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Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

• "Aryans" made bold attempts to solve the mystery of life and developed sophisticated civilization.


• Various other races poured into the land and desired to be assimilated as "Aryans'.


• Ascendency of 'priest-class' with the creation of maze of rituals and ceremonies. 'King-caste', which had courage and fighting spirit, acquired Knowledge and Philosophy and thus they started to resent the superior social status of 'priest-class'. A third segment of the population became 'materialists' and rejected Philosophy and Rituals both. The triangular fight between Ceremony, Philosophy, and Materialism is still on and it was the starting point for caste-system.


• Many upheavals in society brought about by Jainism, Buddhism and other sects. Rise of Krishna and his teaching, Gita; He tried to address the social problem of triangular fight by the wisdom of Advaita. But this attempt, though it opened the gates of spiritual realization for all, did not adequately address the social problem of caste-superiority. Buddhism and Vaishnavism also tried to solve this problem but till date it persists in some form or other, though the spiritual equality of all souls is accepted throughout the land.



• Until the rise of Buddhism social tensions remain; Buddhists swept away Vedic rituals, subordinated the gods and goddesses to their saints, and scrapped the idea of 'Ishwara'. Buddhists Bhikkus and Bhikkunis succeeded in spreading the religion far and wide; they also transformed the Vedic religion to a great degree.


• Collaboration between political power (represented by the Mauryas of Magadha) and spiritual power (represented by Buddhists Sanghas) paved ways for far-reaching spread of Buddhism and rise of Mauryas, the grandest empire of India.


• Buddhism's advantage was its propagation through the language of masses, its simplicity and no exclusiveness but this extreme desire to be of the people, in long run, gave rise to loss of purity and intellectual strength. The Vedic religion on the other hand being exclusive was able to maintain purity and intellectual vigour; it also benefitted from the reforms initiated by Buddhism like scrapping animal sacrifices, introduction of images, temples etc. Thus Vedic religion was ready to absorb the collapsing structure of Buddhism in India.


• Scythian invasion and conquest of Pataliputra completes the task of destruction of Buddhism in India. The new solar-worshipping rulers join hands with Brahmanical Order and Vedic religion absorbs their customs.



• After a period of wars, changing rulers and confusion, Indian masses find themselves back into the clutches of hereditary priests; in addition they are also now under the clutches of new order of exclusive monks who have utilised the Buddhist idea of organisation but lack the sympathies for masses. India is now more diversified and complex than ever before, so the task of unifying it under one umbrella is more difficult. Buddhist experiment - which is by now extinct in India - was also an attempt towards this goal.


• Buddhism's influence on almost whole of India was for long unifying but it degraded due to factors like sensual forms of worships introduced into it by other races, and now it was threatening to affect the core of Aryan civilisation. So a reaction of self-preservation came from the ancient Vedic religion in the form of Kumarila Bhatta, Shankara, and Ramanuja. Kumarila tried to revive the ancient ritual part of the Veda but was unsuccessful. Shankara stressed the knowledge portion of the Veda i.e. the Upanishads and also the Vedanta Sutras and Bhagawad-Gita. It was an intellectual success all over but was not of much help to masses as it adhered to caste-laws, gave little scope to ordinary emotions and made Sanskrit the medium of its communication. Ramanuja was great success because of most practical philosophy, utilisation of emotions for spiritual development, use of people's language as medium of communication and removing the caste bar.


• For a short period Malava empire flourished in North India with all its glory but afterwards there was nothing much to resist the incoming invasion of Muslims. In South, after Shankara and Ramanuja's work, great empires flourished and they helped maintain the ancient values and culture. When north India was under successive Muslim dominion south India almost remained free of it and was able to hold on to the culture even till today. When Moghuls tried to capture south India, Shivaji and his successors resisted them successfully and at last even the mighty Moghul empire was in tatters.


• In North Ramananda, Kabir, Dadu, Nanak etc. tried to save the conversion of the masses to Islam and tempering the fanaticism of the rulers. They were successful but theirs was just apologetic struggle with the exception of Guru Govind Singh, the last Sikh Guru. The Sikh and Maratha power that rose during this period was reactionary in nature and was based on protecting the ancient religion against the onslaught of Muslims. Hence it had no energy left for flourish in art, culture etc. and their power disappeared with the fall of Muslim power.



• Then a period of confusion followed where there was fighting between Moghuls, their opponents and new merchant companies from Europe. Finally the English emerged victorious almost all over India and their rule brought peace for a period.


• During British rule, again new religious movements arose just as they had risen during Muslim domination in Delhi. And just as pervious, these new movements were apologetic in nature and tried to adjust to the social tastes of the rulers. They were obviously not successful among masses.

( Vol VI of Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda can be downloaded here)

----------- Om Tat Sat -----------