…Western Christianity would in the end be a loss to Christendom, since
We should lose the very lessons, which in the providence of God India has to teach us. We should lose the assurance of true victory which comes from the preservation and development of every power in the new citizens of the kingdom of Christ. We should lose the integrity, the vitality, the infinity of our faith, in the proud assertion of our own supremacy [Westcott Lecturer by The Rev. William Marshall Teape, November 1955, pp. 333-34]3—p. 2
I recognize that Hindu-Christian studies must in some way be a dialogical discipline, a great and ongoing conversation, but in the short run it is viable as a solitary study that relies on personal reflection, even if only later on does it open up into conversation through teaching, lecturing….—p. 5
…If we ignore or explain away the passions and conviction of faith, we will have left a proper Hindu-Christian study behind from the start. This is not to say that today we are therefore licensed to impugn or condescend to religions other than our own; ours is an age of reciprocal learning, where faith makes deeper exchange possible; but we cannot, for the sake of openness, merely disown narratives and dispositions of faith more narrow or hegemonic than our own.—p. 5
…there is a long history in which such “study” or conversation has been a monologue, a one-way street or an interpretation by imposition….—p. 5
…Not only that I have been increasingly pessimistic that whatever some of us as individuals may do or think, a vast majority of our coreligionists remain blissfully unaware of the need for inter-religious understanding or the desirability of rethinking fundamental metaphors in light of such conversations. [Fred Clothey “ Hindu-Christian ‘Studies’: Some Confessions from the Boundaries,” Hindu-Christian Studies Bulletin 9 (1996: 42]12—p. 6
…Many younger people including emerging scholars, fall into the category of “spiritual but not religious” or, perhaps more aptly for many “meaningfully spiritual nominally religious.”….—p. 6
…Jan Peter Schouten …reports a decline in Hindu interest in Christ and Christianity in recent decades. There is a long history of interaction, to be sure,
…Almost all of the Indian Christians who have applied themselves to the discussion with Hindus are disappointed by the lack of response.—pp. 6-7
…Jesuit Ignatius Puthiadam, who admits, seemingly despondent, that “Dialogue is mostly a Christian thing.” [Jan Peter Schouten, Jesus as Guru: The Image of Christ among Hindus and Christians in India. Rodopi, 2008: 260]13….—p. 7
…the inevitable elitism of that small group which chooses to pursue these matters [in dialogue with Hindus].—p. 7
…Hindu-Christian (p.7) studies may shift from a field in the humanities, enlivened by faith, to a more stable and safer realm of academic study that may more readily be characterized as simply historical retrieval or simply sociological. But the decline in missionary fervour is a mixed blessing if it also marks a decline in positive and constructive interest in the other at all.—pp. 7-8
…Hindu-Christian studies have occurred, and therefore they can occur again. But this will always be a fragile field that can flourish only in special circumstances, where groundedness in tradition co-exist with intellectual and spiritual openness, and where personal study opens into and welcomes a communal Hindu-Christian conversation among religious intellectuals who believe that something intellectual and religious is to be gained by actual study and actual learning. The field is viable, even if always imperfectly, when the right combination of essential academic, communal, and spiritual dispositions converge. When the conditions are lacking, the potential field of study reduces to polemics uninformed by knowledge of the other, or to a non-theological academic study that flattens the multi-dimensional exchanges involved, thus leading to a simple neglect of Hindu-Christian studies altogether.—p. 8
…It makes no sense for Catholic Christians to imagine that Hindu traditions are somehow outside or apart from the mystery and love of God manifest in Jesus Christ….—p. 12 [???]
…Catholic vision of the world implies recognizing with gratitude that God works deeply and continually in the lives, words and actions, faith and practice, of devout Hindus of every tradition.—p. 13
…Vatican II opened up a new era in how Catholics and Hindus might relate. Nostra Aetate (“In Our Age”) briefly described the Hindu paths of action, wisdom, and love, and then stated that the Church “rejects nothing that is true and holy” in Hinduism and other religions. It adds, “Indeed, she regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men.” How can this be? It is because Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6); from a Catholic perspective, Jesus is radiant and alive in whatever paths lead to God, whatever is true, whatever is alive.—p. 13
…the polemical edge to some of the Jesuit scholarship, andits stubborn distance from internal Hindu understanding of the same ideas, texts, and practices….—p. 15
…The syntheses crafted by these Hindu intellectuals, if seen as too academic and too individual, may also be sidelined even in their own Hindu traditions, first (p. 15) distanced from popular sentiment and later drowned out by political voices impatient with the slow work of scholarship.—pp. 15-16
…Even if the major site of Hindu-Christian exchange is likely to remain Indian, and even if Indian Hindus and Christians need not be advised yet again to learn from the West, nevertheless the grounding and motivation for Hindu Christian studies in the future will pass through the modern academic milieu, chastened and refocused by critical work in the study of religions…..—p. 16
Throughout the Inquiry, de Nobili never uses explicitly Christian vocabulary, and offers no positive arguments for the Christian God in particular. Perhaps he thought that explicitly Christian references were premature; more likely, he would have thought that there was no need for such specificity, since “God” in God’s perfections can be understood by all and, in the long run, will turn out to be none other than the “Christian God.”….—p. 25
…given the highly critical way in which he uses his observations and reports against Hinduism, we must be hesitant in accepting his version of things. He is an eager learner, but it is difficult to detect a self-critical dimension in his work that would have rendered him more immediately and deeply able to learn from Hindus. His was an age before Western Christians had scruples bout possible one-sided appropriations of other cultures and religions.—p. 25
…That his [De Nobili ] knowledge of Indian culture was partial and piecemeal did not discourage him from judging Indian religion in accord with his settled theological norms….—p. 26
The idea of testing conceptual norms by observations of practice is a defensible idea, but his temerity is great, judging implausible and immoral the religions of India as he observed them, only on the basis of the six criteria and what he personally observed and chose to report.
