For Whom Does Hinduism Speak?

[Guest guest]

This is an article I found on the internet by H.H. Hridayananda dasa

Gosvami, written I believe for an academic audience. Many Vaishnavas in

general (and Gaudiya Vaishnavas in particular) feel pressured by their Hindu

peers to accept their identity as Hindus, usually for sociopolitical

reasons. Behind the unqualified acceptance of this term is often an implicit

trend towards sublimating the Vaishnava philosophy and world-view to the

impersonalistic perspective of Advaitic Hinduism. In this article, the

non-Vedic origins of the term Hindu are explored, along with its changing

usage throughout the ages. Repeatedly, it is pointed out that Vaishnava

thinkers rarely if ever used the term, and actually spent much of their time

refuting the central tenets of the philosophy that is promoted today in the

name of Hinduism. Devotees interested in these issues might thus find this

article useful in dialogues with non-Vaishnava Hindus.

 

- Krishna

For Whom Does Hinduism Speak?

 

In this essay H.J. Resnick explains where the term 'Hindu' originates from. He

asks for whom does the term 'Hindu' speak and who can speak for the 'Hindus'. To

which of the multitude of widely differing worldviews does this term apply? What

are the implications of accepting 'Hindu' as a designation? Hrdayananda Dasa

Goswami also looks at the history of the word and discovers how and where it

came into common use by scholars and by the 'Hindus' themselves.

 

 

Introduction

 

In his remarkable work, India and Europe, Wilhelm Halbfass notes that,

.... the critical, historical and often reductive work of Western

Indologists has met with passionate rejection by conservative Hinduism and

been seen as part of a strategy of Western domination and suppression.’ (p.

259)

 

One consequence of the rising political, intellectual and religious

self-confidence and self-assertion of contemporary India, especially its

Hindu majority, is the Indian attempt to reclaim from the Western academy

the right to ‘objectively’ and ‘authoritatively’, if not ‘scientifically’,

explain itself and its history to the world. There is frequent tension

between those who would defend with a learned voice Hinduism’s traditional,

scripture-based self-history, and those who seek to explain India by the

standards of Western humanistic scholarship, under the various rubrics of

Indology, South Asian Languages/Literatures/Civilisation, Anthropology,

Hindu Studies, History of India, etc.

 

>From this dialectic tension arose the challenging and much debated

question: ‘Who speaks for Hinduism?’ In English, ‘to speak for’ often means

to speak ‘on behalf of; as the agent of; on the part of.’ In this sense, we

may easily concede that Hindus, like members of any community, have a right

to designate and authorise those who may speak ‘on behalf of,’ or ‘as the

agent of’, their group.

 

On the other hand, ‘Who may speak about Hinduism?’ is a more complex

question. In a legal context, within a free society, anyone may, as long as

they do not commit slander, libel etc. However, the relevant question, in

spirit, would seem to be, ‘Who can speak objectively, authoritatively,

meaningfully about Hinduism?’ Clearly, some scholars believe that one who

speaks objectively about anything, truly speaks for that thing, since such

fair, accurate speech best represents the truth of what a thing is. In the

‘hard sciences’ rocks, rivers, and even reptiles hardly speak for themselves

in the sense of learned discourse. Hence the scientist speaks for them. To

the extent that scholars in the humanities have sought to ape the ‘hard

sciences’ (and the extent is not meagre), there has been a palpable tendency

to speak for what are perceived as ‘pre-scientific’ communities, even as one

speaks about them. Of course, we are all aware that such a philosophically

naive position has undergone much stimulating criticism in recent decades.

So without dredging up the murky aspects of the Orientalist legacy, suffice

it to say that many, though certainly not all, Western scholars have

believed and asserted their ability to speak more objectively, and thus more

authoritatively, about Hinduism, than those recognised within the Hindu

community as reliable spokespersons, and this has created quite a ruckus

among Hindus both in India and abroad.

 

My point here is not simply that Western academic types are the

bogey-persons of Indian studies. Indeed, much Western scholarship about

India, both now and in the past, has been excellent and invaluable. Rather,

I wish to argue that many claiming to represent and speak for Hinduism, from

within Hinduism, have themselves appropriated the voice of groups within the

Hindu complex in a way that is analogous to the Orientalist appropriation of

the Hindu voice. Thus in response to the question, ‘Who speaks for Hinduism?

