Reflections on Hindu Studies vis-á-vis Hindu Practice
Swami Tyagananda
The Vedanta Society, Boston
Two years ago, after I was invited to join the United Ministry at
Harvard as the Hindu chaplain, I was curious to know how the chaplains
working on the campus were connected with Harvard's Divinity School.
When I asked a minister about it, she shrugged her shoulders and said,
"We don't have too much connection with them really. They study
religion whereas we are practitioners." This answer surprised me.
I had na•vely assumed that since both the chaplains and the Divinity
School were involved with religion, they would naturally share common
interests and goals.
Later when I got to know more people on the campus—at Harvard as well
as in other colleges in and around Boston—I got a clearer picture. I saw
that there was indeed a wall separating religious studies from religious
practice, but it was not uncrossable. Some scholars are practitioners
and some practitioners are scholars. While there is often a tension
between what ministers think and what ordinary practitioners believe—and
this tension complicates the picture—we still must acknowledge that the
scholar/practitioner divide is real and it merits discussion.
Although much of what I say will probably be applicable to religious
study and practice in general, I shall use examples from Hinduism
studies in the West and from the life of practicing Hindus, since that
is the context of this dialogue.
Many factors are responsible for the split between the academy and
the practicing community. One factor is the focus of the two groups.
Those who study Hinduism in an academic setting want to know
about Hinduism, and not all scholars want that knowledge to influence
the direction of their lives. This is not to deny that many of those who
do study Hinduism do so for religious reasons. On the other hand,
practicing Hindus study their tradition too, but they do so with the
clear intent of transforming their lives. This difference in focus leads
to differing approaches to Hindu philosophy and religious personalities.
There are many on either side of our porous wall who suspect the
value of what the other side does. Some in the Western academy see the
"faith" of practicing Hindus as a blind, unquestioned acceptance of
personalities and events. This is often due to predetermined academic or
religious views held by some scholars. On their part, many Hindus see
academic study as equally faith-driven: unquestioned faith in certain
methods of research and total reliance on certain theories, often with
little firsthand acquaintance with the living tradition.
Many scholars tend to believe that as "outsiders" they can be more
objective and less conditioned by the environment in which the
"insiders" thrive. On the other side of the fence is the belief that
without being an "insider" one cannot have access to at least some
aspects of the tradition—and without that access the study, however
objective it may be, would still be inaccurate and incomplete. Much has
already been written and said about the outsider/insider divide and how
it affects the study and practice of religion.[1]
It is neither possible nor necessary for Hindu practitioners and
Hinduism scholars to agree with each other on every issue. Disagreements
are one thing and outrage is quite another. We need to explore the
causes that provoke reactions stronger than healthy disagreements. I
shall use an example from my own personal experience that, I feel,
highlights many relevant points.
A year and a half ago I did some research on Jeffrey Kripal's book
Kali's Child.[2]
A provocative review of that book had appeared
earlier—in 1997—in the Calcutta daily The Statesman and it had
generated much heat among the practicing Hindus in Calcutta. They were
outraged at the interpretation of Ramakrishna's life that was so
radically different from their own and they were outraged even more when
they heard some Western scholars characterize the book's treatment of
Ramakrishna as "sympathetic." Many people—both in academia as well as
from the Hindu community—were also outraged because those critics hadn't
even read the book and yet they were denouncing it on the basis of a
single review.
In this heated exchange, what went largely ignored was the voice of
practicing Hindus who had read the book carefully, were familiar with
the textual sources on Ramakrishna (most of which are in Bengali), and
knew Bengali well enough to see that the problems in Kali's Child
were more basic than mere interpretation. If interpretation is to be
based on historical data, it is vital that the data is not manipulated.
It is vital that the texts are translated honestly and accurately. It is
vital that loaded language with its own subtext is not used to bolster a
thesis, particularly when it distorts textual evidence. In my study of
Kali's Child, I felt outraged too—but this was not the result of
a blind, unquestioned faith in some dogma or belief or personality. It
was simply because a book that was being lauded as "scholarly" had
violated some of the basic norms observed in academic research and I
realized that, without those violations, it would have been difficult to
sustain a plausible thesis.[3]
To be sure, there have been other books on Ramakrishna with
interpretations that are not palatable to practicing Hindus, but those
books didn't attract the kind of reception that Kali's Child
received because—I think—they made fair use of scholarly tools.