…Today we notice acutely the divided intentions of de Nobili and other missionary scholars. They defended Indian customs in their writings to Europeans in part on the basis of their great learning; in other writings, in the vernacular, they used their learning to attack what they perceived to be core religious beliefs interpreted as errors detachable from the sound basics of the cultures where those errors lay embedded. De Nobili’s approach would not work now, but only by close reflection on the delicate balance in his writing can we come to a fair estimate of him and why his achievement is pertinent even today, though also flawed and not the sole key to Hindu-Christian studies. He was neither as open-minded as his admirers claim, nor as closed-minded as others accuse him of being; belief and intellectual curiosity were in tension in his mind and writing….—p. 26
…there is also Coeurdoux’s straightforward and professional desire for correct knowledge, acquired as it were for its own sake [ Gaston-Laurent Coeurdous, SJ. Moeurs et Coutumes des Indiens (1977), in Sylvia Murr. L’Inde Philosophique entre Bousset et Voltaires, Vol. 2 Ecole francaise d’Extreme Orient, 1987].8…..—p. 30
…He concludes the relatively short chapter with a remarkably charitable and sensitive comment on the ways of the idolaters and a criticism of the increasingly alienated intelligentsia of his own country:
Idolatry, the special character of which is entirely corrupted by its fables, preserved knowledge of a supreme being, his providence, goodness, justice, a knowledge of the spirituality of our souls and their immortality, as well as the necessity of another life accompanied by sufferings and rewards. These are the principles engraved in the hearts of all humans, recognized as indubitable by the first inhabitants of the earth, and even idolatry has respected them. You impious people who reject them – you are worse than the idolaters themselves!10 [ Gaston-Laurent Coeurdous, SJ. Moeurs et Coutumes des Indiens *1977), in Sylvia Murr. L’Inde Philosophique entre Bousset et Voltaires, Vol. 1. 144 Ecole francaise d’Extreme Orient, 1987]—p. 30
…the Hindu mind is synthetic and speculative, and not analytic and political,’ is still and without question ‘superior to the Aristotelian-Thomistic synthesis.’”[Julius Lipner, Brahmabandhab Upadhyay: The Life and Thought of a Revolutionary. Oxford University Press, 1999: 186]12—p. 32
…What Upadhyay attempted was to articulate the relationship in certain areas between Vedanta and Catholic belief. He ambitioned this not by seeking to implant Christian concepts in Vedantic soil so as to arrive at a genuine (p.32) first-order indigenization of the Christian faith, but rather by constructing more or less exact correspondences between Vedantic ideas and Thomistic ones so that Vedanta in some respects may be seen as a form of crypto-(neo)Thomism and Shankara as St. Thomas in disguise.[ Julius Lipner, Brahmabandhab Upadhyay: The Life and Thought of a Revolutionary. Oxford University Press, 1999: 188]15—pp. 32-33
…Most important is Johann’s contribution to “To Christ through the Vedanta,” the series of essays published by Johanns with Dandoy in the periodical The Light of the East [Pierre Johanns, SJ, To Christ through the Vedanta. 2 volumes. Compiled by Theo de Greeff. United Theological College 1996?]27…..—p. 36
…Earlier, Johanns had put it this way:
If the Vedantic philosophers will only bring their several positive statements into harmony, if they will only adjust and thus partially (p.36) limit their assertions, they will turn disconnected doctrines into a system, and that system will be Thomism, or something akin to Thomism. [Pierre Johanns, SJ, To Christ through the Vedanta. 2 volumes. Compiled by Theo de Greeff. United Theological College 1996: 5-6]31
While “the Vedantins are not requested to adopt Thomism,” they are invited “to reconcile their oppositions and, like the Thomists, to pursue greater harmony their quest for the fullness of truth which stands beyond the reach of philosophy but within the scope of its commanding desire”[Johanns, Ibid.] ….—pp. 36-37
…In the end, both Vedanta and Thomism must surrender, not to rival philosophical systems, “but in religious faith to the fulfilling Christ who belongs to no man or nation but is of God for all men.” [Richard de Smet, “Sankara Vedanta and Christian Theology,” in Understanding Sankara: Essays by Richard de Smet. Edited by Ivo Coelho. Motilal Banarsidass, 2013a: 384]32….And yet, while we should have reservations about Thomism and about Johanns’ seemingly innocent expectation that Hindus will take favorably to seeing Vedanta as fulfilled in a Thomistic synthesis, we must credit him with expressing his views in an intellectually accessible way that allows for response and argument.—p. 37 [What is the need either to respond or to argue with them would be a Hindu’s question—db]
…Hindu scholar T. S. Rukmani charges that, in his eagerness to find common ground, de Smet does not sufficiently respect differences. Despite his considerable knowledge of Vedanta, she says, he still “has not been able to make a case for either the personhood of Sankara’s Advaita Brahman, nor for the origin of the seen universe, both of which differs radically from the Christian God and from (p. 37) creation ex nihilo.” [T. S. Rukmani “Dr Richard de Smet and Sankara’s Advaita,” Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies 16 (2003): 12-21, 19]33….—pp. 37-38
…Perfection, however noble an ideal can be the enemy of the good. It is wiser to say this differently: to see learning as a means merely of confirming one’s own positions, or to disregard it as merely neutral, would be inimical to religious and irreligious learning, and so we must be imperfectionists, so to speak. Imperfect study and learning must be welcomed, provided basis candidly admitted and correction welcomed, lest we thwart Hindu-Christian learning by holding only to the highest standards of perfection.—p. 38
…Gone from the writings of this group at least were polemics against Hindu idolatry and darkness, absurdity and self-contradiction. Confidence in the superiority of the Thomistic synthesis remained robust, as a kind of intellectual stand-in for the older religious polemics….—p. 39
…Though he [Anand Amaladass] does not write extensively about Hindu-Christian relations, in “Viewpoints: Hindu-Christian Dialogue Today” (Anand Amaladass, SJ. “Viewpoints: Hindu-Christian Dialogue Today,” Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies 10 (1997): 41-43) he surveys the challenges facing the field and comments on the difficulties in Hindu-Christian exchange, including persistent Hindu doubts about Christian intentions, but notes also that changes in each tradition and in Indian society as a whole promise new ways of encounter….—p. 41
…A good example of his work in this regard is the 2002 article “Hindu Avatara and Christian Incarnation: A Comparison.” The main part of the essay offers careful expositions of a number of number of Hindu views of avatara and Christian views of Incarnations…. Sheth affirms that “comparison not only facilitates better mutual understanding. but also helps each tradition to understand itself……” [Noel Sheth, SJ. “Hindu Avatara and Christian Incarnation: A Comparison,” Philosophy East and West 52. 1 (2002): 98-125,p. 98]43—p. 42
[why a Hindu needs to have a better understanding about her faith and Scripture through Christians’ writing that too comparatively. This itself is their agenda.—db]
…The more recent figures became less concerned about metaphysical foundations in Thomism, even as they were less concerned about conversions. In light of Vatican II, perhaps, they sought to reframe the Christian engagement with Hinduism as a kind of interreligious dialogue. But as a result, such work seems to have been treated simply as a kind of dialogue or aid to dialogue – if one wanted to dialogue with brahmins – and not pertinent to the transformation of Catholic consciousness through learning from the Hindu traditions. The Hindu other was not taken seriously enough to effect a real change in the Christian heart. This made it easier for dioceses, seminaries, and mainstream theological writing to overlook work in this area, or to turn away from it when the initial optimism for (p. 42) dialogue had waned. Consequently, as we shall see below, the recalculation of Indology as dialogue and ad extra made it value depend on the worth of dialogue, in an era when dialogue with brahmins became the subject of great suspicion.—pp. 42-43
