Spirituality – Neo-Vedanta

Neo-Vedanta

Neo-Vedanta, also called Hindu modernism, Neo-Hinduism, Global Hinduism and Hindu Universalism, are terms to characterize interpretations of Hinduism that developed in the 19th century. These modern interpretations emphasize ideas, such as Advaita Vedanta, that are asserted as central or fundamental to Hindu culture. The development took place partly in response to western colonialism and orientalism, contributing to the Indian freedom struggle and the modern national and religious identity of Hindus in the Republic of India. This societal aspect is covered under the term of Hindu reform movements. Among the main proponents of such modern interpretations of Hinduism were Vivekananda, Aurobindo and Radhakrishnan, who to some extent also contributed to the emergence of Neo-Hindu movements in the West.

From their origin and through much of their history, and continuing in the present, the terms “Neo-Hindu” or “Neo-Vedanta” have also been used polemically, the prefix “Neo-” then intended to imply that these modern interpretations of Hinduism are “inauthentic” or in other ways problematic.

History

Unifying Hinduism

With the onset of Islamic rule, hierarchical classifications of the various orthodox schools were developed to defend Hinduism against Islamic influences. According to Nicholson, already between the twelfth and the sixteenth century,

• … certain thinkers began to treat as a single whole the diverse philosophical teachings of the Upanishads, epics, Puranas, and the schools known retrospectively as the “six systems” (saddarsana) of mainstream Hindu philosophy.

The tendency of “a blurring of philosophical distinctions” has also been noted by Burley. Lorenzen locates the origins of a distinct Hindu identity in the interaction between Muslims and Hindus, and a process of “mutual self-definition with a contrasting Muslim other”, which started well before 1800. Both the Indian and the European thinkers who developed the term “Hinduism” in the 19th century were influenced by these philosophers.

Within these socalled doxologies Advaita Vedanta was given the highest position, since it was regarded to be most inclusive system. Vijnanabhiksu, a 16th-century philosopher and writer, is still an influential representant of these doxologies. He’s been a prime influence on 19th century Hindu modernists like Vivekananda, who also tried to integrate various strands of Hindu thought, taking Advaita Vedanta as its most representative specimen.

Colonialism and Modernism

With the colonisation of India by the British, a darker era in the history of India began. Prior to this, Muslim rule over North India had had a drastic effect on Hinduism (and Buddhism) through systematic persecution. While the Indian society was greatly impacted, its economy however continued to remain one of the largest in the World. Muslim rule over Southern India was also relatively short-lived before the 17th century.

In contrast to the Muslim rulers, the British actively engaged in destroying the Indian economy as well.

The economic destruction wrought by restrictive British policies and Industrial revolution in Europe, led to the dismantling of the prevailing decentralized education systems in India in the 18th century. The British state-supported education system, after the English Education Act of 1835, emphasized western religions and thoughts at the cost of indigenous ones.

The British also nurtured and were involved, post 1813, in the aggressive propagation of Protestant Christianity. This was concomitant with the British propaganda machine’s involvement in the spreading anti-Hindu sentiments. In response to the British rule and cultural dominance, Hindu reform movements developed, propagating societal and religious reforms, exemplyfying what Spear has called

• … the ‘solution of synthesis’ – the effort to adapt to the newcomers, in the process of which innovation and assimilation gradually occur, alongside an ongoing agenda to preserve the unique values of the many traditions of Hinduism (and other religious traditions as well).

Reinterpreting Hinduism

Neo-Vedanta, also called “Neo-Hinduism” is a central theme in these reform-movements. Neo-Vedanta aims to present Hinduism as a “homogenized ideal of Hinduism” with Advaita Vedanta as its central doctrine. It presents

• … an imagined “integral unity” that was probably little more than an “imagined” view of the religious life that pertained only to a cultural elite and that empirically speaking had very little reality “on the ground,” as it were, throughout the centuries of cultural development in the South Asian region.

Neo-Vedanta was influenced by Oriental scholarship, which portrayed Hinduism as a “single world religion”, and denigrated the heterogeneousity of Hindu beliefs and practices as ‘distortions’ of the basic teachings of Vedanta.

Luc Paquin