Abstract
Judging by the many kinds of books devoted to it in recent times, Hinduism is doing well at the beginning of the 21st century. It is rather ironical that the bearers of tradition, who traditionally considered going beyond the borders of the country of their birth and crossing the seas taboo, should have travelled far and wide from early times on but particularly in the second half of the 20th century, to truly establish their faith as a world religion. Like other religious traditions, it is a complex whole of varieties of belief, behaviour and experience. If anything, the variety and complexity of Hinduism is much greater than perhaps is true of any other religious tradition. Although volume after volume comes out from publishing houses in India and abroad literally without pause every year, yet there is more to record, narrate and interpret. Not every such book is worth having, but this one is most welcome.
The editors of The Life of Hinduism, Hawley and Narayanan, are renowned scholars who have already enriched our understanding of the Hindu religious tradition by their work as translators, authors and editors. Coming together for the first time, they have now produced a volume which is innovatively structured. The thematic foci of the book are: worship, the life cycle, festivals, performance, gurus, caste, diaspora and identity in that order. All but three of the 20 essays are contributions published earlier elsewhere; the introduction and two other essays have been specially written for this volume. The former include such classic pieces as Agehananda Bharati’s account of his initiation as a sanyasi (taken from his Ochre Robe), Diana Eck’s the image of god (from Darsản), and McKim Marriott’s splendid and famous essay on Holi. Apart from well established themes like the foregoing, the book also manages to be informative about new scholarly interests and contemporary debates. The academic disciplines represented include anthropology, literary studies, psychology and religious studies. About one-third of the contributors have Indian addresses, while the others are located in the USA as university professors and independent scholars.
Two essays have attempted the very difficult task of defining the essential features of Hinduism. Hawley and Narayanan must have considered it their editorial responsibility to do so, and they identify ‘five strands’: doctrine (for example, karma), practice (pūjā), society (varna, jāti), story (kathā) and performance (bhakti). Sitansu Chakravarti, looking upon Hinduism as a diasporic creed, lists ‘some basic features’: God, the one in many, sanatanā dharma, personalised religion, karma, caste, panchopāsana icons, divine incarnations and non-violence. Such enumeration of strands, features or essentials can never be deemed complete, final or uncontestable. However, the exercises are useful as suggestive frameworks for discussion.
Limitations of space preclude discussion of individual essays. I will therefore confine comment to a contentious issue—a rather strange one, but nonetheless important—namely, the issue of ‘entitlement’ or authority or one may say adhikāra and hence of adhikārabheda: who may legitimately write about Hinduism? One would have thought that the only relevant criteria are scholarly interest and competence. Interest is, of course, self-certified: who am I to ask an al-Beruni, a Max Mueller, or a Jack Jawley why he is interested in the study of Hinduism? The question could only be called impertinent or stupid. What certainly is relevant is whether any such would-be student has the scholarly credentials (including linguistic competence and disciplinary training) to undertake the study. Linguistic competence is, it seems to me, an unquestionable criterion, but grounding in a discipline could be problematic. There are opinion-makers around who have argued that anthropology is marked by its beginnings as a colonial enterprise and psychoanalysis is primarily a European obsession of limited general applicability.
Even the broad field of modern historiography is considered suspect. Thus, one of the contributors to this volume, Srinivas Tilak (identified as ‘an independent research scholar who holds a doctorate in the history of religions from McGill University’, p. 306) complains that ‘the Hindus have allowed the history of their religion to be told to them’ (p. 276) and gives the call for ‘taking back Hindu studies’ with a view to decolonising them (p. 277ff). ‘Researched [Hindus] must become researchers’ (p. 280) and obviously, cease to be uncritical followers. A criterion for validation is set up: ‘Research on Hinduism must be based on the assumption that research that involves Indians and Hindus as individuals and as communities must make a positive difference for those who are researched’ (p. 282). They must enjoy ‘some short-term or long-term benefits [sic]’ (ibid.). And why not? Hindus do indeed like all kinds of benefits, material no less than the spiritual or intellectual.
As a life-long resident Indian, I am not sure I fully understand the anxieties of Hindus, laypersons or scholars, settled abroad. I do know, however, that uncivil methods, such as name calling, demands for banning books and vandalism have been employed by some of them or their Indian storm troopers (like those who vandalised the Bhandarkar Institute in Pune) to get even; others like Tilak favour Gāndhigīri (he does not use this team though), that is, ‘staging Satyāgraha to take back Hindu studies’ (p. 283). ‘Experienced Hindu academics’ (p. 284) among diasporic Hindus (such as who?) are identified as the ultimate authority to determine what will be taught and what research will be passed as acceptable. Adhikārabheda is thus established.
The concluding chapter, ‘Hinduism with others: interlogue’, by Laurie Patton and Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad with Kala Acharya, calls for samvād, translated as ‘interlogue’, rather than satyāgraha. It is a call for ‘plural and liberal discourse between Hindu and non-Hindu’, acknowledging ‘(1) a non-relativistic frame or common reality, and (2) the possibility of a profoundly irreducible difference of opinion’ (p. 294). This reminds me of Gandhi’s invocation of the Jaina doctrine of anekāntavād. The authors do not invoke him but put forward a set of principles for samvād the last of which reads: ‘Indic tradition teaches that the life of the mind is constantly concerned with self-correction and growth’ (p. 298). That is Gandhian enough, and works for me.