the oxford india Hinduism Reader
edited by
Vasudha Dalmia and
Heinrich von Stietencron
oxford
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Religious Configurations in Medieval India 51
Religious Configurations in Medieval India and the Modern Concept of Hinduism
Heinrich von Stietencron
I
n popular parlance, most people in the West today speak of Hinduism as if it was one single religion, comparable, for instance, with Islam or Buddhism or Christianity. However, scholars who study the history of the Hindu religion more closely discover such a plurality of religious doctrine and practice within Hinduism, that the current practice of subsuming them under one religion appears inadequate. At least Vaisnavism, Saivism, the latest form of Saktism, and some of the other so-called sects of Hinduism must be classed as separate religions. They each have a different theology, rely on different holy scriptures, follow the teaching of a different line of teachers {guru-parampara) and worship a different supreme deity reciting different prayers.
It has been shown that the term 'Hinduism' is a relatively recent one.' Not only is the term modern, as I hope to show in this chapter, but also the whole concept of the Hindu religion as a monolith was introduced by missionaries and scholars from the West. Its acceptance and rapid spread in India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is no indicator for its antiquity. Rather it indicates how strongly some Western perceptions acted on the minds of the educated middle class in British India, and became instrumental in creating an urgent need for religious and social reform in order to adjust the reality to unfulfilled expectations. Historically, the concept of Hindu religious unity is questionable when applied to any period prior to the nineteenth century. Both the religious practice and the theological doctrine of important Hindu religious traditions go against it. Even for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, its validity is
restricted to predominantly urban religious reform movements. The traditional religious life of the vast rural expanse of India remained largely unaffected.
This paper is divided into two parts. The first deals with the self-perception of Saivas in medieval India as revealed in a document of South Indian Saivism; the second examines the reasons for the origin of the concept of 'Hinduism' under the influence of preconceived Western notions. Together, these two parts indicate that the painful and sometimes alarming search for identity which can be witnessed in modern Hindu self-perception reflects a genuine, though self-created, dilemma; it is hard, if not impossible, to find an all-India Hindu identity and orientation when confronted with an embarrassingly rich and heterogeneous tradition which contains several distinct religious identities, but was lumped together as 'Hinduism', at first mistakenly, and later in the service of 'national interest'. This, indeed, is a case where nationalist politics in a democratic setting succeeded in propagating Hindu religious unity in order to obtain an impressive statistical majority when compared with other religious communities.
I. The Testimony of Ritual
Period and Source
The present investigation is concerned with medieval India. It is therefore important to go back in history at least 800 years to a time when the first Sultanate of Delhi had not yet been established. Is it reasonable, in an essay on modern Hindu self-perception, to revert to such a distant past? So many changes in lifestyle, in values and culture have occurred during the eight centuries which followed! They constitute a period in Indian history which differs from the earlier ones in terms of the fact that the ruling powers resisted absorption into the Hindu religious traditions. In contrast to the earlier manner in which invaders interacted with the existing Indian culture, the dominant political power, during these centuries, was not attracted by, and integrated into, Indian religious traditions, but was vested in persons and institutions guided, first by Islam, and later by the Christian faith.
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History cannot be turned back, it always proceeds from its latest stage. This simple rule applies to present-day India as well. Religions, however, tend to move in a slower rhythm than political institutions, and the roots through which they draw their nourishment may be traced back to a far more distant past. More than 3,000 years ago some Vedic rsis recited hymns that are still considered inspirational. More than 2,000 years ago the Bhagavatas gave an initial shape to the worship of VSsudeva/Narayana and developed the nucleus of the Vaisnava religion. Similarly, Saivism as a separate religion received its distinct form more than 2,000 years ago. Sacred texts of considerable age, notably selected Vedic hymns, portions from the Brahmanas, several Upanisads, the Bhagavadglta, many sections from the two epics, as well as the Puranas, Ágamas, Tantras, and numerous Stotras continue to be used in prayer and meditation even today.
My choice of a period prior to the twelfth century for ascertaining the state of Hindu self-perception does not imply that I consider the end of the twelfth century as constituting an absolute caesura in Hindu religious life. Much of what can be shown to have been religious practice between the eighth and the eleventh centuries continued for several centuries longer, particularly in parts of Rajasthan, Orissa and in South India where Muslim domination appeared later and did not cover the entire country. Some of it has continued to survive under Muslim and Christian dominance up to the present day. However, before the twelfth century, the Hindu religions could exert absolute influence on social life, politics and culture. They were in a state of expansion, not of self-defence. And, as will be seen, they were in a mutual contest for supremacy, rivalling with each other and with Buddhism and Jainism not only for royal support but also for spiritual excellence and for the guidance of souls: the question of religious truth was not yet relegated to the realm of relativity, and for final release from samsdra it was not at all immaterial which sddhand or path to spiritual perfection was chosen.
In order to obtain a representative picture, I have selected a text from a category of religious literature which was hardly affected by changing trends, a text that was not concerned with erudite or polemic sectarian disputes over minute metaphysical differences, and a text that was not repeatedly revised, remodelled, and changed
as, for example, most of the Puranas were. The text is a puja-paddhati: a manual for priests who officiate in the regular and occasional rituals of their community. The very fact that it is not concerned with theoretical or speculative issues but exclusively with the actual practice of religion in its relation to punya and papa or religious merit and demerit in everyday life makes this text a reliable witness for our purpose. Rituals may be abridged or slightly modified, but they rarely change in their essence. They often retain what was considered essential for human self-purification, for prosperity, and for communication with the gods.
The text chosen is the Somasambhupaddhati (also known as Karmakdnda-kramdvall), an important early work on Saiva rituals. The 'Hindu' self-perception which it reflects, in a passage that I have selected for analysis, is that of the Saiva community—and here it speaks with authority for all the orthodox sampraddyas of Saivism. It will be seen that Saivism is conceived of as an independent religion, and not as a part or sect of any larger entity which we might wish to call Hinduism.
The Somasambhupaddhati is a compendium edited at Devakottai in 1931 and again at Srinagar in 1947.2 It was translated and commented upon in three parts by Helene Brunner-Lachaux between 1963-1977.3 Of these, Part I contains the daily rites, Parts II and III describe the occasional rites. It is among the latter where we come across an interesting set of rituals which are grouped together in a chapter entitled ' Vratoddharaviddhi'. It contains the ritual procedures designed to relieve a follower of Saivism from the burden of a vow after its completion (or, in case of inability to continue with the vow, even prior to its completion). It also contains a ritual for non-Saivas who want to convert to Saivism: their souls are freed from the marks binding them to another religion in order to prepare them for an I initiation into Saivism. It is this short section which is of particular
i interest for ascertaining the self-perception of a follower of Saivism
in contradistinction to members of other creeds. Without any theoretical discussion and without polemics, it deals in a matter of fact way with a situation that must have been part of the routine of a Saiva priest. And in doing so it gives clear indications of the
Lfundamental difference between Saivism and other religions. The author Somasambhu wrote in the second half of the eleventh ___
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century, probably in South India.4 The earliest available manuscript of his paddhati is from Kashmir and bears the date vikrama 1130 (= ad 1073). The work was also in use in South India where a manuscript from Suryanarkoyil was copied in vikrama 1153 (= ad 1096). Obviously, the manual gained wide recognition quickly, since all its ritual injunctions are based on the sections concerning ritual (kriydpada) contained in important Saiva Agamas and Upagamas. The rituals themselves, therefore, must have been considerably older to Somasambhu's time. Although it is not easy to date these texts— 28 Agamas are recognized as canonical, but many more are in existence—it seems that a major part of them belonged to the eighth to tenth centuries. Somasambhu himself mentions three generations of famous teachers who preceded him.5 He is the ninth in a list of 18 compilers of puja manuals contained in the Saivabhusana (Brunner-Lachaux 1963: xxii). We thus have a period of roughly three to four centuries prior to Somasambhu during which some of the major Agamas were composed and those agamic rituals were evolved which he incorporated in his work.
Somasambhu wrote his manual for specialists who knew the general routine. And, of course, he expects the reader to know his more explicit agamic sources. In many cases, therefore, he gives guidance only for the more complicated issues. Conciseness and brevity make the text appear rather cryptic at times and occasionally it proves helpful if the reader turns to the Agamas themselves for a fuller treatment of the issue and its context. In fact, the almost sutra-Yike brevity of Somasambhu's style necessitated an extensive commentary which came to be written about 83-90 years later. It was called Kriydkramadyotikd and composed by the famous South Indian scholar Aghorasivacarya in ad 1158.6 He faithfully incorporates all the teachings of Somasambhu, adding many details and explanations which render the commentary very useful. Since the Kriydkramadyotikd is both more comprehensive and easier to read, it eclipsed the Soma-sambhupaddhati in fame and became the authority on Saiva ritual for centuries to come. Even today it is still in use in South India. Considering the agamic source of Somasambhu and the continuation of his teachings in Aghorasiva's work, it is evident that the rituals described by him had an authoritative standard for a very long period of time.7
To place Somasambhu in a historical perspective it must be remembered that after three centuries of exceptionally creative expansion Saivism moved into a phase of consolidation and assessment in ad eleventh century. In the North, Abhinavagupta undertook, in his Tantraloka, to write a monumental synopsis of the Saiva scriptures, and to propound their essence in the Tantrasara. In the South, both dvaita and advaita schools of thought began to build metaphysical systems as superstructures on the songs of the Tamil saints with their strong devotional impact. Less than 200 years after Somasambhu, in the thirteenth century, Meykanda and his pupils were to write the final treatises of the Saivasiddhanta school.
Lingoddhara: The Eradication of the Lihga
The fact that persons in search for spiritual perfection had a choice between different possibilities of sadhand is well known. Within Saivism itself the different sampradayas propagated a variety of methods for attaining to the highest perfection, and some of them, like those of the Kapalikas and Kalamukhas, were highly controversial and rejected as unclean or even heretic by a majority of Saivas. But there were also Vaisnavas, Jainas, Bauddhas, Sauras, Ganapatyas, Smartas and others, all offering more than one path for perfection and all claiming to know the king's road to the highest goal. Many of the saints and gurus in post-Gupta India, with its devotional fervour and its rivalling philosophical systems, were inspired by a strong missionary zeal. In the South, their devotional songs aimed at attracting a wide range of people to a life a spiritual surrender to the highest god, that is, the god they had chosen, experienced and recognized as the highest—whose grace alone would rescue them from the bonds of samsara. All over India their philosophical systems provided distinct and rivalling metaphysical insight into the structure of the world and the all-pervading activity of the divine on all levels of existence. The hagiographies of several saints and great teachers narrate of mass conversions at pilgrim centres, and are triumphant when reporting the conversion of famous individuals. It can be reasonably surmised that individual conversion must have been a rather common occurrence as a natural result of the competitive religious spirit of the time.
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Somasambhu's manual provides us with information on the ritual procedure in cases of conversion from other creeds to Saivism. Why such a ritual was necessary and how it transformed the soul of the convert must be understood on the basis of the agamic context regarding initiation, self-perfection and the operation of divine grace. The following description, therefore, supplements Somasambhu's brief statements with additional information from some of the Agamas and Upagamas, notably the Pauskara-, Kirana- and Supra-bheddgamas and the Cintyavisva-, Kalottara-, Satsahasrika-, and Diksottarcft-Upagamas, most of them cited in a compendium on initiation called Diksadarsa, 'the mirror of initiation', and referred to in the footnotes to Madame Brunner-Lachaux's translation (Brunner-Lachaux 1977: 540ff).
The purpose of the rite, as its title 'lirigoddhara' indicates, is the removal of a liriga, a distinctive and distinguishing mark, from a person. The liiiga, in this case, is not an outward sign such as the pendant in the form of a sivaliriga worn around the neck by the Lingayats, or the ashes and other marks worn on the forehead by followers of different sects or schools (sampradayas), or the matted locks and other distinguishing hair styles of priests and ascetics. It is a mark invisibly fixed in the soul of a person, a mark which is different for the Buddhist, the Jain, the Bhagavata, or the Pasupata, and also for the follower of Nyaya, Samkhya, Purva-Mlmamsa, or Vedanta. It is the spiritual impression made by birth and initiation (diksa) into a particular religious community and by the punya or merit acquired while following the spiritual path prescribed by that community.
Why should a person wish to remove that liriga? Is it not enough to realize that in one's present situation another religious teaching carries more conviction and consequently to follow it and seek the grace of another god? Apparently it is not, for, according to the Agamas, the liriga imprinted on the soul by a non-Saiva religion constitutes an insurmountable hindrance for attaining salvation in this life. Only if it stems from Saivism, is there such a chance.9
The liriga establishes the religious identity of a person. Since it is normally imprinted on the soul either by birth or by the ritual of initiation, it cannot be removed except through ritual. If, therefore, a person born or taught in another creed intends to embrace Saivism
which, according to its self-understanding, is the only religion that can lead to salvation, then the annihilation of one's former liriga is of utmost importance. Similarly, the imprint onto the soul of a new liriga, by which one will be marked as a Saiva, is absolutely essential.
The ritual, though simple in its procedure, has important, even frightening consequences. Together with the liriga one will lose all the merit that may have been acquired while following the previous creed. This shows that the liriga is not only an identification mark but also the carrier of accumulated religious merit. Its destruction destroys that merit while the karmic demerit carried on from previous births remains untouched. The person who has his or her liriga removed will have to start from zero again. Like a newly born child he or she commences, spiritually, a fresh life. This new beginning, of course, takes place under far better conditions: there is no longer any barrier in the way that will arrest the spiritual progress at a certain point. One is not running into a blind alley without any exit leading to salvation. Indeed, all possible merit achieved through other religious paths would only result in the privilege of being born into a Saiva family in the next life. So why not start afresh immediately and try to cross samsara in this very life?
It is worth stressing the fact that the ritual removal of an earlier religious affiliation, whether entered by birth or by diksa, was considered fundamentally important in agamic Saivism. This is no longer so today. The competing Hindu religions have moved closer together. But from a theological point of view, the Saivas had a compelling reason for insisting on the lirigoddhdra rite. It was based both on the conception of the world and on the nature of liberation as contained in the Agamas. For us, today, it offers an insight into their perception of the role and value of other religions.
Liberation (mukti): Its Anthropological and Cosmical Conditions in Agamic Saivism
In order to understand the implications of the conversion rite we should briefly recall the basic ontological structure of the world and its anthropological consequences, leaving aside the disputes among the Saivas themselves about Parama Siva and Sakti and their
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relation to the evolutes of the 'pure path'.10 Apart from Parama Siva, the basic elements underlying the plurality of worlds and beings are:
1. An infinite number of individual souls (anu).
2. A sequence of 36 tattvas or principles that constitute all worldly existence.
These are arranged in a hierarchical order in the sequence of their emanation from Parama Siva (also Paramesvara), starting from sivatattva and ending with prthivltattva, that is, the gross element, earth. When seen from the perspective of the bonded soul, aspiring for liberation and trying to trace back the steps of evolution in order to regain the pure state of Siva from whom emanation originally poured forth, the tattvas may be counted in reverse order, with the earth as the first and Siva as the last tattva, that is, in the order of their destruction or resorption into the divine being at the time of liberation or of world dissolution. It is in this last-mentioned order that I will number the tattvas in the following discussion.11
The souls are all potentially equal, but only one of them exists from eternity in its pure state: Parama Siva. All the others are bound from beginningless time by two fetters: karma (result of action) and mala (primordial impurity). That karma does not have a beginning can be ascertained by considering that, being the fruit of action, it presupposes action which presupposes existence which, in turn, presupposes karma. Mala, too, is eternal; and it is one entity (not many) which affects all souls. Both these fetters keep all souls in bondage. But they have one weakness: they can be discarded.12 If they are discarded, it means liberation.13
The creation of the world, which emanates from Siva, has as its sole purpose the liberation of innumerable individual souls from their fetters in order to permit them to attain to sivatva, the state of Siva-ness which is, in fact, their own nature. This state is characterized by unlimited cit-sakti or power of consciousness which manifests itself in two forms: illimited power of knowing {jnana-sakti), and illimited power of acting (kriya-sakti). To become omniscient and omnipotent like Siva is the goal of all individual souls.
One way, open to all beings, of reaching this goal is to gradually climb up the ladder of the tattvas in order to overcome, with each
step, the binding forces inherent in each component of evolutionary reality. By karmic purification and corresponding increase of knowledge the adept in any sadhana—be it Buddhist, Jain, Vaisnava, Saiva, or whatever—strives to move up the scale of tattvas, gradually understanding the structure of the universe and the nature of bondage. The sadhanas, however, offer unequal opportunities. To take again the simile of the ladder: only Saiva sadhana is able to lead to the sphere of direct divine grace.
The sadhaka thus realizes and overcomes the levels of the gross elements {tattvas 1 to 5), the subtle elements {tattvas 6 to 10), the 10 senses of action and perception {tattvas 11 to 20), the intellectual processes operating in manas, ahamkara and buddhi {tattvas 21 to 23), and even the subtle constituents of matter itself, that is, the three gunas or qualities of primordial matter {tattva 24). In this way the adept {sadhaka) arrives at the tattva purusa {tattva 25), which was the highest tattva in the conception of the Samkhya and Yoga systems. The Saivas had inherited that system but they evolved it further as a result of analysing the forces operating through maya-sakti, icchd-sakti, and jnana-sakti: in the process the number of tattvas was increased to 36.
Beyond the tattva purusa are the tattvas 26 to 31. These are the most difficult to cross. It is here, under the influence of maya and near the line which divides the 'impure path' {asuddhadhvan) of the lower 31 tattvas from the 'pure path' {suddhadhvan) of the uppermost five tattvas, that the originally omniscient and omnipotent soul was reduced to a state of limited capacities of both knowledge and action. In order to undo this limitation, the ascending adept has to get rid of the five kancukas or cuirasses that limit his capacity of perception and action. They form the tattvas 26 to 30, are produced by maya, and, being closely interrelated, they operate simultaneously to obscure the perception of the pure reality by creating a confusing plurality in which the soul gets totally lost.
