The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Hinduism E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Blackwell Companions to Religion
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1795

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

An accessible and up-to-date survey of scholarly thinking about Hinduism, perfect for courses on Hinduism or world religions

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Hinduism examines the historical trajectories that have led to the modern religion of Hinduism. Covering main themes such as philosophy, practice, society, and science, this comprehensive volume brings together a variety of approaches and perspectives in Hindu Studies to help readers better appreciate the richness, complexity, and diversity of Hinduism. Essays by acknowledged experts in the field present historical accounts of all major traditions, analyze key texts, engage with Hindu theology and philosophy, address contemporary questions of colonialism and identity, and more. Throughout the text, the authors highlight the links, common threads, and issues that reoccur in the history of Hinduism.

Fully revised and updated, the second edition of the Companion incorporates the most recent scholarship and reflects the trend away from essentialist understandings of Hinduism. New chapters examine the Goddess tradition, Hindu diaspora, Hinduism and inter-religious comparison, Hindu philosophy, and Indian astronomy, medicine, language, and mathematics. This edition places further emphasis on the importance of region-specific studies in analyzing Hinduism, discusses important theoretical issues, and offers fresh perspectives on current discourse in Hindu society and politics.

• Provides a thorough overview of major texts, their histories, and the traditions that preserve them
• Describes the major textual traditions in Sanskrit with examples in different Indian vernacular languages
• Addresses major issues and contemporary debates about the nature and study of Hinduism
• Discusses the importance of systematic, rational thinking in Indian sciences, philosophy, and theology
• Examines key socio-political themes in Hinduism that are of particular relevance to the modern world

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Hinduism, Second Edition is an excellent text for undergraduate courses on Hinduism in Religious Studies and Philosophy departments, and an invaluable resource for scholars and researchers in Hindu Studies.

Leseprobe

The Wiley Blackwell Companions to Religion

The Wiley Blackwell Companions to Religion series presents a collection of the most recent scholarship and knowledge about world religions. Each volume draws together newly-commissioned essays by distinguished authors in the field, and is presented in a style which is accessible to undergraduate students, as well as scholars and the interested general reader. These volumes approach the subject in a creative and forward-thinking style, providing a forum in which leading scholars in the field can make their views and research available to a wider audience.

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The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Hinduism, Second EditionEdited by Gavin Flood

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The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Catholicism, Second EditionEdited by Frederick C. Bauerschmidt, James J. Buckley, Jennifer Newsome Martin and Trent Pomplun

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Hinduism

Second Edition

Edited by

Gavin Flood

This edition first published 2022© 2022 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Edition HistoryBlackwell Publishing Ltd (1e, 2003)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Flood, Gavin, 1954- editor.Title: The Wiley Blackwell companion to Hinduism / edited by Gavin Flood.Other titles: The Blackwell companion to HinduismDescription: 2nd edition. | Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.Identifiers: LCCN 2021032467 (print) | LCCN 2021032468 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119144861 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119144878 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119144885 (epub) | ISBN 9781119144892 (ebook)Subjects: LCSH: Hinduism.Classification: LCC BL1202 .B72 2022 (print) | LCC BL1202 (ebook) | DDC 294.5--dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021032467LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021032468

Cover image: © Ganesh statue from Bhaktapur (Nepal). Courtesy of Tanja Louise JakobsenCover design by Wiley

Set in 10/12.5pt and Photina MT Std Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd, Pondicherry, India

To the memory of our colleagues:

Normal Cutler, Freda Matchett, André Padoux,

Ludo Rocher, and Frits Staal

Contents

Cover

Series page

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

List of Contributors

About the Editor

Preface to the First Edition and Acknowledgements

Preface to the Second Edition

Introduction: Establishing the Boundaries

Part I Theoretical Issues

1 Colonialism and the Construction of Hinduism

2 Orientalism and Hinduism

Part II Text and Tradition

The Sanskrit Textual Traditions

3 Vedas and Upani·sads

4 The The Dharma´sāstras

5 The Sanskrit Epics

6 The Purāṇas

7 The Bhagavad Gītā: Genesis of the Text, Its Messages, and Its Impact on the Mahābhārata and on Indian Religions and Philosophy

Textual Traditions in Regional Languages

8 Tamil Hindu Literature

9 The Literature of Hinduism in Malayalam

10 North Indian Hindi Devotional Literature

Major Historical Developments

11 The Śaiva Traditions

12 History of Vaiṣṇava Traditions: An Esquisse

13 Hinduism and the Goddess: Śākta Traditions

14 The Householder Tradition in Hindu Society

15 The Renouncer Tradition

Regional Traditions

16 The Teyyam Tradition of Kerala

17 The Month of Kārtik and Women’s Ritual Devotions to Krishna in Benares

18 Hindu Diasporas and Gods on the Move: Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage in Hindu Europe

Part III Systematic Thought

The Indian Sciences

19 Introduction

20 The Science of Language

21 Indian Mathematics

22 Calendar, Astrology, and Astronomy

23 The Science of Medicine

Philosophy and Theology

24 The Classical Worldview: Early Foundations of Hindu Philosophy

25 Hinduism and the Proper Work of Reason

26 Restoring “Hindu Theology” as a Category in Indian Intellectual Discourse

27 Mantra

28 Realism and Non-Realism in Indian Philosophy

29 Hinduism Compared

Part IV Society, Politics, and Nation

30 On the Relationship between Caste and Hinduism

31 Modernity, Reform, and Revival

32 The Goddess and the Nation: Subterfuges of Antiquity, the Cunning of Modernity

33 Gender in a Devotional Universe

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Chapter 13

Figure 13.1 Durgā as Devī Mahiṣ...

