IN FOURTEEN HUNDRED NINETY-TWO:
Vivekananda’s Fair
In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
He had three ships and left from Spain;
He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.
He sailed by night; he sailed by day;
He used the stars to find his way.
A compass also helped him know
How to find the way to go.
Day after day they looked for land;
They dreamed of trees and rocks and sand.
October 12 their dream came true,
You never saw a happier crew.
“Indians! Indians!” Columbus cried;
His heart was filled with joyful pride.
But “India” the land was not;
It was the Bahamas, and it was hot.
The Arakawa natives were very nice;
They gave the sailors food and spice.
Columbus sailed on to find some gold
To bring back home, as he’ d been told.
He made the trip again and again,
Trading gold to bring to Spain.
The first American? No, not quite.
But Columbus was brave, and he was bright
This in a nutshell is the backdrop to Vivekananda’s story, the stage on which he (supposedly) introduced us to Yoga. Outwardly the Parliament seems the perfect occasion, the greatest religious show on earth, at least by the tail end of the 19th century. But there was also a dark side of prejudice, fear, and arrogance, which Yoga would have to confront over and over again in the next century. The larger Fair, outwardly too a remarkable achievement, had from our perspective more than a century later its own dark side, that adds a significance to Vivekananda’s appearance that the conventional story usually overlooks.
The Fair was, if you recall, a celebration of Columbus’s water-breaking 1492 voyage. But revisionist history hasn’t been kind to Christopher, even though he was only doing what came naturally to the ambitious explorers of his day. Though his go-West-to-reach-East idea was in theory sound, we now with 20-20 hindsight that in practice it was impossible. For one reason we–that is, North and South America–were in his way, obstacles that he couldn’t have accounted for. But even if the continents hadn’t been there and he had a clear shot at the Far East, he never would have made it. That’s because he greatly underestimated the circumference of the Earth, possibly on purpose to make his voyage seem more feasible to his royal sponsors. If he’d tried to cross the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans together in the relatively small ships of his day–they were about 120 feet long (the length of a tennis court) and maybe 30 feet wide–with their limited cargo space, he would have run out of supplies long before he reached land.
Because of his understandable ignorance and possibly intentional miscalculation, Columbus thought his Caribbean island was instead in the East Indies. The “discovery”was only that from his European perspective, since the island had already been “discovered” by its inhabitants long before. Because of his mistaken belief of where he was, Columbus naturally referred to the bewildered though initially friendly islanders as “Indians,” a name that’s stuck like glue to Native Americans ever since. We might otherwise be able to chuckle at this chain of missteps and misunderstandings, except that its impact on the native populations of the two continents isn’t at all funny. Columbus’s “discovery,” we now understand, was effectually the first step in a massive European invasion and brutal take-over of the Americas.
Vivekananda probably didn’t know about any of this. But he would have sympathized with the pre-“discovery” Americans if he had, since something very similar had happened to India 150 earlier, except the British, not the Spanish, played the role of conquering, colonizing villain. Though unintentional, Vivekananda stood the Columbian “celebration”on its head: just as Columbus had spearheaded European incursions 401 years earlier and 1500 miles to the South, Vivekananda established a beach head for an Asian counter-invasion. With the force of his personality and the wide appeal of his message, he cracked open a symbolic door to the West, and although it would take another 70 years (we’ll go into the reason for this time lag later), the door would be flung wide, then ripped off its hinges, by the Western rush of tilaked, dhoti-clad Indian gurus. Vivekananda may or may not have introduced us to Yoga, but he was certainly the catalyst that accelerated a spiritual transformation in progress in this country since the early 19th century (more on this later). He at least contributed to the foundation on which 20th century Yoga would be erected–there are several other important stone-layers–as well as the “conversion,” to a greater or lesser degree, of millions of soul-starved Westerners to some version of Indian Yoga or religion (though Vivekananda himself rejected such conversions–“Do I wish that the Christian would become a Hindu?” he once asked rhetorically, then answered, “God forbid”[dawn]).