’ I raise the question, ‘For whom does Hinduism speak?’ I do so not only as

a scholar of Vaisnavism, but also as one who has lived as a Gaudiya Vaisnava

for about thirty years. (1)

 

I will argue below that in early Vaisnava, and indeed Vedic, religious

discourse and polemics, the term and concept ‘Hindu’ is unknown. Later, in

contact with the Muslim rulers of India, Vaisnavas become ‘Hindu’ for the

outsider, the foreigner, but not for themselves, nor among themselves.

Finally, in the last few centuries, the ‘modern’ period of contact with the

West, the term ‘Hindu’ emerged as an all-embracing internal term that, for

the first time, sought to define and contain followers of the Vedas, for and

among themselves. I shall make the further claim that the attempt of

spokespersons of a modern, generic Hinduism to speak for the Vaisnava

tradition distorts that tradition and brings in its wake other kinds of harm

to the ancient spiritual wisdom of India.

 

Although there are many ways in which one might classify the development of

the term ‘Hindu’ in South Asia, I will sketch that process in three

historical stages, as mentioned above. First, though, it is necessary to

reveal a few essential facts about the word hindu.

 

‘Hindu’ is not found in the Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, which are written in

Sanskrit

 

Why is this important? Although the task of defining Hinduism has proved

elusive, historically the acceptance of the Sanskrit Vedas as sacred

scripture has served as a bedrock standard for a true Hindu. Buddhism and

Jainism, though born on Indian soil, are not included within the endless

variety of Hindu doctrines and practices, chiefly because both these

traditions rejected the supreme authority of the Vedas. Indeed, in the legal

definition of Hinduism, given by the Indian Supreme Court in 1966, the first

criterion is ‘Acceptance of the Vedas with reverence as the highest

authority in religious and philosophic matters.’ We thus have an unusual

situation in which one becomes a Hindu by accepting the authority of

scriptures that do not recognise the word ‘Hindu’.

 

‘Hindu’ is not a Sanskrit word

 

It is of further significance that hindu is not a Sanskrit word. Early

Vedic literature often uses the term Arya to designate the true and noble

followers of Vedic culture. And as Halbfass points out:

‘ ... language is a central criterion for the definition of the Aryan. It

is essential for preserving his ritual power and identity against the

mlecchas [foreigners, barbarians]. The continuity of the tradition, the

identity and stability of the Aryan dharma, depends on its linguistic

vehicle, the Sanskrit language... . ’ (p. 178)

 

Yet so totally absent is the word hindu from traditional Sanskrit

literature, that in his well-known work, A History of Sanskrit Literature,

the great Oxford Sanskritist A.A. Macdonell mentioned the word hindu only

once — and that was in order to give the standard, geographic explanation of

the term’s origin:

‘The Sindhu (now Sindh), which in Sanskrit simply means the ‘river’, as the

western boundary of the Aryan settlements, suggested to the nations of

antiquity which first came into contact with them in that quarter, a name

for the whole peninsula. Adopted in the form of Indos, the word gave rise to

the Greek appellation India as the country of the Indus. It was borrowed by

the ancient Persians as hindu, which is used in the Avesta as a name of the

country itself. More accurate is the modern Persian designation Hindustan,

‘Land of the Indus’, a name properly applying only to that part of the

peninsula which lies between the Himalaya and the Vindhya range [roughly

North to Central India]’ (Munshirama, 1972, p. 142).

 

The term ‘hindu’ in historical krsna-bhakti

 

The earliest canonical expressions of krsna-bhakti, devotion to Krsna, are

found in such literatures as the Mahabharata and its appendixed Hari-vamsa,

and in the Visnu Purana and the Bhagavata Purana. The foundational scripture

for devotion to the Lord as King Rama is Valmiki’s Ramayana. In none of

these texts do we find the word hindu. The language of all of the above

texts is Sanskrit.

 

Even as late as the tenth and eleventh centuries of the common era, we find

this term entirely absent in essential Vaisnava devotional, philosophical

and apologetic writings. We shall illustrate this by briefly considering the

works of two great acaryas (spiritual leaders/teachers) of the Sri Vaisnava

tradition of Southeast India, surely one of the most historically important

Vaisnava ‘denominations’.