Chapter 16

Figure 16.1 The teyyam dancer reflexively experiences...

Figure 16.2 Vairajātan, a teyyam who embodies ...

Figure 16.3 The goddess Kuṇḍōṛ...

Chapter 21

Figure 21.1 Diagram by Bhāskara I, probably ...

Chapter 22

Figure 22.1 Precession of equinoxes.

Figure 22.2 The relation between saṃkrā...

Figure 22.3 Kṣayamāsa (amānta system).

Figure 22.4 Kṣayadina.

Figure 22.5 Adhikadina.

Chapter 32

Figure 32.1 Tamiḻttāy (Mother Tamil)...

Figure 32.2 Bhārat Mātā...

Guide

Cover

Series page

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Table of Contents

List of Contributors

About the Editor

Preface to the First Edition and Acknowledgements

Preface to the Second Edition

Begin Reading

Index

End User License Agreement

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List of Contributors

John Brockington is Professor Emeritus of Sanskrit and Indian Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

Francis Clooney SJ is the Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology, Harvard University.

Gérard Colas is Directeur de recherche, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Centre d’Études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud), Paris.

Norman Cutler (1949–2002) was Professor in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago.

Gavin Flood is Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion, Oxford University.

Jessica Frazier is Associate Professor, Faculty of Theology and Religion, Oxford University.

Rich Freeman is Professor, History Department, Duke University.

Jonardon Ganeri is Bimal Matilal Distinguished Professor in Philosophy at the University of Toronto.

Takao Hayashi is Professor of History of Science, Science and Engineering Research Institute, Doshisha University, Kyotanabe, Kyoto.

Knut A. Jacobesen is Professor of the History of Religions, University of Bergen.

Mislav Ježić is retired Professor of Indian Philology at the University of Zagreb.

Dermot Killingley is retired Reader in Religious Studies, University of Newcastle.

Reid Locklin is Associate Professor of Christianity and the Intellectual Tradition at the University of Toronto.

T.N. Madan is Honorary (Emeritus) Professor of Sociology, Institute of Economic Growth, University of Delhi.

Nancy M. Martin is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Freda Matchett (1926–2008) was Honorary Research Fellow, University of Lancaster.

Ionut Moise is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, College of Humanities, University of Exeter.

Vasudha Narayan is Professor, Department of Religion, University of Florida.

Patrick Olivelle is Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas.

André Padoux (1920–2017) was Directeur de recherche honoraire at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris.

Tracy Pintchman is Associate Professor at Loyola University of Chicago.

Declan Quigley has taught at the universities of Cambridge, St. Andrews, and Queen’s University, Belfast.

Sumathi Ramaswamy is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of History at Duke University.

Ludo Rocher (1926–2016) was Professor of South Asian Studies, University of Pennsylvania.

David Smith is retired Reader in Religious Studies, Department of Religious Studies, University of Lancaster.

Frits Staal (1930–2012) was Professor, Department of Philosophy and of South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley.

Gauri Viswanathan is Class of 1933 Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen is Research Lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and Associate Fellow in the Theology and Religion Faculty, Oxford University.

Michael Witzel is Professor of Sanskrit, Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University.

Dominik Wujastyk is Professor in the History and Classics Department, University of Alberta.

Michio Yano is Professor, Faculty of Cultural Studies, Kyoto Sangyo University, Japan.

About the Editor

Professor Gavin Flood FBA is Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion at Oxford University, Academic Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, and Senior Research Fellow at Campion Hall, Oxford. Among his publications are Religion and the Philosophy of Life (Oxford University Press, 2019) and Hindu Monotheism (Cambridge University Press, 2020). He was elected to the British Academy in 2014.

Preface to the First Edition and Acknowledgements

The purpose of this volume is to make available to a wide audience some of the most recent scholarship on the religions of South Asia within the broad category of Hinduism. While many scholars here would wish to place that category under scrutiny, there are nevertheless continuities of tradition and common features that have persisted over very long periods in South Asia. The intention of the book is to cover the major historical trajectories of the traditions that have led to Hinduism and to present accounts of recent developments of Hinduism along with some of the contemporary traditions that comprise it. There are, of course, problems in applying the term ‘religion’ to the history of South Asia, implying as it does in the West a distinction between religion and governance or between religion and science, which have not been universal distinctions. For this reason the book includes an account of historical developments in Indian science along with discussions of philosophy, religion, and politics.

The book contains essays both about the past – stretching back to the time of the composition of the Veda – and about the contemporary situation. Text-historical, anthropological, philosophical, theological, and cultural-critical approaches are therefore represented. This is in line with the broad belief that textual study can contribute to anthropology in South Asia and anthropology can illumine texts. And tools derived from more recent cultural criticism – especially feminism and postcolonial discourse – reveal dimensions to history and the study of texts that would not otherwise be seen. In these pages we also find theological and philosophical engagement with Hindu traditions. There are many ways of studying past cultures and civilizations, but arguably the best means of gaining access to the thoughts and feelings of people in the past and the institutions they inhabited is through the texts they produced. There has been discussion in recent years about the rematerialization of culture and the need to examine material culture in history. While archaeology, epigraphy, and the history of art are undoubtedly important, the emphasis of most scholars in this volume is on text and different readings of text, although some relate text to material history where this is possible and to contemporary practice. Conversely, the essays focusing on anthropological fieldwork often draw on the texts of tradition.