The first of these kancukas to be encountered is 'emotional attachment' {raga or tattva 26) which causes selection of and association with or dissociation from, single elements of reality by means of attraction and repulsion, love and hatred. Combinations and oppositions arise under the influence of this tattva, as well as conflicts and attachments. The soul loses its equanimity towards
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everything that exists. Attachment becomes possible because 'limited knowledge' (vidyd or tattva 27) replaces universal perception by a more restricted perception of individual things or mere aspects of things; also because 'segmentalization' (kald or tattva 28) causes division of the one limitless reality into many district and limited parts. Simultaneously, the fourth kancuka which is 'causality' (niyati, counted as tattva 29) transforms the ubiquitous reality into a sequential stream of cause and effect, or dependent origination. And, finally, the last of the five kancukas, 'time' (kdla or tattva 30) orders all these segments of reality in a temporal sequence and spatial distribution, thereby concealing the omnipresence of the pure reality.
All these five kancukas which imprison the soul and reduce its faculties to the miserable state of our limited mental and physical capacities in this world, are direct creations of may a (tattva 31). Except for purusa, maya, 'illusion', is responsible for all other tattvas of the 'impure path' down to the tattva 'earth'. This is the realm where karma operates. And this is also where most living beings— including the majority of gods—are caught in the cycles of limited existence.
For those souls who, in the course of their self-perfection, have succeeded in conquering the tattvas of the world of maya and in destroying karma, Siva created five other worlds, constituted in ascending order by tattvas 32 to 36 and the last of which is sivaloka, the world of Siva.14 These five uppermost worlds constitute the 'pure path' (suddhadhvari) and the bodies of all beings that inhabit them are made of a different, more subtle kind of matter described as mahamdya. Though free from karma, the beings in these worlds are still affected by the primordial impurity (mala) which constitutes a last difference between them and Parama Siva. It is only by transcending even sivaloka and reaching the sphere of Paramesvara or Parama Siva that all impurity is overcome and equality of the individual soul with the highest state of Siva is achieved.
The Role of Divine Grace and the Relative Value of 'Religions'
Both the concept of cosmic evolution (pravrtti) from an initial unity, and its reversal in a process of involution (nivrtti) by which
the individual soul can trace its steps back to the original source of all existence and attain liberation, are known from earlier Indian metaphysical speculation. The Samkhya system, in particular, had developed this idea by combining in one list of tattvas the basic constituents of the external or material and the internal or psycho-mental worlds.
What distinguishes the agamic Saiva doctrine from its antecedents is the division of the evolutionary chain of tattvas into two distinct levels of existence: an impure world created by maya that offers an impure path (asuddhadhvari) to the soul in bondage; and a purer yet still impurity-afflicted world (created, according to some schools of Saivism, by mahamdya) that offers to the soul a pure path (suddhadhvari). The first is impermanent and subject to cyclical decay and renewal, the second is permanent and beyond samsdra. Siva himself, being absolutely pure, operates only on the upper level. His direct grace reaches all those souls who have managed to escape from the world of maya and attain the pure path. It is they alone who can attain to liberation (moksa). All other souls will have to be reborn. They cannot come into direct contact with Siva. Nevertheless, they are not left without help. By means of powerful intermediaries like Sadasiva and Isvara, as well as through Mantresvaras and Mantras (conceived of as souls at a high level of spiritual attainment who, prior to final liberation, remain in the service of Siva in order to guide the bonded souls at lower levels of existence), and through each Saiva guru, it is possible for divine grace to descend into the lower worlds, to purify the souls, and to push them on towards spiritual perfection. Consequently, with strong devotion and with the help of the Saiva guru (who acts as an intermediary for allowing saktipdta, that is, the descent of Siva's jndna-sakti into the impure world) it is possible for the Saiva to reach the pure path while still existing in this material world. And still living but, inwardly, already beyond maya he can experience the direct presence of Siva and reach the final goal of becoming equal to him in this very life.15
To lead to the highest goal is the claim of many religions and philosophical systems, but are they able to fulfil this promise? The answer of the Agamas is absolutely clear: except for Saivism, none of them is. This judgment is understandable because, according to agamic premises, in order to fulfil that promise they would have to
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lead their devotees into the presence of Siva or at least into the pure order of creation where Siva's grace can be directly received, that is, into one of the five levels of existence beyond mdyd. This they are unable to do; they even ignore the existence of the tattvas of the pure path altogether. And since mukti is attained through Siva's grace alone, how could those who do not approach him succeed in obtaining it?
Indeed, the inability of non-Saiva religions and philosophies to lead to perfection is imprinted into the soul of their followers like a karmic barrier on the road to liberation. This imprint is the liriga, the removal of which our rite is concerned with. It determines the muktisthana of the follower of another religion: i.e., the place in the hierarchy of the tattvas up to which the religion which he follows can lead and where in spite of all efforts his further ascension will be blocked. The linga acts, as it were, as a passport to its owner: it identifies the boundaries within which he is allowed to move, and a tattva for which it possesses no permit of entry will not let him pass.
Somasambhu gives a few examples of persons characterized by a linga and of the maximum levels of perfection they can reach. He does so casually in verses seven and eight of his short text. They read:
The followers of Buddha are situated in buddhi-tattva (as their muktisthana; the Jainas in (sattvaguna which forms) the top of the gunas; but those who fully know the Veda (i.e., the Mimamsakas16) are in (prakrti which is) the womb of the gunas; and those who direct themselves towards Bhagavan (Visnu) are in purusa {-tattva). (7) But the Pasupatas (remain) in mdyd, and the Mahavratas in vidyd (-tattva). These are, in sequence, the muktisthdnas of Buddhists etc. (i.e., the places they wrongly believe to yield mukti). (8)17
Of course, Somasambhu mentions these few groups as mere examples. He has no intention of listing all the types of lingins. Here, again, the Agamas and their commentaries can supplement his scanty information. With only slight variations in their apportioning of muktisthdnas to the various rivalling schools, they offer a fairly clear picture of the relative ranking and demonstrate their own keen sense of superiority. The texts give no reasons for the respective positions. Probable explanations are provided by me without any claim to completeness.
Materialists (cdrvdkdh), Saktas practising left-handed rituals (kaulikdh), and astrologers (jyotihsdstrajndh) remain in the sphere of the gross elements (tattvas 1-5 on which their interest is so intensely focused).18 The Smartas who are accomplished in the meaning of Vedic mantras reach up to the senses of perception19 (among which the ear, srotram, that is, tattva 20 ranges as the highest: it is sruti or Vedic revelation they value most). The followers of Nyaya or logicians (samdnya-vddinah) reach the sphere of manas (tattva 21 where logic has its place), and it should not be surprising by now that the Buddhists (bauddhdh) are placed in buddhi (tattva 22). As to the Vaisesikas, their analytical and individualizing approach is suggestive enough to place their muktisthana in ahamkara tattva, the principle of individuation (tattva 23).20 The Jainas are assigned a slightly better position by placing them in the gunas2^ or, as Somasambhu says with more precision, in satyaguna (gunamastake, tattva 24a).22 We have already seen that the Mimamsakas (veddntajndh)23 are placed in prakrti (gunayoni, tattva 24b) and the Vaisnavas or Bhagavatas (bhagavanmukhdh) in purusa (tattva 25) almost certainly because they worship Visnu as Purusottama. The prakrti tattva is also assigned to the Pancaratrins, because they consider Hari (not only as the efficient cause but also) as the material cause of the world.24 Purusa tattva is also assigned to the Vedantins (veddntinah), the Samkhyas and the Yogins.25 In the case of the latter two, this reflects their aim to dissociate purusa from prakrti and her evolutes in order to regain a state of perfect isolation (kaivalya). As for the Vedantins, their placement in purusa tattva shows that their attempt to attain mukti through identification of the individual soul (dtmari) with the universal soul (brahman) appears to the Saivas as basically similar to that of the Samkhya and Yoga26 schools. That the abstract concept of brahman appears to be closer to the uninvolved and isolated purusa than to the Lord isvara of the Saivas may have essentially to do with the latter's compassionate involvement with the world and all living beings which seems absent from both the concepts of brahman and purusa. It is, of course, evident that all these attributions of a supposed muktisthana to rivalling systems of religious thought or philosophical doctrine are rather superficial.
Purusa is the highest tattva the followers of a non-Saiva sddhand can ever hope to reach. They all remain helplessly engulfed in mdyd.
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There are 11 more tattvas above purusa to be crossed before salvation is attained—and these are the most difficult to master. Even the most degraded of the devotees of Siva are better off. Somasambhu mentions two more groups. They profess to be devotees of Siva, but are looked upon as unclean and heretical by the more orthodox Saivas. They are the Pasupatas and the Mahavratas, the first of whom he locates in maya (31) and the second in vidyd tattva (27).27 Note that the Mahavratas and the Pasupatas, even though heretic and despised, reach nearer to Siva than any of those following the non-Saiva religions.
The Ritual Procedure
The above list makes it abundantly clear that for a Saiva of the agamic period and for Saivasiddhanta (the school supported by Somasambhu's commentator Aghorasiva) there can be no question of an equality of faiths. Only Saivas can attain liberation; all others remain in samsara until they are one day reborn in a Saiva family— unless they decide here and now to convert and change their faith. This is imperative for all who really seek salvation, and this is when the lirigoddhdra rite has to be performed.
To make this decision requires a great deal of confidence, because the first outcome is that the adept loses all the merit he may have accumulated so far. He is freed from all the previously adhered to religious obligations and rules of conduct except for those of his caste. Like a newly born child he commences a new life under new conditions: an initiation (diksa) into the Saiva faith can follow immediately after the previous liriga has been removed. It will imprint on his soul a new and better mark which gives him access to the Saiva fold and a chance to achieve liberation in this life.
The ritual itself (verses 9-17 of the vratoddharavidhi) is quickly told. Since it provides authentic evidence for the perception and valuation of the religious configurations of the time, a translation is given which follows the text closely, with some additional notes in parentheses.
On behalf of the lirigins who are keeping a fast for three days or five days, who are purified by prayascitta and remain outside the temple hall (9) the spiritual guide (desika) shall first offer worship to the Lord of the bonded souls
(pasubhartaram) in the extensive fashion described above28 and then act for them according to the rule for eradication of the linga. (10)
(In case they are Buddhists) he shall place the group of tattvas from buddhi to earth29 into the fire, and mentioning their names worship them (collectively) or one by one. (II)30
He then connects the subtle channels (nadi) (of his own body) with (the subtle channels) of those (lirigins) standing outside; performs the actions of beating (loose), disconnecting, and pulling out (the linga) which is (now) present in himself, (12) and of uniting (it) with the fire (i.e., throwing it into the fire) while (reciting) the miilamantra (Om Namah Sivdya) with svctha added in the end; and in order to destroy the fruits of merit acquired by worshipping the (formerly) chosen deity he offers (13) thousand and eight oblations with the astramantra^ (Om Hah Astrdya Namah) for everyone of the lirigins; and for releasing (the lirigins) from each of the tattvas (involved) he offers, with the mulamantra, five (oblations) to each tattva. (14)32
After extracting them (i.e., their marks) completely from all the tattvas, beginning with buddhi and ending with the earth, he ties them (the converts) again to their former caste (jati), to its way of conduct, and to the rules of its profession (yogasthiti) (15) and offers 108 oblations with the mulamantra, making a full oblation in the end.33
In the same way (as described in verses I-6a in connection with the eradication of a vow for Saivas) he throws the signs of their (previous religious) vow34 into water and makes them (again) householders (grhastha).^ (16)
Or. out of compassion with the devotees, he may perform for them the ritual of initiation (diksa). By this method the guru may free all the lirigins (from their lirigas and vows). (17)36
An alternative method for extracting a vow follows in verses 18-24. I present only a summary, since it does not primarily concern members of other religions but rather is meant for getting free of a lifelong vow of celibacy, though it can be used for other purposes as well. This rite makes use of the power inherent in the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet and in its mystical syllables.
The eight groups of letters—beginning with the last one, the sibilants (savarga) and ending with the first group, the vowels—are placed in a counter-clockwise order starting from the north-eastern
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direction on the eight petals of a lotus diagram (18), in the centre of which Siva (Sambhu) is seated in the form of the mystical syllable Ksaum. He is surrounded by other syllables representing the five Brahman (Sadyojata, Vamadeva, Aghora, Tatpurusa and Isana)37 and his members (arigani, namely, heart, head, tuft of hair, cuirass and weapon).38 Then Siva is worshipped in the fire (19) and a water oblation is made to each group of letters. With the permission of Siva, the sibilants are placed in the fire, as well as the consciousness (caitanya) of the person concerned. (20) A hundred oblations with each of the six mystical syllables representing the members of the Lord are offered into the fire, the whole procedure ending with a full oblation. Thereafter, the consciousness (purified by the fire, by the power of the syllables, by the presence of Siva, and by the oblations) is taken from the fire and replaced into the body of the adept.
(21) This process is repeated one by one with the other seven groups of letters. Finally, the signs of the vow are thrown into deep water,
(22) the adept receives fresh clothes and is given the status of a householder or, out of compassion (he is given) an initiation. (23) Last, the guru bids farewell to Siva and to the fire and purifies the ground where the rite took place. (24a)
The Saiva Self-perception and Corresponding Vaisnava Concepts
The lirigoddhara rite as described in the Somasambhupaddhati and supported by the commentary of Aghorasiva and quotations from the Agamas allows us to draw some conclusions regarding the self-perception of the Saivas in pre-Muslim India.
First, it is evident that they firmly believed in Saivism as the only religion that could lead directly to salvation. Non-Saiva religions, including the Vedic tradition itself as represented by the Purva-Mlmamsakas, the Vedantins, and the Smartas were considered incapable of leading to moksa. The same verdict applied to the other famous systems of philosophy and self-perfection that were propagated within the brahmanic tradition though not directly based on the Veda: to Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya and Vaisesika. None of these could lead to the promised goal of freedom from samsara. This was equally true for the Pancaratrins and other devotees of Visnu or of
one of his avataras such as Krsna or Rama. And, of course, it was valid for all extra-Vedic religions like Buddhism, Jainism and the teachings of the Carvakas. Even Saktism was condemned as a complete failure when it attempted to follow a course independent from Saivism. There was no access whatever to the state of mukti without the grace of Siva, conferred on the individual sadhaka either directly, or through the mediation of a Saiva guru.
Second, there is no question of considering Saivism and Vaisnavism as two sects of the same religion. Their difference is all too clear: Vaisnavism is a dead alley within samsara; Saivism leads out of it. Nor is there any marked difference between Vaisnavism and Jainism or Buddhism that would justify the notion that there is something like 'Hinduism' which unites Saivism and Vaisnavism as opposed to Buddhism or Jainism. There are simply several religious groups which falsely claim to show, in doctrine and practice, the path to salvation while in truth only Saivism does so. The others block it completely.
Third, no distinction is made between what we call 'religious' and 'philosophical' systems. They are all spiritual paths which mark a person's soul with a distinct imprint, binding it to a certain limited performance. And they are not only just a little inferior to Saivism: it appears that the best they can (unwittingly) achieve—and that provides a reason for tolerating them—is to prepare a person for a possible later birth as a Saiva. But in their claim of leading to moksa they are basically wrong to the extent that their imprint on the soul was considered to be a decisive hindrance to salvation.
It is clear from the Saiva argument that the claim of superiority for their religion is absolute, and that it is based on a fundamental difference between Saivism and other religions. The verdict of total uselessness for the main aim of all beings, namely, to attain final liberation, applies to all other religions without exception, whether they are of Hindu or foreign (mleccha) origin, and whether they believe in the existence of a soul and a transcendent reality {astika) or reject such a belief as nonsense (nastikd). For minor aims they may be helpful, though only to some degree, for example, to reduce the burden of one's negative karma thereby gaining a better incarnation. Interestingly, the nastikas are not classed as generally inferior to the astikas: the Jainas and the Bauddhas rank only a little below
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the Vaisnavas or the Vedantins, and they are placed above the Smartas.
The absolute claim of superiority demonstrated here in a particularly explicit form is not, however, unique to the Saiva religion. It can be shown to have been present in other Hindu religions as well, notably, in Vaisnavism and in Saktism. The Bhagavadglta, for instance, declares that there is, in reality, no god except Krsna, that even the devotees of other gods worship Krsna, though not according to proper rules, and that Krsna alone is the enjoyer of all sacrifices and the giver of all boons.39 In spite of this all-inclusive claim, it makes a decisive difference whether one knows that Krsna is the only Lord and worships him directly with complete devotion, or whether one worships him unknowingly and indirectly through the worship of other gods. In the latter case which includes the worship of all gods other than Krsna, the result is similar to that conceded to other religions in the Saiva system: one can reach only a certain level on the scale of possible incarnations, but will remain caught in the cycle of samsara and fall down again into lower births. Thus, the soma-drinking knower of the Vedas may reach the heaven of Indra (surendraloka) but thereafter he will enter again the world of mortals.40
In the Narayaniya section of the Mahabharata we can also find a near parallel to the Saiva attribution of particular places on the scale of tattvas in the cosmic evolution to other religious groups. In connection with the doctrine of the four vyuhas, or manifestations of the divine, this text4' states that it is Vasudeva who is paramdtmd or purusa from whom emanation proceeds and to whom it returns. He also is the dtman of all individual beings.42 The second manifestation is Samkarsana or Sesa who is known as the living soul (jlva) in all beings, without which the elements cannot form a body.43 From him a third manifestation is born, known as Pradyumna who is the manas of all beings. On account of its action manas remains ever young and all elements dissolve into it at the time of world annihilation. From Pradyumna emerges the last manifestation, Aniruddha, who is the agent, the cause and the product in the process of the creation of the world. He is ahamkdra, the individualizing factor which produces the multiplicity of the phenomenal world. And it is he who is identified with Isana44 or with Mahesvara,45 that is, with
the two most prominent names of the highest form of Siva in the contemporary Saivism of the late Kusana and the Gupta periods.46 Thus, Siva is placed in this Vaisnava text at the level of ahamkdra which is the lowest of the levels of divine manifestation in the vyuha scheme. Again, in another passage of the same text, Brahmá and Rudra are described as created by Aniruddha: Brahmá in the early morning in a mood of favour (prasdda) for the purpose of creation, Rudra in the evening in a mood of anger (krodha) for the purpose of destruction.47 These texts have been selected at random and more could be adduced. They are considerably older than the agamic passages quoted for the Saiva doctrine. They show that to claim superior status for one's own god and for the religion devoted to him, and to deny all other religions the capacity to lead to final liberation, was not only a common feature in the competition and rivalry between Hindu religions, it was also a relatively early feature which has been in existence ever since the time of the Bhagavadglta, if not earlier.