 

Yamunacarya, born around 916 ce, ‘is the first Vaisnava acarya whose works

are extant’ (Narayanan 59). This important figure wrote a philosophical

treatise called Agama-pramanyam, ‘a fierce defense of the agamic literature’

(ibid. 60). Concerning the hard-fought debate of that time between the Tamil

Vaisnavas and the Smarta-brahmanas, ‘Yamuna, our source’, says the late

Professor van Buitenen, referring to the Agama-pramanyam, ‘is an

unimpeachable authority. Here we have not a sectarian text speaking in pious

and traditional platitudes about wicked adversaries, but a Bhagavata with a

fine mind who seeks to enumerate, and subsequently to invalidate, very

precisely the traditional arguments of the Smartas against the

less-than-respectable Bhagavatas.’ (van Buitenen, pp. 26–27).

 

In this debate, neither the protagonist nor his theological adversary ever

use the term ‘Hindu’ or ‘Hinduism’. What is perhaps more remarkable is that

in Dr Narayanan’s authoritative history of the Sri Vaisnava tradition, the

word ‘Hindu’ or ‘Hinduism’ does not even appear in her index. In other

words, it is possible for a distinguished scholar to write the history of an

important ‘Hindu’ denomination without using the word ‘Hindu’ in her book.

In his own theological and philosophical struggles with the Buddhists,

Sankara seeks, along with the Mimamsakas, to demonstrate the authority of

the Vedas. And in his debates with the Mimamsakas, the rhetorical goal is to

demonstrate that one’s own community is vaidika, Vedic, and has best

understood the message of the Vedas. Later, the illustrious Ramanuja made

powerful arguments against the teachings of Sankara in favour of a personal

God. Again, the discourse aims to prove that one group is truly vaidika, and

that the members of one’s soteriological group will actually achieve the

highest moksa, liberation. In all of these historically seminal,

intellectually sophisticated and religiously crucial debates, we do not find

the term hindu.

 

The middle stage of ‘Hindu’ discourse

 

As in earlier Sanskrit texts, so in the Gaudiya Vaisnava Sanskrit texts of

the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries we do not find the word ‘Hindu.’ In

the Gaudiya-Vaisnava Bengali texts of the same period, ‘Hindu’ does appear

but only for, and usually by, the yavana-mleccha, i.e. the Muslim, who is

outside the sacred culture of the Vedas. Joseph O’Connell introduces his

article, The word ‘Hindu’ in Gaudiya Vaisnava texts, as follows:

A survey of three Sanskrit and ten Bengali hagiographic texts from early

sixteenth to late eighteenth centuries discloses nearly fifty passages (all

in the Bengali texts) in which the word ‘Hindu’ appears. Most occurrences

are in episodes of strained relationships between Hindus and yavanas or

mlecchas, as the Muslims are called. The strains are usually resolved

satisfactorily. The word ‘Hindu’ never appears in a purely intra-communal

Hindu context and has no significance in the central religious concerns of

the texts, the expositions of bhakti. (emphasis mine) ... there is to be

found no explicit discussion of what ‘Hindu’ or ‘Hindu dharma’ means in any

of the texts surveyed. ... there is no example of an abstract term which

might be translated as Hindu-ness or Hinduism (e.g. hindutva) ... (pp. 340,

342)

 

‘Furthermore, it is interesting to note how often it is in the mouth of a

non-Hindu that the word ‘Hindu’ is placed by the writers’ (ibid. p. 341).

O’Connell further observes:

‘It was over against a group of people or type of people considered both

foreign and barbarous (and often violent, as expressions like kala-jabana,

“Death-Yavana”, indicate) that the self-awareness of the Vaisnavas as Hindus

was fashioned’ (p. 342).

 

About this same period and phenomenon, Halbfass writes, ‘In this climate of

‘sectarian’ strife and search for identity (i.e. the Gaudiya Vaisnava and

Vallabhiya ‘proselytising’), the word ‘Hindu’, which so far had been used by

foreigners, specifically Muslims, was first employed by the Hindus

themselves’ (p. 192).