Inevitably, although unfortunately, there are gaps in what could be covered in the present volume. This is due partly to restrictions of space but also due to other contingencies beyond the editor’s control. We do not have, for example, specific essays on the Indus Valley civilization, yoga, ritual, the Hindu diaspora, the Goddess and the temple, nor on some major regional traditions. But even so, these essays present systematic accounts of the history of traditions and their texts, examples of important regional traditions, and accounts of the rise of modern Hinduism and its contemporary connections with nationalism and the politics of identity.

The book uses the standard, scholarly transliteration of Indian alphabets, although this is not consistently applied to all place names and some proper names. There is considerable variation in practice, as many names have common anglicized forms.

I would like to thank all the scholars who have participated in the project, particularly Rich Freeman, Patrick Olivelle, and Frits Staal for their encouragement and support, along with the team at Blackwell, particularly Alison Dunnett, Laura Barry, Rebecca Harkin, and Cameron Laux. I would also like to thank Alex Wright who, when at Blackwell, first suggested the project to me. I would like to acknowledge permission from Routledge to publish Jonardon Ganeri’s essay “The Motive and Method of Rational Inquiry,” first published in Philosophy in Classical India (Routledge, 2000). I would also like to acknowledge permission from Routledge to publish Gavin Flood’s “The Śaiva Traditions,” a version of which is published in S. Mittal, ed., The Hindu World (Routledge). The book is dedicated to the memory of Wilhem Halbfass, who made such a great contribution to the study of the Indian traditions, and to Norman Cutler, who sadly passed away before the publication of this book.

Preface to the Second Edition

It seems almost inconceivable that nineteen years have passed since the publication of the first edition of this book. Since then, many resources for the study of Hinduism have become available through the internet, with valuable resources from digitized manuscripts (at Gretil, Muktabodha, and the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, for example) to Encyclopedias (such as the Brill Encyclopedia of Hinduism edited by Knut Jacobsen, and the Oxford History of Hinduism edited by me). Sadly, several more colleagues are no longer with us. Some of the chapters have been updated to incorporate recent scholarship, new chapters have been added in response to readers’ suggestions and recommendations, and one chapter has been left out. In discussion with Professor Ram-Prasad FBA, we thought it best not to include a chapter on politics that is now outdated. But we have additional chapters on the Goddess tradition (a major lacuna in the first edition), Hindu diaspora, Hinduism and inter-religious comparison, and more chapters on systematic thought. I would like to thank Rebecca Harkin for suggesting a second edition, the team at Wiley Blackwell, and all the contributors to the new volume.

Introduction Establishing the Boundaries

Gavin Flood

That religion is still of central importance in today’s world can hardly be doubted, as we see in political contestation and violent conflict throughout the world. In South Asia religion is at the center of controversy and ideological battles and questions about what it is to be a Hindu in the twenty-first century are vibrant. Questions concerning the relation of Hinduism to state and global politics, to the individual, and to the politics of identity are of great relevance to Hindus everywhere. On the one hand we have seen the world shrink through globalization along with the late modern erosion of tradition, while on the other we have seen the reinvigoration of some traditions and the reanimation of traditional forms of knowledge (such as Ayurveda and Yoga). Secularists in India would wish to see the complete erosion of religion in the public sphere of governance and its relegation to the private realm, while many religious nationalists would wish to see even more growth in the influence of religion in the political and public arena. These debates are enacted through media and public discourse from academic to popular realms.

It is in the context of such vital issues that scholars in this book examine Hinduism in its widest sense, looking not only at questions of contemporary identity politics but also at historical questions and presenting historical accounts of particular texts and traditions. We certainly understand the present through the past, but we also wish to understand the past for the sake of increasing human knowledge. There is therefore great diversity in the following pages that seek both to account for the contemporary situation and to explain the historical trajectories that have led to the modern, global religion we call “Hinduism.” From ancient Tamil texts to contemporary politics, all the essays gathered here bear a relation to that nebulous abstraction and raise many questions. Are we dealing with a single religion, an essence manifested in different forms? Or is Hinduism a diversity of distinct traditions sharing certain common features with no single feature being shared by them all? Or are we dealing with a fragmented, cultural reality of widely diverse beliefs and practices, inappropriately classified as a single religion? All of these positions have been adopted in understanding Hinduism. The answers to these questions will depend upon the historical period in question and the methods employed in their study. Closely connected to the scope of the field are questions about how to study Hinduism, whether anthropology, philology, history of religions, theology, literary studies, archeology, or art history are appropriate methods, and questions about the different theoretical assumptions and implications of their use. The purpose of this introduction is therefore both to problematize “Hinduism” and to provide a context for the essays that follow.

What Is Hinduism?

