Especially in the ruminations of the authors ascribable to the Neo-Vedanta current, the elaboration of a discourse on "religion" seems to significantly characterize the history of modern Indian thought and forms the basis of the confrontation with the West.
di Claudius Capo
The meeting between India and Europe it was also the encounter between tradition and modernity. According to Willem Halbfass for modern Indians dealing with the West is not a matter of choice or preference, but a historical situation with which to confront. The cumbersome European presence has exposed Indian culture to completely new categories of thought. This unprecedented exposure generated various forms of responses that led to the birth of modern Indian thought and contributed to self-representations and representations of Hinduism. tout court. The elaboration of a discourse on religion seems to significantly characterize the history of modern Indian thought and forms the basis of the confrontation with the West.
The term "religion", as we will see later, represents a category by which European thought is expressed - especially in the last phases of its history, surprisingly foreign to the Indian tradition of gods Ṛṣi. However, meeting - again - Europe at the dawn of the nineteenth century, India will be called to confront it. The dialectic on religion will be placed at the center of a very complex “hermeneutic situation” which will be decisive for the formation of modern Indian thought. In the present essay we will try to observe how "religion" is meant in neo-Vedānta, and the relationship that derives from the comparison with tradition and with other religions.
Paul Hacker, in a broad classification, he divided modern Indian thought and its attitude in response to the West into "Neo-Hinduism" and "survivor of traditional Hinduism". These represent the two main trends of the Indian intellectual landscape, two ways of relating to tradition meeting Europe in the XNUMXth century. What distinguishes them is the different way in which tradition is appealed and the degree of receptivity to the ideas of modernity. The two categories elaborated by Hacker are not mutually exclusive and are not always clearly distinguishable, the possibility that these interpenetrate and overlap in often new forms, clearly makes it difficult to observe them in a static way.
According to Halbfass, the terms “neo-Vedānta” and “neo-Hinduism” refer to “the adoption of Western concepts and standards and the willingness to reinterpret traditional ideas in the light of these new imported and imposed ways of thinking”. The neo-Vedānta marks a new interpretative phase in the history of India that originates from the encounter with modernity, demonstrating the incredible plasticity of India itself. If on the one hand the neo-Vedānta re-elaborates interpretative strands present in the Indian tradition, on the other hand it appears undeniable as the primary inspiration of various ideas-forces - such as that of religion above all - derives from an ideological field other.
Halbfass in India and Europe has repeatedly argued that the apologetics of neo-vedāntin thinkers tends to present Western ideas as pre-existing and contained - albeit in a different form - within the tradition ofAdvaita Vedanta. In the neo-Vedānta, in fact, it will be affirmed the idea that the highest Western values are actually not foreign to Indian civilization, and that this would already have known them in their purest and most original form, albeit in different ways. It seems that in the complex hermeneutic circle between India and Europe, many ideas touted as authentic and internal to tradition are rather indebted in varying degrees to Western categories of thought.
A resounding example is given by the "religion". This, while holding a central position in neo-Vedānta thought, represents an exquisitely European category that is not present in the Indian tradition. How will it argue Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay in his Letters on Hinduismin examining the vast written literature of India, one will not find - if not precisely in modern writings - any mention of such a "Hindu religion"; Bankim will even go so far as to deny the relevance of the term "religion" to Hinduism.
For "religion" the Indian people had not developed any conception as there was no differentiation (Ausdifferenzierung) from other semantic fields of thought that made it a separate entity. In this regard, and for obvious reasons, the isolation of the religious component has a mere ideal and dialectical validity, since in reality we always find it mixed and intertwined among the other various components of Indian thought. Halbfass tells us that the term "religion" has channeled the reaction of the Indians in two directions: first, towards a self-definition and a new interpretation of tradition in the name of "religion", secondly, towards a reaffirmation of Indian concepts - above all dharma e darśana - against those brought from Europe.
The attitude of the neo-Vedānta towards "religion" is an obvious example of reinterpretation of the content of tradition in the light of Western categories of thought. The twist to which the term "religion" is subjected in the formulations of neo-vedāntin thinkers such as Vivekananda, is evidently very strong: universality and inclusiveness they become its fundamental components, so much so as to overshadow the doctrinal and theological content. It seems evident that this conceptualization of the term "religion" is indebted to the irruption, in the Indian cultural context, of modern philosophical currents, just as it seems equally evident that neo-vedāntin thinkers mount from European categories to operate on tradition. Indeed, the introduction of European means of orientation mediates a new appropriation of the original teachings of the tradition. These means, for neo-vedāntin thinkers, would be able to re-emerge the potential of the Indian tradition, without however adding anything.
Despite these difficulties, neo-vedāntin thinkers make religion one of their centers. This is identified as "The highest plane of human thought and life". The neo-Vedānta is presented as "Religion in its deepest and most universal meaning". This, in the matter of "religion", aims to investigate the facts of human life, and not only the phenomenal ones, but also the more profound ones inherent to the activity of the spirit. Religion takes the form of an effort to reveal the most intimate reality of the human essence and enter into constant relationship with it.
«We are like children by the sea trying to fill our shells with sea water. While we cannot drain the waters of the abyss by means of our shells, every drop we try to collect in our tiny shells is part of the authentic waters. Our intellectual representations differ simply because they highlight different facets of the one central reality. "
In these words of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan the religious ideal of the neo-Vedānta and the relationship it has with religions in general is metaphorically summarized. Radhakrisnan claims that religion consists of one common search for "authentic waters". This research culminates in the experience and intuition of reality (anubhava). For Radhakrisnan theunity of spirit what we observe in all religions is this tension towards research, the forms in which this is organized are not sufficient to determine a "distance" between religions.
Although religions, in their heterogeneity, are all considered equally valid as representations of experiences of the divine, a special place is reserved for Vedānta. This authorizes us to think that the neo-Vedānta assumes one meta-religious position and that it presents itself as "Ultimate explanation" on the essence of religion. A sort of underlying "religion" that somehow explains and allows us to understand other religions.
The inclusiveness expressed by the neo-vedāntin thinkers proclaims on the one hand the truth and goodness of every religion - all considered valid ways of access to the divine, and on the other it emphasizes the first fruits of Indian spiritual wisdom, since the foundation of reality last is made to coincide with non-dualism of the metaphysics of Vedānta. In this sense, the neo-Vedānta avoids the equal confrontation with the plurality of other religions and assumes the role of "Center of all religions". To conclude with an icastic image, we do not believe it is out of place to express the relationship between the neo-Vedānta and the other religions as a passage contained in the Bṛhadāranyaka Upaniṣad which states:
«As all the spokes are stuck in the hub and in the circle of the wheel, so in this Ātman all creatures, all gods, all worlds, all vital faculties, all individuals are stuck. "