Subordination: A Theological Strategy for Asserting Spiritual Superiority and Maintaining Practical Tolerance
Ritual has always been, and still is, a conservative factor in religions. It preserves religious truths, convictions, or attitudes longer and more faithfully than the more flexible speculative sectors of theology. In the case presented here it shows us that the modern notion of Hinduism as one religion does not correspond to the view of the medieval Saivas. Nor does it correspond to the view of the medieval Vaisnavas, if we closely examine their sacred texts.
It may be argued that there must be something inadequate about this picture. Are there not numerous passages in the Puranas and Ágamas where Brahma, Visnu and Siva are explicitly stated to be one and the same?48 Are there not temples containing images of more than one important deity? And from inscriptional evidence it is obvious that it was one and the same king in pre-Muslim India who constructed temples and gave endowments for very different gods!
I am aware of all these evidences. All too often misleading conclusions are drawn from them. The textual passages mentioned are
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embedded in a context where the coordination and interrelation of three important functions of the divine is being discussed, namely, the functions of creation, preservation and destruction of this transient world. In this connection, the trimurti concept was developed in accordance with the numerous myths, which attributed the role of the creator to Brahma, the role of preserver of the world order to Visnu, and the task of the destroyer to Siva. These three deities, as it is emphasized in this cosmological context, are nothing but personifications of different functions of only one deity. Their devotees, therefore, are exhorted to realize that the three deities are in essence one. Consequently, they should stop making false distinctions between them.
The message seems to be clear enough. It is often taken and quoted as its surface value. But the reader generally forgets to look at its wider context. If he did, he would not fail to notice that the trimurti concept forms part of a complex cosmological speculation explaining the origin of the impermanent from the permanent; and of this cosmos with all its spiritual and physical plurality from an ultimate single and undecaying source. This process of unfolding worldly reality or pravrtti is counterbalanced by nivrtti, that is, the movement in the opposite direction which leads to a process of reabsorption of the manifold into its ultimate source. It should be noted that the three gods—Brahma, Visnu and Siva—are, in this bidirectional process, always situated on a relatively low level of cosmic manifestation: their place of action is at the borderline between the upper realms of pure spiritual beings and the lower realm of a temporal and continuously decaying physical world. None of them is the highest god, none of them is permanent and undecaying.49 They are eminent souls each appointed with an adhikdra, namely, with the task and responsibility for creation, preservation and destruction of (one or more, out of many) physical worlds. Like all other created beings they still await final liberation. They are different in function, but as representatives of limited aspects of the supreme god's unlimited power they are indeed equal. This is what the trimurti passages want to convey. The highest god is far above these three functionaries.
The confusion arises because, in the Saiva and Vaisnava religions, the name Siva or the name Visnu recur as appellations for the supreme godhead, the ultimate source of all existence. This should
not create misunderstandings. The unlimited power permeates all levels of existence and similar names may occur on different storeys of the world structure. The authors of these texts expect the reader to be initiated by a learned teacher and, therefore, to understand the differences and to know the limitations inherent in worldly existence. In addition, they make it perfectly clear by adding, where necessary, a qualifying term when they speak of the supreme god as Parama Siva (in the case of Saivas) and of Purusottama or Adi-Narayana (in the case of Vaisnavas). And it is here where the religions really differ. For no devotee of Siva would accept Visnu as the supreme lord. He would see him rather as a servant or part of Siva on a lower level of existence. And no devotee of Visnu would see the ultimate position occupied by any god but Visnu-Narayana who, out of compassion, descended to earth as Rama and Krsna and in several other forms.
We thus have, in the two dominant Hindu religions of today, Vaisnavism and Saivism, a form of what Paul Hacker called 'inclusivism'.50 The chief god of the rival religion is not denied his existence. He is only discreetly shown to be inferior by the inclusion of him as one of several divine powers who operate in dependence of, and servitude to, another deity who is truly the highest god and who is, of course, the one to whom oneself has surrendered in complete devotion. The same procedure was followed in regard to other Hindu religions like those of the Kaumaras, Sauras, Ganapatyas and Saktas. Since all these gods belong to a common culture, an 'inclusion' does not even seem to have been necessary: they were already present in a common horizon, and what happened was 'subordination without expulsion' rather than 'subordination by inclusion.' The Saiva ritual of conversion discussed earlier was a telling example of precisely to which level of relevance one was condescending to admit rival gods and their religions, or great agnostic (ndstika) teachers and their paths to salvation.
This technique of subordination also accounts for the presence of several gods in one temple which is, however, always dedicated to the presiding deity alone. And the fact that kings used to sponsor several religious groups either by donations or by constructing temples does not necessarily reflect their personal belief: it was the duty of the king to protect all his subjects and to support the
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dharma of all, including their religions. The famous 12th rock edict of emperor Ashoka propagating religious tolerance is not the only example of this 'secular' tradition of Indian kingship.
II. Conceptual Preconditions in the West and the Emergence of 'Hinduism'
The above discussion has shown that there existed an acute awareness of a plurality of competing Hindu religions in pre-Muslim India. Each of these claimed to know the shortest path leading to liberation. The major theistic religions had developed a tendency to absorb other cults. They did so both by superimposing a part of their ritual structure on already existing rituals (in the case of tribal or low caste cults),51 and by integrating other religious groups within the framework of their metaphysical world construction by means of a sophisticated technique of theological subordination.
On the other hand, such universalistic tendencies of the major religions were counteracted by a number of factors which promoted fragmentalization and regionalization rather than the development of a uniform and centralized religious doctrine and practice. None of these Hindu religions—except perhaps for monastic Advaita Vedanta—developed an all-India institutional body invested with the power to pass binding judgments on the correct exegesis of sacred scriptures. Diverging interpretations of religious tradition could not be effectively banned. Authority was never vested in a central organization comparable to the Roman church. It was vested exclusively in the individual charisma of a religious teacher and in the guru-parampara through which spiritual knowledge was transmitted. Therefore, even the dominant theistic religions such as Vaisnavism and Saivism were subdivided into numerous sampradayas (i.e., denominations or sects) which, in turn, had subsects and regional differentiations in theory and practice. Communication and competition between these branches did exist. And it happened only in cases of extreme confrontation within a religion that the representatives of various sampradayas would be called together for a public disputation about the meaning of the scripture (sastrdrtha) in the assembly of the learned (pandita-sabhd) to accept or dismiss a contested teaching.52
Thus, there was religious plurality; but the different entities were characterized by a common cultural heritage, a common socioeconomic and historical background, and by mutual influence through intensive intellectual debate.
As pointed out earlier, this state of affairs did not entirely change after the establishment of the Sultanate in North India. At least parts of India remained essentially Hindu up to the sixteenth century. How, then, was it possible to lose sight of this age-old plurality of religions in barely four centuries intervening between the sixteenth and the twentieth century? Today, those religions are subsumed under the term Hinduism. They are reduced to the status of sects within what is claimed to be one Hindu religion. The Sikhs, too, were included. Following the lead of the administrators of British India, the government statistics of independent India lump them all together as Hindus, thereby (intentionally?) producing figures which demonstrate a large Hindu majority over Muslims, Christians, Jains, Parsees and Buddhists. This may be politically desirable: a large country like India which is subdivided by a plurality of languages, races, castes and separate regional histories may need something to give it a sense of unity. 'Hinduism' fulfils this need. But is it true, does it correspond to reality? The Vaisnavas still worship a different god than the Saivas, they continue to use completely different holy scriptures in prayer, in ritual, and in mythology. Even their paradise is located in a different mythical world.53 The same could be shown for other Hindu religions. If this is so, why insist on the mere verbal unity of 'Hinduism'?
It is my intention in this section of the paper to show that the concept of a common Indian religion—whatever its name—did not originate in India. It was introduced from the West, and its history goes back to a period when Western knowledge about distant India was still very meagre.
We have to revert to fifteenth-century Europe in order to retrace the outlines of a basic framework of conceptions that was considered valid at the time and into which the missionaries and traders, when they reached India at the end of that century, could insert their impressions of what they understood about Indian religious doctrines and behaviour. It will be seen that, although the term 'Hinduism' came into common use as late as the nineteenth century,
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the underlying concept of a unity of Indian religion was already in existence in the West before that religion was actually encountered by European missionaries and traders.54
In many respects, the fifteenth century was a fascinating period in European history. Among intellectuals, the humanistic movement brought about a noticeable emancipation from some of the church's doctrines and superstitions. In Italy, the Renaissance was at the height of its creativity and influenced entire Europe not only with its works of art, but also with a sudden confidence in man and his genius. No longer was he depressed under the damning burden of his sins: he was now conceived of as the measure of all things,55 creative and able to discover with his intellect and reason the innate laws of nature. The sciences were rapidly developing. The earth was now perceived as a globe, a fact which offered challenging new perspectives to navigators, adventurers and traders. Soon the earth would also lose, against harsh opposition of the church, its privileged position in the centre of the world and be seen as turning around its own axis and moving around the sun.56 With the earth losing its static centrality, man, too, was relieved eventually from the ancient hierocratic structure of a multispheric world which had been resting like a tremendous burden on his weak shoulders. Together with the movement of the earth, he gained spiritual mobility. His physical mobility had already reached a standard unheard of in earlier times. The trading ships of Venice and Genova travelled on all known seas and the Portuguese and Spanish made preparations to undertake voyage around the world. But the turn of the century, around 1500, Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci had discovered both Americas; Portuguese traders, crossing the land barrier between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, had explored the West coast of India from Goa to Calicut (in 1488); Vasco da Gama had succeeded in sailing around Africa and had landed on the West coast of India (in 1498); world trade had acquired a new dimension and a basis was laid for colonial expansion.
But the fifteenth century also brought disasters. The fall of Constantinople to the armies of Islam and the ensuing massacre of the faithful (1453) came as a shock to Christianity. With the fall of this eastern bulwark of Christendom the West became once again vulnerable57 and Islam came to be seen as a devastating power and
an immediate danger. Rumours had it that far away in the East, in India, there existed a Christian monarch known as King John. He was rich and powerful and true to the Christian faith. When the Portuguese ships were manned to sail around Africa and find a route to India this enterprise was undertaken, among other reasons, with the hope of gaining a Christian ally who would come to the rescue of the Occident by attacking the Muslims from the rear. The Syrian pseudo-epigraphic 'Acts of (the apostle) Thomas'58 were known, and through them the information that the Christian message had found its way to India at an early date. Otherwise, all that was known about India in the West except for a few surviving fragments from Greek and Roman sources,59 were some phantastic notions perpetuated in popular versions of the Alexander romance, accounts of travels like those of Marco Polo, and vague information received from Arabs in Mediterranean trade centres or during crusades.60 This knowledge was available to scholars and was not easily accessible to those daring men who went overseas. When the Portuguese finally landed on the West coast of India, they did find Christians living there. Unfortunately, they also found fault with the way these native Christians practised their religion. A King John was nowhere to be found. But the resulting trade in spices, only a side effect of the expedition, was to start a new chapter in Indo-European relations.
The Christian Concept of World Religions
Although they had little positive knowledge about India, the European missionaries and traders who settled down on the shores of India from 1598 onwards had a relatively clear conception about their own position in this world. They were Christians living in the firm conviction that they were in possession of the only true revelation and that their faith alone could lead to salvation. The missionaries were also convinced, that they were chosen by god to rescue those who had not yet heard the good news of the gospels. This belief was not even shattered when, only a few decades later, European Christianity found itself split into bitterly fighting factions under the impact of a whole series of reformation movements. The belief in the superiority of the Christ's message and in the task to spread it abroad remained unaffected.
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To a certain degree, the missionaries also knew what awaited them in India and elsewhere in the newly accessible continents. Carrying on conceptions inherited from the Middle Ages, they had learnt to be aware of the tricks of Satan, and they knew for certain that the entire population of the world was divided into four major religious systems or laws, namely, lex Christiana, lex iudaica, lex mahometana and lex gentilium, i.e., the religious norms and doctrines of the Christians, the Jews, the Moslem and the heathen. The former three were based on the Old Testament and therefore on revelation, although, in the Christian view, the Jews and Mahometans had misread the message, disobeyed the laws, refused the promised messiah, or even followed a false prophet.
The heathen were all the prey of Satan and populated the rest of the world. They were divided into sects named after the countries they inhabited. The farther travellers went, the more heathen came to be known: African heathen, American heathen, Chinese heathen, etc. Since the Portuguese landed on the West coast of India, the inhabitants of the Konkan and Malabar coast were the first Indian heathen to be described in detail.
The Latin word for heathen is gentiles. The Portuguese changed it to gentio, the British adopted it from the Portuguese in the form gentoo which was in use from 1548 to 1837.61 Another term, derived from the banya or merchant class of North India, was 'Banians' which was sporadically used from 1630, when Henry Lord published his Discoverie of the Sect of the Banians,61 up to the end of the eighteenth century when it appeared in a German publication of 177963 the title of which, if translated into English, would read 'Curiosities from East-India Regarding the History of its Country, People and Culture'. By that time the term 'Hindoo' had already been taken over from the Mughal administration, and from it the term 'Hinduism' was derived in the late 1820s by way of abstraction.64
Some of the early missionaries, like Roberto de Nobili, were interested in the language and culture of the Indian heathen. Being brought up in late fifteenth-century Europe they had imbibed the idea that, what the act of creation, god had given his children a natural religion which was based on reason. Certainly, this natural religion had suffered corruption in the course of time. Also, Satan had gained influence and diverted the natives from their original beliefs. But in
India, like elsewhere, it seemed worthwhile to make an effort at finding the remnants of this natural religion in order to free it from the overgrowth of later superstitions and use it as a platform on which to build the edifice of the Christian message and the doctrine of their church.65 They knew for certain that what they saw was one of the hitherto unknown sects of heathendom, and whatever differences they could gradually detect within this sect were attributed to further splitting up into subsects. It never occurred to them that they might have to do with different faiths because their conceptual framework regarding the religions of this world had no room for any new creed other than the superstitious creed of the followers of Satan; and the apparent contradictions within this world-wide system of the heathen only confirmed their belief that Satan had created the baffling variety of superstitious cults precisely in order to confuse and enslave these poor, ill-guided people in the snares of delusion.
As late as the first quarter of the eighteenth century when Bartholomaus Ziegenbalg wrote his famous book on the Malabarian heathendom this was still the world-view of European missionaries— and this in spite of the fact that Ziegenbalg had evinced a keen interest in Indian religious texts and even advised his superiors to allow him to translate some of them because he believed there was more to be learnt from them than from the works of Aristotle. His superiors, on the contrary, thought he should concentrate on converting the heathen rather than on learning from them and locked away his work on the Malabar Indians. It was not published until 1926.66
However, the end of the eighteenth century saw a change in this state of affairs. Studies of Indian literature, Chinese literature, the customs of Red Indians, the South American Indians, and of tribes in Africa and in the Pacific made it necessary to acknowledge that there was more than one religion of the heathen. One of the decisive preconceived notions of all Christian missions broke down under the impact of expanding scholarship. Now, finally, the Indian heathen were considered to have a distinct religion of their own. That religion had to be given a name. The name originally used to denote it was 'Brahmanism', and from the 1820s onwards it was 'Hinduism' (originally spelt Hindooism). For a while, scholars used the two terms side by side in order to distinguish Vedic 'Brahmanism' from later 'Hinduism'. In the long run the term Hinduism triumphed.
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Historical developments were specified by qualifications like 'Older', 'Younger', and 'Neo'-Hinduism. That this Hinduism was a culture or civilization rather than a religion, and that it contained several distinct religions within itself could not yet be perceived at the time.
It may be remembered at this point, that the Christian experience with other religions had been, through the centuries, one of militant antagonism. Their messiah was crucified on account of the hostile attitude of his own people, the Jews, and for centuries the Jews suffered persecution and social discrimination from the Christians in return. Death by torture was the fate of scores of Christians throughout the Roman empire, who died as martyrs for their faith; but after the Roman emperor Theodosius I had accepted Christianity as the state religion the Christians saw to it that other creeds were extinguished. Christian expansion into nothern Europe and into Latin and North America can be read as a story of subjugation, suppression and annihilation of local faiths. The Christian encounter with continuously expanding Islam was viewed as a nightmare from the time of the Muslim invasion of Spain in ad 711 to the end of the Ottoman empire in the last century.
Keeping in mind this antagonistic experience with regard to other religions and with cruel religious wars even between different Christian denominations, the Western observers of the Indian religious scene were unable to conceive of the possibility that the peaceful coexistence of the supposed sects of the Hindus could be, in reality, a coexistence of different religions. Never had they seen such religious coexistence and tolerance.
