Journey of the Upanishads to the West -still denied its righful place

Journey of the Upanishads to the West
Review Article Dr Anil Baran Ray
Professor of Political Science University of Burdwan

Swami Tathagatananda. The Vedanta Society of New York,
34 West 71st Street, New York, NY 10023. 2002.
E-mail: vedantasoc@xxxxxxx 599 pp. Rs 200.
Available at Advaita Ashrama, 5 Dehi Entally Road, Kolkata 700 014. E-
mail: advaita@xxxxxxxx

Swami Tathagatananda, a senior monk of the Ramakrishna Order and
spiritual head of the Vedanta Society of New York, who has impressed
us with publications such as Meditations on Sri Ramakrishna and Swami
Vivekananda (1993) and The Vedanta Society of New York (2000), has now
come up with a gem of a book, very appropriately titled Journey of the
Upanishads to the West, detailing Western scholars' contribution to
the dissemination of the Truth that was first discovered by the
ancient rishis of India...

As regards Greece, he refutes the popular notion that with Alexander's
invasion in 326-27 BC, India became open to all sorts of influences
from Greece, and shows that long before Alexander's invasion,
Pythagorus had perhaps travelled to India in the sixth century BC and
that his theory of the harmony of the spheres reflected the 'esoteric
use of numbers in the Vedas and the Upanishads'. (11)

Further, Socrates (469-399 BC) had occasion to meet an Indian
philosopher in course of roaming on the streets of Athens and was
greatly moved by the latter's Upanishadic observation that humans -
the relative - could be properly understood only in the light of an
understanding of the Divine - the Absolute.

The Indian influence is most discernible in the writings of Plato. His
'myth of the cave' reflecting the Vedantic doctrine of maya, his
concept of nous showing its similarity to the Upanishadic concept of
Atman and his idea of omniscience, somewhat similar to jnana yoga, the
way of knowledge in the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita - all indicate
the influence of Indian Upanishadic and religious thought on Plato.
Indeed, Max Muller was startled to note the similarity between Plato's
language and that of the Upanishads. And Urwick went to the length of
observing that most of Plato's Republic was a paraphrasing of Indian
ideas...
The crucial initial role in bringing about the expansion of India's
spiritual culture to France was played in the year 1671 by a French
traveller to India by the name of Francis Bernier, who brought to
France in that year the Persian translation of fifty Upanishads made
by Prince Dara Shukoh in 1656. The French interest in India's
spiritual literature, awakened by this event, received a boost when
Voltaire received the gift of a copy of the Yajur Veda in 1760, which
he regarded as the most precious 'for which the West was ever indebted
to the East'. The distinguished French philosopher Victor Cousin
(1792-1867) poured his heart's reverence for the Vedanta philosophy of
India by acknowledging it as the highest philosophy that mankind had
ever produced...
Among the German scholars who played the pivotal role in promoting the
journey of the Upanishads to the West, Friedrich Von Schelling
(1775-1854), Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Friedrich Max Muller
(1823-1900) and Paul Deussen (1854-1919) deserve special mention.
Schelling's admiration for the Upanishads followed from his study of
the Oupnek'hat. He was so charmed by the ideas of the Upanishads that
he wanted their widest possible circulation in Germany and to that end
he set Max Muller to the task of translating a portion of the
Upanishads.

Schopenhauer, whose The World as Will and Idea was influenced by the
Chandogya Upanishad, held that the Upanishads were the most beneficial
and elevating study that the world had ever produced and that 'it has
been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death'...
The services that England gave to the cause of Indic studies through
scholars such as Sir William Jones (1746-94) and others that followed
him were glorious by all means. Jones founded the Asiatic Society in
Calcutta in 1784. Under his able guidance, Indic studies in general
and Vedic studies in particular received an organized focus and
direction. 'One correct version of any celebrated Hindu book would be
of greater value than all the dissertations or essays that could be
composed on the same subject,' stated Jones, who also asserted that
'without detracting from the "never-fading laurels of Newton" the
whole of Newton's theology and part of his philosophy were to be found
in the Vedas and other Indian works.' Known for his 6-volume Works,
Jones' English translation of the Ishavasya Upanishad was also the
first translation of any Upanishad into a European language.

Sir Charles Wilkins (1750-1836), known for his memorable contributions
to the research of the Asiatic Society, was the first to bring out a
translation of the Gita into a European language. 'The essence of the
Hindu thought, as elegantly and concisely put forth in the Bhagavad
Gita, was disseminated throughout all of Europe thanks to Wilkins'
translation...
The popular notion is that Vedanta made its journey to America for the
first time through Swami Vivekananda in 1893 with the message he
broadcast at the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago in September
1893. But the ground for the reception of such a message was prepared
during the nineteenth century by the American transcendentalists such
as Ralph W Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman. The
transcendentalists' basic message that life was not limited to the
five senses and that the individual ego was to be transcended for
knowing truth, ultimately went back to the Upanishads. Emerson, the
first prominent American to embrace Indian thought, received the gift
of a copy of the Bhagavadgita (the English translation of Charles
Wilkins) from Carlyle and made this most inspiring book his lifelong
companion. Among the Upanishads it was the Katha Upanishad that
influenced him most. His comments on the 'Over-Soul' showed his
awareness of the Upanishadic concept of the Paramatman. His poems 'The
Celestial Love' and 'Wood-Notes' reflected his knowledge of the
immanence of the supreme Being. Above all, his poem 'Brahma' indicated
his profound harmony with the Indian scriptures. Indeed, in this poem
'American Vedantism', as Tathagatananda puts it, 'reached its highest
level'. (431)

Thoreau stood on an equal footing with Emerson as an avatara of Indian
wisdom in the United States. By his own acknowledgement, he acquired
such wisdom from his study of the Vedas. As he said, 'What extracts
from the Vedas I have read fall on me like a light of a higher and
purer luminary.' (441) Ex Oriente Lux ('light from the East') was the
proclaimed motto of Thoreau's life.

Whitman's compositions, especially his Leaves of Grass, bear such
strains of Upanishadic message - transcendence of the ego, immanence
of God and intuitability of knowledge - that one could see very
clearly that he was very deeply influenced by the Upanishads and that
he was thoroughly seized of the oriental spirit.

Apart from the American transcendentalists, two other agencies - the
American Oriental Society, formed in Boston in 1842, and Harvard
University through the Harvard Oriental Series, started in 1891 - gave
a boost to studies of Indian wisdom in America...

The Russian interest in Vedanta began as early as when Anquetil-
Duperron was writing his Latin translation of the Upanishads,
Oupnek'hat, but became pronounced with Tolstoy's expressing his keen
interest in the Upanishads, the Bhagavadgita, the Tirukkural (a Tamil
classic) and in the spiritual literature of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami
Vivekananda. Having read Swamiji's Raja Yoga and two volumes of his
speeches and articles, Tolstoy rated Swamiji as 'India's greatest
modern philosopher' and 'placed him among the world's greatest
thinkers, along with Socrates, Rousseau and Kant'. (528)...

Swami Tathagatananda's efforts towards putting across the truth of
Vedanta and towards distilling the essence of the Upanishadic message
from the writings of scholars of six Western countries are, to say the
least, monumental. But for years of dedicated and enormously
painstaking research, documented with quotations from the works of
distinguished scholars, a work of such magnitude could not have been
produced. Swami Tathagatananda has indeed very deservingly earned the
gratitude of humanity with this work of lasting value.

http://www.uttishthata.org/2007/10/01/journey-of-the-upanishads-to-the-west/

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