{"id":67,"date":"2018-04-04T04:56:57","date_gmt":"2018-04-04T04:56:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bloggingsouthasianpublications.com\/blog\/?p=67"},"modified":"2018-04-04T04:56:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-04T04:56:57","slug":"debating-vivekananda-a-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloggingsouthasianpublications.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/04\/debating-vivekananda-a-reader\/","title":{"rendered":"Debating Vivekananda: A Reader"},"content":{"rendered":"

Debating Vivekananda: A Reader<\/strong><\/em>, ed. A. Raghuramaraju, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 514 + xxviii<\/p>\n

This is an outstanding collection of nineteen papers, including a few early accounts of Vivekananda but mostly more recent scholarly analysis. Vivekananda remains not only a significant historical figure but a significant cultural force.<\/p>\n

The essays are in seven sections, with a significant introduction by the editor who states that \u201cThe essays collected in this volume on Swami Vivekananda have a two-fold task: to arrive at a rigorous evaluation of Vivekananda as emerging from different debates and to take stock of what is available\u201d (xi).<\/p>\n

The first section, \u201cThe Extent and Limits of Impact,\u201d has three brief historical papers by Brajendranath Seal (a classmate of Vivekananda, written in 1907), Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Jawaharlal Nehru and Prabha Dixit. Dixit\u2019s excellent paper probes the political thought of Vivekananda, whose views were not well formulated and left very little impact; \u201che was a protagonist of political and economic status quo and a defender of traditional culture\u201d (38).<\/p>\n

The second section is on \u201cPractical Vedanta,\u201d although other papers also look at this key aspect of Vivekananda\u2019s heritage. Essays by Paul Hacker, Wilhelm Halbfass and Krishna Prakash Gupta make up this section. Hacker is critical of Vivekananda\u2019s neo-Vedantic ethics, which he sees as borrowed from the West and not true to Vedantic sources. Halbfass\u2019 paper is a response to Hacker,and Gupta provides a larger perspective on the whole question of Vivekananda borrowing from the West, showing the complexity of Vivekananda in his own Indian contexts as well as in relating to the West.<\/p>\n

Section three on \u201cRamakrishna Paramahansa\u201d is one of the most stimulating in the book. It opens with the longest and perhaps the best paper in this collection, Sumit Sarkar\u2019s 83 pages of analysis of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda and their tenuous relationship. The differences between Ramakrishna\u2019s Dakshineswar Temple and Vivekananda\u2019s Belur Math, on opposite banks of the vast Bhagirathi River, is illustrative of how different the two men were. Carl Olson\u2019s essay which follows presents a rather pedantic comparison with the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, but is also insightful into Vivekananda\u2019s transformation of Ramakrishna\u2019s ideas and practice.<\/p>\n

Section four is on \u201cSecularism,\u201d is a reprint of four papers from the journal Quest<\/em> from 1973. Krishna Prasad Gupta\u2019s core paper is a consideration of religion and secularism in Vivekananda. This draws responses from Ashish Nandy and Nirmal Mukherjee followed by Gupta\u2019s response to his respondents. Gupta points out Vivekanand\u2019s pragmatism and rationalism. Nandy suggests that Vivekananda kept a religious focus due to the times in which he lived; Gandhi a generation later had a far more strongly political focus.<\/p>\n

Section five is on \u201cFundamentalism,\u201d two papers by Nemai Sadhan Bose and Jyotirmaya Sharma that show how poorly Vivekananda fits the mold of modern fundamentalist Hinduism. Sharma suggests that \u201che [Vivekananda] remained torn between contending notions of Hinduism all his life, some of which were his creation\u201d (373).<\/p>\n

Section six on \u201cWomen\u201d has papers by Indira Chowdhury and Vrinda Dalmiya. Gender is often discussed in the book as Vivekananda is famous for his appeal for muscular masculinity in response to British rule, and Ramakrishna\u2019s extreme reactions to femininity are outlined. Dalmiya compares love in Vivekananda\u2019s thought with that of modern feminists.<\/p>\n

Section seven is on \u201cScience,\u201d with two rather technical but interesting papers. D. H. Killingley looks at Vivekananda\u2019s attempt to show that scientific evolution was first taught in the Yoga Sutras, which involved various ways of stretching his evidence. Anantanand Rambachan more broadly considers Vivekananda\u2019s use of science to support his teachings, particularly with a focus on samadhi<\/em>; like Killingley, Rambachan finds Vivekananda\u2019s presentation to be lacking in numerous ways.<\/p>\n

There is surprisingly little repetition in a book with so many authors on roughly the same topic. There are certainly disagreements, which enlivens the study. Vivekananda left behind a remarkably mixed legacy; he manipulated his guru Ramakrishna\u2019s life and message and likewise himself has become a symbol manipulated for various causes. This book is highly recommended reading for sorting out the many conundrums and incongruities in the life and thought of a remarkable figure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Debating Vivekananda: A Reader, ed. A. Raghuramaraju, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 514 + xxviii This is an outstanding collection of nineteen papers, including a few early accounts of Vivekananda but mostly more recent scholarly analysis. Vivekananda remains not only a significant historical figure but a significant cultural force. The essays are in … Continue reading Debating Vivekananda: A Reader<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[78,76,77,75],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-reviews","tag-fundamentalism","tag-practical-vedanta","tag-ramakrishna","tag-vivekananda"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3DyM-15","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsouthasianpublications.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsouthasianpublications.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsouthasianpublications.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsouthasianpublications.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsouthasianpublications.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsouthasianpublications.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68,"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsouthasianpublications.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/68"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsouthasianpublications.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsouthasianpublications.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloggingsouthasianpublications.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}