在帕姆班欢迎致辞的回复
本译文由人工智能辅助工具生成，可能存在不准确之处。如需查阅权威文本，请参考英文原文。
AI-translated. May contain errors. For accurate text, refer to the original English.
中文
帕姆班欢迎致辞的答复
斯瓦米·辨喜（Swami Vivekananda）抵达帕姆班时，得到了拉姆纳德（Ramnad）土王殿下的迎接，殿下给予他热忱的欢迎。登岸码头已为正式欢迎仪式做好了准备；在一座经过精心装饰的迎宾棚下，以下代表帕姆班民众的欢迎词被宣读：
谨请您的圣洁垂鉴，
我们怀着最深的感激与最崇高的敬仰，由衷地欢迎您的圣洁大驾光临——感激您在诸多繁重使命中，仍欣然慈悲地允诺顺道惠顾，敬仰您所具备的诸多高尚卓越的品质，以及您所崇高地肩负并以卓越的能力、极大的热忱与诚挚之心出色履行的伟大使命。
我们真诚地喜悦地看到，您的圣洁在西方文明大国那些有识之士的心灵中播撒印度哲学种子的努力，已取得如此巨大的成就，以至于我们已能看到四处呈现出那丰硕果实即将大量结出的光明喜悦之象；我们最诚挚地祈愿，您的圣洁在圣地雅婆陀（Âryâvarta）驻留期间，能慈悲地比您在西方更加努力，以唤醒我们母土中兄弟们长期昏睡的心智，使他们重新忆起那久被遗忘的真理福音。
我们对您的圣洁——我们伟大的灵性领袖——怀有最真诚的深情、最崇高的敬意与最高度的钦佩，以至于我们实在难以充分表达我们的心情；因此，请允许我们以对仁慈天道的真诚一致的祈愿作为结语，祈愿天道赐福您圣洁，赐予您长寿而有益于世的生命，并赐予您一切可能有助于唤回那久失的天下一家之情怀的一切。
土王随后补充了一段简短而情感深沉的个人欢迎词，随后斯瓦米大约作了如下答复：
我们神圣的母土是宗教与哲学的土地——灵性巨人的诞生之所——舍离之地，在此处，并且唯有在此处，从最古老到最现代的各个时代，始终存在着向人类开放的人生最高理想。
我曾到过西方各国，游历了许多民族的土地；在我看来，每一个民族，每一个国家，都有其特定的理想——一个贯穿其整个生命的鲜明理想；而这一理想是其国家生命的脊梁。给予印度这一脊梁的，不是政治，不是军事力量，不是商业霸权，也不是机械天才，而是宗教；宗教是我们所拥有的一切，也是我们所希望拥有的一切。灵性，始终在印度。
肌肉力量的显现固然伟大，借助科学工具、借助机器所表达的智力显现固然令人叹为观止；然而这些都不如灵性对世界所施加的影响来得有力。
我们民族的历史表明，印度始终是最为活跃的。今天，那些理应更有见识的人告诉我们，印度教徒是温顺而消极的；这几乎已成为其他民族对我们的一种成见。我否认印度曾经是消极的这一说法。在我们这片受祝福的土地上，活跃从未有过缺席，我们这一古老而慷慨的民族至今仍然生机勃勃——这一巨大的证明，便是在其辉煌历程中，每隔十年，似乎都焕发着新的青春，不朽而永不磨灭。这种活跃性在此处表现于宗教之中。然而人性中有一个奇特的事实，那便是它总以自身的活跃标准来评判他人。试以鞋匠为例：他只懂制鞋，认为人生中除了制鞋别无他事。砌砖工只懂砌砖，日复一日地在生活中证明这一点。还有另一个原因可以解释这一现象：当光的振动极为强烈时，我们反而看不见它们，因为我们的构造使我们无法超越自身的视觉层面。但具有灵性内省能力的瑜伽（Yoga）修行者，却能透过俗众的物质主义之幕看见本质。
现今全世界的目光都转向印度这片土地，寻求灵性的滋养；而印度必须为所有民族提供这种滋养。这里存在着人类最优越的理想；西方学者们正在努力理解这一理想——它蕴藏在我们的梵文典籍与哲学之中，贯穿各个时代，是印度的特质。
自有史记载以来，从未有任何一位传教士走出印度去传播印度教的教义与信条；然而如今，一场奇妙的变化正在我们身上发生。室利·薄伽梵·克里希纳（Shri Bhagavân Krishna）说："每当正法（Dharma）衰微、邪恶盛行之时，我便一次次降临以护持世界。"宗教研究向我们揭示的事实是：世界上没有任何一个拥有完善伦理法典的国家，不曾从我们这里借鉴某些东西；也没有任何一个拥有关于灵魂不朽之卓越观念的宗教，不曾直接或间接地从我们这里汲取。
世界历史上，从未有过比在这即将走完的十九世纪末更多的掠夺、横行霸道、强凌弱的时代。每个人都应当知道，除了征服欲望之外，没有任何救赎；任何一个受物质束缚的人都不是自由的。全世界各民族正在慢慢地领悟和认识这一伟大真理。一旦弟子处于能够领悟这一真理的状态，导师（Guru，梵）的教言便对他有所助益。主以其无穷的慈悲——从未止息，永远在一切信仰中流淌——将帮助派遣至祂自己的子民处。我们的主是一切宗教的主。这一观念唯属印度；我挑战你们任何一人，去在世界上任何其他经典中找到它。
在天道的安排下，我们印度教徒如今被置于一个极为关键而重大的位置。西方各民族正向我们寻求灵性的帮助。印度的子孙们肩负着充分装备自身、以便就人类存在之问题启迪世界的巨大道义责任。有一件事我们可以注意到：你们会发现，其他国家的善人与伟人以追溯至某位强盗贵族为荣——那贵族曾盘踞山中堡垒，时常出没以掠劫过往旅人——而我们印度教徒则以作为仙人（Rishis）与圣者的后裔为荣，那些仙人们曾在山峦与洞窟中以根茎野果为食，冥思最高者。我们也许如今已退化、已堕落；然而无论如何退化堕落，只要我们真诚地开始为我们的宗教努力工作，我们便能重新伟大。
