This is in spite of the fact that the vast Sanskrit literature contains extensive related systems of religion, spirituality, philosophy, medicine, art and literature going back to the Roman era, if not long before—something that no other civilization has been able to maintain.

India is put on par with Africa or America by way of civilization and religion, as a half tribal culture. It is not regarded as having an equivalent, though different civilization in terms of art, science or religion as the West.

Enlightened West

However, there was another view of India that has honored its great and spiritual civilization. Western intellectual of the eighteenth and nineteenth century— including great thinkers like Voltaire, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Emerson and Thoreau, to mention a few—waxed eloquent about the superiority of the spiritual philosophies and traditions of India, even the greatness of the Brahmin class.

They were followed the Theosophists in the later nineteenth century, with leaders like Annie Besant in the early twentieth century who was an important leader in the independence movement in India itself. Today the large New Age movement in the West has an important, if not central place for Indian gurus, yoga traditions and healing practices.

Indeed, the Western popular mind has always been enamored of the image of mystical India, the land of Gods and sages. Thoreau wrote: "In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous philosophy of the Bhagavdgita, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial.”

In addition, many modern scientists like Oppenheimer and Einstein have noted their philosophical affinity with India and the East for their new models of unity and consciousness behind the universe. So clearly, it is not a deficiency or prejudice of the Western mind as a whole that is the problem, but one in academia and its vested interests.

Incapacity of Western Indology

The real question, therefore, is—why is Western Indology so inherently incapable of understanding India or its traditions?

I think that the answer is simple. Western Indologists have not confronted the Indic tradition directly. They look at Indic traditions as fossils or museum pieces and haven’t entered into Indian thoughts and practices, though these are available to them if they wish.

Above all, they lack the spiritual and yogic vision to make sense of Indic civilization. They lack the mindset and the tools for the job, which requires some spiritual insight and not mere logic or pottery gathering. Worse yet, they are not even aware of their limitations in this respect.

The reasons for this incapacity to understand India are quite clear and are reflected in an incapacity to understand many non-Western cultures. Western Indologists still see Western civilization as world civilization. They do not recognize any real independent Indic civilization apart from that of the West. As in their eyes, civilization per se, comes from the West, then any civilization in India must have Western roots or otherwise be questionable as a true culture or real part of progress in the world.

We note that textbooks of world history to the present day are mainly textbooks of Western history, with a few footnotes thrown in to represent the rest of the world. Textbooks of world art are mainly textbooks of Western art, textbooks of world philosophy are mainly textbooks of Western philosophy, and so on with all the different fields of knowledge and culture.

The extent to which non-Western cultures are recognized in world civilization is only the extent that they represent Western type cultural aspirations towards science, democracy (self-determination), economic development or monotheism, the characteristics of Western civilization, not for any unique cultures of their own.

Because Western historians believe that Western history represents the main trend in world history, they are naturally inclined to see the origins of world history and that of Western history as the same. Not surprisingly, they compulsive reduce or modify historical data to fit into this preconceived package.

There is no doubt that the Greco-Roman culture is the origin of most of Western philosophical, political and scientific thought. There is similarly no doubt that the Near East is the origin of most of Westernreligious thought through the Judeo-Christian tradition and its Egyptian and Mesopotamian connections. But there is a tremendous doubt—in fact a certainty to the contrary—that Greek and Judeo-Christian origins, or Mesopotamian origins can be ascribed to the civilizations of South and East Asia, Africa and America.

At the same time, Western Indologists are offended if their methodology or qualifications to judge the Indic tradition are questioned. This only highlights the issue of their inability to approach it in an appropriate or even objective manner. They see any criticism of their prejudiced views as a denial of their fundamental right to sit in judgment over the rest of the world.

They can negate and denigrate an entire civilization but are intolerant of accepting any fundamental criticism of themselves or their culture in turn. That Western Indology might be questioned is only natural in the post-colonial age, which has exposed these old Eurocentric/materialist models as biased.

Presently, Western scholars are resisting the new Hindu historical scholarship, though it has much hard data to support it, because it questions their Western views on a political and philosophical level. This is contrary to how they have handled the challenge of other regions and cultures of former colonial rule.

Black Africans and other indigenous groups have questioned and thrown off such nineteenth century based interpretations of their history. While initially Western scholars denigrated such new indigenous views of Black History, they have now come to accept them or at least give them their place, including creating their own departments in Western universities.

The only difference is that anti-African and anti-Black views have been thrown out as politically incorrect, while anti-Hindu views are still regarded largely as politically correct and unquestioned. While Western scholars are sensitive to the charge of racism and critical of colonial views of history in regards to Africa, they are still perpetuating the colonial view of India. This shows that their more circumspect handling of Blacks and African civilizations is only a tactical position brought on by change circumstances and not due to any heartfelt change.

Indic View of WesternCivilization
Meanwhile, Western thinkers don’t understand the very different view of culture found in from inside the Indic tradition. Thinkers in the Indic tradition are not always impressed by Western civilization and its supposed greatness, though they might admire the civilization of the West on some points. Modern Indian intellectuals and thinkers of a traditional bent have been equally hard on Western civilization.

Vivekananda, Rama Tirtha, Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi and Tagore—in fact, most modern Indian gurus criticize the West for a lack of true spirituality, and the Western cultural for lack of any real yogic path to develop higher consciousness. Almost every Indian spiritual teacher who has addressed Western civilization has expressed

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misgivings about the underlying values or lack of values behind it. Certainly, no great spiritual teachers of modern India would equate Western civilization with world civilization. On the contrary, they usually find it to be a deviation, perhaps necessary, from the longer and more enduring spiritual occupations of humanity that were common not only to India but to all ancient cultures.

