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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2021
Swami Vivekananda was the most influential pioneer of a Yogi Christ, illustrating well over a century ago how the life and teachings of Jesus might be incorporated within a larger Hindu worldview—and then presented back to Western audiences. Appropriation of Jesus, one of the central symbols of the West, might be viewed as the ultimate act of counter-Orientalism. This article begins by providing a brief biography of Vivekananda and the modern Hinduism that nurtured him and that he propagated. He articulated an inclusivist vision of Advaita Vedanta as the most compelling vision of universal religion. Next, the article turns to Vivekananda's views of Christianity, for which he had little affection, and the Bible, which he knew extraordinarily well. The article then systematically explores Vivekananda's engagement with the New Testament, revealing a clear hermeneutical preference for the Gospels, particularly John. Following the lead of biblical scholars, Vivekananda made a distinction between the Christ of the Gospels and the Jesus of history, offering sometimes contradictory conclusions about the historicity of elements associated with Jesus's life. Finally, the article provides a detailed articulation of Vivekananda's Jesus—a figure at once familiar to Christians but, in significant ways, uniquely accommodated to Hindu metaphysics. Vivekananda demonstrated a robust understanding and discriminating use of the Christian Bible that has not been properly recognized. He deployed this knowledge to launch an important and long-lived pattern: an attractive, fleshed out depiction of Jesus of Nazareth, transformed from the Christian savior into a Yogi model of self-realization. Through his efforts, Jesus became an indisputably Indian religious figure, no longer just a Christian one. The Yogi Christ remains a prominent global religious figure familiar to Hindus, Christians, and those of other faiths alike.
1 Cf. John 21:25.
2 The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Mayavati Memorial ed., 8 vols. (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1966), 4:149 (hereafter cited as CW). The Complete Works, which runs some 4,500 pages and includes addresses, informal talks, personal correspondence, and other materials, is the basic source for Vivekananda's words and ideas. Though collected by his disciples, the materials do not show any marked tendency to soften his tone or present him in a more positive light. Because he repeated basic points in different settings, it is often possible to cross-reference comments. Though some of his talks bear dates, others do not, so it is difficult to discern development in his ideas or arguments. In any case, his public career of just under a decade did not allow time for substantial development in thought. His audience was most often interested, educated members of the public in the United States and Great Britain, though it also included smaller groups of disciples. As noted in the article, he sometimes addressed Indian audiences, where he was even more pointed in his criticism of Christianity and the West.
3 Prothero, Stephen, American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon (New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 2003), 271Google Scholar.
4 Csordas, Thomas J., ed., Transnational Transcendence: Essays on Religion and Globalization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Quoted in Teresa Watanabe, “A Hindu's Perspective on Christ and Christianity,” Los Angeles Times, December 11, 2004.
6 Killingley, Dermot, “Vivekananda's Western Message from the East,” in Swami Vivekananda and the Modernization of Hinduism, ed. Radice, William (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 139Google Scholar; and Killingley, Dermot, “Manufacturing Yogis: Swami Vivekananda as a Yoga Teacher,” in Gurus of Modern Yoga, ed. Singleton, Mark and Goldberg, Ellen (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 21Google Scholar.
7 King, Richard, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and “The Mystic East” (London: Routledge, 1999), 207Google Scholar.
8 On Jesus among new religious movements, see Prothero, American Jesus.
9 Arvind Sharma, preface to Neo-Hindu Views of Christianity, ed. Arvind Sharma (Leiden: Brill, 1988), vii.
10 Yelle, Robert A., The Language of Disenchantment: Protestant Literalism and Colonial Discourse in British America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 Marsden, George, “Everyone One's Own Interpreter: The Bible, Science, and Authority in Mid-Nineteenth Century America,” in The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural History, ed. Hatch, Nathan O. and Noll, Mark A. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982)Google Scholar.
12 Dasgupta, Subrata, The Story of the Bengal Renaissance (Gurgaon: Random House India, 2010), 2Google Scholar.
13 Social reform was an important concern to Vivekananda but is not a focus of this paper. E.g., see Rüstau, Hiltrud, “Swami Vivekananda's Ideal Society and Its Impact on Govind Chandra Dev,” in Swami Vivekananda and the Modernization of Hinduism, ed. Radice, William (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 264–280Google Scholar.