我衷心感谢你们给予我的亲切而热诚的接待。我无法充分表达对拉姆纳德土王殿下之厚爱的感激。若我曾做过任何善事，或通过我完成过任何善事，印度对这位善良的人负有极大的恩情，因为正是他萌生了让我前往芝加哥的想法，正是他将这一想法植入我的心中，并坚持不懈地鞭策我去实现它。如今他仍与我并肩而立，怀着他一如往昔的热情，期望我做更多更多的事业。我希望能有六位以上这样的土王，对我们亲爱的母土投以关注，在灵性的道路上为她的改善而努力。
English
REPLY TO THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT PAMBAN
On the arrival of Swami Vivekananda at Pamban, he was met by His Highness the Raja of Ramnad, who accorded him a hearty welcome. Preparations had been made at the landing wharf for a formal reception; and here, under a pandal which had been decorated with great taste, the following address on behalf of the Pamban people was read:
May It Please Your Holiness,
We greatly rejoice to welcome Your Holiness with hearts full of deepest gratitude and highest veneration — gratitude for having so readily and graciously consented to pay us a flying visit in spite of the numerous calls on you, and veneration for the many noble and excellent qualities that you possess and for the great work you have so nobly undertaken to do, and which you have been discharging with conspicuous ability, utmost zeal, and earnestness.
We truly rejoice to see that the efforts of Your Holiness in sowing the seeds of Hindu philosophy in the cultured minds of the great Western nations are being crowned with so much success that we already see all around the bright and cheerful aspect of the bearing of excellent fruits in great abundance, and most humbly pray that Your Holiness will, during your sojourn in Âryâvarta, be graciously pleased to exert yourself even a little more than you did in the West to awaken the minds of your brethren in this our motherland from their dreary lifelong slumber and make them recall to their minds the long-forgotten gospel of truth.
Our hearts are so full of the sincerest affection, greatest reverence, and highest admiration for Your Holiness — our great spiritual leader, that we verily find it impossible to adequately express our feelings, and, therefore, beg to conclude with an earnest and united prayer to the merciful Providence to bless Your Holiness with a long life of usefulness and to grant you everything that may tend to bring about the long-lost feelings of universal brotherhood.