In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
He had three ships and left from Spain;
He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.
He sailed by night; he sailed by day;
He used the stars to find his way.
A compass also helped him know
How to find the way to go.
Day after day they looked for land;
They dreamed of trees and rocks and sand.
October 12 their dream came true,
You never saw a happier crew.
“Indians! Indians!” Columbus cried;
His heart was filled with joyful pride.
But “India” the land was not;
It was the Bahamas, and it was hot.
The Arakawa natives were very nice;
They gave the sailors food and spice.
Columbus sailed on to find some gold
To bring back home, as he’ d been told.
He made the trip again and again,
Trading gold to bring to Spain.
The first American? No, not quite.
But Columbus was brave, and he was bright
This in a nutshell is the backdrop to Vivekananda’s story, the stage on which he (supposedly) introduced us to Yoga. Outwardly the Parliament seems the perfect occasion, the greatest religious show on earth, at least by the tail end of the 19th century. But there was also a dark side of prejudice, fear, and arrogance, which Yoga would have to confront over and over again in the next century. The larger Fair, outwardly too a remarkable achievement, had from our perspective more than a century later its own dark side, that adds a significance to Vivekananda’s appearance that the conventional story usually overlooks.
The Fair was, if you recall, a celebration of Columbus’s water-breaking 1492 voyage. But revisionist history hasn’t been kind to Christopher, even though he was only doing what came naturally to the ambitious explorers of his day. Though his go-West-to-reach-East idea was in theory sound, we now with 20-20 hindsight that in practice it was impossible. For one reason we–that is, North and South America–were in his way, obstacles that he couldn’t have accounted for. But even if the continents hadn’t been there and he had a clear shot at the Far East, he never would have made it. That’s because he greatly underestimated the circumference of the Earth, possibly on purpose to make his voyage seem more feasible to his royal sponsors. If he’d tried to cross the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans together in the relatively small ships of his day–they were about 120 feet long (the length of a tennis court) and maybe 30 feet wide–with their limited cargo space, he would have run out of supplies long before he reached land.
Because of his understandable ignorance and possibly intentional miscalculation, Columbus thought his Caribbean island was instead in the East Indies. The “discovery”was only that from his European perspective, since the island had already been “discovered” by its inhabitants long before. Because of his mistaken belief of where he was, Columbus naturally referred to the bewildered though initially friendly islanders as “Indians,” a name that’s stuck like glue to Native Americans ever since. We might otherwise be able to chuckle at this chain of missteps and misunderstandings, except that its impact on the native populations of the two continents isn’t at all funny. Columbus’s “discovery,” we now understand, was effectually the first step in a massive European invasion and brutal take-over of the Americas.
Vivekananda probably didn’t know about any of this. But he would have sympathized with the pre-“discovery” Americans if he had, since something very similar had happened to India 150 earlier, except the British, not the Spanish, played the role of conquering, colonizing villain. Though unintentional, Vivekananda stood the Columbian “celebration”on its head: just as Columbus had spearheaded European incursions 401 years earlier and 1500 miles to the South, Vivekananda established a beach head for an Asian counter-invasion. With the force of his personality and the wide appeal of his message, he cracked open a symbolic door to the West, and although it would take another 70 years (we’ll go into the reason for this time lag later), the door would be flung wide, then ripped off its hinges, by the Western rush of tilaked, dhoti-clad Indian gurus. Vivekananda may or may not have introduced us to Yoga, but he was certainly the catalyst that accelerated a spiritual transformation in progress in this country since the early 19th century (more on this later). He at least contributed to the foundation on which 20th century Yoga would be erected–there are several other important stone-layers–as well as the “conversion,” to a greater or lesser degree, of millions of soul-starved Westerners to some version of Indian Yoga or religion (though Vivekananda himself rejected such conversions–“Do I wish that the Christian would become a Hindu?” he once asked rhetorically, then answered, “God forbid”[dawn]).
