The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 2/Reports in American Newspapers/The Manners and Customs of India
THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF INDIA
(Boston Herald, May 15, 1894)
Association Hall was crowded with ladies yesterday, to hear Swami
Vivekananda, the Brahmin [1] Monk talk about "The
Religion of India" [actually "The Manners and Customs of India"], for the
benefit of the ward 16 day nursery [actually, Tyler-street Day Nursery]. The
Brahmin monk has become a fad in Boston, as he was in Chicago last year, and
his earnest, honest, cultured manner has won many friends for him.
The Hindoo nation is not given to marriage, he said, not because we are
women haters, but because our religion teaches us to worship women. The
Hindoo is taught to see in every woman his mother, and no man wants to marry
his mother. God is mother to us. We don't care anything about God in heaven;
it is mother to us. We consider marriage a low vulgar state, and if a man
does marry, it is because he needs a helpmate for religion.
You say we ill-treat our women. What nation in the world has not ill-treated
its women? In Europe or America a man can marry a woman for money, and,
after capturing her dollars, can kick her out. In India, on the contrary,
when a woman marries for money, her children are considered slaves,
according to our teaching, and when a rich man marries, his money passes
into the hands of his wife, so that he would be scarcely likely to turn the
keeper of his money out of doors.
You say we are heathens, we are uneducated, uncultivated, but we laugh in
our sleeves at your want of refinement in telling us such things. With us,
quality and birth make caste, not money. No amount of money can do anything
for you in India. In caste the poorest is as good as the richest, and that
is one of the most beautiful things about it.
Money has made warfare in the world, and caused Christians to trample on
each other's necks. Jealousy, hatred and avariciousness are born of
money-getters. Here it is all work, hustle and bustle. Caste saves a man
from all this. It makes it possible for a man to live with less money, and
it brings work to all. The man of caste has time to think of his soul; and
that is what we want in the society of India.
The Brahmin is born to worship God, and the higher his caste, the greater
his social restrictions are. Caste has kept us alive as a nation, and while
it has many defects, it has many more advantages.
Mr. Vivekananda described the universities and colleges of India, both
ancient and modern, notably the one at Benares, that has 20,000 students and
professors.
When you judge my religion, he continued, you take it that yours is perfect
and mine wrong; and when you criticise the society of India you suppose it
to be uncultured just so far as it does not conform to your standard. That
is nonsense.
In reference to the matter of education, the speaker said that the educated
men of India become professors, while the less educated become priests.
- Notes
- ↑ Meaning Hindu. — Publisher.