A simple, if perhaps deceptively simple, response to this question is to say that Hinduism is a term denoting the religion of the majority of people in India and Nepal and of some communities in other continents who refer to themselves as “Hindu.” There are over 900 million people classed as Hindu in India by the census of India in 2011, which is just under 80% of the population, the remainder being classified as Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jain, Buddhist, and “other religions and persuasions.”1 Hindus are the majority population in India, Nepal, and Mauritius and the total Hindu population of the world is about a billion, 15% of the global population.2 Most Hindus are in India, which is in a vast continent with 18 official languages and many dialects. But if we begin to dig deeper, we see that the question is not so straightforward. Because the term denotes such a striking variety of beliefs, practices, and historical trajectories, some would wish to claim that the abstraction “Hinduism” is meaningless and without referent. But others, and this is particularly important in the contemporary politics of Hindu identity, would claim that Hinduism is indeed a unified field of belief, practice, and history, intimately linked to nationhood and the historical struggle of a people against its colonizers. On this view, Hinduism has an essence manifested in multiple forms. Others argue that while Hinduism does not denote a religion with clearly defined boundaries in a way that we might be able to define Christianity or Islam, it nevertheless denotes a group of traditions united by certain common features, such as shared ritual patterns, a shared revelation, a belief in reincarnation (saṃsāra), liberation (mokṣa), and a particular form of endogamous social organization or caste. This family resemblance approach nevertheless still requires judgments about which forms are prototypical and which are not, judgments which are themselves based on some pre-understanding of the tradition. Many would wish to claim, for example, that caste is not a necessary part of Hinduism whereas other features, such as devotion to a deity, are. “What is Hinduism?” is therefore a complex question the response to which ranges from claiming that Hinduism in a unified, coherent field of doctrine and practice to claiming that it is a fiction, a colonial construction based on the mis-categorization of indigenous cultural forms.

Defining the parameters of the term is not simply an exercise for scholars but is closely related to the questions, as Brian Smith observes, of “who speaks for Hinduism?” and “who defines Hinduism?” (Smith 2000, 741–742). This debate goes way beyond academic formulations and arguments in the academy into the politics of cultural identity and questions about power. But before we inquire into these questions of value, what of the term itself?

“Hindu” comes from a Persian word hind, or in Arabic al-hind, for the area of the Indus valley. This word is in turn derived from the Indo-Aryan sindhu meaning “ocean” or “river,” and from the eighth century, when Muslims settled in the Indus valley, Persian authors distinguished between Muslims and the non-Muslim “Hindus,” although it is not strictly true that the term was not used by those non-Muslims themselves. Sanskrit sources, however, are much later. In fifteenth-century Kashmir the Sanskritized term hindukaḥ is employed by the Śaiva historian Śrīvara to distinguish Muslims from non-Muslims (Sanderson 156 note 2) and the term was used in Sanskrit and Bengali Vaiṣṇava sources in the sixteenth century to denote those who were not “Yavanas” or Muslims (O’Connell 1973, 340–344). In these sources it seems to refer to groups united by certain common cultural practices, such as cremation of the dead and veneration of the cow, not practiced by the Muslims. Towards the end of the eighteenth century “Hindu” or “Hindoo” was adopted by the British to refer to the people of “Hindustan,” the area of northwest South Asia, who were not Muslim, Sikh, Christian, or Jain, and the “ism” was added to “Hindu” in the early nineteenth century. Indeed, Rammohun Roy was probably the first Hindu to use the term in 1816 (Killingley in this volume: 570. The term became widely adopted during the nineteenth century in the context of establishing a national identity that would become opposed to colonialism and in the creation of a religion that could match Christianity and meet it on a basis of equality (see Killingley and Viswanathan in this volume).

Many scholars have argued that the ascription of “Hinduism” to the multiplicity of South Asian traditions was an exercise in power and that the representation of India in western scholarship in terms of mysticism, caste, and kingship is an expression of the West’s desire for domination. On this view India as the West’s exotic other became identified with despotism, imagination, superstition, and irrationality in contrast to the democracy, reason, and science of the West arising out of the Enlightenment (Inden 1990; Balagangadhara 1994; King 1999). This postcolonial reading of Western scholarship’s engagement with India reveals a complex history, traced by Gauri Viswanathan in the present volume, which shows both positive and negative evaluations are nevertheless based on foundational assumptions about the nature of the West’s other. Others have argued not from the perspective of postcolonialism, but on the foundation of Western, philological scholarship itself, that the term “Hinduism” is a misnomer, an attempt to unify into a single religion what in fact is a number of distinct religions (for example, von Stietencron 1997, 32–53). Yet others argue that part of this error lies in the inappropriate use of the category “religion” in relation to the diversity of South Asian cultural forms, for that term has particular, Christian theological connotations (Staal 1989, 388–406; Fitzgerald 2000, 134–155). On this view, religion is a category that entails assumptions that belief has primacy over practice, that a person can only belong to one religion, that tradition stems from textual, written revelation, and that a religion is necessarily coherent.

But in spite of these criticisms there are nevertheless Hindu analogues to categories of revelation, tradition, theology, and practice, although these arguably do not point to a unitary referent. We might say, then, that Hinduism contains both uniting and dispersing tendencies that we might, borrowing from Bakhtin, call centripetal and centrifugal forces. On the one hand, there is the Sanskritic tradition of brahmanical orthodoxy, flowing from the ancient revelation of the Veda, concerned with correct ritual procedures, the maintenance of caste boundaries, and the interpretation of scripture. This is a decisive constraint on the traditions that comprise Hinduism. On the other hand, there is a great proliferation of decentered traditions, often founded by a charismatic teacher or guru, and communities expressed in vernacular languages that cannot be defined by a central, brahmanical tradition and which are often set against that tradition. The teyyam tradition of Kerala or the Sant devotional tradition of northern India would be examples here (see the essays by Freeman and Martin).