 

Thus whereas in the early period, ‘Hindu’ is not a factor either within

internal Vaisnava discourse, nor in discourse with the ‘other’, we find that

in the middle period, and specifically in tight contact with the governing

Muslims, the Gaudiya Vaisnavas, and presumably other groups as well, employ

the Muslim term ‘Hindu’ self-referentially, but only in dialogue with or

about the ruling, and dangerous, Muslims.

 

The late or modern stage of ‘Hindu’ discourse

 

‘The period around 1800, which saw the full establishment of European power

and presence in India, also saw the beginnings of modern Indology, i.e. the

scientific exploration and objectification of India’s past. The combination

of these two events, which is more than a temporal coincidence, had a

fundamental impact upon Indian attitudes towards themselves and the “other”.

’ (Halbfass, p. 172)

 

One of the most striking and transparent changes in the ‘modern’ period

since around 1800, is the new use of ‘Hindu’ as an internal

self-identification. Enthusiasm for this development was never unanimous.

‘The Arya Samaj tried to replace the word “Hindu” with the ancient term

Arya.’ R.N. Suryanarayana calls ‘Hindu’ a ‘detestable term ... of which we

should be ashamed’ (Halbfass, p. 515, fn. 97).

As one might expect, others went to the opposite extreme: ‘Some modern

Indian nationalists, most notably M.S. Golwalkar and V.D. Savarkar, have

argued vehemently that the world ‘Hindu’ was not at all adopted from the

Muslims and was not originally used by non-Hindus. Instead they claim that

it is a genuinely Indian term, reflecting ‘the unity, the sublimity, and the

specialty’ of the Indian people.’ (Halbfass, p. 193)

 

P. Hacker has analysed modern Hinduism in terms of the overlapping

categories of ‘neo-Hinduism’ and ‘surviving traditional Hinduism.’ Halbfass,

who uses these categories, does so with a caveat: ‘Hacker’s two categories

are not mutually exclusive and not always clearly distinguishable. ... it is

also possible “that one and the same person combines elements of both ways

of thinking.”’(Halbfass, p. 220)

 

For our purpose here, I shall focus on a few of the most distinguished

spokespersons of both neo-Hinduism and surviving traditional Hinduism, and

show how in each case their idiosyncratic notions of a monolithic Hinduism

create significant religious problems for the Vaisnava community, which is,

after all, supposed to be a majority component of Hinduism. This will lead

directly to consideration of my question, ‘For whom does Hinduism speak?’

and more specifically to the question, ‘Can Hinduism speak for Vaisnavas?’

P. Hacker calls Vivekananda ‘the most influential shaper and propagandist

of the neo-Hindu spirit’ (Halbfass 228). Halbfass sees him as ‘one of the

leading figures of modern Hindu thought and self-awareness and an exemplary

exponent of Hindu self-representation vis-a-vis the West.’ It was mentioned

earlier that the great Vaisnava theologians, Ramanuja and Madhva, in their

Vedanta commentaries, fought against the monistic, advaita, interpretation

of Sankara. But in the modern period, in the name of a generic ‘Hinduism’,

Vivekananda took up the banner of the advaita-vedanta:

‘The sense of identity ... which [Vivekananda] tries to awaken in his

fellow Indians ... means, above all, the heritage of Advaita Vedanta, the

tradition of Sankara. Ethics, self-confidence, and brotherly love find their

true and binding foundation in Advaitic non-dualism’ (Halbfass, p. 234).

Or, in Vivekananda’s own words,

‘That is what we want, and that can only be created, established and

strengthened by understanding and realising the ideal of the Advaita, that

ideal of the oneness of all. ... to preach the Advaita aspect of the Vedanta

is necessary to rouse up the hearts of men, to show them the glory of their

souls. It is therefore, that I preach this Advaita ... ’ (From Vivekananda’s

four lectures in London, titled ‘Practical Vedanta’, III, 190f., quoted by

Halbfass, p. 234)

 

Halbfass adds in his footnote 75 to this quote: ‘Vivekananda often

encouraged his listeners to see themselves “as God.”’ Those familiar with

Vaisnava thought will instantly understand that the claim to be God is as

serious an offense to many Vaisnavas as it would be to many in the Abrahamic

traditions.