…the Jesuit tradition of the study of Hinduism was not deep enough to survive at the onset of new concerns of a rather contrary sort.—p. 43
…When the Jesuit study of Hinduism ceased to be central enough to most Jesuits’ consciousness, it also became much less likely to endure after the practical turn to liberation theology. The great Jesuit tradition was marginalized, even among Jesuits….—p. 43
…In the end, there was no enough shared space among Catholics themselves, much less in intellectual and spiritual communion with Hindus, for a Hindu-Christian intellectual exchange to thrive.—p. 44
…Christians have largely been in a position to decide whether and when such learning is worthwhile, and Hindus have often been compelled, socially and intellectually, to acknowledge and respond to questions and challenges posed by the West….—p. 49
…It can seem a residual tool of empire, or an instrument of evangelization, best responded to by indifference and silence rather than trusting participation. Engaging in interreligious dialogue with Christians may reopen the door “to an imperial history many Hindus wishes to leave behind. Just how much this explains Hindu reticence to partake in dialogue with Christians may be debated.”….[Tinu Ruparell “Hindu Occidentalism,” Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies 13 (2000): 26-31, p.26]1—p. 49
Hindus have neve studied Christianity in the way Christians have studied Hinduism, nor would we want to expect them to; and so we must be on the lookout for other forms of substantive learning, perhaps under other names….Christians and Western expectations have often been disappointed when the study does not proceed as expected…..—p. 50
Algondavilli Govindacharya)
The first author I wish to introduce in this very selective survey is Algondavilli Govindacharya (c. 1860-1940). If remembered today, it is generally for his still useful writings on the Srivaisnava tradition, The Divine Wisdom of the Dravida Saints (C. N. Press, 1902a) and The Holy Lives of the Alvars (G. T. A Press, 1902b). His later Mazdaism in the Light of Vishnuism (G. T. A. Press, 1913) is an explicitly comparative study that shows the curiosity and inquisitiveness of this Srivaisnava scholar. What distinguishes such works is their impressively specific and insightful knowledge of Western thought—biblical, Christian spiritual, and philosophical – and consistency in identifying specific points of similarity or difference. Well versed on both sides of the matters at hand, Govindacharya was the rare scholar who could engage in a learning that in the end was indebted to both of the traditions involved, but reduced to neither. (p. 50)
Throughout his career, his larger agenda was to think through basic truths and methods of inquiry in Hinduism and Christianity, with an eye toward finding common ground for the conversation between the traditions. Of particular interest are his Three Lectures on Inspiration, Intrusion, and Ecstasy (Wesleyan Mission Press, 1897). {All three lectures were given on February 17,} 3 These lectures are among his earlier forks and thus predictive of key themes in his later writing. The first deals with the philosophical and religious traditions of the West, the second with those of India, and the third largely with theosophy as a wisdom arising in both the East and the West, and thus, he hopes, serving as a bridge between the two worlds. [Govindacharya, Three Lectures…. 1897: p. 7]4 His aim is a universally available, albeit hidden, wisdom that comes “not from one, but from many, sources.” He hopes to show that “inspired or revealed knowledge is the source which partly, if not wholly, unveils the underlying power behind phenomena.” [Govindacharya, ibid. 1897: p.7]5 For the sake of a rational exposition of this project, he soberly notes and weighs various means of access to divine insights, and estimates the success or failure of religious thinkers, philosophers and theologians, in holding together rational and intuitive modes of learning.
In his introduction to the lectures, Govindacharya introduces the major concepts that together undergird a way of knowing that goes beyond ordinary objective and subjective learning:
In an inquiry on inspiration thus, we have necessarily to consider what is known as revelations, and what is known as intuitional knowledge; and the experiences known as ecstasies and visions, etc., and knowledge which is called divine illumination, all forming subjects of collateral importance. We shall also be led to an inquiry as to what intuition is meant by the eclectic philosophers of the day, the Brahma-Samajists, etc., and how it is connected with inspiration. [Govindacharya, Three Lectures…. 1897: p7].6
In the first lecture Govindacharya explores some Greek sources, particularly Plato and Plotinus, and then Christian sources, from the Bible to Teresa of Ávila, Emanuel Swedenborg, and more recent figures, in order to present evidence for an ancient and long-term Western and Christian appreciation of what is at stake: a balance between revelation mediated through scripture, studied in terms of reason, and alternate means of inspiration and ecstasy. Govindacharya is generous in his descriptions, but does not hesitate to be critical of what he considers Christianity’s over-institutionalization. For example, near the end of the first lecture, he encourages the search for a common ground outside the dogmatic tradition and in a retrieval of the ancient wisdom traditions: ([Govindacharya, Three Lectures…. 1897: p. 51)
When the Bible is full of such experiences [of visions and ecstasies] that Faith alone should be insisted on, as the final criterium, divorcing Philosophy on one side, and spurning Intuition on the other, is decided unreason. Unless Christianity can be reconstructed on Faith and on Philosophy somewhat after the old Alexandrian model, [Govindacharya, Three Lectures…. 1897: p. 46]7 it will never adapt itself to the complete nature of man.
He offers a specific criticism of the Christian synthesis that overly promotes and protects faith: it
can never cope with the philosophical or metaphysical methods to which Vedantism has accustomed the Indian intellect. Put the Bible before the Vedantin, and he at once asks for a proper explanation of the nature of body, of soul and of God, and the relation in which they stand to each other, etc.; but such explanation as his philosophical bias demands does not exist in the Bible. [Three Lectures…. , Citations are from lecture 1, 67-68]8
Some other ground, more capacious and nurse of the experiential, yet not reductive, must be found. Govindacharya then concludes specifically to the value of combining this return to the experiential and metaphysical with new interreligious learning, to bring out the best in the Christian: “Not only then, that Christianity has to reconstruct on the Alexandrian basis, but it has to enrich itself from the spiritual treasures abundantly to be found in the Revelations of the East.” [Citations are from lecture 1, 67-68]9 After some further comments on the ecstatic experience of St. Augustine, and on modern psychology and the recognition of sudden, unexpected moments of insight, at the end he offers this expansive vision: “there is in man potencies and possibilities beyond the bounds limited by his present knowledge. “[Citations are from lecture 1, 71]10