We can trace the history of the fairly recent term “Hindu” and “Hinduism” from its initial coinage by those outside of the Hindu fold to its appropriation as a term of self-description by Hindus themselves. Much before the nineteenth century, people of South Asia did not consider themselves to belong to a wider, united religious identity, but would rather be members of a tradition and community whose focus was a particular deity or practice, in particular the gods Viṣṇu, Śiva, Devī, or the Sun God. Vaiṣṇavas were focused on Viṣṇu, Śaivas on Śiva and Śāktas on the Goddess, or one could follow particular Tantras (tāntrika) and so on (Oberhammer 1997, 19). These would be as distinct as Buddhist or Jain traditions. But by the end of the first millennium CE, if not earlier, there were uniting features that cut across these diachronic processes, such as pilgrimage to sacred centers, particularly great regional temples, ritual offerings to deities in concrete form (mūrti), devotion (bhakti), and the practice of textual exegesis by scholars in centers of learning, although different traditions were antagonistic towards each other, Vaiṣṇavas regarding Śaivas as being beyond the pale of orthodoxy, for example, or enthusiastic Śaiva kings oppressing Vaiṣṇavas (Sanderson 2015, 207–214).

South Asian cultures are highly textualized in the widest sense of the term with many oral traditions, some of which stretch back thousands of years. There are traditions of Vedic recitation in several regions of India that function, as Michael Witzel says in this volume, as “three thousand year old tape recordings.” This revelation of the Veda, verses believed to have been revealed to and heard by (śruti) the ancient sages (ṛṣi), as symbol and legitimizing reference if not actual text, is central as a constraining influence on later traditions, providing the authority for tradition (Oberhammer 1997, 21–31). Some would argue that this is a defining feature of Hinduism (Smith 1988, 40). As constraining force, the Veda has been used to legitimize different philosophical positions, as the basis of Hindu law and power structures, and has provided a reference point against which some traditions and charismatic teachers have reacted. Whether accepted or rejected, whether traditions are indifferent to its injunctions, it is seldom ignored as symbol. As Heesterman observes, the hold of “Vedism” on Indian thought and imagination has persisted notwithstanding the cult of the temple, popular devotion, and tantric texts and practices (Heesterman 1993, 43). In order to attain some acquaintance with this complexity, a brief historical survey is in order.

The History of Hinduism

If by the end of the first millennium CE there was the beginning of a unified sense of various traditions in contrast to Buddhists and Jains, this itself began to emerge earlier, with traditions flowing through the generations and systems of knowledge passed down. Arguably the core tradition that gives a sense of unity to Hinduism is the Brahmanical, Vedic tradition: the tradition of texts and core values that emerges during the first millennium BCE. The earliest section of the Veda, the collection of hymns called the Ṛg-veda saṃhitā, was probably composed between 1400 and 1000 BCE (Jamieson and Brereton 2014, 5), followed by other texts in the genre. These scriptures comprise hymns to different deities, composed for and recited during sacrifice. Later genres of text, still regarded as revelation (śruti), the Brahmaṇas and Āranyakas, are reflections on the meaning of the rituals and the hidden connections between ritual and cosmos. The last layer of these textual traditions is the secret doctrine or Upaniṣads. The earliest of these (the Bṛhadāranyaka and Chāndogya) were composed around the seventh to sixth centuries BCE (Olivelle 1998, 12) and later texts up to the second century CE. These texts represent the emergence of philosophical reflection and themes that dominate Hindu discourse, such as the self (ātman), an absolute reality (brahman), the doctrine of action (karman), the cycle of reincarnation (saṃsāra), and liberation (mokṣa).

These texts, as Witzel shows in this volume, were mostly composed in north India towards the West, in the region that was to become known as the homeland of the Aryans (āryāvarta). This designated the region of the people who composed these texts, who called themselves the noble ones (ārya), speaking the well-formed language (saṃskṛta), and practicing a pastoral and semi-nomadic lifestyle. These groups of people arguably migrated into the plains of India from the north-west. This Aryan migration thesis has been questioned by some scholars who have argued that the much older Indus Valley civilization was the place of origin of Vedic tradition (see the discussion in Bryant 2001, Trautman 2005, and Staal 2008, 19–25) although it is probable that the Indus Valley civilization spoke a Dravidian language (Parpola 2015, 30–31.). There is genetic evidence for Aryan migration too, Indian people being largely descended from two divergent ancestral populations, one group, Ancestral North Indians being related to West Eurasians from Central Asia, the Middle East, Caucasus and Europe), the other group of Ancestral South Indians being related to Andaman islanders (Reich et al. 2009). In a nutshell, the problem is that we have to account for the spread of Indo-Aryan languages across the northern part of South Asia. While it is, of course, possible for language to spread without people, it is more likely that Sanskrit spread across the continent because spoken by migrating groups who spoke that language and the genetic evidence seems to support this.

