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 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Thomas J. Green 2016 Thomas J. Green has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. 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 This page intentionally left blank 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