14 The Life of Swami Vivekananda (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1979), 1:45–47.
15 CW, 5:64.
16 For a classic statement of this view, see Seager, Richard Hughes, “Pluralism and the American Mainstream: The View from the World's Parliament of Religions,” Harvard Theological Review 82, no. 3 (July 1989): 301–324CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17 Race, Alan, Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions (London: SCM, 1983), 72Google Scholar.
18 King, Orientalism and Religion, 140.
19 King, Orientalism and Religion, 136; and Waghorne, Joanne Punzo, “Beyond Pluralism: Global Gurus and the Third Stream of American Religiosity,” in Gods in America: Religious Pluralism in the United States, ed. Cohen, Charles L. and Numbers, Ronald L. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 231Google Scholar.
20 CW, 1:359, 2:238, 3:424; Nicholson, Andrew, Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Long, Jeffrey, Vision for Hinduism: Beyond Hindu Nationalism (New York: I. B. Taurus, 2000), 121Google Scholar.
21 Chatterjee, Partha, “The Social Sciences in India,” in The Cambridge History of Science, ed. Porter, T. and Ross, D. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 487Google Scholar.
22 Tapan Raychaudhuri, “Swami Vivekananda's Construction of Hinduism” in Swami Vivekananda and the Modernization of Hinduism, ed. William Radice (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 1; and see M. W. Taylor, The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer (London: Continuum, 2007), 8. Vivekananda's summary of evolution echoes Spencer. See Killingley, “Vivekananda's Western Message from the East,” 151. Vivekananda translated Spencer's Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical into Bengali. Vivienne Baumfield, “Science and Sanskrit: Vivekananda's Views on Education,” in Swami Vivekananda and the Modernization of Hinduism, ed. William Radice (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 204.
23 Killingley, “Manufacturing Yogis,” 32; and see CW, 8:231.
24 CW, 1:388. This included Christianity (CW, 5:212) as well as modern religions like Theosophy, which grafted Hindu elements onto its esoteric teachings (CW, 4:317–319).
25 CW, 2:362, 5:419.
26 CW, 1:xiv. See CW, 3:276–277, 3:370–371; Raychaudhuri, “Swami Vivekananda's Reconstruction,” 7; and H. W. French, “Swami Vivekananda's Experiences and Interpretations of Christianity,” in Neo-Hindu Views of Christianity, ed. Arvind Sharma (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 91.
27 Chowdhury-Sengupta, “Reconstructing Hinduism,” 18.
28 Killingley, “Vivekananda's Western Message,” 138. As Eric Sharpe, “Neo-Hindu Images of Christianity,” in Neo-Hindu Views of Christianity, ed. Arvind Sharma (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 10, points out, this polarity was widespread among modern Hindus.
29 CW, 5:106, 5:212.
30 CW, 5:226. See French, “Swami Vivekananda's Experiences,” 96–97.
31 CW, 5:353.
32 French, “Swami Vivekananda's Experiences,” 95.
33 H. W. French, “Reverence to Christ Through Mystical Experience and Incarnational Identity: Sri Ramakrishna,” in Neo-Hindu Views of Christianity, ed. Arvind Sharma (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 80. Little evidence supports his claim that Vivekananda became increasingly critical of Christianity over time. French, “Swami Vivekananda's Experiences,” 104.
34 Sharpe, “Neo-Hindu Images,” 14.
35 CW, 4:402, 3:322.
36 CW, 7:43.
37 CW, 1:13, 2:482–483.
38 CW, 8:113.
39 CW, 5:532.
40 Killingley, “Vivekananda's Western Message,” 141.
41 CW, 1:18.
42 CW, 3:497.
43 The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Mayavati Memorial ed. (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1997), 9:121. Hereafter, all references to vol. 9 of CW will be drawn from this 1997 edition.