Govindacharya’s second lecture deals with the same questions arising in the religions of India. He inquires into the interplay of knowledge, experience, and intuition as seen in the Upanisads, the sutra texts of Yoga, Vedanta and the other philosophical systems (darsanas), and in the writings of Keshab Chunder Sen, Vivekananda, and others who, like himself, sought theosophical wisdom. He is seeking after signs of growth in God-consciousness, though distinguishing more developed and introspective models. Key once again is intuitional knowledge that grows toward that higher realization [Citations are from lecture 1, 33]11 that is the essence of true religion Govindacharya cites Vivekananda on the yoga: “According to [the teachers of yoga], the only proof of the Scriptures is that they were the testimony of competent persons, yet they say, the Scriptures cannot take us to realization. “[Citations are from lecture 1, 32]12 He then reemphasizes the main point: (p.52)
realization is real religion, and all the rest is only preparation— hearing lectures, or reading books, or reasoning, is merely preparing the ground, it is not religion. Intellectual assent, and intellectual dissent, are not religion. The central idea of the yogis is that just as we come in direct contact with objects of the senses, so religion even can be directly perceived in a far more intense sense. [Citations are from lecture 1, 33]13
At stake for Govindacharya is a manner of intuition that is irreducible to any religion’s sacred books or authorized revelations, but nevertheless available in those religions and, if the religions are read properly, is available to all advancing along the spiritual path. He admits the danger of subjectivism – a privatization apart from the religions – but insists that the capacious wisdom of God can include all the religious paths and every individual. [Citations are from lecture 1, 54-57]14 He then offers testimonies from various scriptures and from contemporary European theorists of psychology, in order to highlight the fact and importance of ecstatic, intuitional consciousness. Much space is given over to testimonies from the Hindu scriptures on this higher consciousness. Later he argues with Brahmo Samaj, including Keshab Chunder Sen, on the hope for rational criteria for discovering the truth in religions. If there is no underlying intuitive power, he says, we will end up with no scriptures and no authorities, but only merely subjective guesses as to what is true and enduring. [Citations are from lecture 1, 78] 15 Intuition is not opposed to revelation, but is its source and the best route to identifying it. [Citations are from lecture 1, 79]16
The goal of the first two lectures was to consider in some depth issues related to the intersection of the divine and human, the mind and spirit, in order to establish by comparison that there dispositions and instincts, in each tradition, that would facilitate a rapprochement of the traditions. Near the end of the second lecture, Govindacharya traces the themes running through both:
I have shown how Indian philosophers discovered one truth or another, stated in some form or other, out of their intuitional depths, and how intuitions become inspirations when men utter them who are known to be saints or God-sent men. I have shown what Revelations are – and how they are connected with inspiration and ecstasy. I have shown the relative importance of the senses, the understanding, and the innate intuitive faculty of man, as sources of knowledge. I have shown the importance of Inspiration and Revelation as giving us a knowledge of God and spiritual truths beyond the capacity of our ordinary senses to ken, and the (p. 53) utmost importance of the Vedas, the Aryan Scriptures. I have shown the controversial differences on these several question. [Citations are from lecture 1, 82-83]17
At the start of the third lecture, Govindacharya quotes Vivekananda in support of his vision of the complementarity of East and West: “India has to learn from Europe, the conquest of external nature, i.e., of substance, and Europe has to learn from India the conquest of internal nature” He thinks that this mutual learning will open up new possibilities, for what amounts to an ideal third space:
Then there will be neither Hindus nor Europeans – there will be the ideal humanity which has conquered both natures, external and internal. We have developed one phase of humanity and they another. It is the union of the two that is wanted. [Citations are from lecture 1, 7]18
Granting “the old story” of “innate ideas, intuitional knowledge inspiration and revelation,” he proposes to “enquire a little how this old question re-appears under its latest presentation, Theosophy,” which “the third ray” in his consideration. [Citations are from lecture 1, 3]19 Here a theosophical vision comes to the fore. He remains candid in his confidence his confidence in the power of Vedanta, without its guidance, Christians will not become again able to understand their own scriptures. Indeed, again quoting Vivekananda, “Vedanta is the rationale of all religions. Without Vedanta every religion is superstition,” but with it, “everything becomes religion.” [Citations are from lecture 1, 11, citing Viekananda, the Madras Mail, February 6, 1897 p. 7]
20 Yet it is in theosophy that we find a meeting point of India and the West, “since theosophy ought to be considered as not only the flower of Western thought but the realization of the dream of the Indian philosophers from whom the West had already borrowed so much.” [Citations are from lecture 1, 5]21 Through theosophy, one transcends ordinary perception, without losing entirely one’s sense of grounding in what is real. [Citations are from lecture 1, 25]22 He reports,
H. P. B. [Helena Blavatsky] plainly tells us, that the Vedas are as it were the source of all other Revelations, and that spiritual truths which can be obtained by one’s own intuition is in harmony with that found in the Vedas; and the Vedas being the corroborated cumulative testimony of ages of saints, it can safely be trusted as a help to the growth of one’s own intuition in the manner of a child in its leading strings till it can walk by itself; or twigs provided as props to a climbing creeper. [Citations are from lecture 1, 14]23
This claim is unlikely to convince those not well disposed toward
theosophy, to be sure, but it merits our reflection. What is directly (p. 54) interesting is the explicit interplay between personal intuition, the Veda understood as grounded in the intuitions of the sages, and the broader intuitive experiences of the race.
Govindacharya then makes a further distinction that emphasizes theosophy’s grounding in revelation (sruti):
the position taken up by Theosophy is quite distinct from that taken by the Brahma Samajists. Both are eclectic systems, but Theosophy declares that Vedas are trustworthy intuitional knowledge, which when one believes, he is safe enough, and with which his individual intuitions do not collide.
By contrast, the Brahmists are individualists who by the weapon of their “individual intuition” pare down revelation to what fits with their own intuitions, rather than challenging their understanding of intuition by respect for scripture. [Citations are from lecture 1, 14]24 At least in this version of the matter, theosophy’s portrayed respect for Vedic tradition helps us to imagine a correlative respect for Christian revelation and tradition as well. A theologian committed to both faith and reason, Govindacharya asserts that neither reason nor blind faith can discover the truth. Room must be left for instinct and the imagination. [Citations are from lecture 1, 28]25 At the end of his essay he similarly quotes at length from Annie Besant and then, rather unexpectedly, closes with an exegesis of Brahma Sutras III.3.12-14, as read according to his own Vaisnava tradition.[Citations are from lecture 1, 55-56] 26 He sees this sutra text as proposing the general idea of a supreme God who is specified by several key perfections (bliss, knowledge, purity), who then takes on other attributes for the sake of meditation, geared to the preferences of the meditator’s own spiritual instincts. This too contributes to what, in Govindacharya’s view, is a fair encounter of India and the West.