Other factors contributed to cement the initial misconception, the most important being simply the incompleteness and highly contingent character of the available information that had been picked up at various trading posts. At the end of the eighteenth century, for example, when even missionaries started accepting Indian religion as a separate entity, knowledge about this religion was still vague in Europe.67 The Vedas had been discovered but, except for a limited number of hymns, their contents were not yet deciphered. Some upanisadic teachings in Persian translation roused interest, and the Bhagavadgita was one of the first texts to be translated into English. Several puranic and epic stories had been reported. Also,
the Manusmrti became known at an early period since the British made it a policy to administer justice in accordance with the indigenous sastra. Among literary works, the Sakuntala of Kalidasa was accepted in Europe with great enthusiasm.68 But the bulk of Indian religious literature including almost the entire literary production of the six systems of Indian philosophy, as well as all the Samhitas, Agamas and Tantras containing the sacred scriptures of the Vaisnavas, Saivas and Saktas, and the rich religious poetry and philosophy of the Bhakti movements were as yet unknown.
Colonial administrators and traders had, indeed, not much to go by. Such was the state of affairs in the late eighteenth century.
Research in the nineteenth century was propelled by the enthusiasm with which the European romantic movement greeted the discovery of early Indo-European links in language, culture and race. Research concentrated on the Vedas and Upanisads, on Theravada Buddhism, on major dramas of court poets like Kalidasa, on the two great epics, on Advaita Veddnta, Samkhya and Yoga, and on political and cultural history. The Bhagavata Purana and Visnu Purana had been translated, but being regarded as less ancient they were also considered less important. The scriptures of the major living Hindu religions and of Jainism and Indian Islam as well as the tribal religions remained largely unknown. Only in the twentieth century did they come to be studied seriously, and even today only a minor part of the relevant texts is accessible in translation in European languages.
These are some of the important cultural factors that made the Europeans think the way they did. They were led by their early concept of world religions and by their perception of Indian religion as a regional entity with some sectarian sub-divisions. Though they were wrong, their notions had a strong impact on the urban elite in India. It was a Christian missionary, J.N. Farquhar, who wrote the first extensive and widely read histories of Hindu religion.69 The entire reconstruction of Indian political and cultural history through the decipherment of inscriptions, evaluation of literary sources, excavation of ancient monuments and preservation and study of Indian art, though done with the help of learned Indian pandits, was inspired and decisively influenced by British and other European scholars and by a Western perspective. The results were taught in Indian schools and universities. And when, with the stirring nation-
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alist impulse in India, the European idea of the 'nation' started influencing Indian historiography, it was again a Western concept that determined the selection of what was important in history. Generations of Indian intellectuals have thus grown up with a perception of their history and their culture which bore the imprint of a nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Western perspective.
Conclusion
I have skipped over the period of Islamic domination in India, but it would not be fair to leave it out of the picture completely, nor would it do justice to the complexity of the situation. The term Hindu itself is a Persian term. Used in the plural it denotes the people of Hind, the Indians, and in this sense it occurs in the inscriptions of Darius I and other rulers of ancient Persia from the sixth century bc onwards. It certainly goes to the credit of Persian scholars like Al-Biruni, Abu-1 Qasim, al-Masudi, al-Idrisi and Shahrastani that they knew and distinguished different religions among the Hindus.70 Administrators were less exact and by and large, they saw no need for such differentiation between Hindus for taxation purposes. The British adopted the term from administrators, not from the scholars.
On the other hand, to the Muslim ruling class, their Muslim descent and their region of origin remained highly important: it carried prestige and was therefore proudly retained as a self-designation. It was important—and still is—whether one could claim descent from the clan of the Prophet (Sayyid), or from the early Arabs in Sindh (Sheikh), or from Afghan (Pathan), Mughal, or Persian, immigrants or, lastly, whether one was a mere Indian convert. The titles and credentials of origin distinguished the immigrated Muslims (Ashraf) from the Indian converts to Islam and the social distance between these groups was such that intermarriage was, except for high nobility, in most cases out of question. For this Muslim ruling class, the Hindus remained a separate population and, in spite of all differentiation according to caste and status, they continued to form a distinct entity characterized by their indigenous Indian origin. Whether caste Hindus, outcastes, or tribals, they were all designated as Hindus. It was a sad mistake of the British when they adopted this term from the Persian administrators, to believe that it was a religious term.
All these events, however, did not produce one Hindu religion. But together with the aforementioned British perspective of Hinduism and the joint struggle for independence it contributed to the perception, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, of a unifying and politically viable factor in Hindu religion, a factor that could help in creating a 'nation'. Moreover, the legalization of Hindu customary law by the British administration also tended to strengthen a dharmic, or religious, foundation for a future Hindu 'nation'. In the early part of the twentieth century it was mainly the Vaisnava community of North India which actively propagated its main religious tenets as 'essentials of Hinduism'. The North Indian Saivas remained conspicuously silent. It was in the South where the Saiva voice was more prominently heard. Today, again it is mainly the Vaisnava community which lends itself to rousing religious emotions for political ends. The result is violence and communal conflict.
The only effort at real amalgamation of selected strands from the religious traditions of India came from other sources: from nineteenth-century religious reform movements like Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, Prarthana Samaj and others, which were all eclectic in nature and vedantic in their apologetics. These reform movements renewed and reaffirmed self-respect in Indian urban elites. Compared to the entire population they were relatively small in number; yet, as a highly articulate group, they effectively counteracted Christian missionary activities in major urban centres. However, they failed to attract the silent majority of rural India. Thus, in spite of centralizing efforts, plurality and diversity continue to be the dominant features of the Hindu religious scene. This is indeed its strength, its beauty and its richness.
Notes
1. von Stietencron (1988: 127-31) and (1989a: 11-27, particularly 12-13); Frykenberg (1989: 30-3). See also Smith (1964).
2. The first edition, prepared by K.M. Subrahmanyasastri, has better text and notes based on the commentary of Aghorasivacarya. The second edition appeared in the Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies No. 73 and is of inferior quality (compare Brunner-Lachaux 1963: xl).
3. Madame Brunner-Lachaux has spent many years on this work and the reader becomes a witness to her increasing competence as she proceeds from volume to volume. Part in, which is dealt with here, is a veritable
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4.
9. 10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
mine of information and whatever I have to say in the following pages is indebted to what she has achieved.
He was the abbot of Golaka-matha, a place not identified, but possibly identical with the Golakl-matha mentioned in South Indian inscriptions.
Sri Isana, Vimalesa and Astrasiva, who was his own teacher (Soma-sambhupaddhati 1931: 297; Brunner-Lachaux 1963: xli). Kriyakramadyotika of Aghorasivacarya, with the commentary of Nirmalamani (1927).
Roughly estimated, between the ninth to the eighteenth centuries.
This text is also known as part of the Nihsvasakarikd (Brunner-Lachaux
1977, 540: note I).
For the linga of heterodox Saivas, see pp. 35-6 and note 27. The 'pure path' (s'uddhddhvari) constitutes the five levels of existence above maya. Since subtle matter with its three gunas is an evolute of maya, the question arose as to what kind of matter the upper levels could be composed of and from whom they evolved. The answers vary in the dvaita and advaita schools of Saivism.
There are 36 tattvas which have to be conquered and crossed by the aspirant to moksa before Siva is attained. By crossing 31 tattvas, the pure path can be reached and Siva's grace can operate directly on the devotee. Interestingly, 25 tattvas is the maximum a non-Saiva can ever hope to master.
Since karma is a product of maya and operates in the 'impure path' only, its removal is achieved through the devotee's devotion, service, self-purification, and, above all, through the mediation of the guru who acts as an operational source for an influx of Siva's grace (saktipdta) into the world of living men. The removal of mala, on the other hand, is directly and exclusively dependent on Siva's liberating action. Siva is free from karma and mala; so are the liberated souls. But karma and mala are eternal, and the number of eternal souls cannot be counted. The Saiva system is, therefore, pluralistic in its ontology. To conceive it as monistic—as was the case in some schools both in Kashmir and elsewhere—requires a sophisticated argumentation and the modification of some basic premises.
There was a time when 'sivaloka was thought of as the highest of all possible worlds where the first principle of existence reigned supreme. But the consideration that like all the tattvas it must have been the product of a process of individuization soon required the addition of Parama Siva: the one beyond and above all tattvas as well as beyond even the most subtle form of matter.
The jivanmukta continues to live as long as required for the final consumption of karma-in-action in his physical organism.
Vedantajnah; the term can refer to 'those who know the Vedanta, i.e., the Vedantins, or 'those who are fully versed in the Veda', 'who know the Veda to its end'. The latter is probably the case here. See note 23.
19.
20.
17. buddhitattve sthita bauddha jainas tu gunamastake I vedantajnds tu tadyonau puruse bhagavanmukhdh 11 7 pdsupatds tu mdyayam vidydydm tu mahavratah I bauddhddilingindm esdm muktisthdndny anukramdt 11 8 (Brunner-Lachaux 1977: 553).
18. carvakah kaulikdh jyotihsdstrajhds caiva bhautikdh Citation from Pauskaragama (Brunner-Lachaux 1977: 553).
mantrarthasiddhdh smdrtds ca caksuradlndriyam pare. Quotation from Pauskaragama, ibid. I have taken mantrarthasiddhdh as attribute to smartah but it can also be taken as denoting followers of the Purva-Mlmamsa school. An alternative placement of these is in prakrti (cf. note 23). The sequence of the tattvas between the senses and prakrti varies in different texts. For Somasambhu and his commentator Aghorasiva, the sequence is manas, buddhi, ahamkara, the philosophical implication being that individuation and self-awareness {ahamkara) precede the perception and reflection of objects in buddhi. Classical Samkhya had arranged these tattvas in the order: manas, ahamkara, buddhi; and the quotation from the Pauskaragama seems to imply the sequence: ahamkara, manas, buddhi. The citation from Pauskaragama reads: vaisesikds tvahamkdre manah sdmanyavddinah i
buddhitattve sthita bauddha gunesv evdrhatdh sthitdh 11 (Brunner-Lachaux 1977: 553).
manah for manasi is metri causa. The second half of the verse is cited by Aghorasiva in his Dlpika to the Mrgendratantra as quoted by Brunner-Lachaux (1977: 553, 7b).
21. gunesv evdrhatdh sthitdh (ibidem).
22. Tattva 24 is sometimes divided in two sections: the three gunas (in action) and prakrti (with the gunas in a latent state).
23. See note 16. Vedantajnah has been taken by Madame Brunner-Lachaux to refer to Vedantins like Sankara. But the term is also a rather common designation for followers of the Purva-Mimamsa school. The Vedantins, on the other hand, are normally associated with purusatattva. When Aghorasiva, in his commentary to the Mrgendratantra (yidydpada, para-moksanirdsapatala, II), cites a verse where the vedavid is placed in purusa (pumsi) he has the Vedantin in mind (Brunner-Lachaux, 1977: 553, 7b).
24. prakrtdh pahcardtras te manvate prakrtim harim. Cited according to Pauskaragama by Brunner-Lachaux (1977: 553) (misprint: manvante).
25. veddntinas ca samkhyas ca yoginah puruse sthitdh (ibidem).
26. It is anisvara yoga which is referred to here.
27. Somasambhu mentions the lingins in ascending order: this is why Madame Brunner-Lachaux (1977: 553f) thinks that suddhavidyd (tattva 32) is to be understood here. On the other hand, it can be observed that all available lists of lingins in agamic texts and commentaries refer only to groups of people who require the lirigoddhdra rite for further spiritual advance. This would not apply to the Mahavratas if they were really able to reach suddhavidyd on their own because there they would be in the pure path and
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within direct reach of Siva's grace. The context and the whole purpose of the lingoddhdra rite, therefore, support the actual reading of the text: it is vidyd tattva (tattva 27) where the Mahavratas are supposed to find their spiritual ascent blocked. This placement is also in agreement with the orthodox Saiva tradition which treats the Mahavratas (= Kapalikas) with less respect than the Pasupatas. The disturbance of the ascending order may be secondary (by transposition of two half-verses) or by negligence. A comparison of several lists shows that an ascending sequence is not always maintained and that inverted positions may be simply due to metrical reasons. Somasambhu treats the Pasupatas and the Mahavratas as heretics beyond the pale of the legitimate Saiva tradition. This is precisely why they, too, require the lihgoddhdra rite.
28. In the 'sivdrcandvidhih which forms the third section of the paddhati.
29. Note that he takes precisely those tattvas which a Buddhist can at best attain—if he works hard.
30. Trirdtram pancardtram vd linginam upavdsindm I prayascittavisuddhandm sthitdnam manutapdd bahih 11 9 sampujya pasubhartaram vistarena yathd purd I amisam desikah kurydl lihgoddhdravidhim yathd II 10 buddhyddibhumiparyantatattvavrdtam vibhdvasau I
upasthdpya svasamjnabhir ekaikam vdprapujayet ii 11 (Brunner-Lachaux 1977: 555).
31. The text has 'sastrasya; while the reading sastra for astra is common, the instrumental case would be preferable. In a corresponding passage of the Sarvajhdnottaratantra as cited in the Diksadarsa (Brunner-Lachaux 1977: 555) the reading in astrabijena. The astramantra is a destructive power used here to destroy the merit which proves to be a hindrance because it was acquired while following the wrong path.
32. bahisthandm athaitesam nddisandhdnapurvakam I Krtvd tddanavislesdvakarsam svdtmani sthitam II 12 svdhdntena ca midena tad yogam jdtavedasi i istadevarcandpunyaphaladhvatnsdya homayet ii 13 sastrasydstau sahasrdni linginam linginam prati I
panca panca ca mulena pratitattvavimuktaye II 14 (Brunner-Lachaux 1977: 557).
The purnahuti or full oblation is described at length in section IV dealing with the fire ritual (agnikdryavidhi). See Brunner-Lachaux (1963: 262). The signs of the vow (vratdhgdni) consist of those outer marks which show the religious affiliation and status such as the matted hair (jatd), ashes on the forehead and body (bhasman), staff (danda), and loin-cloth (kaupina) of the Saiva ascetics, and of inner attitudes, notably, the self-control (samyama) which governs their behaviour. Similarly, the Buddhists, Jains, etc., have their distinctive appearance and behaviour. 35. As mentioned earlier, the passage describes the conversion of Buddhists. In this case it is the removal of the monastic vow which makes them return to their former status of householder.
33.
34.
37.
38.
39.
36. buddhyddibhyo dhardntebhyah samuddhrtya niyojayet i purvajdtau taddcdre tadyogasthitaye punah II 15 pumántam mulamantrena yajed astottaram šatám I tadvat toye vratáňgdni ksiptvd kuryad grhasthitan 11 16 tesám kurvita vd diksdm bhaktdndm anukampayd I
nydyandnena sarvds tan liňgino mocayed guruh 11 17 (Brunner-Lachaux 1977: 557-9)
The five Brahmans and their syllables are: Sadyogata = ksam, Vamadeva = ksim, Aghora = ksum, Tatpurusa = ksem, íšána = ksom. (In other contexts they are ham, him, hum, etc.).
hrdaya = ksam, širas - ksim, šikhá = ksiim, kavaca = ksaim, astra = ksah (in other contexts, their syllables are ham, him, Mm, etc.). The eye (netra), i.s omitted from this list which must correspond to the five Brahmans. Bhagavadgitd 9, 23^1ab:
ye 'py anyadevatdbhakld yajante šraddhaydnvitdh I te 'pi mám eva kaunteya yajanty aviddhipurvakam 11 aham hi sarvayajndndm bhoktd ca prabhur eva ca i
Bhagavadgitd 1, 21-2:
yo yo yam yam tanum bhaktah s'raddhaydrcitum icchati tasya tasydcaldm sraddhdm tarn eva vidadhdmy aham 11 sa tayd šraddhayá yuktas tasydrddhanam ihate I labhate ca tatah kdman mayaiva vihitan hi tan 11 Bhagavadgitd 9, 20-1; 24cd. Mahdbhdrata (crit. ed.) 12, 326, 20-43. Ibid.: 12, 326, 31.
Mahdbhdrata (crit. ed.) 12, 326, 32-6. Mahdbhdrata (crit. ed.) 12, 326, 37: tasmdt prasuto yah kartd karyam kdranam eva ca I yasmdt sarvam prabhavati jagat sthdvarasamgamam 11 so 'niruddhah sa isdno...
Mahdbhdrata (crit. ed.) 12, 326, 39cd: pradyumndd yo 'niruddhas tu so 'hamkaro mahešvarah 11
The other four forms of Siva in this period, represented in early Saiva religious art by four faces on the caturmukhaliňga, are Sadyojata, Vámadeva, Aghora and Tatpurusa. For a discussion of the distribution of these on the caturmukhaliňga and for further evolution of the concept and alternative names see Kreisel (1986: 65-73). Mahdbhdrata (crit. ed.) 12, 328, 15-16.
See, e.g., Kúrma Purána \, 2, 93; Mdrkandeya Purana 45, 19; Brahma Purdna 130, 17-21. Cf. also Kálidása Kumarasambhava 1, 44; Jinadása Súyagada 2,125. For an equation of Siva and Visnu/Krsna see, e.g., Brahma Purdna 56, 61-73; 206, 45-8. 49. They are 'gods from birth'. In Valmlki's Rdmdyana (aranyakanda 5, 39-42) it is stated that the brahmin ascetic Sarabhahga who, after meeting Rama, relinquishes his body to the fire and ascends in youthful form to brahmaloka. has to pass and leave behind several worlds: that of the forefathers
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45
46
47
48
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50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
who used to keep the sacrificial fires, that of the rsis, and that of the gods. The commentator Rama explains in his Tilaka the world of the gods as 'the worlds of Brahma, Visnu and Rudra who are gods from birth, around which the polar star circulates' (ajanadevanam brahma-visnu-rudranam ca lokah ydn dhruvah pradaksinam karoti). See Ramdyana ([1912-1920] 1983).
