二 班底特吉·马哈拉吉
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
二
孟买，
一八九二年九月二十日。
亲爱的班智达吉·玛哈拉吉：
您的来信已如期收到。我实不知为何会受此无端赞誉。正如主耶稣所言："除了上帝，无人是善的。"其余众人，不过是祂手中的器具。"荣耀归于至高之处"，"愿荣耀归于至高的上帝"，并归于那些当之无愧者，而非像我这般不配之人。在此，"仆人不值得得报酬"；何况一个游方僧（Sannyasin），更无丝毫接受称赞的权利——难道您会因仆人尽了本分而去称赞他吗？
……谨向班智达·孙达尔拉尔吉及我的恩师致以无限谢意，感谢他们对我的深情惦念。
现在，我还想向您谈及另一件事。印度教的心灵历来擅长演绎，而非综合或归纳。在我们所有的哲学体系中，总能见到对某些普遍命题的繁琐推演与细密辩证，却将命题本身视为不证自明——而那些命题或许幼稚至极。从未有人追问或探究这些普遍命题的真实性。因此，我们几乎不曾有独立的思想可言，由此导致了那些依赖观察与归纳的科学领域的匮乏。何以至此？原因有二：其一，酷热的气候迫使我们宁愿静息与冥想，而非付诸行动；其二，婆罗门作为祭司阶层，从不远游异域或出海远航。固然有旅行者和远足之人，然而他们几乎都是商人——也就是那些被祭司的权术与自身对利益的一味贪求，早已消磨殆尽了一切智识发展潜能的人。因此，他们的观察非但未能丰富人类知识的宝库，反而使之退步——因为他们的观察粗陋，其记述又被夸大渲染，扭曲为光怪陆离的形态，直至面目全非，令人无从辨认。
由此可见，我们必须出行，必须走向异国他乡。我们必须亲眼看看其他国家的社会机器如何运转，必须与其他民族的思想保持自由而开放的交流，倘若我们真的希望再度成为一个民族的话。尤其要紧的是，我们必须停止施暴于人。我们已被逼到何等可笑的境地！倘若一个拂拂（Bhangi，清洁工种姓）以本来面目出现，人们便会像避瘟疫一般躲避他；然而一旦有人往他头上泼了一杯水、念了几句祈祷词，再给他套上一件外衣——哪怕破旧不堪——他走入最正统印度教徒的厅堂，我倒要看看有谁敢拒绝给他让座、与他热情握手！讽刺已至于此，无以复加。再来看看他们，那些传教士（Padri），正在南方（达克申）做些什么。他们正以数十万计地改变低种姓阶层的信仰；在特拉凡科——印度祭司权力最为森严的地方，每一寸土地都归婆罗门所有……将近四分之一的人口已皈依基督教！我无法责怪他们；他们在大卫那里得了什么，在耶西那里又得了什么？何时，何时，啊，诸神啊，人与人才能真正成为兄弟？
您的，
辨喜（Vivekananda）
English
II
Bombay,
20th September, 1892.
Dear Panditji Mahârâj,
Your letter has reached me duly. I do not know why I should be undeservingly praised. "None is good, save One, that is, God", as the Lord Jesus bath said. The rest are only tools in His hands. "Gloria in Excelsis", "Glory unto God in the highest", and unto men that deserve, but not to such an undeserving one like me. Here "the servant is not worthy of the hire"; and a Fakir, especially, has no right to any praise whatsoever, for would you praise your servant for simply doing his duty?
. . . My unbounded gratitude to Pandit Sundarlalji, and to my Professor for this kind remembrance of me.
Now I would tell you something else. The Hindu mind was ever deductive and never synthetic or inductive. In all our philosophies, we always find hair-splitting arguments, taking for granted some general proposition, but the proposition itself may be as childish as possible. Nobody ever asked or searched the truth of these general propositions. Therefore independent thought we have almost none to speak of, and hence the dearth of those sciences which are the results of observation and generalization. And why was it thus? — From two causes: The tremendous heat of the climate forcing us to love rest and contemplation better than activity, and the Brâhmins as priests never undertaking journeys or voyages to distant lands. There were voyagers and people who travelled far; but they were almost always traders, i.e. people from whom priestcraft and their own sole love for gain had taken away all capacity for intellectual development. So their observations, instead of adding to the store of human knowledge, rather degenerated it; for their observations were bad and their accounts exaggerated and tortured into fantastical shapes, until they passed all recognition.
So you see, we must travel, we must go to foreign parts. We must see how the engine of society works in other countries, and keep free and open communication with what is going on in the minds of other nations, if we really want to be a nation again. And over and above all, we must cease to tyrannise. To what a ludicrous state are we brought! If a Bhângi comes to anybody as a Bhangi, he would be shunned as the plague; but no sooner does he get a cupful of water poured upon his head with some mutterings of prayers by a Pâdri, and get a coat on his back, no matter how threadbare, and come into the room of the most orthodox Hindu — I don't see the man who then dare refuse him a chair and a hearty shake of the hands! Irony can go no further. And come and see what they, the Pâdris, are doing here in the Dakshin (south). They are converting the lower classes by lakhs; and in Travancore, the most priestridden country in India — where every bit of land is owned by the Brahmins . . . nearly one-fourth has become Christian! And I cannot blame them; what part have they in David and what in Jesse? When, when, O Lords shall man be brother to man?
Yours,
Vivekananda.
Notes
文本来自Wikisource公共领域。原版由阿德瓦伊塔修道院出版。