Exegesis and eisegesis

[Guest guest]

>Do "eisegesis" and "exegesis" described in the post below, possibly go

>by "upa-patti" and "an-upa-patti" in sanskRt respectively ?

 

No, I don't believe they are exactly parallel. Perhaps exegesis would

correspond more closely (though still not exactly) to mukhyartha, and

eisegesis to gaunartha.

>Could someone illustrate "eisegesis" and "exegesis" with examples?

 

Since I was the one to bring them up, I suppose I had better try... Looking

the words up at www.dictionary.com (an excellent site), we find that

exegesis means 'exposition; explanation; especially, a critical explanation

of a text or portion of Scripture'. The original meaning is 'to lead out

of', i.e., to derive a meaning *from* a text. By contrast, eisegesis means

'to lead into', i.e., 'personal interpretation of a text using your own

ideas'.

>From a sampradayic point of view, not everyone may be comfortable with the

idea that Ramanuja (or whichever acarya one happens to follow) reads his

own ideas into a text. From a critical/academic viewpoint, however, this

happens all the time, in every tradition. Some textual passages are simply

so obscure that one has to bring in ideas from outside to make any sense of

them -- for instance, BhG 4.24 (brahmaarpanam brahma havir...). But

sometimes the meaning is perfectly clear from the context (as in the famous

vakya 'tat tvam asi'), and to resort to secondary meanings of one's own

invention in such a context is less defensible. Some acaryas are more

notorious in this respect than others.

 

Ramanuja Dasa,

MG