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Vedanta and the West.

Russell Frank Atkinson

The impact of Vedanta upon Western culture is usually considered a relatively recent one
since its beginnings about 1800 until the advent of great teachers and gurus who have taught in
America and Europe since 1893. The influence of Hindu culture on the West goes back much
further than that. The first published translation of Indian texts known as the Vedas or Upanishads
was in Dutch in the early seventeenth century. A translation of the Upanishads from the Persian was
published in France by Francois Bernier in 1671. Voltaire translated this text into German in 1794,
starting the interest in Vedanta for German academics. Yet the influence of Vedanta on Western
thought goes back prior to the attempted invasion of India by Alexander the Great in 327-326 BC.
How far back is a subject for academic speculation, but it is most surely evidenced by Pythagorus
(c. 569-582 BC). Some leading academics have traced the teachings and geometrical theories of
Pythagorus to Vedanta and Hindu science. In fact, his name is a derivation of the sanscrit Pitha-
gorus, Father-teacher.This may be surprising to the average Westerner who believes that all our
knowledge was a product of Greek culture. Only a few scholars of antiquity know that India was
more developed than other ancient cultures. Qadi Said (1029-1070) an Arab scientist of Cordova,
Spain, wrote:

The first nation to cultivate the sciences is the people of India who form a nation vast in
numbers, powerful, with great dominions. All former Kings and past generations have
acknowledged their wisdom and admitted their pre-eminence in the various branches of
knowledge. Among all nations, during the course of the centuries and throughout the
passage of time, India was known as the mine of wisdom and the fountainhead of justice and
good government, and the Indians were credited with excellent intellect, exalted ideas,
universal maxims, rare inventions and wonderful talents

Socrates debated with at least one Indian as recorded in Eusebius:

Aristoxenus the musician tells the following story about the Indians. One of these men met
Socrates in Athens and asked him what was the scope of his philosophy. An inquiry into
human phenomena, replied Socrates. At this the Indian said How can a man inquire into
human phenomena, when he is ignorant of divine ones?

The study of Vedanta is an interest that can shed truth-revealing light on all aspects of
existence. It can provide subject matter for a lifetime of discovery in such diverse subjects as
archaeology, anthropology, theology, psychology, health, occult anatomy, cosmology, and
metaphysics.
Because it is so ancient, one can trace the development of the human mind in its struggles
to understand the mystery of life. It contains the antidote to the challenges and errors of modern life
and can resolve the conflicts produced by the Jewish/Christian traditions and the
Descartian/Newtonian ideas of Western philosophy.
The German philosopher Schopenhauer (1788-1860) said Vedanta had been the consolation
of his life and would be the consolation of his death. In fact, almost every European philosopher
from Kant (1712-1804) to Nietzsche (1844-1900) have been deeply influenced by contact with
Indian philosophy.
Nietzsche studied Professor Deussens Systems of the Vedanta and other Sanskrit works.
Of the Code Book of Manu he wrote:
It is an incomparable intellectual and superior work. It is replete with noble values, it is
filled with a feeling of perfection, with a saying of yea to life,the sun shines upon the
whole book
Schopenhauer was prophetic when he wrote:
In India our religions will never take root. The ancient wisdom of the human race will not
be displaced by what happened in Galilee. On the contrary, Indian philosophy streams back
to Europe and will produce a fundamental change in our knowledge and thought.
The discovery of Sanskrit literature in the 19th century has become a significant influence in
the evolution of Western culture perhaps the most important of all, for as the scientist Julian
Huxley wrote in Evolution after Darwin in 1959:
Mans evolution is not biological but psychosocial: it operates by the mechanism of
cultural traditionAccordingly, major steps in the human phase of evolution are
achieved by break-throughs to new dominant patterns of mental organization, of
knowledge, ideas, and beliefs
Vedantic ideas have certainly provided great stimulus to this end, while Western ideas have
had a similar effect upon the culture of India. The subtle effects of Vedanta in the West have been
through its influence upon many famous Western philosophers, writers and poets. The list is
impressive - Tolstoy, Emerson, Whitman, Goethe, Hesse, Edison, Voltaire, Yeats, Huxley,
Maeterlink and Tesla; European academics such as Prof. Muller, Duessler and Zimmerman and
physicists such as Bohr, Bhome, Einstein, Schrodinger, and Heisenberg. The overt effects have been
through the work of the Theosophical Society and the influence of the great teachers and Gurus that
have taught in the West since Swami Vivekananda burst into American society in 1893.
Professor Max Muller has written:

Vedanta is the most sublime of all philosophies and the most comforting of all
religions. It has room for almost every religion. It embraces them all.

Vedanta is the Golden Thread that has run through all true spiritual traditions throughout the
world. The American philosopher and historian, Will Durant, in his book The Story of Civilisation
wrote:
India has sent to us such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables,
hypnotism and chess, and above all, our numerals and decimal system.
But these are not the essence of her spirit; they are trifles compared to what we may
learn from her in the future.
Perhaps in return for conquest, arrogance and spoliation, India will teach us the
tolerance and gentleness of the mature mind, the quiet content of the unacquisitive soul, the
calm of an understanding spirit, and a unifying, pacifying love for all living things.
In the 21st century, scientific theories are tending to confirm many of the ideas found
in the Eternal Religion, giving birth to a marvellous fusion of cultural traditions. This phenomenon
has profound significance, not only for this age but for all time to come.
From 'A Spirituality for the 21st Century' by Russell Frank Atkinson. Zeus Publications.

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