Hacker's term has provoked a lively discussion. His paper on inclusivism (Hacker 1983) should be read in conjunction with his earlier paper on tolerance and intolerance in Hinduism (Hacker 1957). Both Halbfass (1983) and Wezler (1983) have added critical observations to Hacker's use of the term. In particular, Wezler made it clear that inclusivism is a form of thinking which is not peculiar to Indian thought but can be found both in the West and in the Far East as well.
For processes of Hinduization of tribal cults, see Eschmann (1978a; 1978b) and von Stietencron (1983: 137^10).
A public dispute of this type (sdstrartha) which gained much publicity was held in Benares, with the raja presiding, on 16 November 1869. Dayananda SarasvatI, founder of the Arya Samaj, had challenged the renowned pandits of Benares, but suffered defeat. Another famous debate took place at Galta under the patronage of Raja Sawai Jai Singh of Jaipur around ad 1718. It is in Vaikuntha or Goloka for the Vaisnavas, in Sivaloka for the Saivas, in Manipuri for the Saktas, and in Svarga for the Vedic tradition, to name only a few.
This applies also to the earlier travels of Marco Polo and others. The concept I am talking about was present in Europe throughout the Middle Ages and it was totally independent of any concrete knowledge about India. Rather, it was derived from an eschatological scenario as developed in early Christianity.
This, in fact, was a rediscovery and restatement of an earlier Greek position. It was Protagoras whose famous dictum 'man is the measure of all things: those that are that they are, and those that are not that they are not' had been opposed by Plato and others as introducing pure subjectivism. The reinterpretation of this dictum as affirmation of man's reason and creativity was one of the most consequential achievements of the Renaissance period. The new theory was fully evolved by the astronomer Nikolaus Kopernikus 1473-1543.
The first shock had been the conquest of important parts of Spain by Arab armies in ad 711. The Cordoba califat became a centre of Muslim culture for many centuries. A Christian reconquista started in the ninth century and intensified in the eleventh century but was completed with the fall of Granada only as late as ad 1492. See Klijn (1972).
See, e.g., McCrindle ([1901] 1971); ([1876] 1926); Majumdar (1960). A survey of travellers to India from the fourth to the twentieth centuries, arranged in chronological order and nation-wise, is offered by Kaul (1979). See also Dharmpal (1987) and von Stietencron (1988: 125-6, 132).
61. Hobson-Jobson ([1903] 1963).
62. Marshall (1970).
63. v. Wurmb (1779).
64. While the term 'Hindoo' was current in English publications of the late eighteenth century, its derivation 'Hindooism' has not been traced, to my knowledge, prior to 1829, when, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (Vol. H: 294), it occurs in the Bengalee: 45. I owe this reference to Frykenberg (1989, 43: note 7).
65. Rajamanickam (1972). The same author edited and translated two important Latin treatises of Roberto de Nobili.
66. Ziegenbalg (1926).
67. For a full treatment of the cultural response of Europe to India see Halbfass (1988). The best exposition of the progress made by Western Indology up to the beginning of the twentieth century, although in need of revision, is Windisch (1917). See also Kopf (1969). For a critical view of Western Orientalism see Said (1978); and, with less balanced judgment, Inden (1990).
68. Charles Wilkins, Sir William Jones and Henry Colebrooke were pioneers in making Indian texts accessible to the West.
69. Farquhar (1912, 1920).
70. This has been shown by Lawrence (1976).
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Gods. Leiden: Brill, pp. 118-66. -—. 1988. Voraussetzungen westlicher Hinduismusforschung und ihre
Folgen. In Eberhard Müller (Ed.), "...aus der anmuthigen Gelehrsamkeit".
Tübinger Studien zum 18, Jahrhundert. Tübingen: Attempto, pp. 123-53. -. 1989a. Hinduism: On the Proper Use of a Deceptive Term. In G.D.
Sontheimer and H. Kulke (Eds), Hinduism Reconsidered. Delhi: Manohar,
pp. 11-27.
-. 1989b. Geplanter Synkretismus: Kaiser Akbars Religionspolitik. In
P. Antes and D. Pahnke (Eds), Die Religion von Oberschichten. Marburg: Diagonal-Verlag, pp. 53-72.
Wezler, Albrecht. 1983. Bemerkungen zum Inklusivismus-Begriff Paul Hackers. In Gerhard Oberhammer (Ed.), Inklusivismus: Eine indische Denkform. Wien: Institut für Indologie der Universität Wien. 61-91.
Windisch, Ernst. 1917. Geschichte der Sanskritphilologie und indischen Altertumskunde, Erster Teil. Grundriss der Indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde I, lb. Strassburg: Trübner.
v. Wurmb. 1779. Merkwürdigkeuen aus Ostindien, die Länder-Völker-und Kulturgeschichte betreffend.
Ziegenbalg, Bartholomäus. 1926. Ziegenbalg 's Malabarisches Heidentum (ed. W. Caland). Amsterdam: Koninklijke Akademie van Wettenschappen.
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'The Only Real Religion of the Hindus' Vaisnava Self-representation in the Late Nineteenth Century1
Vasudha Dalmia
hile we have increasingly come to recognize that what today goes by the name of 'Hinduism' essentially constituted itself as late as in the nineteenth century, there are several questions which remain to be answered in detail for, although there has been a general consensus that the Hindu reform movements responded to the challenge posed by the encounter with the West, the response of the more traditional formations has yet to be taken into account adequately. How, in fact, did the many stands of the religion, which were to be subsumed under the collective category sanatana dharma articulate their stand while rising to the task of presenting a cohesive front at the national level? What were the strategies evolved to contain and integrate the divergent streams, to name only the most prominent, the various Vaisnava and Saiva designations, all and any of which could claim dominant status within the fold of sanatana dharma'? What were the changes that came about in this process of cohesion?
There were, in fact, many points of departure for the variant representations of Hinduism, as it was being articulated in the second half of the nineteenth century, each of which claimed equal validity. We can distinguish at least four groups, all of which interacted decisively with each other. There was, first, the missionary conceptualization of Hinduism, which by the mid-nineteenth century exercised immense influence, since it was closely allied with the power of the British colonial authorities. Second, there were the Hindu reformist versions, which responded to the missionary invective and which based their claim to authority on the direct access
to what the individual groups respectively considered the original fountainheads of the religion. Third, there was the Orientalist narrative, which claimed to be disinterested and which had the authority of scientific verifiability to back it. And finally, negotiating its way through all these, there was the stand taken by those who claimed to represent the 'orthodox' brand of Hinduism, proclaiming its sandtanata, its primeval, perennial character, as the validating instance.2 Of course, neither of the four representations of Hinduism mentioned was in itself entirely homogeneous. Yet in retrospect, it is possible to see the common grounds of each of the groups as well as—and this is one of my central theses—the intricate interaction which took place between them.
The self-representation of the sanatana collective as the traditional core group of Hinduism which was left untouched by Western missionary conceptualizations, has, too easily been accepted at face value. Yet, what crystallized as the sanatana position at the end of the nineteenth century, was, in fact, part of a process of interaction with the discursive formations which challenged it (the missionary and the Hindu reformist) or with those, in which it sought and found support (the Orientalist explications). There could, obviously, be no such thing as a single sanatana position. In order to do justice to the various articulations which sought some kind of cohesion, there would be a need to conduct detailed regional studies which could together offer a survey of the situation on the subcontinent as a whole.3 The articulation of the Vaisnava position in Banaras, which evolved over a period of a decade and a half, seems to have had supra-regional significance for a variety of reasons. It emanated from the sacred city of Kasi, which as the centre of sacral authority, continued to exercise immense influence. It coincided in important aspects with the findings of the Orientalists. This gave it an authorization to deploy even more effectively the strategies it had evolved in order to subsume other Hindu formations. The initial effort was to consolidate the Vaisnava position—there had to be some kind of a consensus within, since the Vaisnavas were themselves a heterogeneous lot—to seek an equation with 'Hinduism' at large, historically and theologically.
In this essay I make an attempt to trace, in as concrete detail as possible, the Vaisnavas as represented by the followers of the
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Pustimarg in Banaras. The focus thereby will be on the stand articulated by Hariscandra (1850-1885), the city's primary literary figure, educa-tionist, publicist and patron of the arts, as speaking from within the ranks of the city's merchant establishment and as attached pro-minently to various public institutions. By the end of the eighteenth century, Banaras had established its position as one of the most important trading and banking centres in North India. Hariscandra belonged to the city' s commercial aristocracy, the Naupatti Mahajans, bankers who rose to prominence in the troubled period before the final collapse of the Awadh navabi and the formal take-over of the province by the East India Company. They early negotiated an alliance with the British. Hariscandra himself was an honorary magistrate of the city, till his voluntary resignation. He was on terms of easy friendship with the Maharaja and it is said that he contributed greatly to the expansion of the Ramlila of Ramnagar by devising the dialogues of the Llla. He played a leading role in the cultural life of the city and there are accounts of the gathering of poets and of pandits which he organized. He was not only in contact with the local British officials and Orientalists, he also maintained relations with the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta, kept track of their publications and knew and corresponded with the Society's secretary, Rajendralal Mitra, a venerable scholar and an ardent Vaisnava. This was in addition to the societies and school he founded and the three journals he edited.4 One of the many roles which Hariscandra played, and which has not received the attention and documentation it deserves, was that of a leader with religious authority and affiliations. This only becomes apparent when attention is focused not only on the works collected in the Granthdvalis, but also on the many news items, comments, reports and creative pieces from his journals. However, my attempt to reconstruct the process of articulating and formulating the new amalgamation of Vaisnavata into a Hinduism of subcontinental dimension will not be limited to an investigation of Hariscandra's personal development and insights alone. Rather, I will attempt to document and analyse the process of articulating a collective and popular stand as it took place in the interaction between a wide section of public voices and instances.
I will present a short account of the missionary conceptualization, since it did provide one essential grid for all socio-religious debates
in the nineteenth century, before going on to trace and reconstruct the three phases, as I have been able to isolate them, in the evolution of the Vaisnava self-representation as the central strand of Hinduism. The first phase covers the activities of ostensibly traditional formations, the Pustimarg Sampraday and the Kasi Dharma Sabha, where the concern was with defending and defining the veda purana vihit arya dharma, the dharma of the Arya as authorized by the canonical Vedas and Puranas. At the close of this phase there was the first expression of the need to present a united religious front to the British in the country. In the second phase, in an effort to respond adequately to the needs of the times, a new, more encompassing Vaisnava association, the Tadiya Samaj, was established. The features which made for the cohesion of the Vaisnava sampraddys were a new emphasis on monotheism and bhakti as the common devotional mode. In the meantime, a dialogue, however polemic in nature, was going on with the Arya Samaj. Here, certain features which were considered essential to Hinduism as a whole, of which image worship is one central characteristic, were defined and defended. I will touch upon these briefly. In the third phase, bhakti as a devotional form common to all true Indian religiosity and monotheism as proper to it, crystallized and was represented as the essential feature not only of Vaisnavism, but of pan-Indian Hinduism. Further, an effort was made to articulate and explicate the unbroken historical development of Vaisnavata, Vaisnavism, as forming the core of it, from the most ancient times. At this stage, granting and even maintaining the differences, a certain parity was sought with Christianity and even with Islam. This was a process which took place in interaction with the Orientalists, though the features stressed and foregrounded in the Vaisnava tradition were by no means derived from the Orientalists alone. Before going on to the third phase, then, I will delineate the Orientalist representation of Hinduism from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, and the view that the Vaisnavas were the central core.
Christian Perceptions of Hinduism
There was, of course, a wide variety of Christian denominations at work on the subcontinent, but there was a certain common base of
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self-perception which determined their view of Hinduism and Hindu schools of philosophy. Monotheism was one central article of Christianity and the propagators of the faith saw their own monopoly of monotheism as absolute:
The doctrine of the oneness of God and with that the rejection of the existence of any other absolute uncreated principle beside this one good God as the Creator of all reality different from Him, and as the Lord and partner of the Old Testament and New Testament's history of salvation, and as the heritage of the Old Testament and the express and fundamental confession of the New Testament, has also always been express and fundamental creed of the church from the Aposde's Creed...
Therefore monotheism in Christianity is the confession of the possibility and the reality of the direct encounter of the created being and the absolute God, as He is in Himself, that is, not taken a philosophical truism, but the formal anticipation (already in the Old Testament) of the Christian doctrines of revelation, grace, God's self-communication, in which the economic [externally active] Trinity of the manifestation of God is the disclosure and gift of the internal Trinity. Therefore monotheism remains fundamental to Christianity itself.5
It is obvious that the monotheism posited here stands in absolute polarity not only to polytheism, but also to pantheism (as against 'all reality that is different from Him') and monism (as mere philosophic knowledge of the Absolute). In the Indian case, it meant unconditional rejection of not only the many gods of Hinduism, as of course all forms of image worship, but it also meant that the monism of Sahkara and the concept of the impersonal brahman of Vedanta, were to be condemned outright as erroneous. As will be seen later, it was possible subsequently for at least a segment of Western Orientalists and missionaries to propose themselves that a very acceptable variety of monotheism had flourished in India, not only in vedic antiquity, but also in the most modern times. Yet, by and large, the Christian attitude remained unflinching in its rejection of the vast polytheistic excess of the Hindu error.
Though certain similarities with the religious thought of the Hindus were recognized by the missionaries, it was the differences which were considered decisive. Pantheistic belief, as encompassing all of the natural creation, was seen as leaving no space for morality. The creator as conceived of and realized in Christianity was ever active, ever wakeful, ever moral as against the all-encompassing
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'anonymous godliness' of pantheistic-monistic Hinduism. Alexander Duff, one of the most militant representatives of the Christian faith on the subcontinent, delineated the situation as follows in his India and India Missions, Including Sketches of the Gigantic System of Hinduism, Both in Theory and Practice (1839):
Of all the systems of false religion ever fabricated by the ingenuity of fallen man, Hinduism is surely the most stupendous—whether we consider the boundless extent of its range, or the boundless multiplicity of its component parts. Of all systems of false religion it is that which seems to embody the largest amount and variety of semblances and counterfeits of divinely revealed facts and doctrines — There is omnipotence; but bereft of creative energy, it is limited to the power of education and fabrication. There is omniscience; but it is restricted to the brief period of wakefulness, at the time of manifesting the universe. And so of other natural attributes. Instead of possessing moral attributes, the Supreme Spirit is represented as assuming, when he awakes, certain generalised active qualities, which admit of being predicated of fire, or air, or water, or any other material substance, as well as spirit] What a contrast to all this do the statements of the Bible exhibit! (204-5).
The Hindus, in their muddled groping for truth, also possessed the doctrine of incarnation. The god of Christianity could be seen to very nearly resemble the Hindu avatara, yet this was the gigantic pitfall of near truth.
Further, idolatry or image worship was the other main bone of contention. It was not only the nature of the personal god of the Hindus, but also the visualization and worship of this god in a myriad fanciful forms which were severely castigated. The Hindu schools of philosophy were condemned as equally erroneous. The missionaries also repeatedly brought forward the historic verifiability of the incarnation of their god and the miracles he performed as against the vast mass of undateable, i.e., historically foundationless religious literature of the Hindus. Their ancient records were so interwoven with legend and fantasy, 'that the finest microscopic intellects of Europe, after patient and long-continued examination, have been well nigh baffled in the attempts to discover what is fiction and what is fact' (1868:4), thus wrote the Revd. M.A. Sherring in the introduction to his well-known book on Banaras. Without any kind of evidence which made the respective schools historically locatable in any definite framework of thought, the philosophic speculation rampant in Hinduism could in no way measure up to the achievements of
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European philosophy. Thus, both reason and historical evidence failed to make an appearance in Hindu thought and practice.
First Phase: Regional and Supra-Regional Institutional Affiliations: The Sampraday and the dharma sabha
In the early period, i.e., from 1869 onwards when Hariscandra first began to publish, there were no strategies to cope with the need to define the nature of the theological links of the individual sampraddys—or sects as they were increasingly called in the nineteenth century—with each other. The early writing of Hariscandra is expressive of the pious Vaisnava going through the exercise of composing devotional verse to Krsna in the traditionally prescribed mode specially favoured in the Pustimarg sampraday. At the same time there is the voice of the passionate young partisan defending the cause of sanatana dharma by participating in and steering the activities of the Kasi Dharma Sabha. It was possible to belong to a sampraday which could be none other than sectarian, and thus by definition exclusive of other sects, without in any way defining how it was to be placed in the larger context of sanatana dharma. At the level of acara, social observance and ritual functions, all followers of sanatana dharma could recognize the authority of the Dharma Sabha, an institution which claimed subcontinental influence. Acara could be recognized as one binding factor, yet in an age where rites and rituals were increasingly being questioned, it could not be overemphasized for rituals could also diverge and divide. What held the Hindus together at the theological level? In the theology of the Pustimarg as developed by Vallabha and his followers, Hariscandra was later to find the seeds for an expansion which could claim to coincide at this level with the broad stream which was sanatana dharma.
Though Vallabhacarya himself had been situated in Banaras, as also his son Vitthal for certain periods, the intervening centuries had seen little sampraday activity. It was due entirely to the efforts and energy of the charismatic Girdharji (1791-1840) that the Pustimarg once again gained prestige in the area. The ritual and
community festivities of the newly expanded Gopal mandir (1829), the temple of the sampraday, which was situated in Chowkhamba, the recently cleared residential area of the NaupattI Mahajans, was to knit the community even more close together. Girdharji was both an aesthete, who was thoroughly versed in the elaborate seva ritual of the sampraday, as well as a theologian of standing, who had contributed to the explication of the tenets of his tradition.
