Religion for a Secular Age: Max Müller, Swami Vivekananda and Vedanta

201 Pages·2016·1.967 MB·English

by  Thomas J. Green

RELIGION FOR A SECULAR AGE
To my parents
Religion for a Secular Age
Max Müller, Swami Vivekananda and Vedānta
THOMAS J. GREEN
First published 2016 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright © Thomas J. Green 2016
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN: 978-1-472-46292-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-60490-9 (ebk)
Contents
Preface vii
Abbreviations ix
Conventions of Transliteration and Translation xi
Introduction 1
1 Foundations 15
2 The Science of Religion and Religion as Science 49
3 Vedānta in Defence of Religion 79
4 Vedānta and the Religious Foundation of Ethics 113
5 Ramakrishna, Vedānta and the Essence of Hinduism 141
Conclusion 171
Bibliography 175
Index 185
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Preface
Explorations of what happens to ‘religion’ in the face of modernity have long
been fixtures of historical and sociological scholarship, but only more recently
has the net begun to be cast more widely to take in the transnational dimensions
of this problem. If we acknowledge that secularisation may be better understood
on a canvas broader than that offered by national histories, then we might expect
at least some of the forms of religion that emerge in response to secularisation to
have a transnational character.
My aim in this book is to offer an account of just such a form of religion,
namely, the ‘Vedānta’ of the title. By paying close attention to the texts produced
by Müller and Vivekananda on both religion generally and Vedānta more
specifically, as well as the context in which these texts were produced, I provide a
new interpretation of late nineteenth-century Vedānta as a transnational religious
form at once determined by and resistant to secularisation.
This book is a revised version of my thesis which was written with the support
of a studentship from King’s College, Cambridge – an institution which also
provided me with a sociable and stimulating collegiate environment during my
doctoral studies. I received additional funding from the Spalding Trust to enable
me to complete the thesis. I was able to spend a summer improving my German
thanks to the Kurt Hahn Trust and the Cambridge European Trust.
From the first time I stepped through his office door as a callow undergraduate,
Julius Lipner has had a profound influence on my academic development. I
can scarcely imagine that I would have started or finished this project without
his encouragement and inspiration, not to mention his exceptional dedication,
patience and attention to detail as a reader and critic of my writing at all stages of
its development.
My thesis examiners, Chris Bayly and Gavin Flood, both made thoughtful
comments pushing me to reconsider or reinforce my argument in ways I would not
otherwise have perceived. Douglas Hedley read early drafts of two chapters and
offered suggestions for further reading and constructive criticism without which
this work as a whole would have been much the poorer.
I received instruction in Bengali from Sima Chakrabarti and later from
Julius Lipner, both of whom were patient with my faltering efforts to negotiate
the vagaries of the inherent vowel. I am also thankful to Eivind Kahrs and
Vincenzo Vergiani for their instruction in Sanskrit, but perhaps even more so for
welcoming me into a friendly and supportive Indological community.
I benefited greatly from Tim Jenkins’s reading group in the social sciences
during my graduate studies and am particularly thankful to him for introducing me
viii Religion for a Secular Age
to an eclectic range of texts and ideas which I hope has kept me from narrowing my
focus too far. I also learned much from the graduate seminar on Global Intellectual
History led by Chris Bayly and Shruti Kapila. Discussing nineteenth-century India
and philology with Mishka Sinha, often late into the night, provided me with
inspiration and camaraderie throughout my PhD. Stephen McDowall came to the
rescue by thinking up and then mocking up the cover design.
Thanks are due also to my commissioning editors at Ashgate, Sarah Lloyd and
David Shervington, for supporting this project through to publication and to the
anonymous readers for their helpful comments. All and any errors, deficiencies
and omissions are mine and mine alone.
Although scholarship can often seem a solitary pursuit, I would not have been
able to come through the trials and tribulations it involves without the support,
encouragement, and distraction of friends – in Cambridge, Edinburgh and beyond –
my family and, above all, Fliss.
Edinburgh, October 2015
Abbreviations
ALS Müller, F.M. (1899), Auld Lang Syne: My Indian Friends
AR ——— (1891), Anthropological Religion
BR1-10 Vivekananda, Swami (2008), Svāmī Bibekānander Bānī o
Racanā (10 vols.)
CGW1 Müller, F.M. (1894), Chips from a German Workshop, vol. 1
CGW2 ——— (1895), Chips from a German Workshop, vol. 2
CPR Kant, I. (1881), Critique of Pure Reason, tr. F.M. Müller
CW1-8 Vivekananda, Swami (1991-92), The Complete Works of
Swami Vivekananda (8 vols.)
DL Müller, F.M. (1905), Deutsche Liebe: aus den Papieren eines
Fremdlings
DPL ——— (1873), ‘Lectures on Mr. Darwin’s Philosophy of
Language’
GSR Gupta, M. (1980), The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, tr. Swami
Nikhilananda
IWCTU Müller, F.M. (1883), India: what can it teach us?
LL1-2 Müller, G. (ed.) (1902), The Life and Letters of the Right
Honourable Friedrich Max Müller (2 vols.)
MA Müller, F.M. (1901), My Autobiography: A Fragment
NR ——— (1889), Natural Religion