. Both can be resolved into a third

thing called Mahat--the Cosmic Mind. This Cosmic Mind does not create

Akasha and Prana, but changes itself into them.

 

End Notes

 

{1}The Vedas are divided mainly into two portions: the Karma-kanda and

the Jnana-kanda–the work-portion and the knowledge-portion. To the

Karma-kanda belong the famous hymns and the rituals of Brahmanas. Those

books which treat of spiritual matters apart from ceremonials are called

Upanishads. The Upanishads belong to the Jnana-kanda, or

knowledge-portion. It is not that all the Upanishads were composed as a

separate portion of the Vedas. Some are interspersed among the rituals,

and at least one is in the Samhita, or hymn-portion. Sometimes the term

Upanishad is applied to books which are not included in the Vedas–e.g.

the Gita; but as a rule it is applied to the philosophical treatises

scattered through the Vedas. These treatises have been collected, and

are called the Vedanta.

 

{2}The term Shruti meaning "that which is heard" – though including the

whole of the Vedic literature, is chiefly applied by the commentators to

the Upanishads.

 

{3}The Upanishads are said to be one hundred and eight in number. Their

dates cannot be fixed with certainty–only it is certain that they are

older than the Buddhistic movement. Though some of the minor Upanishads

contain allusions indicating a later date, yet that does not prove the

later date of the treatise, as in very many cases in Sanskrit

literature, the substance of a book, though of very ancient date,

receives a coating, as it were, of later events in the hands of the

sectarians, to exalt their particular sect.

 

{4}The commentaries are of various sorts such as the Bhashya, Tika,

Tippani, Churni, etc., of which all except the Bhashya are explanations

of the text or difficult words in the text. The Bhashya is not properly

a commentary, but the elucidation of a system of philosophy out of

texts, the object being not to explain the words, but to bring out a

philosophy. So the writer of a Bhashya expands his own system, taking

texts as authorities for his system. There have been various

commentaries on the Vedanta. Its doctrines found their final expression

in the philosophical aphorisms of Vyasa. This treatise, called the

Uttara Mimamsa, is the standard authority of Vedantism–nay, is the most

authoritative exposition of the Hindu scriptures. The most antagonistic

sects have been compelled, as it were, to take up the texts of Vyasa,

and harmonise them with their own philosophy. Even in very ancient times

the commentators on the Vedanta philosophy formed themselves into the

three celebrated Hindu sects of dualists, qualified non-dualists, and

non-dualists. The ancient commentaries are perhaps lost; but they have

been revived in modern times by the post-Buddhistic commentators,

Shankara, Ramanuja, and Madhva. Shankara revived the non-dualistic form;

Ramanuja, the qualified non-dualistic form of the ancient commentator

Bodhayana; and Madhva, the dualistic form. In India the sects differ

mainly in their philosophy; the difference in rituals is slight, the

basis of their philosophy and religion being the same.

 

{5}The word which is "creation" in the English language is in Sanskrit

exactly "projection," because there is no sect in India which believes

in creation as it is regarded in the West as something coming out of

nothing. What we mean by creation is projection of that which already

existed.

 

{6}The Vedanta and the Sankhya philosophy are very little opposed to

each other. The Vedanta God developed out of the Sankhya's Purusha. All

the systems take up the psychology of the Sankhya. Both the Vedanta and

the Sankhya believe in the infinite soul; only the Sankhya believes

there are many souls. According to the Sankhya, this universe does not

require any explanation from outside. The Vedanta believes that there is

the one Soul, which appears as many; and we build on the Sankhya's

analysis.

 

Source: A lecture on the Vedanta Philosophy delivered by the Swami

Vivekananda at the Graduate Philosophical Society of Harvard University,

U.S.A., on March 25, 1896. (Vol. I, pp. 357 ff.).