 

But Vivekananda is not the only neo-Hindu superstar to promote

advaita-vedanta as the doctrine of Hinduism. Let us next consider the

eminent Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Oxford scholar and former President of

India.

 

According to P. Hacker, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan ‘seems to be the most

typical ... neo-Hindu thinker.’(2) Halbfass adds, ‘ ... it is evident that

Radhakrishnan has been a most successful spokesman of neo-Hinduism in the

West, and that he has produced some of the most memorable and persuasive

formulations of neo-Vedantic thought.’

 

And what is Radhakrishnan’s vision of applied ‘Hindu philosophy’?

‘Radhakrishnan’s very first articles ... already articulate two fundamental

themes of his neo-Hindu apologetics: the importance of philosophy for the

identity and self-affirmation of modern India, and the significance and

potential application of Advaita Vedanta in the area of ethics and social

practice.' (3)

 

Thus for a Vaisnava, to jump on the neo-Hindu bandwagon often means in

practice to directly or indirectly be associated with, if not endorse, a

sectarian theological position totally antithetical to Vaisnavism, i.e. the

monistic doctrine of the absolute oneness of the soul with an impersonal

God. The greatest Vaisnava acaryas, Ramanuja, Madhva, Caitanya Mahaprabhu,

etc. dedicated significant portions of their lives to to opposing this view.

It is thus deeply troubling to Vaisnavas that unity among ‘Hindus’ is often

sought under the monistic banner, while simultaneously minimising or denying

the great theological divide which for centuries has separated those seeking

to love, and those seeking to become, the Absolute Truth.

 

Having looked at two neo-Hindu thinkers, let us glance at some of the

prominent ‘surviving, traditional’ Hindus. Halbfass calls Vasudeva Sastrin

Abhyankara one ‘of the greatest traditional pandits’ in the modern age, a

learned man who used ‘the standards of the Dharmasastra’, the sacred

law-book, in his Dharma-tattva-nirnaya. [Ascertaining the Truth of Dharma].

(4) Essentially, this work stresses the birthright and the hereditary

aspects of Hinduism, with the author determining that Hinduism cannot be

approached through mere ‘initiation’ (diksa)(5). (Halbfass 260) Similarly,

‘ ... The Dharmapradipa, written by Anantakrsna Sastrin, Sitarama Sastrin,

and Srijiva Bhattacarya, three of the leading pandits of their time (the

preface is dated December 15, 1937), also bears mention. In this work,

questions of ‘purification’ (suddhi) and rehabilitation of Hindus who have

joined a ‘mleccha religion’ (mleccha-dharma) or been coerced into giving up

their ways of life and belief are discussed in great detail. The conversion

of persons who were born into a foreign religion is not taken into

consideration at all.’ (Halbfass 260)

 

The problems for Vaisnavas with these two versions of ‘traditional’

Hinduism are as follows:

 

Several great Vaisnava acaryas have historically fought for the right of

any person to achieve salvation, and to acquire the status of a spiritual

teacher, simply on the basis of bhakti, or devotion to God.(6) Indeed, they

have fought precisely against the type of orthodox, smarta, brahmanism

exemplified by the work of Vasudeva Sastrin Abhyankara.

 

In his article on the Bhagavata Purana, perhaps the single most important

scripture of the Vaisnavas, Thomas Hopkins points out that one of the main

points in ‘the religion of the Bhagavata [is] the absence of the

qualifications based on birth and status that restricted participation in

orthodox ceremonies.’ (Hopkins, pp. 11-12)

 

Hopkins goes on to say,

‘The Bhagavata ... also repeatedly stresses the independence of bhakti from

all alternative means of salvation. Criticism of orthodoxy does not stop at

the theological level. ... Here the primary objective is to refute the idea

that a person’s birth, social status, or caste membership is of any

significance with respect to salvation by means of devotion.’

Equally troubling for Vaisnavas is the Dharmapradipa’s indifference to the

issue of persons born in other religions that wish to take up Hindu-dharma.