44 CW, 2:94–95, 2:380.
45 CW, 4:361.
46 CW, 4:38; and French, “Swami Vivekananda's Experiences,” 90.
47 CW, 5:77.
48 CW, 8:214–220.
49 CW, 8:116.
50 CW, 2:485.
51 Quoted in Sharpe, “Neo-Hindu Images,” 9.
52 Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 34.
53 Stephen Neil, A History of Christian Missions (London: Penguin, 1964), 309.
54 CW, 8:215. On Roy's views, see Neill, A History of Christian Missions, 303.
55 CW, 1:20.
56 CW, 3:210–211, 8:216–217, 9:453–456.
57 CW, 5:293.
58 CW, 8:23.
59 CW, 7:71.
60 CW, 1:97.
61 CW, 7:17.
62 CW, 7:27.
63 CW, 2:242.
64 CW, 2:210.
65 CW, 4:348.
66 CW, 8:101.
67 CW, 7:94.
68 CW, 5:293.
69 CW, 4:354.
70 CW, 7:279.
71 CW, 3:192.
72 Paul C. Gutjahr, An American Bible A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777–1880 (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999), 141.
73 Sharpe, “Neo-Hindu Images,” 13.
74 CW,9:350.
75 See French, “Swami Vivekananda's Experiences,” 82.
76 CW, 4:174.
77 French, “Reverence to Christ,” 66–81.
78 CW, 3:89.
79 CW, 1:456.
80 CW, 2:173.
81 CW, 4:28.
82 CW, 6:99.
83 CW, 7:27. Vivekananda commented on wisdom more than one hundred times.
84 CW, 3:505. Vivekananda's allegorizing view was in line with the predominant nineteenth-century Protestant interpretation of the Song of Songs. See Duane Garrett and Paul R. House, Song of Songs, Lamentations: Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 23B (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004), 60–73.
85 CW, 1:322.
86 CW, 1:490.
87 CW, 3:186.
88 He cited 1 Cor. 9:22 (CW, 9.6.3); 1 Cor. 2:2 (CW, 9.8.1.20); 1 Cor. 13:8 (CW, VI, 121); and 2 Cor. 3:6 (CW, VII, 17).
89 CW, 2:210.
90 CW, 2:326.
91 CW, 8:36.
92 Life of Swami Vivekananda, 1:449.
93 Life of Swami Vivekananda, 1:196.
94 CW, 5:313.
95 CW, 6:75.
96 CW, 6:432, 2:126, 8:111, 2:165, 1:185.
97 CW, 4:52, 7:38, 8:18, 9:423, 7:89, 4:149.
98 CW, 3:47.
99 CW, 9:216.
100 CW, 4:145, 8:213.
101 CW, 3:431, 8:213.
102 CW, 4:149.
103 CW, 8:107.
104 CW, 8:64.
105 CW, 4:17–18.
106 CW, 4:149, 4:152.
107 CW, 4:246, 8:6, 4:134, 7:100.
108 CW, 1:328, with quotation from 8:96.
109 CW, 1:323, 4:148.
110 CW, 4:246.
111 CW, 6:374.
112 CW, 4:150.
113 CW, 6:83.
114 CW, 7:96.
115 CW, 2:25, 4:56–57.
116 CW, 8:6, 4:148, 2:353.
117 CW, 8:6.
118 CW, 8:126.
119 CW, 3:513, 7:1.
120 CW, 7:3.
121 CW, 4:148, 4:121, 8:12, 8:190, 1:381, 3:537, 8:8.
122 CW, 1:321, 5:285.
123 CW, 4:148.
124 Though it is generally risky to make much of what someone fails to cite, the approach is warranted here for two reasons: on one hand, Vivekananda's demonstrably far-ranging knowledge of the Bible and, on the other, the prominence within the Gospels of the themes he neglects.
125 See Ramakrishna, Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna (Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1947).