Whatever we think of theosophy, faded and exotic to our ears, it is still the case that we ought to appreciate Govindacharya’s great erudition, his close attention to both sides of his inclusive and deeply comparative project, and his search for a deep and common space wherein the best of Indian and Western, Hindu and Christian, traditions could meet. He engaged in Hindu-Christian study because he had a view of the world that required such inquiry, if religious and intellectual dilemmas were to be resolved and the goods he hoped for to be gained. Without a space like this, at least presented as a hypothesis, we will hardly be able to get beyond the notion of incommensurable cultures and the preordained failure of any sort of interreligious learning. Instead, we will be thwarted by a host of political issues, concerns (p. 55) about power, and a sheer impossibility of translation and communication, such that any hopes we might have regarding Hindu-Christian learning will be nearly extinguished. 27—pp. 50-56
27In light of Govindacharya’s agenda in the three lectures, we can say that the more well-known books mentioned above, The Divine Wisdom of the Dravida Saints (1902a), The Holy Lives of the Alvars (1902b), and Mazdaism in the Light of Vishnuism (1913), are intended not only to inform readers about his own Srivaisnava tradition, but also to provide evidence in support of his thesis on the intellectual and spiritual meeting of India and the West on a terrain fair to both. At the end of his career, Govindacharya published A Metaphysique of Mysticism Vedically Viewed (1923), a collection of twelve studies on a range of instances of the mystical, including the divine-human relationship, love, Krishna, mystical experience, Buddhism and mysticism, Dravidian (Tamil, south Indian) mysticism, and Vedanta and Persian mysticism.—Notes, 27, p. 85
…he {Brajendranath Seal (1864-1938) rejects what he sees as the prejudice endemic to Western efforts at comparison, such as presumes “that all other races and cultures have (p. 56) been a preparation for the Greco-Romano-Gothic type, which is now the epitome of Mankind, the representative of Universal Humanity, the heir of all the ages.” Such uneven comparisons pit the advanced (Christian) vs the primitive (Asian). He readily criticizes such ventures as giving a bad name to comparison, though he is quite aware that “the hardy ‘oriental’ who would presume to question this almost axiomatic truth is likely to provoke ‘amused’ incredulity, if not unmixed derision.” [Brajendranath Seal, Comparative Studies in Vaishnavism and Christianity with an Examination of the Mahabharata Legend about Narada’s Pilgrimage to Svetadivpa and an Introduction to the Historico-Comparative Methods. Hare Press, 1899: i-ii]]28…..—pp. 56-57
…The universal perspective attains to a truth which no tradition owns and which cannot be revealed as exclusive to any one tradition:
From the statical point of view, Universal Humanity, though present in each race, is diversely embodied, reflected in specific modes and forms. The Ideal of Humanity is not completely unfolded in any, for each race potentially contains the fullness of the ideal, but actually renders a few phases only, some expressing lower or fewer, others higher or more numerous ones.[ [Brajendranath Seal, Comparative Studies in Vaishnavism and Christianity with an Examination of the Mahabharata Legend about Narada’s Pilgrimage to Svetadivpa and an Introduction to the Historico-Comparative Methods. Hare Press, 1899: v-vi]31—p. 57
…In Europe, “there is a great deal of criticism, and of true and luminous criticism, in religion and in philosophy, but no creation.” The West has lost a larger vision of “the realm of the Infinite and the Absolute”; a “firm grasp of Universality”; an “overpowering sense of the invisible world of which our spirits are denizens even now and here”; and a “vision of the Divine in the Human, not in remote history but in the living present.” At present, the West is suffering a fragmentation of knowledge and is being pulled apart by “the bewildering complexity of phenomenal knowledge and the multitudinous interests of the special sciences. ” [Brajendranath Seal, Comparative Studies in Vaishnavism and Christianity with an Examination of the Mahabharata Legend about Narada’s Pilgrimage to Svetadivpa and an Introduction to the Historico-Comparative Methods. Hare Press, 1899: vii] 33 At this point, the Hindu tradition’s energy for the universal fills the gap….—p. 58
If the Hindu tradition adopts rigorous comparative methods, and if the West recognizes that it has much to learn from the Hindu traditions, the result will be a renaissance that is religious as well as philosophical. Christianity will throw of their imperial garb and learn again to absorb different cultures rather than trying to conquer or deny them. This renewed absorption, practiced in early Christianity, has to do with learning from the other without a destructive digestion of it. In this way Christians will find meeting points with Hinduism:
The Hindu God-consciousness, for example, in its threefold manifestation of Brahma, Paramatma and Bhagavan, the Hindu ideal of Jivanmukti (Life Everlasting in this earthly life), with its two elements of divine communion, Yoga and Lila, and the Hindu harmony of the essential disciplines of Jnana, Bhakti and Karma (Knowledge, Faith and Works), will be the fundamental points of contact between Christian Gnosis and Faith on the one hand, and the Hindu philosophico-reli gious consciousness on the other. [Brajendranath Seal, Comparative Studies in Vaishnavism and Christianity with an Examination of the Mahabharata Legend about Narada’s Pilgrimage to Svetadivpa and an Introduction to the Historico-Comparative Methods. Hare Press, 1899:ix-x]35—p. 59
As a result, a better and freer Christianity will reemerge, freed of “the husks of outer creed and dogma,”… while Seal’s gnostic animosity to creed and dogma seems ill-informed and unnecessary with respect to his larger purposes, the idea that the relation between India and the West requires the retrieval of fundamental intellectual and spiritual values is relevant even today.—p. 59
…Seal seeks also to overthrow a linear, from East to West, Hegelian model of history. Once the complexity of each tradition is recognized, notions of a linear East-to-West evolution, which has been used in the past to exalt the Christian, will be exposed as lacking in credibility….—p. 59
The larger purpose of Seal’s diligent study of the Narada “pilgrimage” recounted in the Narayaniya section of the Mahabharata, is
to show by an application of the comparative method hedged round with these qualifications and restrictions that all the conditions of moral certainty are satisfied in this case, in favour of an Eastern Christian influence – (especially of the Gnostic and Syrian cults) in the early centuries of the Christian era, on the development of a particular branch of the Vaishnava creed. [Brajendranath Seal, Comparative Studies in Vaishnavism and Christianity with an Examination of the Mahabharata Legend about Narada’s Pilgrimage to Svetadivpa and an Introduction to the Historico-Comparative Methods. Hare Press, 1899: 4]39
He expects
a minute exegesis and textual examination of the Mahabharata record in question, and of Nilkantha’s commentary, with a view to determine the exact nature and weight of the evidence, if any, in favour of a journey or voyage to Syria or some neighbouring centre of Christianity.—p. 60
For Seal, the divergences and choices made are as illuminating as the moments of mutual indebtedness. In the end, the contact with Christianity had a good effect on Vaishavism, yet without indicating that the latter is derivative of the former:
I have also shown that the Christian experiences of the Indian Vaishnavas served to liberalise and universalise their faith, and perhaps also to impart a character of jealous, if not militant, unitarianism (ekantibhava) to the cult of Krishna-worship…. But, at the same time, the history of doctrine, general as well as particular, must have shown that not a single dogma or rite was derived by the Indian Vaishnava from primitive Christianity. [Brajendranath Seal, Comparative Studies in Vaishnavism and Christianity with an Examination of the Mahabharata Legend about Narada’s Pilgrimage to Svetadivpa and an Introduction to the Historico-Comparative Methods. Hare Press, 1899: 102]42—p. 61
…In this context, comparison of ideas is hardly possible:
Under the present system we generally receive western culture in the first instance and then we sometimes try to peer into our ancient culture as a curiosity and with the attitude of foreign oriental scholars and yet we say that this ancient culture of ours is no curiosity. [Krishna Chandra Bhattacharyya, “Swaraj in Ideas” in Indian Philosophy in English: From Renaissance to Independence, edited by Nalini Bhushan and Jay Garfied. Oxford Univeristy Press, 2011 [1929]: 104]45—p. 63
….Genius can unveil the soul of India in art but is through philosophy that we can methodically attempt to discover it. [Krishna Chandra Bhattacharyya, “Swaraj in Ideas” in Indian Philosophy in English: From Renaissance to Independence, edited by Nalini Bhushan and Jay Garfied. Oxford Univeristy Press, 20112011 [1929]: 105-106]46—p. 64
… “the foreign ideal is to be assimilated to our ideal and not the other way. There is no demand for the surrender of our individuality in any case.” [Krishna Chandra Bhattacharyya, “Swaraj in Ideas” in Indian Philosophy in English: From Renaissance to Independence, edited by Nalini Bhushan and Jay Garfied. Oxford Univeristy Press, 20112011 [1929]: 107]48—p. 64
…Customs ad institutions bound up with age-long sentiments are brushed aside (in the name of reason) as meaningless and dead without any imaginative effort to realize them in an attitude of humility. [Krishna Chandra Bhattacharyya, “Swaraj in Ideas” in Indian Philosophy in English: From Renaissance to Independence, edited by Nalini Bhushan and Jay Garfied. Oxford Univeristy Press, 2011 2011 [1929]: 108]49
If traditions are simply discarded in eagerness for the universal, the cost is the loss of the required reverence and “deepened spiritual insight.”[ibid] 49—p. 65
…. “the transition to the modern world was marked by the recovery of the ancient.” [Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, The World’s Unborn Soul. Clarendon Press, 1936: 18]51….—p. 66
…With a certain aggressiveness, he asserts that experience is an epistemologically relevant category: “To say that God exists means that spiritual experience is attainable. The possibility of the experience constitutes the most conclusive proof of the reality of God.” God is “the factual content of the spiritual experience.” Intending to provoke, I think, he adds that
all other proofs are descriptions of God, matters of definition, and language…the fact of God does not depend on mere human (p.66) authority or evidence from alleged miraculous events. The authority of scripture the traditions of the Church, or the casuistries of schoolmen who proclaim but do not prove, may not carry conviction to many of us who are the children of science and reason.