Gaudiya-Vaisnava movements such as ISKCON are mainly composed of devotees

born outside of Hindu families. Much earlier, Sri Caitanya himself installed

as His namacarya, the ‘teacher of the Name’, the Muslim-born Haridasa. It is

not clear how the Dharmapradipa would deal with such conversions. Halbfass

is aware of this problem:

‘The commitment to the hereditary caste system may be less rigid in the

sects than in mainstream ‘orthodoxy.’ This affects their xenological

attitudes. The chosen membership in the religious or soteriological

community can be more significant than the hereditary caste membership. Such

openness and flexibility is occasionally extended beyond the confines of the

Indian world, and even the mlecchas are at times recognised as potential

members of the soteriological community.’ (Halbfass, p. 193)

 

Conclusion

 

I have argued that the modern transformation of the term ‘Hindu’ into an

internal, monistically tilted self-definition for the followers of the

Vedas, is problematic for Vaisnavas, and that ‘Hinduism’ cannot in all

respects speak for Vaisnavism.

 

In her comparative study, Veda and Torah [1], Barbara Holdredge notes:

The categories ‘Hinduism’ and ‘Judaism’ are themselves problematic

.... , for, like the category ‘religion’, they represent theoretical

constructs that attempt to impose unity on a myriad of different

religious systems. The complex amalgam termed ‘Hinduism’ encompasses a

variety of ‘Hinduisms’. Beginning in the Vedic period and throughout

Indian history the orthodox brahminical tradition has been continually

challenged by competing traditions and movements — local village

traditions, ascetic groups, devotional (bhakti) sects, tantric

movements, and more recently, modern reform movements. While the

centripetal force of brahminical power structures has sought to absorb

and domesticate competing currents, the centrifugal force of these

countervailing centers of power has persisted, giving rise to that

uneasy conglomerate of heterogeneous tendencies which Western scholars

term ‘Hinduism’ (Holdredge, p. 1).

 

Questions instantly arise:

(1) Who speaks for this ‘uneasy conglomerate of heterogeneous tendencies?’

(2) For whom does this ‘uneasy conglomerate of heterogeneous tendencies’

speak?

 

Where shall we find a simple ‘Hindu’ who is neither a Vaisnava, nor a

Saiva, nor a Sakta, nor a Tantrika, nor a member of a ‘local village

tradition’, nor a smarta-brahmana, etc.? If our ‘Hindu’ agrees not to speak

for her or his own tradition, and rather speak for ‘Hinduism’ as a whole,

what will the person say?

 

And yet, we saw that Caitanya himself, the founder of the Gaudiya-Vaisnava

movement, did accept the term ‘Hindu’ for ordinary dealings with the Muslim

rulers. We must keep in mind here the common, contrasting Sanskrit

philosophical terms: vyavaharika, ‘relating to ordinary or mundane affairs,

usage or practice’ and paramarthika, ‘relating to a spiritual object, or to

supreme, essential truth.’ It seems fair to say that according to O’Connell’

s survey of sixteenth to eighteen century Gaudiya Vaisnava literature, the

Vaisnava devotees considered themselves Hindu in a vyavaharika sense, but

never in a paramarthika sense. Indeed, from the paramarthika viewpoint,

‘Hindu’ is simply another upadhi, or worldly de-signation. After all, a

Hindu may convert to another religion, but on the spiritual platform, the

pure soul, atman, can never become anything else in an ontological sense,

though the soul may forget its true identity.

 

Thus two highly revered and canonical works of the Gaudiya Vaisnavas — Rupa

Gosvami’s Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu (1.1.12) and Krsndasa Kaviraja’s Sri

Caitanya-caritamrta (2.19.170) — cite the following verse from the

Narada-pancaratra(7) :

‘Bhakti (devotion) is said to be service, with the senses, to the Lord of

the senses (Hrsikesa, Krsna), which is freed of all “designations” (upadhi),

and immaculate through dedication to Him.’

 

Monier-Williams gives these relevant meanings for upadhi: ‘that which is

put in the place of another thing, a substitute ...; anything which may be

taken for or has the mere name or appearance of another thing ... , phantom,

disguise.’ The sense in which the upadhi, ‘Hindu’, is a vyavaharika identity

for one engaged in self-realisation along Vedantic lines, should be clear

upon reflection. Thus the progressive growth of ‘Hindu’ as a total identity

can be understood as the overwhelming of the paramarthika, the ultimate

spiritual, identity by the worldly, conventional identity. For the

spiritualist, this is a problem.