The Raja added to this a brief personal welcome, which was remarkable for its depth of feeling, and then the Swami replied to the following effect:
Our sacred motherland is a land of religion and philosophy — the birthplace of spiritual giants — the land of renunciation, where and where alone, from the most ancient to the most modern times, there has been the highest ideal of life open to man.
I have been in the countries of the West — have travelled through many lands of many races; and each race and each nation appears to me to have a particular ideal — a prominent ideal running through its whole life; and this ideal is the backbone of the national life. Not politics nor military power, not commercial supremacy nor mechanical genius furnishes India with that backbone, but religion; and religion alone is all that we have and mean to have. Spirituality has been always in India.
Great indeed are the manifestations of muscular power, and marvellous the manifestations of intellect expressing themselves through machines by the appliances of science; yet none of these is more potent than the influence which spirit exerts upon the world.
The history of our race shows that India has always been most active. Today we are taught by men who ought to know better that the Hindu is mild and passive; and this has become a sort of proverb with the people of other lands. I discard the idea that India was ever passive. Nowhere has activity been more pronounced than in this blessed land of ours, and the great proof of this activity is that our most ancient and magnanimous race still lives, and at every decade in its glorious career seems to take on fresh youth — undying and imperishable. This activity manifests here in religion. But it is a peculiar fact in human nature that it judges others according to its own standard of activity. Take, for instance, a shoemaker. He understands only shoemaking and thinks there is nothing in this life except the manufacturing of shoes. A bricklayer understands nothing but bricklaying and proves this alone in his life from day to day. And there is another reason which explains this. When the vibrations of light are very intense, we do not see them, because we are so constituted that we cannot go beyond our own plane of vision. But the Yogi with his spiritual introspection is able to see through the materialistic veil of the vulgar crowds.
The eyes of the whole world are now turned towards this land of India for spiritual food; and India has to provide it for all the races. Here alone is the best ideal for mankind; and Western scholars are now striving to understand this ideal which is enshrined in our Sanskrit literature and philosophy, and which has been the characteristic of India all through the ages.
Since the dawn of history, no missionary went out of India to propagate the Hindu doctrines and dogmas; but now a wonderful change is coming over us. Shri Bhagavân Krishna says, "Whenever virtue subsides and immorality prevails, then I come again and again to help the world." Religious researches disclose to us the fact that there is not a country possessing a good ethical code but has borrowed something of it from us, and there is not one religion possessing good ideas of the immortality of the soul but has derived it directly or indirectly from us.
There never was a time in the world's history when there was so much robbery, and high-handedness, and tyranny of the strong over the weak, as at this latter end of the nineteenth century. Everybody should know that there is no salvation except through the conquering of desires, and that no man is free who is subject to the bondage of matter. This great truth all nations are slowly coming to understand and appreciate. As soon as the disciple is in a position to grasp this truth, the words of the Guru come to his help. The Lord sends help to His own children in His infinite mercy which never ceaseth and is ever flowing in all creeds. Our Lord is the Lord of all religions. This idea belongs to India alone; and I challenge any one of you to find it in any other scripture of the world.
We Hindus have now been placed, under God's providence, in a very critical and responsible position. The nations of the West are coming to us for spiritual help. A great moral obligation rests on the sons of India to fully equip themselves for the work of enlightening the world on the problems of human existence. One thing we may note, that whereas you will find that good and great men of other countries take pride in tracing back their descent to some robber-baron who lived in a mountain fortress and emerged from time to time to plunder passing wayfarers, we Hindus, on the other hand, take pride in being the descendants of Rishis and sages who lived on roots and fruits in mountains and caves, meditating on the Supreme. We may be degraded and degenerated now; but however degraded and degenerated we may be, we can become great if only we begin to work in right earnest on behalf of our religion.
Accept my hearty thanks for the kind and cordial reception you have given me. It is impossible for me to express my gratitude to H. H. the Raja of Ramnad for his love towards me. If any good work has been done by me and through me, India owes much to this good man, for it was he who conceived the idea of my going to Chicago, and it was he who put that idea into my head and persistently urged me on to accomplish it. Standing beside me, he with all his old enthusiasm is still expecting me to do more and more work. I wish there were half a dozen more such Rajas to take interest in our dear motherland and work for her amelioration in the spiritual line.
文本来自Wikisource公共领域。原版由阿德瓦伊塔修道院出版。