9. For all time my head shall bend low in reverence wherever I see greatness, broadness of heart, and holiness

(Translated from Bengali)

BARANAGORE,

17th Aug., 1889.
DEAR SIR,

You have expressed embarrassment in your last favour for being addressed reverentially. But the blame attaches not to me but to your own excellent qualities. I wrote in one letter before that from the way I feel attracted by your lofty virtues, it seems we had some affinity from previous births. I make no distinction as to householder or Sannyāsin in this, that for all time my head shall bend low in reverence wherever I see greatness, broadness of heart, and holiness—Shāntih! Shāntih! Shāntih! My prayer is that among the many people embracing Sannyāsa nowadays, greedy of honour, posing renunciation for the sake of a living, and fallen off from the ideal on both sides, may one in a lakh at least become high-souled like you! To you my Brahmin fellow-disciples who have heard of your noble virtues tender their best prostrations.

About one amongst my several questions to which you sent your replies, my wrong idea is corrected. For this I shall remain indebted to you for ever. Another of these questions was: Whether Āchārya Shankara gives any conclusion regarding caste based on Gunas as mentioned in Puranās like the Mahābhārata. If he does, where is it to be found? I have no doubt that according to the ancient view in this country, caste was hereditary, and it cannot also be doubted that sometimes the Shudras used to be oppressed more than the helots among the Spartans and the negroes among the Americans! As for myself, I have no partiality for any party in this caste question, because I know it is a social law and is based on diversity of Guna and Karma. It also means grave harm if one bent on going beyond Guna and Karma cherishes in mind any caste distinctions. In these matters, I have got some settled ideas through the grace of my Guru but, if I come to know of your views, I may just confirm some points or rectify others in them. One doesn’t have honey dripping unless one pokes at the hive—so I shall put you some more questions; and looking upon me as ignorant and as a boy, please give proper replies without taking any offence.

1. Is the Mukti, which the Vedānta-Sutras speaks of, one and the same with the Nirvāna of the Avadhuta-Gitā and other texts?

2. What is really meant by Nirvāna if, according to the aphorism, “Without the function of creating etc.”¹ (ibid., IV. iv. 7), none can attain to the fullest Godhead?

3. Chaitanya-deva is said to have told Sārvabhauma at Puri, “I understand the Sutras (aphorisms) of Vyāsa, they are dualistic; but the commentator makes them, monistic, which I don’t understand.” Is this true? Tradition says, Chaitanya-deva had a dispute with Prakāshānanda Sarasvati on the point, and Chaitanya-deva won. One commentary by Chaitanya-deva was rumoured to have been existing in Prakāshānanda’s Math.

4. In the Tantra, Āchārya Shankara has been called a crypto-Buddhist; views expressed in Prajnāparamitā, the Buddhist Māhāyana book, perfectly tally with the Vedāntic views propounded by the Āchārya. The author of Panchadashi also says, “What we call Brahman is the same truth as the Shunya of the Buddhist.” What does all this mean?

5. Why has no foundation for the authority of the Vedas been adduced in the Vedānta-Sutras? First, it has been said that the Vedas are the authority for the existence of God, and then it has been argued that the authority for the Vedas is the text: “It is the breath of God.” Now, is this statement not vitiated by what in Western logic is called an argument in a circle?

6. The Vedānta requires of us faith, for conclusiveness cannot be reached by mere argumentation. Then why, has the slightest flaw, detected in the position of the schools of Sānkhya and Nyāya, been overwhelmed with a fusillade of dialectics? In whom, moreover, are we to put our faith? Everybody seems to be mad over establishing his own view; if, according to Vyāsa, even the great Muni Kapila, “the greatest among perfected souls”², is himself deeply involved in error, then who would say that Vyāsa may not be so involved in a greater measure? Did Kapila fail to understand the Vedas?

7. According to the Nyāya, “Shabda or Veda (the criterion of truth), is the word of those who have realised the highest”; so the Rishis as such are omniscient. Then how are they proved, according to the Surya-siddhānta, to be ignorant of such simple astronomical truths? How can we accept their intelligence as the refuge to ferry us across the ocean of transmigratory existence, seeing that they speak of the earth as triangular, of the serpent Vāsuki as the support of the earth and so on?

8. If in His acts of creation God is dependent on good and evil Karmas, then what does it avail us to worship Him? There is a fine song of Nareshchandra, where occurs the following: “If what lies in one’s destiny is to happen anyhow, O Mother, then what good all this invoking by the holy name of Durgā?”

9. True, it is improper to hold many texts on the same subject to be contradicted by one or two. But why then are the long-continued customs of Madhuparka³ and the like repealed by one or two such texts as, “The horse sacrifice, the cow sacrifice, Sannyāsa, meat-offerings in Shrāddha”, etc.? If the Vedas are eternal, then what are the meaning and justification of such specifications as “this rule of Dharma is for the age of Dvāpara,” “this for the age of Kali”, and so forth?

10. The same God who gives out the Vedas becomes Buddha again to annul them; which of these dispensations is to be obeyed? Which of these remains authoritative, the earlier or the later one?

11. The Tantra says, in the Kali-Yuga the Veda-Mantras are futile. So which behest of God, the Shiva, is to be followed?

12. Vyāsa makes out in the Vedānta-Sutras that it is wrong to worship the tetrad of divine manifestation, Vāsudeva, Sankarshana, etc., and again that very Vyāsa expatiates on the great merits of that worship in the Bhāgavata! Is this Vyāsa a madman?

I have many doubts besides these, and, hoping to have them dispelled from my mind through your kindness, I shall lay them before you in future. Such questions cannot be all set forth except in a personal interview; neither can as much satisfaction be obtained as one expects to. So I have a mind to lay before you all these facts when presenting myself to you, which I expect will be very soon, by the grace of the Guru.

I have heard it said that without inner progress in the practice of religion, no true conclusion can be reached concerning these matters, simply by means of reasoning; but satisfaction, at least to some extent, seems to be necessary at the outset.

Yours etc.,
VIVEKANANDA.

Notes

1. “जगद्व्यापारवर्जं प्रकरणादसंनिहितत्वाच्च” —“Having regard to the context which ascribes the threefold function relating to the universe only to God, and because the fact of their conscious mental distinction comes between that function and their liberated state, we have to conclude that the state of final liberation or Mukti in the case of men is devoid of the capacity to create, preserve, and dissolve the universe.” So if this capacity is reserved only for God, what is meant, Swamiji asks, by saying that in Nirvāna the human merges completely into the Divine? We must remember that many of the questions here reflect the intellectual stages through which Swamiji was reaching out in those days towards that plentitude of Vedantic wisdom which was his in future years. We also find a glimpse of those processes through which his intellect was growing towards a fuller understanding of our ancient scriptures and customs. ↩
2. Kapila is so spoken of in Shvetāshvatara Upanishad, V.2. In his commentary of Vedānta-Sutras, II. i. 1, Shankara doubts the identity of the Vedic Kapila with the Sānkhyan Kapila. ↩
3. Madhuparka was a Vedic ceremony, usually in honour of guests, in which a respectful offering was to be made consisting, among other dainties, of beef. The text which Swamiji partially quotes forbids such food. The full text means that in the Kali-Yuga the following five customs are to be forsaken: The horse sacrifice, cow-killing ceremonies, meat-offerings in Shrāddha, Sannyāsa, and maintaining the line of progeny through the husband’s younger brother in case of failure through the husband. ↩