By contrast,
we must submit to the fact of spiritual experience, which is primary and positive. We may dispute theologies, but cannot deny facts. The fire of life in its visible burning compels assent, though not the fumbling speculations of smokers sitting around the fire. [Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, The World’s Unborn Soul. Clarendon Press, 1936:21] 54
Even though he puts experience in the center, as relevant to the study of religions at Oxford, Radhakrishnan does not get personal about his own experience. By contrast, those who deny the importance of experience are those “who have no contact with reality, no insight into truth,” rather substituting “the relative symbol for the absolute truth.” They are clever, but “in their self-confident jugglery with symbols and definitions they forget the thing itself.” Without a grounding in experience, words are empty, not “significant expressions of truth. “[Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, The World’s Unborn Soul. Clarendon Press, 1936: 27]55—pp. 66-67
The truth of a religion is not (merely) what is singular or different, nor its norms and rules, but rather “that part of it which it is capable of sharing with all others.” [Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, The World’s Unborn Soul. Clarendon Press, 1936: 31]57
…For the rational man believes that religion is basically irrational; it is, at its best, above and beyond reason, and, at its worst, is below reason. The religious man will hesitate because, for him, religion is based on experience or on faith or on both. Hence, he would argue, it is impossible for an agnostic, who lacks any experience, either religious or mystical, to have a rational comprehension of religion or mysticism. [Bimal Krishna Matilal, “The Logical Illumination of Indian Mysticism,” in Philosophy, Culture and Religion: The Collected Essays of Bimal Krishna Matilal, Vol. 1: Mind, Language and World. Edited by Jonardon Ganeri. Oxford University Press, 2002b: 60-63]66—p. 70
…Matilal cautions against a merely rational assessment of religion: (p.70)
Man is a rational animals, but, what is more interesting, he is not exclusively rational. Hence, he continues to search for the “promised” land, for the “sacred”, for nirvana. It has been claimed by the sociologist that human civilization is but a fabrication of a chid afraid to be alone in the dark. And religion is part of that civilization. Man also has a monkey inside him, which prompts him to ask rational questions and demand rational answers. Otherwise, we would not have a Socrates, or an Aristotle, or a Buddha, or a Nagarjuna, or a Sriharsa. in Philosophy, Culture and Religion: The Collected Essays of Bimal Krishna Matilal, Vol. 1: Mind, Language and World. Edited by Jonardon Ganeri. Oxford University Press, 2002b, 61]67—pp. 70-71
…Revelation and Reason in Advaita Vedanta (1959); The Realm of Between: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (1973), Kotta Satchidananda Murthy.
“Comparative Philosophy: What It Is and What It Ought to Be,” Daya Krishna, [Daya Krishna, “Comparative Philosophy: What It Is and What It Ought to Be,” in Interpreting across Boundaries, edited by Gerald J. Larson and Eliot Deutsch. Princeton University Press, 2014] 79
The Indian scholars who have concerned themselves with philosophy, for example, not only have swallowed the bait hook, line, and sinker but have tried to gain respectability for Indian philosophy either by discovering parallels to most of the western philosophical positions in the Indian tradition or by taking pride in the fact that philosophy in India was no mere arid intellectual exercise engaged in logic-chopping for its own sake, but concerned with the deepest existential issues of the bondage and liberation of man’s innermost being. [Daya Krishna, “Comparative Philosophy: What It Is and What It Ought to Be,” in Interpreting across Boundaries, edited by Gerald J. Larson and Eliot Deutsch. Princeton University Press, 2014, 77]80—p. 75
…Krishna deflates any debate on the matter by arguing that a combination of similarity and difference of the only likely conclusion: “It was conveniently forgotten that if philosophy is an enterprise of the human reason, it is bound to show similarities across cultures to some extent”; this is because philosophy as a human enterprise “is bound to be concerned with what man, in a particular culture, regards as the summum bonum for mankind. ” [Daya Krishna, “Comparative Philosophy: What It Is and What It Ought to Be,” in Interpreting across Boundaries, edited by Gerald J. Larson and Eliot Deutsch. Princeton University Press,2014, 77]81—p. 75
Distortion and oversimplification in comparison are traceable to the unreflective habit of clinging uncritically to one set of normative terms and refusing to consider any other set. There should be a normal back and forth by which each culture sees the others “from its own point of reference” and thus becomes “both the subject and object of comparison, in turn.” Too often, Indian intellectuals have so internalized Western categories and standards of intelligibility that “they observe, understand, and compare their own cultures (only) in terms given to them by the West.” [Daya Krishna, “Comparative Philosophy: What It Is and What It Ought to Be,” in Interpreting across Boundaries, edited by Gerald J. Larson and Eliot Deutsch. Princeton University Press,77] 82….—p. 75
…But an overly subjective turn too would be dangerous, since it “brings the whole cognitive enterprise perilously close to the artistic one and, if taken to its logical conclusion, would make us give up the truth claim altogether. “[Daya Krishna, “Comparative Philosophy: What It Is and What It Ought to Be,” in Interpreting across Boundaries, edited by Gerald J. Larson and Eliot Deutsch. Princeton University Press, 2014, 82]83 On the contrary, “concepts can never be simply images or symbols and can hardly ever be simply a matter of feelings and emotions.” But even if objectivity is possible and matters, the future “will always be there to show us not only the limitations of our (p. 75) knowledge and the falsity of our claims but also to bring to our notice new horizons, undreamed of before” [Krishna, ibid. 2014, 82]84—pp. 75-76
…Krishna identifies as the current situation, which takes for granted “the imposition of the standards of one dominant culture upon all the others and the evaluation of their philosophical achievements in terms of those alien standards.” [Daya Krishna, “Comparative Philosophy: What It Is and What It Ought to Be,” in Interpreting across Boundaries, edited by Gerald J. Larson and Eliot Deutsch. Princeton University Press, 2014, 83]85….—p. 76
…In Religious Studies and Comparative Methodology (2005), he draws on his own Hindu tradition to craft a way of thinking about comparative study that takes Western modes of comparison into account, but that is not prejudicial to his tradition. As he explains,
