Algondavilli Govindacharya

I had never heard of this Vedantic scholar before, nor has anyone mentioned him in any of my previous readings. This is the first time I am learning about him, and I am grateful to Clooney { Francis X. Clooney, SJ, The Future of Hindu-Christian Studies: A Theological Inquiry, New York, Routledge, 2017, pp. 50-56} for providing a brief summary of Govindacharya’s thoughts and writings. It is beyond my capacity to offer a direct response either to this Acharya or to the way Clooney assessed him. Initially, I would like to share a few selected points from Clooney about this Acharya. Later, I may offer some of my own views.

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, 18971897). {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, idib. 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 to the 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