The Vedic tradition itself undergoes a transformation from a focus on sacrifice to both a religion of householder affirmation of the values of duty and adherence to correct stages of life (varṇāśrama-dharma) and a religion of renunciation, that seeks to transcend social values in the affirmation of soteriology, which is also the realization of knowledge of the true meaning of sacrifice: individual renunciation is the deeper meaning of the social religion of sacrifice. Whether this religion of renunciation emerges entirely from within the Vedic tradition or is influenced from outside of that tradition, is another area of dispute. The ideals of renunciation and liberation could be seen to be essentially alien to the early Veda and are incorporated from renouncers called Śramanas, especially the Buddhists and Jains. Johannes Bronkhorst has argued, with a great deal of plausibility, that these traditions originate in a different location, namely Greater Magadha whose capital is present-day Patna and that this is the source for Vedic renunciation that is fundamentally antithetical to the social religion of the Vedic householder (Bronkhorst 2007).

By the early years of the first millennium CE, there was the continuing and uninterrupted tradition of the Veda and Brahmanical householder religion, a religion of renunciation that adhered to the view that the highest goal of life was escape from the cycle of reincarnation, and an emerging theism that maintained that a transcendent God is the source and being of the universe as well as the granter of liberation through his or her grace. The famous Bhagavadgītā is a fine example of the emergence of theism, where Kṛṣṇa is the transcendent Lord.

During the first millennium CE we have the development of features that we recognize in modern Hinduism: devotion (bhakti) to different gods, temple worship, gurus, pilgrimage, and methods of attaining liberation, particularly yoga and asceticism. During the Gupta period (3rd century-590 CE), religions focused on the main gods of Hinduism Viṣṇu, Śiva and the Goddess developed as well as orthodox or Smārta Brahman worship of five gods (Śiva, Viṣṇu, Gaṇeśa, the sun, and Devī). From around the ninth to the thirteenth century the religion of Śiva emerged as the dominant force supported by kings in south and south-east Asia (Sanderson 2009), fed by a stream of new revelations in texts called Tantra. The religions of Viṣṇu also developed during this time but flowered after this with major Vaiṣṇava sects in the South (the Śrī Vaiṣṇavas) and in Bengal (Gauḍiya Vaiṣṇavas). With the Mughal conquest of much of India, Hindu traditions continued to survive and some Hindu kings, such as Jai Singh II of Jaipur (1688–1743), developed a Hindu political theology, partly in response to Mughal power. In the nineteenth century in response to British colonialism, Hinduism emerges as a coherent force, the religion that is recognizable today. This brief overview of the history of Hinduism might be summarized as follows.

The Vedic Period (c. 1500 – second century

BCE

). During this period, we have the composition of Hindu scripture, the Veda, in its various layers. Vedic, public sacrifice is performed by Śrauta Brahmans who follow revelation (

śruti

) along with Brahmanical householder religion of Smārta Brahmans who adhere to duty or law (

dharma

) encoded in law books or texts of secondary revelation (

smṛti

). There is also the development of renunciation and ideas of liberation from the cycle of reincarnation.

The Emergence and Development of Theism (second century

BCE

– eighth century

CE

). During this period the major deities Śiva, Viṣṇu, and the Devī arise with their own scriptures, particularly expressed in the great epic literature (Mahābhārata and Rāmāyana), of which the Bhagavad-gītā is a part, and in the Purāṇas or ancient narratives of gods and kings. Devotion (

bhakti

) is an important form of worship that develops during this time, expressed as making offerings to a deity (

pūjā

) in iconic form in temples.

The Śaiva Age (eighth to thirteenth centuries). During this period an additional revelation to the Veda developed called the Tantras. These were mostly and originally focused on Śiva as the transcendent Lord who creates, maintains, and destroys the universe as well as revealing and concealing himself. Śaiva ritual tradition comes to absorb Tamil devotionalism.

This period is also marked by the rise of Goddess worship and the coming to prominence of Devī in her forms as Durgā and Kālī. The Śākta tradition develops alongside the Śaiva as a distinct form of religion with its own revelation and practices, sometimes transgressive of orthodox Brahmanical values.

The Vaiṣṇava period (thirteenth to eighteenth centuries). After the decline of Śaivism, Vaiṣṇava sects develop more robustly, especially the Śrī Vaiṣṇava tradition in the South, as well as Bengal Vaiṣṇavism. This religion is characterized by devotion (

bhakti

).

The Modern period (nineteenth century – present). Intellectually Hinduism develops a voice in response to colonialism with important thinkers such as Rammohan Roy rethinking what Hinduism is. This trajectory of thought continues with the Brahmo and Arya Samaj through to modern day political Hinduism and global Hinduism.

Throughout this long history, the Veda as revelation has been a major reference point. Given this reference point, we might say that both centripetal and centrifugal tendencies operate through this history in three interrelated realms, namely discourse (vāda) or thought systems, ritual (yajña, pūjā), and narrative (itihāsa).