Indic thinkers find the sages in their own tradition—Vedic rishis, Vedantic sages or great yogis—to be deeper and more aware than the Greek philosophers, modern scientists or monotheistic theologians.

For them, a Vasishta, Yajnavalkya or Patanjali represents a higher mind than an Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas or Kant. Indic thinkers aren’t overwhelmed by the greatness of modern science and technology, which they see as limited outer materialistic preoccupations, but look to a greater science of consciousness that does not rely on outer instruments. (This does not mean they reject science but recognize its limitations.)

They don’t find Western art, which has a strong ego base and sensate approach, to be superior to Indian art and its spiritual/religious orientation. They don’t find Western consumerism to be an enlightened culture or an enlightened economy but to only hide a deeper spiritual poverty. They don’t find modern democracies and their human rights orientation to be really enlightened or cognizant of the rights and duties of soul or our rights and duties to the universe.

Indic thinkers aren’t impressed by the ability of Western scholars to grasp the Indic tradition, and all their gyrations they do to keep the origin of the Vedas out of India. They find it to be a sign of spiritual ignorance and cultural arrogance. And such thinkers are not bigoted or unintelligent for doing so, nor have they failed to seriously examine Western civilization. They simply have different values and a different sense of culture, consciousness and reality than mainstream Western culture. Yet they are not alone in their views, many Western mystics have expressed similar critiques of Western civilization, and much of the Westerncounterculture has as well.

Intellectual Clash of Cultures

The entire issue reflects a clash of civilizations. Western civilization is trying to impose its outer rationality upon the world as the true use of reason, which Indic civilization and its emphasis on higher consciousness differs from in a radical way.

The view of civilization that we carry informs and structures our interpretation of history and culture, almost automatically so. Western Indology is part of Western civilization, shares its values and naturally works to expand its frontiers on an intellectual level. Western Indology is an attempt to mold and fit Indic civilization into the terms and values of Western civilization.

Western Indology has yet to accept Indic civilization as a spiritual, philosophical and historical tradition of its own value and independence, with its own authenticity and set of values. Basically, Western scholarship simply does not acknowledge spirituality as part of culture.

It has not really confronted the Indic tradition, much less acknowledged it as an equal. Western Indology looks down upon the Indic tradition from on high, from its ivory tower, dissecting, fragmenting and denigrating the civilization of India according to its own alien values and views.

The best thing for Western Indologists to do would be to start over afresh. They should first recognize that Indic civilization is a tradition much older, broader and more spiritual than the Western tradition and independent from it as well. Indic civilization is not necessarily hostile to Western civilization but it does proceed by different values and according to a different perception of humanity, nature and the universe, apart which we cannot make sense of it.

The best thing for Indians and for those who follow Indic traditions to do—like the many Hindus and Buddhists in the West—is to go directly to their traditions not only on a spiritual level but also relative to culture and history and not give much credence to Western Indology as it is today.

We see a renaissance of the Indic tradition in the world today on a spiritual, yogic, philosophical and culture levels. The popularity of Yoga, Vedanta, Buddhism, Ayurveda, and Indian music and dance that is happening all over the world shows this.

This in the long run is a more important event with a longer lasting influence on humanity than Western Indology that has so far failed to enter the courtyard, much less the sanctuary of the great temple of Indic civilization. Unfortunately, the views of Indologists still determine textbook accounts in schools, even in India, and influence the global media. Otherwise one could just as well ignore them as irrelevant.

Indic Effort to Spiritualize Western Civilization

The Indic tradition divides up Western civilization into different areas, to which it ascribes different degrees of validity. It largely accepts Western science as valid within its own sphere but regards that sphere as limited.

For example, it accepts most of the findings in the field of physics, particularly the discoveries of the relativity of time and space and the underlying reality of energy behind matter. However, it considers that these discoveries should be pursued further to truly get at the reality behind the universe, which is one of intelligence and consciousness.

The Indic tradition accepts Western political ideals of democracy and equality as good ideas but bound by and undermined by a materialistic formulation. What we need first of all as human beings is a spiritual self-determination—the freedom to know ourselves and discover our true nature beyond the body and mind.

Spiritual self-determination provides us the ability to stand above external manipulation, to go beyond desire, greed and ego. Modern democracy allows mainly for a material self-determination. This does not bring true freedom but only makes the masses vulnerable to manipulation by commercial, political and religious forces, which cater to their fears and desires. This is what we are seeing in the democratic West which has almost a dictatorship of the media and the corporate world and very little individual or creative thinking, particularly about ultimate reality.

The Indic tradition does not accept that Western views of history, society and spirituality are valid or complete. These are the main areas that it finds Western civilization to be lacking. Above all, it cannot accept the equation of these Western disciplines with science in terms of objectivity, finality or proof.

Western social sciences, for example, remain very culturally bound and cannot be given the finality of Western physical sciences, which are also undergoing many changes. Western religions are still mired in medieval and regressive concepts of exclusive truth and the need to convert the world that are yet more questionable.

What the Indic tradition is aiming at is spiritualizing the Western civilization, which means accepting its validity particularly in the realm of science, but integrating it into a deeper spiritual view which accepts the spiritual sciences of Yoga and Vedanta as well. It can also honor the genuinely creative and spiritual aspects of Western civilization and various individual Western thinkers, artists and mystics.

The main conflict between the Indic and the Western is their respective approaches to the humanities. The Indic tradition sees nothing of lasting value to humanity to be gained by subordinating itself to current Western civilization or allowing that to define and delimit it, reducing it to a footnote to Western culture. The Indic tradition sees itself more as a representative of true world civilization, which is also cosmic civilization, and is one of spirituality and Self-realization, not of mere mastery of the external world.