page_title: Hinduism and Theosophy
section_title: Merwin Snell's opinion
hierarchical_section_title: Hinduism and Theosophy / Philosophical parallels / Merwin Snell's opinion
caption_attribution_description: English: A diagram from an article by Merwin Marie Snell.
context_page_description: Hinduism is regarded by modern Theosophy as one of the main sources of "esoteric wisdom" of the East. The Theosophical Society was created in a hope that Asian philosophical-religious ideas "could be integrated into a grand religious synthesis." Prof. Antoine Faivre wrote that "by its content and its inspiration" the Theosophical Society is greatly dependent on Eastern traditions, "especially Hindu; in this, it well reflects the cultural climate in which it was born." A Russian Indologist Alexander Senkevich noted that the concept of Helena Blavatsky's Theosophy was based on Hinduism. According to Encyclopedia of Hinduism, "Theosophy is basically a Western esoteric teaching, but it resonated with Hinduism at a variety of points."
context_section_description: In 1895, Prof. Merwin Snell (Catholic University of America) published an article, in which he, calling Theosophy a "peculiar form of Neo-Paganism", attempted to determine its attitude to the "various schools of Bauddha and Vaidika" thought, i.e., to Buddhist and Hindu beliefs.
  According to him, there is no connection between Theosophy and Vedism, because the first Vedic texts, the Rigveda, for example, are not containing the doctrine of reincarnation and the law of karma. The Upanishads contain the hidden meaning of the Vedas, and "this is a very important" for understanding Theosophy, since the Upanishads were a basis "of the six great schools of Indian philosophy" which Blavatsky called "the six principles of that unit body of Wisdom of which the 'gnosis', the hidden knowledge, is the seventh." However, according to Snell, only in some cases the Theosophical theory corresponds to the Upanishads, that is, its most important, philosophical, part was "derived from the Darsanas." Thus, Brahman and Maya of the Vedantins, the Purusha and Prakriti of the Sankhya of Kapila, the Yoga of Patanjali, and the Adrishta of the Vaisheshika under the name of karman, all "find their place" in Theosophy. In Snell's opinion, almost all elements of its "religio-philosophical system" are clearly Hindu. Its philosophy is closely linked to the "Vedantized Yoga philosophy, but accepts the main thesis of the pure Advaita school".
  In conclusion, Snell wrote that the "process of Hinduization" of Theosophy can be seen by comparing the first and later works of its leading figures. In his opinion, this process has been greatly influenced by the Society "Arya Samaj", new branch of Vaishnavism (see Fig. 1), which especially emphasized the importance of a study of the Vedas.
caption: Fig. 1. Hinduism, Buddhism, Theosophy: interconnections (according to Snell).[9]
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