This firsthand experience was most educative for me to understand the
dynamic that governs the relationship between the Western academy and
the Hindu community. What irritates and sometimes outrages people on
either side is arrogance: on one hand, the practicing community's
insistent hope that whatever the scholars write be in harmony with what
they believe, and on the other hand, the scholars' presumption that the
community's faith is misplaced—their beliefs presumed irrational.
Another factor that dismays the Hindu community is what they perceive
as misrepresentation of their faith. This can occur in several ways. One
way is through selections or anthologies. It is true that any anthology
will always have at least a few unhappy critics, because what is
important to one may not be important to another. Take for instance
Wendy Doniger's anthology of the Rig-veda.[4]
Although she makes no claim
to its being a representative collection, it is the only one at present
which is handy and easily available in the West and hence widely read
and studied. But those who are familiar with the contents of the
complete Rig-veda find her selection quirky and offensive. That is why
eyebrows are raised at such anthologies that merely reflect the taste of
the compiler.[5]
What Hindus see as misrepresentation can occur even through the
distortion of Hindu symbols and deconstruction of Hindu myths and
personalities. In the West, people are used to similar critiques that
deny or ignore some of their cherished religious beliefs; many
thoughtful Westerners have learned to take such critiques for granted
and are not disturbed by them. In India, however, religious studies as
an academic pursuit outside of a visibly religious environment hasn't
developed yet. Since this context doesn't exist there, many Hindus are
offended when they feel that their tradition is being distorted.
It may be argued that academics have the right to freely express
their views without being under any obligation to respect the
sensibilities of a community. In that case, it must be recognized that
neither is the community under any obligation to respect the
sensibilities of the academic world. Freedom is a two-way street. If I
want to express my freedom in my own way, I must be prepared to
let others express their freedom in their own way. But if this
leads to conflict and misunderstanding, then it may be helpful to
examine whether there is something wrong with the way we are using our
freedom. I am convinced that freedom is a value fundamental to human
existence, and if it is expressed properly, it can lead to only greater
understanding between divergent viewpoints.
Is it possible to cross the wall that separates Hinduism scholars and
Hindu practitioners? My own response is yes, because I personally know
many fine people who have crossed this wall several times. It's easy to
mention names—and several of their books—but I won't do so because many
of these scholars/practitioners are still amongst us and I don't want to
embarrass them. But their lives and books have taught me what good
scholarship means and how it cannot be separated from one's own life.
The distinction between intellectual understanding and spiritual
experience—or "indirect" knowledge (parokshanubhuti) and "direct"
knowledge (aparokshanubhuti)—is often stressed in the Hindu
tradition. I feel that keeping this distinction in mind is useful for
both scholars as well as practitioners. Intellectual understanding is
important and often a necessary prerequisite to spiritual experience but
it cannot replace spiritual experience. So both scholars and
practitioners have something unique to contribute and they can be allies
in a quest for greater knowledge and understanding.
In order for that to happen, the academy as well as the practicing
community will have to shed their biases. It is counterproductive for
either to perch itself on a high moral or intellectual ground and
belittle the understanding of the other. The academic study of Hinduism
will become richer if an effort is made to look at the subject from all
perspectives, the insider's as well as the outsider's, without
privileging one over the other. Hindu practice will become richer if it
gets the benefit of newer ways of approach and newer insights from
different viewpoints. No matter what, some differences will persist but
bitterness need not. Disagreements are healthy and good so long as each
side expresses them in a way that assures the other of its honesty of
purpose.
Hopefully the wall dividing the academy and the practicing community
will be torn down one day. We already have enough walls separating us
from each other; we don't need more. September 11 is the most recent
wake-up call. It's time to break down barriers and move together with
understanding and mutual respect.
Endnotes:
1. See JAAR (December 2000), vol. 68, issue
4 on articles and response on "Who Speaks for Hinduism?" [Return to text]
2. Jeffrey J. Kripal, Kali's Child: The
Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna, 2nd
ed (University of Chicago Press, 1998). [Return to text]
3. My review of the book can be accessed online
at http://home.earthlink.net/~tyag/Home.htm.
Prof. Kripal's responses to
it appeared in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin (Winter 2001) and on the
Divinity School's website at
http://www.hds.harvard.edu/dpa/news/news/kripal.html.
This resulted in
counter-responses from Huston Smith, Somnath Bhattacharya and Swami
Tyagananda, which were published as letters to the editor in the Spring
2001 edition of Harvard Divinity Bulletin. [Return to text]
4. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, The Rig Veda (Penguin Books, 1981).
[Return to text]
5. See ibid., 12. "This is certainly not a
'representative' anthology of the Rig-veda except in the sense that it
is representative of my taste . . .." [Return to text]
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