Abstract

I am grateful for this opportunity to respond to the essay "How 'Neo' is Swami Vivekananda's Vedanta: A Response to Rambachan," by Vinay Hejjaji.Allow me to begin with a comment about Vivekananda studies. Historical critical work on Swami Vivekananda is challenging and rare. In a colonial Indian context, Swami Vivekananda's journeys to the West aroused deep feelings of pride among Hindus, and these feelings have not abated with the passage of time. This is evident in the addresses presented to Vivekananda in 1897, after his return from his first visit to the United States. He was praised for his success in planting "the flag of India's spiritual triumph in the rich soil of Europe and America," for the "spiritual...