Comparisons can be of two kinds – homonymous and synonymous. Homonymous comparisons are between phenomena, which appear similar but are really different, just as homonyms are words with similar sounds but with different meanings. Synonymous comparisons are between phenomena that appear different but possess similar significance in each tradition, just as synonyms are words that have different sounds but are similar in meaning.[Arivind Sharma, Religious Studies and Comparative Methodology: The Case for Reciprocal Illumination. State University of New York Press, 2005: 25]86
He draws interesting implications for religious studies: “Old comparative religion has been oriented toward making homonymous comparisons, but new comparative religion – at least, the kind I would like to practice – will be oriented toward making synonymous comparisons, “[Arivind Sharma, Religious Studies and Comparative Methodology: The Case for Reciprocal Illumination. State University of New York Press, 2005: 25]86 which facilitate a non-prejudicial and reciprocal learning: “Now, when synonymous comparisons are made between two traditions, they often result in what I like to call reciprocal illumination. That is to say, one tradition sheds light on the other.”[Sharma, ibid. 2005, 25]87—p. 77
…Hindu Theology of Liberation, Anantanand Rambachan
…Even today, being a believing Christian or Hindu may slow the career of a young scholar, given the expectation that an explicit faith operative in a scholar’s work may detract from that work as scholarship by hampering the detached freedom of such work, and tailoring it rather to an imposed purpose that is both extrinsic to the work and likely to misshape how it proceeds, what is studied, and what results are counted as relevant. Such points are often debated, and in this lecture I do not intend here to make a contribution to the general issues involved.—p. 94
…Even the turn to popular religion, respected now for its distance from traditions scripturally and doctrinally described, unsettles standard narratives and lineages of authority.—p. 92
…Hindu-Christian studies is a kind of theological exchange, and no quantity of scholarly inquiry adds up to theology if faith is still missing. The scholarly study of religion tends to rule out extrinsic and external sources of authority. But it may at the same time also rule out the possibility of substantive religious values: revelation, inspiration, truth, etc. Even if the academy has become more comfortable with the fact of believing scholars, there is still a risk that the committed perspective of a believer is counted out, reduced to an object of study rather than featured as a living voice pertinent to the professional identity of the scholars involved.—p. 92
…While great priority is still given to academic rigor and discipline, the modern study of religion also shares the wider (p. 92) academic skepticism about the very ideal of a free, detached display of reason. No one is without bias, and a faith bias is not necessarily any worse than other biases. Even if biases are deeply engrained, few will argue forthrightly that the intellectual production of the West is inherently superior to that of other cultures. In our post-colonial, post- orientalist age, the work of uncovering and critiquing Christian scholarship and Western intellectualism is accompanied by a denial of their superiority. Scholarship has levelled the playing field, so to speak: it has created freer spaces for Hindu and Christian scholars but also made both Hindus and Christians uncomfortable by privileging the perspectives of outsiders. Modern academic work has also made us more self-conscious regarding the inside and outsider perspectives. While the privileges accruing to either perspective can be exaggerated, attention to this factor matters with respect to how religions are studied, since often insiders provide different and often richer contexts for individual beliefs and practices, while outsiders, in their analytic work, see things apart from habitual frames of interpretation and in different contexts, often also in keeping with modern academe’s preferences. This dynamic predicts increased tension between insiders and outsiders in today’s world, when elite boundaries have eroded, and even non-academic insiders are quite aware of how outsiders are writing about them….—pp. 92-93
…Scholarly objectivity is no longer seen as necessarily entailing the lack of, or silence about, any confessional commitments one might bring to academic work…..—p. 94
…Given its location [The American Academy of Religion] largely in the United States, the (p.94) membership has always been predominantly Christians, but likewise, in the sessions and in the allied Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, continual efforts have been made to make the Society meaningfully and fairly a matte3r of Hindu-Christian studies in the stronger sense used in this book. It has as far as possible included a balance of Hindu and Christian presenters.—pp. 94-95
… While it is controversial to say that the core community for Hindu-Christian scholars is comprised of believing Hindus and believing Christians, and while it would be impractical to monitor in intrusive ways who is a believer and practitioner or not, the narrowing is in principle worth its cost….—p. 96 [Is ‘believing’ and ‘faith’ are the main or even one of the identity to be Hindu. Even the so called ‘believing Christians’ is questionable as there is no agreement among their denominational churches who is an authentic ‘believing Christian’ as each one has its own criterions to reject as ‘nominal’. But this is not the case with any and every Hindu as ‘Hindu’ identity has nothing to with one’s ‘faith’ or ‘personal’ believes.–db]
{Gavin Flood, The Truth Within: A History of Inwardness in Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, 2013}
Flood is well aware of the current resistance to a narrow focus on textuality of traditions and the doctrines of traditions, but he believes that good scholarship need not be driven by skepticism about traditions’ own explanations of themselves of themselves. Attention to elite text need not amount to a merely textual manner of scholarship. Rather great texts, carefully read, shed light on historical and cultural frameworks, and show how those text-focused traditions were creating the patterns of living and framework of values within which people live patterns lives in particular historical communities. [Gavin Flood, “Reflections on Tradition and Inquiry in the Study of Religion,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Thematic section, “On the Future of the Study of Religion in the Academy” 74.1 2006: 53]6 Flood thus opens a space for religious people’s own self-interpretation even in their adherence to tradition.[ibid. 54]7 Rehabilitated in a way that allows for second-order (theological) reflection, religious studies can then “function as an arena that allows the self-articulation of traditions to reflect upon themselves, that allows for second-order discourse, while also offering a third-order discourse that reflects upon and offers corrective readings of traditions’ self-descriptions.” [ibid. 56]8 It is this kind of religious studies, open to theological concerns even if not fully guided by the faith concerns of theology, that is required for Hindu-Christian studies to be a viable field today.