 

Perhaps one evidence that the term ‘Hindu’ is vyavaharika, an upadhi of

this world, and of the present body, is that it has often been invoked and

engaged to foster communal, even ethnic consciousness and at times communal

violence. Thus ‘Hindu’ transforms itself into an ethnic, even a racial,

marker, an engine for national pride, in a way that one would not expect

from an eternal, spiritual science that, according to the Bhagavad-gita,

would apply equally to all living beings.

 

A historical example may serve to illumine this point. When Gaudiya

Vaisnavism was taken seriously in Bengal, it tended to counteract the

tendency toward communal conflict, as O’Connell has observed:

‘ ... the Vaisnavas in Bengal did not place their religious commitment in

the solidarity of the Hindu people, nor in the sacred ideals, if there were

such, common to Hindus. Their religious faith was in Krishna, a mode of

faith that in principle a non-Hindu could share ... it would seem, then,

either that religiously motivated Hindu communalism is a relatively recent

development in Bengal or that the Gaudiya Vaisnavas are atypical. My own

opinion is that so long as the Gaudiya Vaisnavas remained the pace-setting

religious and literary group in Bengal, i.e. to the turn of the nineteenth

century, their point of view prevailed in Bengal well beyond their own

movement. With the partial breakdown of Gaudiya-Vaisnava faith,

self-assurance and influence in the nineteenth century, due in part to the

criticisms by reformers, this Vaisnava resistance to religiously motivated

communal consciousness by Hindus was eroded.’ (JOC, p. 342)

Among the minimum beliefs one must have to be a legal Hindu in India, the

Supreme Court includes ‘Acceptance of great world rhythm — vast periods of

creation, maintenance and dissolution follow each other in endless

succession — by all six systems of Hindu philosophy.’

 

It is fair to say that within the ‘vast periods of creation, maintenance

and dissolution’, the existence of the term ‘Hindu’ occupies but a geo-blip

of time. Missing altogether in Vedic discourse, as well as in later Sanskrit

epic, Puranic, and Vedantic disquisitions, the term comes to be used

self-referentially in more recent times in vernacular literatures. Even that

limited use is further limited to discourse with or for a hostile ‘other’.

Finally, in modern times, in contact with the West, ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hinduism’,

in their various neo- and conservative shapes, emerge as quasi-ethnic,

exclusivistic self-references, with and for those believing that the Vedic

literature is sacred and authoritative.

 

This dramatic shift is troubling for those Vaisnavas who take seriously the

traditional teachings of the Bhagavad-gita, the Bhagavata Purana and the

devotional version of Vedanta, to the effect that every living being is

ultimately an eternal servant of a supreme personal God. Vaisnavas are even

more unhappy with the constant neo-Hindu subordination of Krsna’s personal

form to the impersonal, nirguna ideal of advaita-vedanta. On paramarthika

issues, a serious Vaisnava would not dream of appointing a generic ‘Hindu’

as a spokesperson. Thus, in a purely spiritual context, for whom does

Hinduism speak?

 

Notes

(1) In general, Vaisnavas are those who worship Visnu, in His many forms as

either Rama, Krsna, Narayana, etc. as the supreme personal God. Scholars

regularly estimate that at least two-thirds of ‘Hindus’ are Vaisnavas. The

Gaudiya-Vaisnavasha, which has been a significant religious force in North

India, accept Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, who appeared in West Bengal about 500

years ago as Krsna Himself.

(2) Kl. Schr., p. 599.

(3) These very first articles, which he published in 1908, were taken from

his master’s thesis, with its ‘programmatic’ title: The Ethics of Vedanta

and Its Metaphysical Presuppositions.

(4) Poona, 1929 (ASS, vol. 98)

(5) Dharma-tattva-nirnaya, 39

(6) One exception to this liberal ethos is the Vaikhanasa community of

Southeast India.

(7) Medieval Vaisnava authors, including Madhvacarya and many

Gaudiya-Vaisnava scholars, often quote verses from extant works whose

surviving recensions no longer show those verses. This can be seen in

citations from Narada-pancaratra, Manu-samhita, various Puranas, etc. Many

scholars feel that the extant Narada-pancaratra is quite corrupt, and I have

not personally checked to see if the verse that Rupa and Krsnadasa cite here

is found there.

 

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