Discourse

Discourse or reflection and philosophical commentary developed from an early date in the history of Hinduism. The ancient texts of the Veda reflect a symbolic world in which ritual, notably sacrifice performed by a priest for a patron, was central to the thriving of the community. Speculation about the meaning of the sacrifice developed in texts still regarded as revelation, in the theological and ritual commentary of the Brahmaṇas and Upaniṣads (see Witzel in this volume), and various traditions of textual exegesis and philosophy developed from around the fifth century BCE. These were expressed in the sacred language of Sanskrit in commentaries on sacred scripture and on aphorisms (sūtra) formulated within particular schools. The grammatical analysis of the language of revelation, along with the etymological and semantic exploration of language, came to be a prime concern (Kahrs 1998; Staal in this volume). Other sciences also developed such as astronomy and medicine (see Wujastyk and Yano in this volume). The six major thought systems of Indian philosophy or “critical worldviews” (darśaṇa), namely the three pairs Sāṃkhya-Yoga, Mīmāṃsā-Vedānta, and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika), considered to be “orthodox” because of their acceptance of the revelation of the Veda, follow the pattern of their tenets being articulated in aphorisms and commentaries explaining their meaning. There are other systems outside of this list, with the Śaiva, Buddhist and Jain traditions participating in a shared discourse, along with the extremely important discourse about law (dharmaśāstra) that strongly influenced British rule in India (see Rocher in this volume and Olivelle and Davis 2018).

By the early centuries CE the textual traditions had defined their boundaries in relation to each other and had developed a shared language with shared categories, and thinkers in the various traditions were well versed in their opponents’ texts and arguments. The authors of these texts were often, although not necessarily, world renouncers who had chosen the fourth estate or stage of life (āśrama) (see Olivelle and Madan in this volume). We can note here the highly orthodox Mīmāṃsaka exegetes, whose focus was the interpretation of Vedic injunction, the Sāṃkhya dualists, and the Vedānta, which developed a number of metaphysical positions in its history from Śaṅkara’s nondualism to Madhva’s dualist theology. The Śaiva traditions were also important in this picture, regarding their own scriptures, the Tantras, as transcending the lower revelation of the other schools, with the Buddhists and Jains rejecting the very idea of sacred revelation. The tenth-century Śaiva theologian Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha, for example, knew the texts of other traditions and placed these at lower levels of understanding and attainment to his own in the hierarchical, Śaiva cosmos (Goodall 1998, 177; Sanderson 2007) a feature common in the tantric traditions. This is a long way from the idea of tolerance that develops with modern Hinduism or the idea of modern, inclusivist interpreters of Hinduism that all paths lead to a common goal. At this period, we have rigor of debate and the aggressive defense of the truth of one’s tradition against rival philosophical and theological claims.

One response to the question “who speaks for Hinduism?” would therefore be that we should listen to the theologians and religious experts who have discussed questions of the text, of practice, and of metaphysics in a sustained way over centuries. The foremost object of the historian of religion, as some scholars have argued, is its theological articulation, particularly focusing on a tradition’s canon and its exegesis (Smith 1982, 43, 2000, 744–745; Olivelle 1993, 7–8). In studying Hinduism, we are studying textual traditions with high degrees of reflexivity, traditions, as Alexander Piatigorsky has observed, which have already studied themselves (Piatigorsky 1985). But while there may have been a shared language and terminology, because of the diversity of these philosophical accounts of the world, it is clearly not doctrine that could define Hinduism. The unity provided by textual exegesis in commentary is not a unity of content but a unity of genre, a common reference point in the Veda, and a unity of shared metaphysical concerns.

Ritual

Alongside this shared discourse practiced over the centuries by the high-caste, literate minority, we have popular ritual that has served to provide some coherence to the diversity. Traditionally, ritual has constrained a Hindu’s life from birth through marriage to death in the life-cycle rites (saṃskāra), and ritual orders social relationships and relationships with divine, embodied beings, the gods of temple and shrine. Ritual is passed through the generations from teacher to student and from mother to child, and while ritual changes, it does so at a much slower rate than other social forms. The relationship between ritual and social history is difficult to assess. All ritual forms have originated at a particular historical period, some have died out, but others have persisted with great tenacity and resistance to change over time. Vedic ritual, such as the elaborate Śrauta transformations of the sacrifice, still persists (Staal 1983). While there has been erosion of tradition with modernity, especially in an urban context, this detraditionalization has also been accompanied by a retraditionalization and traditions reinventing themselves and reconstituting ritual forms. We can see this, for example, with tantric traditions in Kerala and Tamilnadu where a temple priest might perform an old ritual enjoined in the tantric texts in a temple with no previous history of the rite.

The English word “ritual” covers a wide range of human behaviors from elaborate offerings to simple gestures, whereas Sanskrit analogues have more specific reference. In a Hindu context, the central structure of the rite known as pūjā is modeled on the gift; the gesture of making an offering to a deity or esteemed person and in return receiving a blessing. There are many social implications of gift giving in Hindu society and gods who receive gifts, as Brahmans who receive gifts from a donor, might also be seen to be absorbing the impurity of the donor (Raheja 1988; Parry 1994; see Quigley in this volume). The god, then, is an honored guest akin to a king who has the power to absolve the person making the offering (Fuller 1992, 107). There are principally two realms where pūjā has been enacted, in the public space of the temple and in the domestic sphere of the home. The temple as a home for a god developed around 700 CE and temple ritual became all-pervasive and a marker of social boundaries. Large regional temples developed which housed great deities such as the dancing Śiva at Cidambaram or Lord Jagannātha, a form of Viṣṇu at Puri, and local temples and shrines housed local deities. Different deities and kinds of substance offered, have been closely related to social differentiation, with higher castes being focused on the great deities of the Hindu pantheon and lower castes being focused on local, often ferocious, deities, particularly goddesses (Babb 1975). While high-caste deities and temples generally accept only vegetarian offerings, lower-caste deities at local shrines and temples in order to be appeased often demand offerings of blood and alcohol as well (see Freeman’s essay on the teyyams of Kerala). Ritual serves to highlight social difference not only through inclusion, but more importantly, through exclusion and high-caste pūjā in temples has excluded the lower castes who might, in the eyes of the Brahmans, pollute the sacredness of the deity’s home.