Vallabha's system was one which could be viewed both as purely monistic or as monotheistic, depending on the aspect chosen for emphasis. He propagated an advaita, a monism that claimed to be suddha, purer than that of Sahkara himself. Vallabha's Suddhddvaitavedanta taught that brahman was immanent and transcendent at the same time but that maya was a power of brahman and thus identical with him. It was through this maya or avidyd that brahman manifested himself as many and in diverse forms. The world was thus real, being a real manifestation of god. As the all-pervasive, as the controller of all qualities, brahman was both saguna and nirguna, that is, with and without attributes. Krsna as saguna brahman was god in his primary and essential form (ddimurti and mulabhuta). He was not only the absolute, but also a personal manifestation.
The realization of god was not possible through the ordinary methods of perception but only by god's grace, which was the seed of bhakti or devotion. In the individual, this grace manifested itself as bhakti. Moksa or final emancipation could only be achieved through bhakti or firm and unflinching devotion to god. Though bhakti was sadhana, or the means of accomplishment, and moksa the final goal, yet it was sadhana which was considered the superior stage. Devotees, who had not attained the state of bliss which was brahman, but enjoyed god with all their senses, even if they were ordinary householders, were better than the jivanmuktas or those who had achieved liberation during their lifespan on earth. Though Vallabha, on the one hand, expressly propagated advaita, monism, on the other, he just as expressly exalted the state of bhakti, where in fact the bhakta remained in a state of separation from his god, artificially maintaining a duality as it were, in order to enjoy the vicinity of the beloved.
Hariscandra's early poetic composition consists largely of devotional verse connected with the sampraday. The earliest existing
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compilation of padas, Bhakta sarvasva, published by the Medical Hall Press in 1870 describes and celebrates in detail the auspicious markings on the soles of the feet of Radha, Krsna and Vallabha, with all the variations as handed down by the various traditions of the sampraday. The prastdvand records with due humility that the verse was composed for the delectation of Vaisnavas, or those who were themselves coloured in the hue of love. The young poet pleads that the shortcomings of the composition should be tolerated, making due allowance for the restless stirrings of youth (bdl-cdpalya).6 The next long compilation Prem-mdlika covers the broad spectrum of devotional poetry, as it is preserved and handed down in the classical verse of the astachdp poets, as well as in the Marvari tinged Brajbhasa verse of Mira. Hariscandra's verse remained affiliated to the tradition of the sampraday, with which he continued to identify closely. This close affiliation at once linked him along with his family and community to the vast network of the sampraday, the temples and the connected merchant communities in the Bombay Presidency, Bengal, the states of Rajputana and, of course, the Braj area.
Apart from the Pustimarg, there was one other institution of note, with the activities of which Hariscandra was closely connected. In the years 1871 and 1872, when he was just launching out on the second year of his later renowned journal Kavivacansudhd (hereafter KVS),7 there were frequent references to the various transactions of the Kasi Dharma Sabha. The precise constitution of the Sabha does not seem to have been laid down definitively. Rather, it seems to have been an informally constituted body. Sahay ([1905] 1975: 89) provides information indicating that it dealt with matters pertaining to dharma, whereby one primary concern, apart from organizing festivities, seems to have been the dispensation of vyavasthds, ordinances. Kasi claimed to have enjoyed this special authority since time immemorial, and indeed, individual pandits of standing had long been issuing vyavasthds. The authority apparently stemmed from the local reputation of the pandits involved. The Maharaja doubtlessly sought to give the whole a more organized structure. Through his patronage, he participated in the authority of the Sabha and as far as it touched on his interests, he doubtlessly sought to steer its activities. Leading figures in the city were also included in its activity. Hariscandra was the kdryasamapddak, which could be described as
'executive secretary'. The head pandit of the Maharaja, Taracaran Tarkaratna, who was a nydyl, was chief advisor on all occasions needing his kind of authority and intervention. In its efforts to promote dharma, the Sabha also encouraged Sanskrit learning and held examinations. But the Sabha was most of all concerned with matters pertaining to ritual and ritual status, which meant constant reference to the authority of the canonical texts. The assumption thereby was that sanatana dharma which was sought to be upheld, was a clearly definable entity, which could be governed by the rules and regulations devised by the Dharma Sabha, which, in turn, referred to the corresponding ordinations in the srutis and smrtis. There are frequent reference to a sruti-smrti sammat dharma, of a dharma in agreement with these, in the cause of the vedadharmdvalambi, those adhering to the dharma of the Vedas.8 Whatever they ruled as valid, claimed authority for the length and breadth of the subcontinent, though often there were internal differences regarding the details of interpretation.
By and large in this first phase, the activities of the Sabha were taken earnestly, for they defined and maintained the centre. They regulated issues and, when necessary, relegated to the margin, rather than totally negate, the groups concerned. They did not reject even the Brahmos, who were themselves not defined as outside the pale of the canonical law, yet they pushed them to the periphery, in that their marriage form was not recognized. Later, the same was seen in relation to the Arya Samaj. The Sabha, however, was testimony to the fact that there was the postulate of a sanatana dharma, which encompassed the sampraddys.
What formed the centre, what were the forces which could be considered inimical to the formation as a whole? Hariscandra and his contemporaries were aware of the need for a religion which cohered internally, in the face of immense pressures from without. In an early editorial in English, 'Public Opinion in India' (KVS III, 14:9 March 1872)9 the writer deplores the fact that the Hindu religion is split into various groups. Now in the national cause, and this is a dimension which is constantly present, it is important to have one voice which can be raised against the colonial power, for public opinion is a powerful political tool. Much remains to be done, '.. .before we can have a public opinion in its true sense'. The writer lists the causes which prevent public opinion from being articulated
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coherently. Apart from the inherent lack of confidence in present-day Hindus, it is the multifarious castes and creeds 'with their numerous forms of religion' which prevent a united stand, which alone can demand and expect a hearing from government.
Hence it is desirable that religion, which has gone to such a degree of corruption now, should be looked after with much care and concern by the Indians. Unless there be a general desire to shake off the trammels of superstition, the regeneration of India cannot be aimed at. Let the religion of India be the religion that can govern the millions of her subjects without any let or hindrance. Let the dark shadows of sectarianism be vanished by the rays of Western civilisation and let one and all of us combine together to look over national customs and habits from the Catholic point of view and let the unity be the basis of that grand super structure of national improvement which every civilised nation has in its possession.
What is going to bring about this unification, how are 'the dark shadows of sectarianism' going to be banished? Obviously an internal process of consolidation is called for, before there can be any question of national regeneration. There was, as yet, no radical formulation of the role of Vaisnavas, though all the signs of the later articulation were already present, as we will shortly see.
Second Phase: Assimilative Tendencies and Measures of Consolidation
The founding of the Tadiya Samaj in 1873 was in many ways a momentous event. Hariscandra was unquestionably aware that the sampraddy, whatever its claims to the centrality of its teaching, could on the whole be designated as little more than a sect within the larger Vaisnava tradition, which itself was but one strand, however overarching, within the vast body of Hinduism. With the establishment of the Samaj, there was an effort to consolidate the Vaisnava sampraddys, and in a way which conformed to and met the needs of the present. Of all the data available for evaluating the work of the Samaj, there is first, a pratijna patra, in the nature of a manifesto, undersigned by Hariscandra and dated Bhadra sukla II, samvat 1930 (1874), followed by a list of members,10 and finally the manuscript of the minutes of the various meetings of the Samaj for the year 1874, preserved by Giriscandra Chaudhari in the family house at Chowkhamba.
The first two articles in the pratijna patra, manifesto, stressed the monotheism11 of the members, henceforth known as tadiyas. They would worship Sriradharaman alone and even in the event of the greatest of calamities, would not seek the refuge of another. Their monotheism would not be led astray by the representation of the divinity as a pair. The next article specified, therefore, that the tadiyas would see no duality in the yugalasvariipa, that is, in the divine pair, Radha and Krsna. Next, the question of the relationship to the other Vaisnava sampraddys was considered. Amongst the Vaisnavas the tadiyas would observe no distinction of jati (it is not clear whether caste in the narrower sense is meant or whether the difference amongst the sampraddys as such is referred to). Amongst the several dcdryas of the Vaisnavas, they would sustain belief in one, their own dcdrya respectively, though they would never censure or refute the rest. They would recognize the Bhagavadgita and the Bhagvatapurana as their satyasdstras, truly authoritative works. Further, they would propagate the spread of pure bhakti. They would never commit any act which would lead to the disclosure of what should remain esoteric—a reference to the significance of the rasa ritual, and certainly also suggesting the undesirability of the publicity which the Maharaja Libel Case received. Finally, a vow of solidarity. If any of the rules were broken, the concerned member would make a confession of it before the others and ask for forgiveness.
That there had always been a strong link between the various Vaisnava sampraddys, besides much borrowing, as, for instance, of the bhakti rasa aesthetic as developed by the Gaudlyas, was a fact which none would have disputed. However, it was the very closeness which necessitated the need to demarcate and emphasize the significance of the differences. Now it was the affiliation which was to be expressly reconfirmed. Not content with merely defining the contours alone, such as all newer formations, the Tadiya Samaj sought to extend its influence. There was to be proselytizing activity as well; though, as far as I have been able to ascertain, Hariscandra was never involved in active missionary work other than what he hoped to achieve by formulating a programme and by the publication and popularization of key texts. In doing so, he was to formulate a position which was to make a national synthesis of Hindu religions, at least theoretically, feasible.
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The central function and role of Vaisnavism was to be developed systematically in the translation and commentary of the Bhakti sutras. This was to allow Hariscandra to maintain the position and tenets of his own sampraddy intact, within a fold which was expansive enough to include others. It is thus no coincidence that when he launched on the ambitious venture of a literary supplement to the KVS, the first issue of the literary journal, Harischandra 's Magazine (August 1873) carried his translation and commentary to the Sandilyabhaktisutra, which was rapidly being recognized as one of the major bhakti texts of this period.12 It was yet another interpretation of the sutras in the interest of the Pustimarg doctrines, yet this was in itself classic practice.13 What was new was the all-India character and significance attributed to them. In the dedication, bhakti was pitted expressly against the advaita monism of Sankara, whereby the emphasis was not on the difference that Vallabha had with him on the score of the placing of may a in his doctrine; this mdydvdd, as it was called denigratingly, had been attacked often enough in the history of the sampraddy, it was advaita or monism as a whole, which was to be uprooted in the name of devotional love to a personal god. The philosophical approach at large and monism in particular were being shorn of legitimation. The sutras, which were interpreted consistently to accord with the doctrine of the Pustimarg, were being introduced to exclusively propagate the prem mdrg, that is, the path of love.
A much more elaborate venture than the early treatment of the Sdndilyasutra was the translation and commentary of the Ndradabhaktisutra.14 The upakrama or preface needs to be considered in some detail, since Hariscandra used a most sophisticated vocabulary:
The mulagranthas, canonical texts, of us Aryan people have not found propagation in bhdsd, the language of the people. This is the reason why such disparity prevails all over the place. The greatness of the manifold gods and goddesses, seeing the evil of brahmahatya, killing a brahman, in the smallest misdeed and in the pettiest of deeds, the merit attached to performing the most massive sacrifice, the knowledge of aham brahma and the insistence on upadharmas, subsidiary dharmas, after having abandoned the muladharma, original dharma, all these have led to the disappearance of the true dharma from Bharatvars. The people of this country have occupied themselves with disparate dharmas and turned away from the maker of the world, who has caused us to be born, given us the joys of the world, the knowledge of good and evil and shown
us his true way. If one had seen it as one's first duty to engage in rituals within the frame of bhakti, devotion, to him, then there would have been nothing to impede it [dharma]. Instead, subordinate ritual became primary and the primary concern became subordinate. Hence all Bharatvars turned against god and was torn asunder, which was the main cause of its downfall. Can a people or a country which has turned away from god prosper? [Our] Dharma has become so lifeless and so slender that simply touching it or even [throwing] a palmful of water [over it] can annihilate it...
In order to make the way of dharma prosper several ek isvarvddl dcdryas, monotheist teachers, have propagated purified and unconstrained dharmas and several people have been initiated in these margs, ways. But even these people have become so engrossed in the external appendage of behaviour and thought, that their dharma is of no use at all. Either isvarvddis, theists, will be totally outcast from Hindu society or they will be so suppressed by karmamdrga, the way of works or the ritual-way, that they will be bhaktas or devotees in name alone.
It is to remove this obstacle that this text was [first] caused to be revealed. Herein it has been freely proclaimed that only love is god's divine way. Though this text has been written in the mode of the Vaisnavas, the enterprise is in the interest of all bhaktas, devotees, of god. Let the devotees of foreign dharmas such as the Christians regard Krsna as their nirguna, attributeless, god; the Vaisnavas of course are taken care of; the Saivas should consider Visnu as but one name of Siva and the Brahmos should regard Hari as but a variant designation of Brahma; the Upasana and Arya should consider it their own tattva, essence and the Sikhs should see within it the path of their own guru, and similarly the people of the Bhakti mdrg should view it as their very own wealth. If on account of this the sheer ritualists, polytheists and the vedantins should have occasion to curse me, I shall consider myself gratified.
... Love in an unconstrained, simple way the world into which the supreme lord has caused you to be born, the jdti or clan with which you are connected and the country in which you find yourself, and seek your highest father, highest guru, your most revered god and beloved by means of love alone. No other means exist.
I have cited this at length because unobtrusively as this happens, I think that here a very important process has been brought to an initial conclusion. Several strands, which had been evolving for some time, and not in Hariscandra's personal development alone, have been woven together here. The impressive part of the enterprise is that it comes from the pen of a devotee who has very strong ties with his own sampraddy and who continues to be rooted in the bhakti and sevd of his own community. He cannot be classed as alienated from his own culture and tradition, as disregarding or denigrating it, so that he should instead opt for transcendence. Yet, he manages to
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achieve a level of abstraction in his thinking which allows for an inclusion of different religious communities. He posits bhakti as the original and all-pervasive religious mode of the country-—a bhakti which was prevalent everywhere. He sees it as a unifying instance, but his mention of the several acaryas later indicates that he does not seem to be viewing it as monolithic. He sees a process of decay, but he never suggests discontinuity. In spite of the fact that bhakti as a mode of worship was later to disintegrate into several paths, some of which finally veered away from bhakti and though this ultimately led to the general lack of an enlightened religion, which, in turn, was to lead to the slow disintegration of the country, it still possessed the potential to unify faith.
Apart from stressing the overarching importance of bhakti as the muladharma, there is a new emphasis on monotheism. It is noteworthy that Hariscandra uses neologisms, ek isvarvadi for mono-theist, as also bahubhaktas for polytheists. The latter are regarded as diverging from the true path in any case and there is no place for them in the new scheme of things. That new phrases, which are obviously translations, are coined, points clearly to the fact that the dialogue is, though at a tangent, with the missionaries themselves, who never tired of pointing to the excesses of polytheism and the absolute superiority and invincibility of their own brand of monotheism. Their very terms are taken up and, in a sense, thrown back at them. The difference is that though devotional love to a personal god is also the centrally posited doctrine here, it continues to differ from the Christian variety, since the personal god does remain variable, there being no absolute fixation on Krsna. In spite of the emphasis on Krsna, he is in some sense replaceable, since those of other creeds are not asked to desert their gods but to realize that their god is none other than Krsna. What is sought is equivalence with the recognition of other faiths. The purely emotional bhakti, the path of love, can claim parity with the Christian doctrine of love as well. Astonishing, however, is that by virtue of this parity it seems easy for the author to include the Brahmos and the Aryas, who have no such emphasis on worship and attachment to a personal god, within his fold as well. At this stage, it further needs to be emphasized that there is no need to posit a bhakti movement, since the whole is viewed as a continuum, and since there was and always has been a
muladharma, from which there have been grave divergences, but which has never completely receded. Both nirguna sampraddys such as the Sikh and saguna such as the Vaisnavas themselves are included without any scruples into this fold. However, there is tradition underlying this, for the seventeenth century hagiographical compendium, the Bhaktamal itself, had shown an equally syncretist trend in this respect.
The tone is unmistakably nationalist and patriotic, there is a clear reference to the svadesi aspect, which validates one's own tradition as the only truly acceptable. The dimensions of this monotheistic bhakti are consciously larger than those ever posited before. The term drya is all encompassing, as also Hindu, though the last interestingly enough, is used in a larger social context, in the combination Hindu samaj.
It is worth noting that it is the erotic Krsna (as the commentary will further emphasize) who challenges and offers the comparison for all the other devotional figures, not the more distant and dignified figure of Visnu. However, for Hariscandra, there can be no hesitation in invoking this Krsna of the Braj countryside and the gopis, since none can be more elevated. In the samarpan or dedication, Hariscandra once again emphasizes bhdva bhakti. The language is ecstatic in the best tradition of viraha, the state of separation from the beloved which is so exalted in bhakti poetry. Lamenting the lack of communication with his lord, the writer is led to protest:
Pydre, kyd isi dasa mem rahem? Ndth, kyd ve din ab durlabh ho jaemge? Hay, un pavitra asuom se kyd ab hrday sincit nahim hogd? (585).
(Beloved, shall we continue to remain in this state? Lord, will those days become rare to attain? O woe, will those pure tears not moisten your heart?)