126 E.g., Mark 2:1–13; and John 5:1–9, 7:53–8:11.
127 CW, 1:11.
128 French, “Reverence to Christ,” 80–81.
129 Chowdhury-Sengupta, “Reconstructing Hinduism,” 27.
130 Matt. 11:29; Mark 10:45; Luke 22:27; and John 13:1–11.
131 CW, 3:427, 3:365.
132 CW, 7:369.
133 CW, 2:473, 3:49.
134 CW, 8:92.
135 Sharpe, “Neo-Hindu Images,” 7–8.
136 CW, 4:142.
137 CW, 1:321.
138 CW, 7:481.
139 CW, 4:140, 2:507.
140 CW, 4:451, 8:94.
141 CW, 4:258.
142 CW, 1:21, 1:327.
143 CW, 1:491.
144 CW, 1:6.
145 CW, 3:512.
146 CW, 5:14.
147 CW, 4:32.
148 See Lev. 18:21, 20:2; 2 Kings 23:10; and Jer. 32:35.
149 CW, 7:72.
150 CW, 8:209.
151 Paul Lawrence Rose, German Question/Jewish Question Revolutionary Antisemitism in Germany from Kant to Wagner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 254–256.
152 Prothero, American Jesus, 278.
153 CW, 7:370.
154 William Baird, History of New Testament Research, vol. 1 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 143–148, 295–308.
155 Baird, History of New Testament Research, 311.
156 French, “Swami Vivekananda's Experiences,” 100.
157 CW, 1:438.
158 CW, 4:138.
159 Baird, History of New Testament Research, 375.
160 CW, 9:378, 7:363.
161 Sharpe, “Neo-Hindu Images,” 11.
162 CW, 3:264.
163 Simon J. Joseph, “Jesus in India?” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80, no. 1 (March 2012): 161–199.
164 CW, 6:108.
165 CW, 7:71.
166 Killingley, “Vivekananda's Western Message,” 143.
167 CW, 9:377.
168 CW, 7:370.
169 CW, 9:378.
170 CW, 2:386, 4:25.
171 CW, 3:280.
172 CW, 6:109, 7:261.
173 CW, 4:146.
174 CW, 1:429, 4:183, 8:233.
175 CW, 4:145.
176 CW, 6:141.
177 CW, 4:32.
178 For the clearest defense of his belief in the historicity of Jesus's miracles, see Rammohun Roy, Second Appeal to the Christian Public, In Defense of “Precepts of Jesus” (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1821 [1823]), 146.
179 See Matt. 13:57, 14:5, 21:11, 21:46; Mark 6:4, 8:28; Luke 4:24, 7:16, 9:19, 13:33, 24:19; and John 4:19, 4:44, 6:14, 7:40, 9:17.
180 CW, 1:105.
181 CW, 1:323, 2:148.
182 CW, 1:441.
183 CW, 5:193.
184 CW, 1:126, 2:473.
185 CW, 2:36, 1:30.
186 CW, 3:132, 4:31, 8:116–117.
187 Sharpe, “Neo-Hindu Images of Christianity,” 7.
188 CW, 4:213.
189 CW, 4:95. See also CW, 3:9, 6:24, 7:3, 8:181, 8:190, 8:190.
190 Though Vivekananda often implied this in comparison, he also said it explicitly in CW, 7:22.
191 CW, 4:152.
192 CW, 7:72.
193 Quoted in French, “Reverence to Christ,” 75.
194 Quoted in Sharpe, “Neo-Hindu Images,” 8.
195 CW, 2:481.
196 CW, 4:150–151.
197 CW, 8:141, 4:47, 6:98, 8:209, 9:279.
198 CW, 1:468.
199 CW, 7:71–72.
200 CW, 9:455.
201 Martin Kähler, The So-called Historical Jesus and the Historic, Biblical Christ (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964), 80n11.
202 CW, 1:328.
203 CW, 8:262.
204 CW, 6:75.
205 French, “Swami Vivekananda's Experiences,” 101.
206 CW, 1:483. See also CW, 3:84, 6:7.
207 CW, 4:106.
208 CW, 1:105.
209 CW, 8:28.
210 Quoted in French, “Swami Vivekananda's Experiences,” 92.
211 CW, 1:431, 7:2.
212 CW, 2:34.
213 CW, 4:152.
214 CW, 1:341.
215 CW, 7:78.