Rethinking Neo-Vedanta: Swami Vivekananda and ¯ the Selective Historiography of Advaita Vedanta
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2017, Vol 8, Issue 6
Abstract
This paper problematizes the prevalent model of studying the “Neo-Vedanta” of Swami ¯ Vivekananda (1863–1902) principally in terms of an influx of Western ideas and nationalism. In particular, I demonstrate how scholarly constructions of “Neo-Vedanta” consistently appeal ¯ to a high culture, staticized understanding of “traditional” Advaita Vedanta as the alterity for locating ¯ Vivekananda’s “neo” or new teachings. In doing so, such studies ignore the diverse medieval and early modern developments in advaitic and Advaita Vedantic traditions which were well-known to ¯ Vivekananda and other “Neo-Vedantins”. Redressing this discursive imbalance, I propose that close ¯ attention to the way in which Swami Vivekananda drew from Indic texts opens up a wider frame for understanding the swami and the genealogy of his cosmopolitan theology.
Authors and Affiliations
James Madaio
A Perfect Chord: Trinity in Music, Music in the Trinity
The doctrine of God’s Triunity is at the core of Christian faith; this article presents a theological survey of how it has been understood in a musical way during the Christian era. The role of music as a participation...
Existential Choice as Repressed Theism: Jean-Paul Sartre and Giorgio Agamben in Conversation
This article brings Sartre’s notion of existential authenticity, or sovereign decisionism, into conversation with the work of contemporary political theorist Giorgio Agamben, who argues that sovereign decisionism is th...
The Brief RCOPE: Current Psychometric Status of a Short Measure of Religious Coping
The Brief RCOPE is a 14-item measure of religious coping with major life stressors. As the most commonly used measure of religious coping in the literature, it has helped contribute to the growth of knowledge about the...
Islam and Democracy: Conflicts and Congruence
Is authoritarianism intrinsic to Islam? Is Islam incompatible with democracy? These questions are frequently debated in the context of the study of the relationship between the Western and Islamic civilization. The deb...
Islam, Immigration, and Identity: An Introduction
It has been two decades since Samuel P. Huntington, a Harvard political scientist, first published his famous essay, “The Clash of Civilizations?” [1]. In the essay, and later in his book with the same title (minus the...