Essentially, the commentary, apart from making the text accessible with a Hindi translation, which is after all the primary aim, serves to provide a good deal of information on the theology of the Pustimarg to the uninitiated.15
However, for all this, though Hariscandra remains rooted, he does not remain confined to a consideration of his tradition alone. He seeks to find a central place for it in the larger Hindu tradition, where an important first step is the linkage with the other major Vaisnava sampraddys. 'Vaisnava Sarvasva' is an important prose piece, which
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narrates the origin and spread of the four Vaisnava sampraddys. Begun in 1876,16 it is part of the trend which has set in: that of consolidating the Vaisnava stand, as well as to gradually prove that in relation to the other streams, it is the most powerful and the most authentic. The origins of the other streams are described and then explained and subordinated and thus discounted.17 The second part or uttardrdha, published three years later, consists of lists of the sisya parampard of the four Vaisnava sampraddys. The text is important for it seeks to bring together the four sampraddys in such a way that they are strung into a narrative that includes and disqualifies the Buddhists, the Saivas, the Vedantins as springing from the latter, and the Jains as atheists to finally culminate in the four acdryas who taught and spread the knowledge of devotional love. In a lyrical, mythological vein, without undue polemics, there is then both an ordering of tradition as well as a consolidation. George Grierson was to cite the text later, in order to affirm this very solidarity of the Vaisnava sampraddys and their predominance in the religion of the Hindus.18
As a first step, then, there was an effort to consolidate the Vaisnava sampraddys themselves and to give them a new direction, in that social reform was henceforth to be regarded as a part of the Vaisnava agenda as well. This took place from the mid-1870s onwards in a consolidated form, as it was represented by the activities and publications of the newly formed Tadlya. Later, there was some effort, as developed in 'Vaisnava sarvasva', to locate this Vaisnavism centrally in the broader stream of Hindu religions and philosophy and to order and place the other traditions in relation to it. Further, there was a new emphasis on monotheism, for which the term ek isvarvdd, obviously a new coinage, was used. Thus, there was an emphasis on Krsna as the personal god to be worshipped but no exclusive claim was made for the sole and absolute legitimacy of Krsna worship. Equivalents were sought with other sects and religions, including the Christian and the newer Hindu formations. However, the different religious formations were not asked to abandon their gods, rather they were to be seen as but other forms of Krsna. Further, this worship was to consist of bhakti, an emotional devotion, which needed no philosophical argument to uphold it. Bhakti was to remain entirely a matter of faith and it was Krsna, so
derided by the missionaries for his excesses, for his sport, for his wanton childhood and youth, who was centrally reinstated as the deity fittest to receive the love and worship of his devotees.
The Construction of Vaisnavism and the Bhakti Márga as the Only Real Religion of the Hindus: The Orientalist Discourse
The stand of Hariscandra and his contemporaries concerning the centrality of the Vaisnava tradition in their conception of Hindu dharma and the increasing emphasis on bhakti as a transcendent category (which stood in some contradiction to the elaborate ritual of the sampraday to which Hariscandra pledged such fervent allegiance since early youth) was by no means an isolated effort to legitimize their own local and regional position. Their views coincided with a dominant stream of thought and research, as it was crystallizing in Western Indology in the second half of the nineteenth century, so that the two mutually confirmed each other and, to some extent, even expressly sought mutual legitimation, though admittedly with variations and some inevitable contradictions.
The developments in Indological research and thought, which sought for similarity with the Christian West, had its antecedents in the eighteenth century beginnings of Indology as a discipline which was founded upon the belief in the common ancestorship of the Indo-Germanic or, more neutrally, Indo-European peoples. Obviously, it stood in direct contradiction to the missionary stand, which was concerned with establishing difference, while emphasizing otherness, in order to legitimize the need for proselytization. However, mid-nineteenth century Indologists, both German and British, joined by a new variety of dedicated British civil servants such as Grierson and Growse, who had the scholarship as well as the practical experience of and sympathy for the country, could similarly remain loyal to the Christian cause, in that they used the similarities that they posited, as a very sound basis for hollowing out the Hindu resistance to Christianity. The Orientalist representation of Hinduism, which with some adaptations was accepted by Indian scholars such as Rajendralal Mitra and R.G. Bhandarkar, had far-reaching
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consequences for the Hindu self-perception at large. In order to understand and estimate the unfolding of what I have called the third phase in the thinking and writing of Hariscandra, it will be necessary to follow the parallel developments in Western Indology at some length.
The identification of Visnu as a primary and central deity of the Hindu pantheon goes at least as far back as Friedrich Schlegel, who in his Uber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (1808) identified him with the sun, which was monotheistically worshipped by the Vedic tribes, clans not yet designated by Schlegel as Aryans. Schlegel held this worship to be an anticipation of Christian revelation. The thesis that there was a kind of Vedic ur-monotheism, was later taken up and elaborated by Max Mueller, who built it into his fully-fledged conceptualization of the Aryans as the people destined by history to conquer and rule the world.19 This is the line of thought to which Rajendralal Mitra contributed as well, albeit from an Indian perspective, which glossed over the indignities reserved for the subsequent development of the Aryan race on the Indian subcontinent in the Western understanding of the process.
It was Albrecht Weber, however, who from the mid-nineteenth century onwards devoted his research to establishing the specific connection between the pastoral child god Krsna and Christ. Apart from the similarity of the nativity myth, which in the case of Krsna he proved to be a later addition to the puranic narrative and thus a clear borrowing from the Christian, he proposed that the svetadvipa episode in the Mahdbhdrata be read as the Indian discovery of the mode of worship of the personal god peculiar to Christianity (1857, 1868). These findings were made available to the English reading public in India in the pages of The Indian Antiquary from the 1870s onwards (1874). It was here that the English translation of the preface to F. Lorinser's German translation of the Bhagavadgita appeared. Lorinser cited Lassen as evidence for what he now took as proven, that the Bhagavadgita was composed in the third century after Christ. He then went on to show the parallels to Christian thought, the 'strong infusion of ideas and sayings taken over from Christianity' (1873: 283) by juxtaposing passages from the Bhagavadgita to those he considered as corresponding in the Christian Gospel. He was obviously inspired by Weber, whom he quoted frequently. The
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Bhagavadgita was identified as a Vaisnava text, proclaiming the Vaisnava doctrine of bhakti, and seeing the hero Krsna as an incarnation of the supreme deity, Visnu.
Growse in his Mathura, A District Memoir (1882) expressly drew attention to the similarities between the doctrine and practice of the sect of the Vallabhacaryas and that of the Christians, thereby at least implicitly allowing that Christianity did not utterly do away with rites and rituals, which the missionaries so decried in other religions:
A child is Krishna-ed (christened) while still an infant by the Gosain's putting on its neck a string of beads and repeating over it the formula called the Ashtakshar Mantra, sri Krishna saranam mam (deus adjutorium meum), but before the neophyte can claim the privilege of full communion, he has to undergo a rite similar to that of the confirmation, and at the age of twelve or thereabouts, when ready to take upon himself the responsibilities of life, he dedicates his career by a solemn dedication (samarpana) of all that he has and is to the God of his devotion... (286).
Growse went on to develop the thesis that the consecration to god of the body, soul and substance, as also of thought, word and deed was sufficient to hallow the smallest action in life and was at the same time the most effective way of preservation from all evil; 'this is the doctrine of Christianity, and it may be deduced from Vallabhacarya's revelation without forcing the sense out of a single word' (287).
With the Bhagavadgita classified as a Vaisnava text, with the warrior-hero Krsna of the Mahdbhdrata integrated into the composite figure of the Visnu-Krsna personal god, with the later Puranas finding acceptance as elaborating upon the myth as influenced by Christianity at various stages, with the doctrine and practice of the later Vaisnava schools such as that of the Vallabhacaryas being expressly identified with that of the Christians, it was left to Monier-Williams to piece together the evidence which was being offered by individual scholars into a grand narrative of the Vaisnava religion as a continuum which stretched from the Vedas to the present. This summation could be considered historically sound, authorized as it was by a fully-fledged philologist with knowledge and insights into the various strata of textual tradition. Not all of this was Orientalist reading, much of it was part of the Vaisnava tradition itself. However, the peculiar formulation that it acquired was very much a part of the Orientalist enterprise. Beginning with Monier-Williams' contributions, the
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Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society became the forum for this discourse. In an essay (1881) which dealt with modern theistic reformers in India such as Ram Mohan Roy, Monier-Williams proclaimed his belief that monotheism had been known in India since the Vedas, and that even the most pronounced forms of pantheism in the country rested on the fundamental doctrine of god's unity. This thesis was to find a clearer enunciation and a more elaborate formulation a year later in an essay devoted entirely to the Vaisnava religion (1882). The only designation, which the Hindus themselves recognized, was arya dharma, which Monier-Williams translated as the aryan system, the term dharma comprising religion, law, caste and usages of all kinds. He saw four different phases in the development of this religion: Vedism, Brahmanism, Saivism and Vaisnavism. The first, the earliest form of Aryan religion, was the worship of the deified forces of phenomena of nature. Brahmanism grew out of Vedism. 'It taught the merging of all the forces of nature in one universal spiritual Being—the only real entity—which, when unmanifested and impersonal, was called Brahma (neuter)...' (291). This system had two main phases: the ritualistic and the philosophical. Though Buddhism intervened, there was a resurgence of Brahmanism subsequently. The great medieval reviver of ritualistic Brahmanism was Kumarila, and of philosophical Brahmanism, Sankara. For the present, Monier-Williams considered Brahmanism to be rather a philosophy than a religion, since its root dogma was the belief in one infinite all-pervading impersonal spirit, supposed to underlie everything in the universe. The great mass of Hindu thinkers were then practically pantheists, but they confined themselves to believing in one impersonal spirit, who, by association with illusion, became one supreme personal god (Paramesvara). Saivism grew out of Brahmanism. Siva was all to his worshippers, the one personal god and the one impersonal spirit at the same time. The figure of Siva, growing out of the Vedic gods Rudra and the Maruts, personified the dreadful natural forces of destruction and the mighty forces of fertilization, of self-mortification and penance, of learning and meditation but also of the occult power of magic. This formulation allowed Monier-Williams, on the one hand, to view Saivism as a monistic philosophy and, on the other, not as a religion and certainly not as monotheism, since though consisting of the worship of one
deity, it was not worship of a benevolent personal god. It was, in practice, demonolatry and mother-worship, inspired by the fear and dread of the forces of dissolution (292-3). It was only the socially degraded who worshipped Siva, and they were in any case few in number. Saivism, Monier-Williams came to the rather tendentious conclusion, was 'too severe and cold a system to exert exclusive influence over the generality of minds' (295).
Vaisnavism grew out of Saivism. In fact, Vaisnavism was a necessary consequence of Saivism. It was a turning away from its pantheism, from its philosophical dualism, from its demonolatry and mother-worship. It was a merging of Brahma and Siva in the god Visnu—who was originally a personification of the sun. Who could
doubt that a more genial, human and humane god was needed, a god who could satisfy the yearnings of the heart for a religion of faith and love, rather than of knowledge and works? Such a God was Visnu. The God who evinced his sympathy with mundane suffering, his interest in human affairs, and his activity for the welfare of all created things in his frequent descents (avatara) on earth, not only in the form of men, but of animals and even plants and stones... It is the only real religion of the Hindus (295).
Vaisnavism alone possessed all of the
elements of a genuine religion. For there can be no true religion without personal devotion to a personal God—without trust in Him—without love for Him... it could accommodate itself to other creeds and appropriate to itself the religious ideas of other systems... It could look with sympathising condescension on Christianity itself, and hold it to be a development of its own theory of religion suited to Europeans (296).
And it was worth noting that Krsna and Rama were both ksatriyas— both were kings and heroes. Thus, they were proper objects of worship for the warrior race of Aryans.
It was left to Grierson, however, to formulate the theory of bhakti as the overarching principle which encompassed the most diverse streams, as, in fact, the 'religious system current over a large portion of India' (1907:311) and further, to posit a Mate'movement in medieval India, unitary in character, which carried the message of love to all the corners of the subcontinent and to see it as the gift of Christianity. His thesis—which for lack of concrete evidence could only remain diffuse, though it was maintained all the more vehemently for that— was that the Syrian Nestorian Christians, who had maintained a
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flourishing community in India from the third century onwards, had over a period of time introduced to the inhabitants of the country the concept which the Indians termed 'bhakti'.20 Hinduism had consisted originally of two concurrent aspects: first, a Vedantic belief in a passionless, impersonal supreme deity from whom souls were kept apart by ignorance; and second, a belief in numerous subordinate gods and demons. In both ways, the ultimate release came only by knowing oneself and knowing god. Even Visnu, in spite of his incarnations, was an impersonal god (313).
Suddenly like a flash of lightening there came upon all this darkness a new idea. No Hindu knows where it came from, and none can date its appearance; but all the official writings which describe it and which can be dated with certainty, were written long after the Christian era. This new idea was that of bhakti. Religion was now no longer a matter of knowledge. It became a matter of emotion. It now satisfied the human craving for a supreme personality, to whom prayer and adoration could be addressed; in as much as bhakti, which may be translated by 'faith' or 'devotion', requires a personal, not an impersonal, God... (313-14).
The first works dealing with bhakti were written in Sanskrit so that European scholars were, therefore, to a certain extent familiar with its theory. Grierson saw in the Sandilyasutra a direct transmission, albeit coloured by current Indian philosophical theories, of the Christian doctrine of faith. It was a doctrine which revolutionized Hindu religion. He viewed Ramanuja and Visnusvami as the founders of the modern Bhakti marg, but it was Ramananda whom Grierson saw as the revolutionary proponent of the doctrine of bhakti. This, in fact, was Grierson's main contribution to the grand narrative of Vaisnava monotheistic worship as it had apparently evolved from the earliest times into the very present: he emphasized the importance of bhdsa literature in its formation, his assumption thereby being that it was, like Christianity, a religion of the people. There were many other similarities. All castes were admitted to the communion Ramananda dispensed, he also had 12 apostles. Grierson relied, as the chief source for his information, on the seventeenth century hagiographical text in Brajbhasa, the Bhaktamdl, which in its own attempt to encompass bhaktas of the most different shades and hues, cast a net wide enough to include all the popularly known saints and poets.21
In his appendix, listing the titles of the works consulted, Grierson mentioned, apart from Sandilya's Bhaktisutra, and the Braj hagio-graphies, the works of the late Hariscandra of Banares, as he had found them in the collected edition of his works (Hariscandrakald 1897).22
In his article on the 'Bhakti marga' in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (1909) Grierson formulated his last authoritative stand on the historical development of Vaisnava bhakti, as reflected in the many articles he himself had written over the years and as certainly enriched and modified by successive research and the need to integrate all this. It was no longer a conglomerate but a well-defined way, which, for all its modernity, could be traced back to antiquity.
Grierson saw the four chief sampradays of the Vaisnavas as the four churches of the reformation. It had, as he emphasized, been specifically stated by Bhagavata writers, that they formed one church, and that the differences wee only apparent. This church had suffered much persecution. It was said to have been extirpated by the Jains and to have been resuscitated by a certain Nivasa. For both the last statements Grierson mentioned in his notes as evidence the 'Vaisnava Sarvasva' by Hariscandra, whom he described as a Bhagavata writer. Grierson admitted that regarding true Siva bhakti, which was professedly a cult of Siva or his incarnations, very little was known, and the subject deserved more attention than it had hitherto received. Whether finally Vaisnavism was designated as monotheism, or with regard to the philosophy informing it, as monism; whether Hinduism as a while was to be seen as dominated by Vaisnava monotheism or be described as rank polytheism, the designation finally favoured seemed to be a matter of ideological choice and intent.
Third Phase: Vaisnavism as the Religion of the Hindus, Coequal with Christianity and World Religions
In 'Isu Khrsta aur Isa Krsna' which was first published in Hariscandracandrikd in January 1879,23 the East-West equivalences were dealt with in some detail. The essay remained incomplete, since
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only the part leading up to the title theme was published. However, the context in which it was conceived, betrays the general tenor and little doubt remains as to the thesis Hariscandra would have proposed. He takes recourse to the lines of one of his own poems, 'Bharat Bhiksa' (2, 8-12: May-September 1875), as the opening general maxim: 'bharat bhuj bal lahijag racchit, bharat sicchd lahijag sicchif (the world found protection in that it took strength from the arm strength of Bharat, it received education in that it took instruction from Bharat). Though the present lot of the country was bemoaned in the poem,24 Bharat Jananl (Mother India), who spoke these lines, remembered other times, when Indian kings ruled the earth and when India led the world spirituality. All branches of knowledge came originally from India. This dictum was to be applied to all the major themes. The first assertion that the writer then made was that samaj kl unnati kd mul dharma hai—dharma lies at the root of societal progress. The missionaries had claimed that it was the religion of the Hindu which was responsible for the poverty, corruption and decay of the country. Hariscandra maintained that since it was at the root of all activity, he was going to abandon other topics, to proclaim in all freedom that the religious teachers the world over had constructed their respective gods, deities, religious books, ethics and their very character in the reflection of Bharatvars. All religions which were and are in vogue had followed either the Vedic or the Buddhist example.
In his essay, Hariscandra discussed the different myths of genesis, which he saw as borrowed in their entirety from Manu. Then there was the legend of Josaphat, which was but the tale of the Bodhisattva, which on its way to the West had changed its apparel. Even the concept of the transmigration of souls was something that the Greek philosophers had learnt from India. The similarity of the deities of the Hindu pantheon, their characteristic features and iconography, with those of the Greek and Romans pointed clearly to a borrowing by the West; thus Durga-Minerva, Krsna-Apollo in their common descent from the sun, and Indra-Jupiter. Hariscandra was obviously paving the way for the grand discussion of the Krsna-Christ theme. It was obvious that he was going to turn the tables on Albrecht Weber and those who followed in his footsteps. Since no doubt was left about the links between the figure of Christ and Krsna, it was a
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question of perspective, as to who was to be seen as inspired by whom. Indian Orientalists, such as Bhandarkar (1874), disputed particular assertions, and furnished proof of the existence of the figure of the pastoral Krsna prior to Christianity, but for whatever reason, they never set out to systematically refute the whole body of evidence regarding the Christian origin of the Krsna bhakti cult as constructed by Weber and succeeding Orientalists. However, popular writers such as Hariscandra, who nevertheless had a claim to scholarly authority, were to have no scruples in maintaining the reverse. Christ himself, as Hariscandra was about to declare, judged by the tenor of the preceding pronouncements, was a figure inspired by the teaching of the East. What consternation and indignation such an assertion would have caused can only be imagined, since Hariscandra did not proceed to elaborate upon the theme. Grierson, however, had no compunctions in once again reversing the direction of the influence posited, by citing this very essay of Hariscandra's to serve his own purpose.
