Holi Question

Holi Question

In the document you shared with me, one of the points you make for Holi is the reconciliation, in which the possibility of reconciliation is made through the Maha Yangya of Muktinath. In which, our Hindu scriptures already have categories of the 3 elements of Yajna being Devtaa, Dravya and Tyaag. In this the Devtaa is the presiding deity to whom the yangya is being offered, materials being offered is dravya and the Tyaag is the sacrifice and denial one is undergoing, correct? Prabhu Muktinath fulfills all 3 in one Maha Yangya by sacrificing (Tyaag) His body (dravya) to Himself (meaning to the Father and the Triune God), thus, fulfilling the need for reconciliation by identifying with the sinner…? There is also the term Jajmaan that appears in this context. So, who is the jajmaan in Yangya? Is there anything else you would add to develop this theme and allegory to highlight Mukteshwar’s work?—from A.K.

My response:

Your question clearly shows how we cannot neatly use one religious category to explain another one. At the same time, we should not hesitate to use some kind of understanding of one (religious worldview) through which we can understand and convey another (religious) worldview.

Though we can mention that Muktinath comes very close to identifying with the three categories of Yajna (I don’t want to use the word ‘fulfilling’) ‘devata, drivya and taayag’ [deity, material to be offered in a sacrifice and the one who offers it], it is difficult to say who is the presiding deity here because of  the mystery of Trinity.

To help you to understand it from a Muktivedic view, let me ask this: if the Lord paid the ransom to redeem us, to whom was that ransom paid? To God the Father or to Satan?  If he paid to God the Father, then as the word ‘ransom’ has a negative connotation,  it is not good to say that the Lord has to pay some ransom to God to appease a blood-thirsty god. Or if he paid Satan, then it means in one way Satan got what he expected.

As I am not a theologian, I cannot explain this properly. But the mystery of Trinity complicates things when we try to explain some theological terms that we use to explain to the human mind.  The Church Fathers have a different view regarding the ransom paid—either to God the Father or the Devil.  After reading all of them, I am not sure which one is correct. But all these come because we often take ‘sin, blood, ransom’ as the only category while sharing the gospel.  As Dr. Hoefer pointed out that was not the only category through which we should preach or understand our mukti and bhakti in the Lord, though they are important. At the end in the notes,  I give some extracts from J.N.D. Kelly, EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES, Second Edition, 1960; Harper & Row, Pub. New York to help you to understand this topic clearly. Anyhow I like what Muller says:

Muller: …redemption is a self-correction of God.— Like Us in All Things, Karl-Heinz Neufeld, pp. 153-[168]206, in, Andreas Bsteh (ed.),  Christian Faith in Dialogue with Hindu Religious Traditions [Christian Faith in the Encounter with Hinduism 2],  Modling 2007, St Gabriel Publications p. 174

Similarly, when we use Indian (Hindu) categories we cannot explain them to neatly fit into what we find in Muktiveda. So we should use the minimum but be very careful to stress that these categories are ‘fulfilled’ by the Lord. By not stretching the categories beyond their context, we should be very careful when we use them to explain Muktivedic concepts to others.

The Jajamana (owner) of the sacrifice is the Lord, he is the presiding deity, he is the material offered and he is the tyagi [one who voluntarily gives up].

March 27, 2018

Notes:

…Indeed, while the conviction of redemption through Christ has always been the motive force of Christian faith, no final and universally accepted definition of the manner of its achievement has been formulated to this [The Sub-Apostolic Age ] day…— J.N.D. Kelly, EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES, Second Edition, 1960; Harper & Row, Pub. New York,  p.163

It must be admitted that, as compared with the New Testament, the Apostolic Fathers as a whole are not greatly preoccupied with sin, and that their writings exhibit a marked weakening of the atonement idea.  Although satisfied that Christ died for us (often the repetition of the formula has conventional ring), they assign a relatively minor place to the atoning value of His death.  What looms much larger in their imagination is the picture of Christ as the lawgiver, the bestower of knowledge, immortality and fellowship with God…—ibid., p.165

…First, there was the so-called `physical’ or `mystical’ theory which linked the redemption with the incarnation.  According to this, human nature was sanctified, transformed and elevated by the very act of Christ’s becoming man…. Secondly, there was the explanation of the redemption in terms of a ransom offered to, or a forfeit imposed on, the Devil….(p.375) Thirdly, there was the theory, often designated `realist’, which directed attention to the Saviour’s sufferings.  Making more of sin and the punishment due for it than of its tragic legacy, this placed the cross in the foreground, and pictured Christ as substituting Himself for sinful men, shouldering the penalty which justice required them to pay, and reconciling them to God by His sacrificial death.

…They were all of them attempts to elucidate the same great truth from different angles; their superficial divergences are often due to the different Biblical images from which they started, and there is no logical reason why, carefully stated, they should not be regarded as complementary…—ibid., pp.375-76

…To describe this the traditional language came readily to Athanasius’s pen.  Christ’s death, he wrote, was a sacrifice which He offered to the Father on our behalf.  It was `the ransom (lutron-) for men’s sins’; and Christ not only heals us, but bears the heavy burden of our weaknesses and sins.  On the surface the doctrine is one of substitution, but what Athanasius was seeking to bring out was not so much that one victim was substituted for another, as that `the death of all was accomplished in the Lord’s body’.  In other words, because of the union between His flesh and ours, His death and victory were in effect ours.  Just as through our kinship with the first Adam we inherit death, so by our kinship with `the man from heaven’ we conquer death and inherit life.—ibid., p.380/81 (?)

…and Gregory was able to speak of Christ making our sufferings His own and submitting to the stripes due to us.  At the same time, since the Fall placed man in the power of the Devil, he liked to envisage the redemption as our emancipation from him.  As Gregory developed this aspect, his chief concern was for God’s justice; hence his reiteration that it was through his own free choice that man fell into the Devil’s clutches.  The Devil, therefore, had a right to adequate compensation if he were to surrender him, and for God to have exercised force majeure would have been unfair and tyrannical.  So He offered him the man Jesus as a ransom.  When Satan saw Him, born as He was of a virgin and renowned as a worker of miracles, he decided that the exchange was to his advantage.  What he failed to realize was that the outward covering of human flesh concealed the immortal Godhead.  Hence, when he accepted Jesus in exchange for mankind, he could not hold Him; he was outwitted and caught, as a fish is by the bait which conceals the hook.  There was no injustice in this, Gregory tried to show, for the Devil was only getting his deserts, and in any case God’s action was going to contribute to his own ultimate benefit (Gregory shared the doctrine of his master, Origen, that in the final restoration the pains of the damned, Satan included, would come to an end).—ibid., p.382

…Basil does not seem to press the theory.  In the same context he oscillates between interpreting Christ’s death as a ransom paid to the Devil and as a sacrifice offered to God….Gregory of Nazianzus went on to show that Christ’s blood was not, strictly speaking, a ransom paid to God the Father either, since it is inconceivable that He should have found pleasure in the blood of His only Son.  The truth rather is that the Father accepted it, not because He demanded or needed it, but because in the economy of redemption it was fitting that sanctification should be restored to human nature (p.383) through the humanity which God had assumed.  As for the Devil, he was vanquished by force.—ibid., pp.383-84