Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, December 2002

Swami Ranganathanandaji is the President of Sri Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission. This article is culled from his book The Eternal Values for a Changing Society, Volume - I.

A scientific study of religion reveals two dimensions to every religion, especially to every one of the highly developed world religions, namely, religion as a socio-political expression and religion as a path to the experience of God, or any value equivalent to it. The first consists of the do's and don'ts of religion and the rules and regulations about food, dress, marriage, and other social disciplines, besides myths and legends and cosmological theories. These constitute the socio-political constituents of a religion, which find a place for it in the census registers and which demarcate it from other religions. It cannot constitute the science of religion constitute but only a historically conditioned socio-political expression of religion. A science of religion will classify religions in terms as bhakti-yoga, jnana-yoga, raja-yoga, and karma-yoga contents. This second dimension consists of the truly spiritual part, with its emphasis on personal morality, worship and adoration, and the disciplines designed to ensure the spiritual growth of man. These constitute the essential, the invariable and the universal core of religion, while the former form its variable non-essential part, which is also relevant, but only when it does not choke the spirit of the latter.

Indian tradition calls the former the Smriti- and the latter the Shruti-constituents of a religion, and considers the Shruti as eternal and universal in validity, and the Smriti as local, and temporary in application. Accordingly, the Shruti represents the sanâtana dharma, eternal religion, which remains, while the Smriti represents the yugâdharma, the religion for a particular yuga, or age, which changes. India, therefore, considers the yugâdharma constituent of a religion not applicable for all people of a later age, due to changes in conditions of life of the people concerned. So, the Indian tradition provides for appropriate changes in the Smritis and the yugâdharma, to make them relevant for the changed social circumstances which render them obsolete, and often harmful. Human and social distortions are the product of the dominance of these obsolete elements of socio-religious traditions; they sustain the rigidities of social customs, anti-human practices, inter-religious and intra-religious frictions, disharmonies, and persecutions, and the stagnation and immobility of human attitudes.

In the light of this Shruti-Smriti concept, we see the kinship of science only with that aspect of religion as a spiritual path to God, the Shruti constituent, and very little kinship with its socio-political expression, the Smriti constituent. The term ethnical religion emphasises the dominance of this Smriti element, with its group exclusiveness and sectarian loyalties. And it is this ethnical religion that stagnates in course of time, resists social change, and collides against physical science and all creative social endeavour. In all religions, the ethnic element, in course of time, becomes increasingly centred in the priest and the feudal power, and the universal spiritual element is centred in the prophet and the divine incarnation. The ethnical aspect of religion will continue to remain; but it must be subordinated, says the Hindu tradition, to the spiritual aspect, if it is to aid man in his spiritual growth.

The fruit of this social wisdom is seen in the absence, in ancient and modern Indian history, of violent social upheavals or bloody revolutions; instead, we see only steady adjustments and adaptations to new situations, keeping basic values intact. The Indian social experience has uniformly been evolution and not revolution; or rather, evolutionary changes of a revolutionary nature, without, however, serious social conflict and violence. The impact of Sri Krishna and Buddha, Shankara and the later reformers, has always been creative and constructive, peaceful and pervasive. India responded to them in a natural way, and became richer in the process. A study of the history of India shows that the concept of an unchanging Indian society is a thorough misnomer. Both in religious concepts and forms, as well as in social values and processes, India has seen revolutionary changes. Says Dr. S. Radhakrishnan¹ 'Those who are familiar with the work of Hindu commentators on Hindu law know the magnitude of the changes effected by them. Social flexibility has been the chief character of Hindu dharma. To uphold the Sanâtana dharma is not to stand still. It is to seize the vital principles and use them in modern life. All true growth preserves unity through change.'

Neither the Rig-Vedic gods and forms of their worship nor the Rig-Vedic society were in evidence a thousand years after the Rigveda. The very fact that there are several Smritis indicates social change; otherwise, the first Smriti should have continued throughout. But the spiritual legacy of India, as represented by the Shruti, remains steady and clear to this day. Sri Ramakrishna's pithy saying so well explains this changing character of social laws, as represented by the Smritis, as nothing else can: 'The Moghul coins have no currency under the (East India) Company's rule.'

The Smritis themselves recognize this principle of social change. Says the Manusmriti: 'There is one set of dharmas for man in the krita yuga; a different set for each of the treta, dvâpara, and kali yugas, the dharmas change according to the change of the yugas.'²

Sri Ramakrishna did not disturb any of the existing religions, nor did he start any new religion. He loved all religions and sought God through all of them. Swami Vivekananda carried the mission of his master far and wide, the mission of the spiritual regeneration of humanity. Within India itself He saw the main obstacles to this mission in the rigidities and in the decayed elements of the Indian tradition, of which caste exclusiveness, untouchability, and self-centered religiosity formed the more harmful ones. In his Lectures from Colombo to Almora and in his Letters, he exposed these faults and foibles of the Smriti elements of the Indian tradition, and placed before the nation the strengthening, unifying, broadening spirituality of the Upanishads, or the Shruti elements of that tradition. He had personally witnessed the power and glory of this Shruti constituent of his country's tradition in the blazing life of his master. He therefore, exhorted the nation to fearlessly do away with the stagnant elements of the national tradition and build a new body-politic, worthy to ensoul the age-old spiritual legacy of India and the scientific and social legacy of the modern world.

The fruits of this spiritual education of a whole people can be seen in the impressive achievements of India during the last sixty years in the field of fundamental social reform. Many of these reforms, such as removal of untouchability, opening of temples to the Harijans, reform and codification of Hindu Law, ignoring of caste by the Indian constitution as a factor in inter-group relationships, breaking down of caste barriers, and even creed and race barriers, with respect to eating and marrige, and disappearance of opposition to sea voyage and foreign travel, are radical measures. Many of these are legal enactments backed by enlightened public opinion. They never gave rise to social conflicts, in spite of their radical impact on the old tradition; they helped on the other hand, in the growth and renewal of that tradition.

The awakening of the Indian women and their rise to positions of the highest responsibility is another striking aspect of this evolution and growth of the Indian tradition in the modern age. It is noteworthy that, unlike several western countries, India did not experience a feminist movement; the significance of this fact lies in the way it reveals the social wisdom of the Indian tradition. It is when a world-view goes counter to the claims and aspirations of women, and men uphold that world-view as against the spirit of the times, that a feminist movement takes place. This is the experience of modern Western history. But in India, men came forward to uphold the claims of women and move with the times; and in this they were sustained as much by the spiritual constituents of the Indian tradition as by the recent orientation of that tradition by Ramakrishna and Vivekananda.

The absence of opposition in India to social reform measurers such as family planning, as noted by international study groups, is another instance of the adaptive character of the Indian tradition. The Indian constitution, with its broad democratic frame and egalitarian objective, bears the touch of the wisdom and broad outlook of the Indian tradition and its capaciy for assimilation. And the healthy functioning of democracy in India, and the success of its general elections, involving over 200 million voters, the most stupendous democratic phenomenon in the world today, is another fruit of the vitality and wisdom of the national tradition.