Nancy Levene’s response to Flood is also illuminating. In an attentive though critical response, she spotlights Flood’s defense of theology as an academic discipline and disputes the value of privileging theology. After all, she says, every manner of knowledge faces the same dangers of reductionism and exclusion that Flood is describing. Insofar as theology is an academic discipline, its problems are not special; insofar as its defenders detect unique features in theology, they are stepping outside the academic realm. Flood inadvertently maintains unfruitful dichotomies merely repeated, and his defense of theological learning still polarizes the issues around scholarship in a usual manner, as if to insist, “Religious studies is to accept theology as long as theology as long as theology (as both a second-order and, potentially, a third-order discourse) heeds the standards of ‘rational discourse.”[Nancy Levene. “Response to Gavin Flood, ‘Reflection on Tradition and Inquiry in the Study of Religion,’” Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Thematic section, “On the Future of the Study of Religion in the Academy.” 74.1 2006: 60]9 But this presumes unquestioningly the concept of rationality being debated by those who want theology included and those who argue for its exclusion. Neither Flood’s “three reasons”[Flood, op. cit. 2006: 51] 10 for admitting religiously based standpoints to religious studies nor “his conception of religion as a culturally specific form of human practice and reasoning organized around sacred (p.98) Texts” offers the theorists in religion anything new with which to tackle the problem of the theology-religious studies split.[Levene 2006: 60]11 So while his concerns are legitimate, his appeals do not change the situation.
Leven even suggests that Flood may even be regressing to what she terms an “Eliadian view” of dialogue between traditions focused on their ‘central values,’ accessed by attending to the (perhaps secret) meaning of religious texts and not just their accessible, public history ‘sociological, economic, or political contexts.,’” [ibid. ]12 We have seen that earlier scholars from the West (such as de Nobili and Bouchet) and in India (such as Govindacharya and Radkakrishnan among others) insist that there is at stake a deeper wisdom not reducible to such external contexts, but Levene does not see this as a positive development. [ibid]13 In his brief rejoinder, Flood reaffirms that there are minimal requirements of rationality, not only those of any given cultural moment, but such as are “recognizable across histories and continents” – universals that seem to me to have some spiritual as well as intellectual dimensions. He gives the example of his own study of the premodern Indian philosopher Abhinavagupta, who uses “the terminology of his own tradition” and addresses the “problematics of his own philosophical world.” But it is still true that “his lucid argument and processes of reasoning are immediately recognizable to anyone who can read him.”[Flood: 64-65]14 This non-reductive “recognizability” is essential to any study of the past that can be deemed worthwhile in the present – including Hindu-Christian studies.—pp. 98-99
10….First religion only exists within cultures (as, one might add, does the study of religion); second, text is the model of culture; and third, inquiry into religion is dialogical and entails an encounter of different kinds of reasoning” [Flood 2006: 51]
…the boundaries of academia cannot be hard and fast, so as to exclude non-academics from the conversations….—p. 106
…While alert to the difficulties and challenges pressing in on Hindu-Christian studies from all sides, we need to avoid letting the ideal and the perfect – ever elusive – prevent us from doing the good together that we can manage to do….-p. 111
…the study of religions, its many virtues notwithstanding, is more beneficial when it is constructively open to insider views, not separating faith and reason in order to intentionally or unintentionally neglect the former, but rather allowing the spiritual to remain in vital connection with the intellectual.—p. 111
…the restoration of the practice of theology, as a discipline that does flourish in both the Christian and Hindu contexts, provided attention is also paid to the required spiritual-intellectual grounding.—p. 112
…How theology is done will vary from tradition to tradition, but at its core it needs to maintain the balance adverted to many times in the preceding pages: “faith seeking understanding,” an intellectual work that is grounded in the truths and values of Christian and Hindu traditions; that remains engaged in the life and practice of the respective religious communities, even while committed to learning anew across the religious divide….—p. 112
…to know God better, is at the core of comparative (p.112) theology, and comparative theology provides a good frame for the work of Hindu-Christian studies.—pp. 112-113 [does theology is a necessary to ‘know’ God in a better way?—db]
…As a shorthand for a longer discussion, we can note here a set of essential virtues proposed by Catherine Cornille in The (Im)possibility of Interreligious Dialogue, The Cross-road Publishing Company, (2008): doctrinal or epistemic humility: “recognition of one’s own fallibility and imperfection … a certain degree of admission of the finite and limited ways in which the ultimate truth has been grasped and expressed within one’s own religious teachings, practices, and/or institutional forms”; [ibid]² commitment to a particular religious tradition: remaining “rooted in the particular religious (p. 113) community from which and for which [we] speak”; interconnection: “the belief” that the teachings and practices of the other religion are in some way related to or relevant for one’s own religious tradition …the belief that the teachings and practices of other religions may in some way derive from or point to one’s own conception of ultimate reality”4; empathy: “not only an intellectual but also an experiential understanding of the other … a fuller understanding of the religious other must include some grasp of the religious meanings of particular teachings and their impact on the life of believers” such that “they may have an impact on one’s own religious tradition”5; hospitality: “the recognition of other religions as potential sources of genuine and distinctive truth …. A belief in the possibility of discovering distinctive truth in the other religion” such as “renders dialogue not only possible, but also necessary.” [ibid.]6
To Cornille’s list I have found it helpful to add four related virtues: risk-taking: experimenting, allowing the possibility of mistakes….patience with ambiguity … new dwelling … marginality: we are what we learn and read and write, and so too is required the ability to live on the margins of one’s own community, wherein most have not engaged in similar, border-crossing experiments.—pp. 113-114
…even as complete they require reception in both Christian and Hindu communities, if they are to count as good example. My reading of my own Christian tradition is singular, since few Christians study Hinduism for as long as I have; so too; no matter how long I have been reading Hindu texts, I cannot credit to myself the perspective of an insider; even if I were to “convert to Hinduism,” this is a move that would make more sense to Christians (who value conversions) than to Hindus (who generally do not). So for my work to contribute to a flourishing field of study, it must be received in the two communities, by scholars and students, and in a wider community that becomes use to living in a space overlapping with both communities’ faith and traditions and practices. I am relatively hopeful that my work is received by a wider readership, and is not merely a private venture.—p. 117 [unfortunately most or such works remain most of the time PRIVATE.—db]
…those willing to work within the world of scholastic discourse rather than being entirely constrained by the expectations and rules of the modern academic study of religion.—p. 119
….As we know too well, comparison can be often judgemental, unfair to the Other, and predictably confirmatory of starting points….—p. 122
…the study of Indian thought in the Western academy: the default tendency to make Hinduism merely the object of study but never the creator of the categories in which the study proceeds, the well-meant effort to protect Hinduism against bad comparisons by rejecting comparison altogether; and the heavy- handedness of a study of religion mode that rules out theological concerns and sensitivities for the sake of an elusive (if not evasive) neutrality. Even admitted biases, if honestly noted, can serve as resources for sound critical judgments.—p. 122
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad… Divine Self, Human Self: The Philosophy of Being in Two Gita Commentaries (2013)….
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