In 'Vaisnavata aur Bharatvarsa' (Granthavali III: 789-802) published in the last year of his life, in 1884, Hariscandra made an ambitious attempt to gather and weave together the diverse threads which went into the making of Vaisnavism and present them as an intrinsically coherent historical continuum. Thereby, his main concern was to demonstrate that Vaisnavism was not only the central core of Hinduism,25 but also in its teaching and practice, it held the most promise for the future development of the country, since it could ever purify and regenerate itself. In its social aspects, he maintained, it had always accommodated change.
He began his exposition with the proclamation that India's oldest faith was Vaisnavism. The Aryan people were the first to embrace civilization and they were the dlksdguru, the initiating preceptors, of the world in dharma and in nlti, state polity. At that time, the Aryans perceived the sun to be the most beneficial and life-generating of the elements of nature, therefore they first worshipped him as Surya-Narayana and knew just this one god. Islse dryorh mem sabse pracin ek hi devata the aur isi se us kal ke bhi drya vaisnav the (789). (Therefore, in the most ancient period, the Aryans had just one god and all the Aryans of this period were Vaisnavas). This is the original monotheism of the Aryans.26 Mueller had spoken of this as the natural
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(as against revealed) religion of the people, which spontaneously responded to the one power which was felt to be manifested in nature.27 Hariscandra was to take over the term in translation, this sun-Visnu worship was the prakrt mat of the country.
He first deals with Visnu's claim to supremacy as against Rudra's. European Orientalists view Rudra as a non-Aryan or Tamilian deity, for which they put forth eight reasons. Though Mueller's A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (1859) is often invoked as testimony, the main source for the historical information was Rajendralal Mitra's The Antiquities ofOrissa (1875).
Hariscandra concern was to demonstrate the continuity of the prakrt mat, the natural religion through all the pre-historical and historical epochs. He concentrated on the Vaisnavas alone. The Aryans had known Visnu in their original abode in Central Asia, before parting ways with the Iranians. Rajendralal Mitra had divided the evolution of Vaisnavism into five stages, which Hariscandra similarly classified as follows:
1. The Age ofVedas. There are many hymns to Visnu in the Rgveda. He has no special sovereignty over any of the elements. However, Durgacarya, in his comment on the Nirukta, has identified Visnu with Aditya (the sun), which has also been accepted by later tradition.
2. The Age of the Brdhmanas. Visnu ceases to be associated with the sun and appears as a distinct god with a definite personality. He becomes a member of a new theogony and assumes a different role.
3. The Age of Panini. The knowledge of the Krsna incarnation, his worship and bhakti become widespread. In fact, they antedate Panini. Hariscandra simply maintains that though ritual forms changed, in the last event bhakti was considered the best of all forms of ritual worship, ant mem sab pujan adi se us ki bhakti srestha mani gayi (794).
4. The Age of the Purdnas. Even though Vaisnavism remains primary, a host of other connected faiths emerge. However, even in the Sakta and Saiva Puranas, the deities worshipped could not be entirely separated from Visnu. The 2,000 year old images of the incarnations of Visnu were found to be installed
by the Bhágavatas or Vaisnavas. So instead of disputing the antiquity or modernity of these, it would be well to consider the causes of the change. 5. The Present Age, which is heir to these developments. Hariscandra does not elaborate further, though Mitra had discussed the formation of the modern Vaisnava sampradays.
Thus, in India, the orientation provided by the Vaisnava faith was the most spontaneous and natural one (prakrt mat) just as all over the world, devotion is the primary path, for instance, in the Christian, Muslim, Bráhmo and Buddhist faiths. Though also devotional, Buddhism in emphasizing asceticism, penance and the performance of meritorious deeds is much more akin to the smdrta tradition within Vaisnavism. The deeds (caritra) of Jesus are much like Krsna's, as has been dealt with at length in a separate treatise, and the Christian gospel has borrowed largely from the life of Krsna. If we have shown the Christian faith to have followed the Vaisnavas, Hariscandra maintains, then Islam in following Christianity has also followed the Vaisnavas. Hariscandra's universalism does not seek to absorb all other pos-sibilities. Though Vaisnavatá was the first in the field, as it were, he primarily postulates the correspondences which finally make the variations in the names of the supreme god of the respective faiths irrelevant.
In the concluding paragraph, having arrived at contemporary social issues, Hariscandra has no compunction in shifting from a discussion of the Vaisnava faith to the Hindu faith. It has been explained at length, the author maintains, on what firm foundation the Vaisnava mat is established and how generous its proportions are. It is important to remain grounded in this knowledge. All those who bear the name of Hindu, whatever their internal differences, must unite, so that arya jati mem ekd ho, there be unity in the Árya race/people/ nation, dropping thereby all the denominations with which they designate their faith in order to participate in the progress of the prakrt mat, natural religion. Here, Vaisnavism is once again reinforced without being explicitly named, for he has variously proved that it is the prakrt mat of the country.
The categories he employs have more or less clear functions: Aryans, whenever the ancient heritage is invoked, Hindus as
118   Hinduism Reader 1
f
descendants of these and reared on Hindu milk—a principally all- |
inclusive cultural-political category28—and finally, within the * diversity of faiths, which proliferated on Indian soil, and as forming the core of tradition, the most steadfast, with an unbroken tradition,
with the capacity to accommodate change, that inner core, that path , of love, Vaisnavism.
On the one hand, this Vaisnavism, in its pristine monotheism
which in reacting to it had absorbed much from the missionaries, -
could hold its own against Christianity and Islam. It was similar to |
them but it superseded them, since it was from Krsna that the figure I
of Christ himself had originated, the equivalences having long been |
established by the Orientalists, there was no need to go into the I details again. On the other hand, so dominating had Vaisnavism been through the ages, so capable of change and rejuvenation that it could afford to nod in approval at the Arya and Brahmo Samaj without losing its bearings. The religion of the Aryas was a world religion which claimed equality, if not superiority, in spite of the present downtrodden state of the country, with the other world religions, the foremost of these being, of course, Christianity.
Conclusion
Hariscandra had started out unselfconsciously in the expression of |
his religiosity in that he, at first, stressed allegiance only to his own J
sampraday, while at the same time participating in the activities of |
the Dharma Sabha which claimed nationwide jurisdiction. However, |
he and his contemporaries, in that they rose to meet the challenge of 1
Christianity and the newer formations such as the Arya Samaj, very 1
soon realized the necessity of devising strategies to weld together 1
the different strands which they, along with the missionaries \
and Orientalists, could view as none other than 'sects' of Hinduism. |
The readings of Hinduism, whatever the final nature of their |
differentia-tion, shared thus a common basis as also to some extent, $
the same criteria—monotheism and bhakti as the personal devotion |
to a personal god—as the highest form of religion. In the course of 1
the complex process of interaction with other discursive formations, 1
the Vaisnava tradition—henceforth there was to be wide reaching 1
The Only Real Religion of the Hindus 119
con-sensus that it was at its base monotheistic—with the four medieval sampraddys at its core, projected itself as the central strand of Hinduism. Monier-Williams had proclaimed Vaisnavism to be the only true religion of the Hindus. The Saivas were denigrated as being either a merely philosophical (monist) religion or disgustingly orgiastic in their mode of worship. With the support of selected Orientalist constructions, it was possible to devise a historical framework for the Vaisnava tradition, which could now be traced back to the oldest Vedic period, which flowed with some setbacks and deviations into the medieval bhakti movement, in itself the pinnacle of all that had come before. This last was the contribution of Grierson. Hariscandra, however, unlike Grierson, never posited a bhakti movement, which was in any sense monolithic. He perceived Vaisnava bhakti as the all dominating principle which provided the vital link in the case of the main Vaisnava sampraddys. Hence, the Vaisnava claim to lead.
Hariscandra's Vaisnavatd, rooted as it was in a specific sampraday, remained bound to community and ritual, it had not cast off its moorings. It was from this point that it rose to meet and co-mingle with other streams, first within Vaisnavism at large, then with other varieties of Hinduism. It did so by proclaiming its monopoly of monotheism and bhakti devotionalism. With this definite strand constructed as the thread binding the present with the past and as stretching as the unifying principle into the future, it was possible to subsume the newer formations. Hariscandra, as being rooted in his own community, could afford to allow for the differences, the concern with finding common points, at this stage did not necessarily mean reducing the tradition concerned to these common points alone. It subsumed others, but it did not ask for total submission to the form of worship practised, for instance, in his own sampraday. Tensions were admitted and they were admissible, since those advocating unity had a secure footing within their own tradition. There was thus, at this stage, little effort to homogenize entirely. Yet Hinduism as a body was at no time other than a loosely strung conglomerate of religions, which had in the modern Vaisnava self-representation gained an ideological foundation as well. It occupied the central space in the national religion of the Hindus, of which territoriality had necessarily also become one binding feature.
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The Only Real Religion of the Hindus 121
Notes I
1. I am grateful to Angelika Malinar for her patience in going through the J drafts of this essay and for her perceptive critique. I would also like to | thank Heinrich von Stietencron and Srilata Raman for their insights and J suggestions. |
2. The Hindi terms for Hinduism in this period are Hindu dharma, sastra- i sruti-smrti-ukta dharma, veda purdna vihit arya dharma and in one solitary I instance hindiipan. There is also Hindu-dharma-vdle (to distinguish Hin- | dus from Indians at large) and vedadharmdvalmbl. |
3. The essays by Conlon (1992), Hudson (1992) and the Leonards (1992) are 1 a welcome step in this direction. I
4. The structures of authority in which Hariscandra was enmeshed made his j articulation more than merely personal and represented more than the stand J of the Pustimarg alone. Linked as it was to Rajendralal Mitra and the 1 Orientalists, it came to represent the Vaisnava position in North India. I 1 have dealt at greater length with the linkage of the structures of authority | elsewhere (Dalmia 1997). |
5. I cite here a twentieth century formulation by a catholic theologian, that of J Karl Rahner (1962) in his article on the subject. The article summarizes | the nineteenth century discussion, and it is valuable in our context, since it 1 expressly articulates the points which the missionaries repeatedly brought | up in their polemics against the religions of the Indian subcontinent. In one 1 point, however, Rahner diverges somewhat from the nineteenth-century i scholarly theological discourse, which tended to marginalize—rather than | emphasize, as is here the case—the trinitarian aspect. Yet, the concept of J the Trinity had always been central to the dogma of the Christian church, | both the catholic and the protestant, and in so far Rahner can be under- 1 stood as articulating the consensus on the subject. Further, in the nine- | teenth century debates with other religions, especially when monotheism 1 formed one central point of attack, the trinitarian aspect was not to be 1 excluded, since it was often brought up by the opponents. However, it | cannot be denied that the emphatic equation of the economic trinity with 3 the internal is part of the more recent discussion, for in the present century 1 the scholarly discussion was to be revived by Karl Barth, in whose theol- | ogy the Trinity once again occupied a central position. Rahner was to per- J form the same task for catholic theology. 1 am grateful to Helmut Dopffel | for help in the translation from German as well as for making me aware of f the breadth of the discussion involved. ,1
6. Samagra: 1. |
7. It was, in effect, a new journal, for it appeared in a new guise (nayddbharan); j it was more than an organ for the voice of poets, it had also new social and I political functions. \
8. The term Hindu, according to a survey of older Bengali Gaudiya texts as ) carried out by O'Connell, was only used when the question of maintaining ) the borderline between those considered within this group and those who j
were clearly alien (Muslim) was concerned. The occasion to do this was only provided in the context of ritual. According to O'Connell, Hindu dharma 'seems to indicate certain actions of a customary and ritual sort which are the rights of Hindus and Hindus only to perform. But there is to be found no explicit discussion of what "Hindu" or "Hindu dharma" means in any of the texts surveyed' (1973: 340). This was clearly also largely the case with the domain the Sabha administered, though now there were groups, such as the Brahmo Samaj, which could only be regarded as borderline cases. 9. It is not certain whether from the pen of Hariscandra. The language is somewhat halting, the slightly ponderous idiom could be that of Kaslnath from Sirsa. Yet if not Hariscandra's, it certainly contains views which he subscribed to. It is an early formulation of the ideas contained in a later essay "Vaisnavata aur Bharatvarsa' (1984), which is discussed in the last section of this paper.
10. Both documented by Sahay ([1905] 1975: 82-3).
11. The term ek isvarvdd is not used here, it was to appear in a slightly later document. However, the emphasis that only one god was to be worshipped indicates an awareness of the monotheism discussion which was to surface more expressly later.
12. Ballantyne (1859: v) had already noted the importance of the work in providing a terminology which came close to the Christian and which could thus be used successfully by Christian missionaries in their work. The work was later to be noted and commented upon for its closeness to Christian thought by Grierson, who, in turn, referred to the translation and commentary by Hariscandra.
13. Muralidhara, a pupil of Vitthala, had also written a commentary on the Sdndilyasutra. Cf. Dasgupta (1975: 380). The text considered here is the bhdsd bhdsya or the Hindi commentary of the Sdndilyasutra which appeared in the opening number of Harischandra's Magazine, to be published a little later separately as a booklet entitled Bhaktisutravaijayanll (Magha sukla 5, samvat 1930). It has been included in Granthdvali III: 517-44.
14. The bare translation of the text was published in Harischandra's Magazine (1, 5) as early as February 1874. The later, more elaborate commentary, was both published separately in book form as well as in the summer issues of the KVS in 1876. The text considered here is the Granthdvali III version (581-642) which reproduces the book version.
15. The drama Candrdvall (1876) deals with bhava bhakti which can be considered the heart of bhakti theology, making thereby Brajbhasa genre of rdsllla accessible in literary Hindi. Candravali, along with Lalita, has a place of importance in the Vallabha pantheon; in Nathdvara her birthday is celebrated two days before Radha's, on bhddra sukla sasthami. The play is a celebration of the traditional sakhya bhava and it is with Candravafl's love for Krsna that Hariscandra identifies himself as a bhakta.
16. The 'piirvdrdha' or first part was published in the Haris'candracandrikd 2, 8-12: May-September 1876, the 'uttardrdlia' or final part in 6, 10: 1879.
122   Hinduism Reader
17. The tactics were well known and had been practised for centuries in the puranic tradition.
18. The references are to be found in the following sections.
19. See Dalmia (1997) for references and for further expansion on this theme.
20. Both Monier-Williams and Grierson regarded the Syrian Christians of the South as the main source of influence in the formation of the later Hindu concept of bhakti. The earlier belief that the figure of Krsna and the entire early history of the bhakti concept stemmed from Christianity had been discarded, for Bhandarkar and others had furnished proof of the pre-Christian existence of both the Krsna myth and the composition of the Bhagavadgitd. However, there continued to be speculation as to the exact source of Christian influence. See, for instance, Kennedy (1907).
21. Grierson was intimately acquainted with the text. He had translated and commented on large stretches of the Bhaktatndl (1909, 1910).
22. The following works were cited: Caritdvali (Lives of Ramanuja, Sahkaracarya, Jayadeva, Vallabhacarya, Suradasa), Vaisnavasarvasva (A History of the Early Vaisnava Sects), Vallabhasarvasva (A History of the Sect Founded by Vallabhacarya), Yugulasarvasva (Accounts of Krsna's Companions in Gokula), Tadiyasarvasva (The Naradiya Bhakti Sutras, with a Translation and Commentary in Hindi), Bhaktisutravaijayanti (The Sandilya Bhakti Sutras, with a Similar Translation and Commentary), Isu Khrsta aur Isa Krsna.
23. 6, 7: Granthdvali III: 783-8.
24. The poem celebrated the visit of the Prince of Wales to the country, it was a variation, as Hariscandra himself specified, of the poem on the same theme by the Bengali poet, Hemchandra Bannerji.
25. The two terms he uses are: Hindu mat, Hindu namdhdri. Interestingly enough, they occur only at the end of the essay, once the central thesis has been led up to, as it were.
26. Quoting Rgveda X. 121, Max Mueller had said, 'the idea of one God is expressed with such power and decision, that it will make us hesitate before we deny to the Aryan nations an instinctive monotheism' (1859: 521). Mueller had been rigorous in his advocation of this monotheism in the Veda, not just in this one hymn: '...there is a monotheism which precedes the polytheism of the Veda, and even in the invocations of their innumerable gods, the remembrance of a God, one and infinite, breaks through the mist of idolatrous phraseology, like the blue sky hidden by passing clouds' (512).
27. For a discussion of the nineteenth century conceptualization of 'natural religion', particularly as envisaged by Max Mueller, see Kohl (1986).
28. Elsewhere Hariscandra has described the Hindus thus: 'Ham hindu, hindu ke beta, hinduhi ko paya pana kiyo\ i.e., we are Hindus, progenies of Hindus, we have drunk the milk of Hindus. This is from the poem 'Jain Kautuhal' (1873, as available in Samagra: 39) which was written in order to defend himself when the visit to a Jain temple led to a public outcry. The Jains were for him as much Hindus as the Vaisnavas.
T
The Only Real Religion of the Hindus 123
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