Along with the shared pattern of making an offering and receiving a blessing, usually in the form of food offered to the deity and received back as blessed food (prasāda), there is a common notion that sacred power is embodied in particular, concrete forms (mūrti, vigraha). Furthermore, this sacred power is manipulable by specialists, temple or shrine priests, with the authority to do so. A ritual of consecration in which the consciousness or power of the deity is brought into the image awakens the icon in a temple. This consciousness or sacred power can be transferred; thus, it can be temporarily placed in the festival icon (utsava vigraha) for the purpose of parading the deity for the community to receive the god’s vision (darśaṇa, see Eck 1981). Or sacred power can also enter or be placed in human beings, who become vessels for the god’s presence in the community, perhaps during an annual festival (see, for example, Hiltebeitel 1991; Freeman on teyyams in this volume; Smith 2006).

Ritual as the patterning of life from birth to death is shared by Hindu traditions and communities. Not only the fundamental structure of making an offering to a deity and receiving a blessing is common but also the ordering of time with clearly demarcated boundaries. An orthodox Brahman traditionally adhered to the stages of life’s way as a student, householder, hermit and renouncer, as well as social position or class as Brahman, ruler (Kṣatriya), commoner (Vaiśya) and serf (Śūdra). Caste is a complexifying of this scheme along a scale of purity and pollution.

Narrative

Closely related but not co-extensive with ritual are the regional narratives in local languages and transregional narratives of the Sanskritic tradition. The close connection between ritual and myth is attested in the Veda, which records some myths and alludes to others, and many of those stories are developed at a later date. There are two important groups of narrative traditions: the epics comprising the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa (see Brockington in this volume) and the vast collections of “ancient stories,” the Purāṇas (see Matchett in this volume). The epics reflect the rise of the theistic traditions and devotion (bhakti) and are concerned with the restoration of righteousness (dharma); a theme expressed in the idea of the incarnations (avatāra) of the supreme deity Viṣṇu, so richly elaborated in the Purāṇas. These Sanskrit narrative traditions develop themes present in the Veda, particularly the symbolism of the sacrifice (yajña), and have penetrated all levels of society and different regional languages. Thus, there are local versions and interpretations of the epic stories, recited in the villages and enacted in rituals (the cult of Draupadī in Tamilnadu, for example, see Hiltebeitel 1991). The stories also reflect social tensions between Brahman and King. The King cannot be without the authentication of the Brahmans who are in turn entirely dependent upon the King (Biardeau 1997, 78). The King and the Brahman have been understood as representing a conflict in tradition between the King’s order of war and justice, embroiled as he is in the impurity of death, and the Brahman’s and world renouncer’s realm of transcendence. The King desires to participate in the sacred level of the Brahman, but through performing rituals for the King the Brahman becomes entangled in the world and moves away from the ideal of transcendence (Heesterman 1976, 7–9). The marvelous myths of the Purāṇas can be seen as reflecting attempts by a group of Brahmans called Smārtas, the followers of secondary revelation (smṛti), to bring diversity under a single, overarching and controlling system during the Gupta and post-Gupta period (300–700 CE).

But the dominance of the Sanskrit narrative traditions should not occlude the importance of regional narratives in local languages and the great narrative traditions of the South, especially in Tamil. Here we have Tamil versions of the Sanskrit material along with other accounts of myth and history particular to Tamil culture. Long before the influence of Sanskrit or Brahmanical culture, Tamil culture was already rich in narrative traditions and all northern influences were adapted to Tamil sensibilities and ways. Of particular importance are the genres of Tamil poetry of love and war and devotional literature expressing an intense devotion to different forms of Śiva and Viṣṇu (see Cutler in this volume).

Political Essentialism

Because of this narrative and ritual diversity, some scholars have expressed skepticism about the category “Hinduism” and even “Hindu.” But nevertheless, both terms are here to stay and indeed can be meaningfully used. A last point needs to be made, namely that the term “Hindu” has become charged with cultural and political meaning and arouses strong feelings when its integrity is apparently threatened, as, for example, by the controversial claim that Hindus have been beef eaters at times in their history (Jha 2002). Hinduism is part of the cultural politics of India and the term “Hindu” is now highly politicized as a sign around which to gather the hopes and aspirations of major sections of Indian society as are particular religious symbols such as the personification of the Tamil language (see Ramaswamy in this volume). V. D. Savarkar, a president of the Hindu Mahasabha (1937–1942), a party that set itself against Congress and the Muslim League in the days before independence, in his highly influential book Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? (1923) distinguishes between “Hindu Dharma,” the various traditions subsumed under the term “Hinduism,” and “Hindutva” or “Hinduness,” a sociopolitical force to unite all Hindus against “threatening Others” (Jaffrelot 1996, 25–33). It is hindutva