On Wearing Good Lenses

Lenses used through the years

Pejorative putdown Romanticism “Noble savage" Interpretation by imposition "Benign neglect"

On understanding the "nature" of religion Recommended reading

How clearly can you see? This is an apt question as one begins an attempt to understand the religious heritage of India.

This is also an apt question because it invites us to check our lenses before we start this enterprise. What one sees in the Indian setting is often a product of how one sees. We bring agendas, presuppositions, and images to our examination of Indian religion which may not be accurate or helpful. It is important in our viewing that we be self-conscious of the lenses we bring. As one studies Indian religion, one finds that there is wisdom in stepping into the optometrist’s office to check one’s focus and the adequacy of one’s vision.

Lenses used through the years

Seeing clearly is especially important when one reflects on the various lenses that have been worn throughout the years by those purporting to interpret the religious landscape of the Indian subcontinent. All of us stand in a long line of “viewers” whose lenses have colored, shaped (often mis-shaped) that landscape. Those lenses have affected the kinds of books that have been written on India, for every book about India, even every translation, reflects the viewpoint of the writer or the translator.

It may be useful as we begin this journey toward understanding to make self-conscious a few of the lenses that have been employed in the interpretation of India. Five such points of view will illustrate the dynamic.

Pejorative putdown

One of the least desirable perspectives that have been used in the inter­pretation of India is that which has described her in such terms as “heathen,” or “benighted.” One of the early expressions of this point of view occurs in a book by William Ward, written around the turn of the nineteenth century. Ward was a member of the “Serampore Trio,” the first English-speaking missionaries in India; Ward was seeking to gain England’s support for the missionary enterprise. His strategy was to record all the negative things he could observe about the India of his time, taking little care to put things in perspective or engage in objective historical scholarship. His conclusions are expressed baldly in the preface of his book:

There is scarcely anything in Hindooism, when truly known, in which a learned man can delight, or of which a benevolent man can approve; and I am fully persuaded, that there will soon be but one opinion on the subject, and that this opinion will be, that the Hindoo system is...the most PUERILE, IMPURE, AND BLOODY OF ANY SYSTEM OF IDOLATRY THAT WAS EVER ESTABLISHED ON EARTH. [sic]¹

Ward’s relentlessly dark descriptions of infanticide, widow burning, and other excesses, accompanied by letters and reports from some other missionaries, informed the mind-set of some Christians in England and North America for generations. This perception was expressed by a verse in a nineteenth-century children’s book, entitled “The Heathen Mother”:

See that heathen mother stand

Where the sacred current flows;

With her own maternal hand

Mid the waves her babe she throws.

Hark! I hear the piteous scream;

Frightful monsters seize their prey,

Or the dark and bloody stream

Bears the struggling child away.

Fainter now, and fainter still, Breaks the cry upon the ear; But the mother’s heart is steel She unmoved that cry can hear.

Send, oh send the Bible there,

Let its precepts reach the heart;

She may then her children spare -

Act the tender mother’s part.²

This attitude persisted in much of the literature on India into the twentieth century. Katherine Mayo, an American writer, published Mother India in 1927. Purporting to be a friend of India, after a six-month trip, she nonetheless described India as a chamber of horrors from child-marriage and the low status of widows to unsanitary conditions, untouchability, the arrogance of brahmans and a host of other presumed shortcomings.³ Needless to say, Mayo’s “friendly advice” generated a hailstorm of reactions.

While this pejorative attitude was often the handmaiden of colonialism, it has not been the possession of Westerners alone. Certain Indian expatriates or their descendants have entertained pejorative perceptions of the homeland of their ancestors. Nobel-prize winning V. S. Naipaul, for example, after his first visit to India, wrote India: A Wounded Civilization, a book in which he recorded his embarrassment and revulsion of anything which he did not appreciate. Naipaul’s views of India have moderated and become more sympathetic with subsequent visits, but the first impressions as expressed in his first book on India clearly revealed an “expat” delighted to be away from the subcontinent.

Pejorative attitudes continue to be expressed even into the present day. They surface in some American responses to the increased visibility of Hindus and Hindu temples in the US from “dot-busters” who harass Indian women to those writers of letters to the local paper in Aurora, Illinois, who, worried about the building of a Hindu temple in their city, voiced concern that the city would now be overrun with rats! Vandalism on newly dedicated Hindu temples (such as at theJain-Hindu temple near Pittsburgh) and declarations by church bodies (like the Southern Baptist convention in 1999) that Hindus in the US needed to be “evangelized” perpetuate this image of a less than civilized India.

Romanticism

The apparent opposite of the arrogance of pejorative attitudes is that of selective romanticism. The romantic view of India goes back to at least the Greek period when Herodotus, Horace, and others rhapsodized about India’s fantastic wealth and extreme forms of religion. Basing his comments on reports from travelers and the presence of Buddhists and Jain ascetics in certain cities of the Mediterranean region, the Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the fifth century bce, for example, wrote of enormous ants, gigantic eels, fabulous gold and jewelry, as well as religious extremities.⁴

This tendency toward romantic overstatement in both India and the West is found in a whole range of writers, travelers, and scholars. In American history, this attitude was expressed, for example, in Walt Whitman’s cele­bration of India’s “primordial wisdom”: India was the “soothing cradle of man,” “the past lit up again,” “the old, most populous, wealthiest of Earth’s lands,” the home of “wisdom’s birth,” “reason’s early paradise,” and source of “innocent intuitions.”⁵

Romanticism has sometimes taken a dangerous turn as when it feeds into certain forms of nationalism. In nineteenth-century Germany, for example, many intellectuals discovering Indian thought through still imperfect translations, saw in the texts affirmation of their own beliefs. Schopenhauer wrote of the Upanisadic collection that it was an “incomparable book” that:

stirs the spirit to the very depths of the soul. From every sentence deep, original, and sublime thoughts arise and the whole is pervaded by a high and holy and earnest spirit. Indian air surrounds us and original thoughts of kindred spirits. And oh, how thoroughly is the mind here washed clean of all early engrafted Jewish superstitions, and of all philosophy that cringes before these superstitions. In the whole world there is no study except that of the originals, so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Oupnekhat.

In a similar vein, Nietzsche, in first reading a translation of the Laws of Manu, saw in its presumed attitudes toward untouchables (candalas) a verification of his own sense of the “superman” (Übermensch) and the inferiority of those not considered “Aryan.”⁷

There have also been those Indians who, in the face of coloniality, have come to view their own tradition romantically. One of the earliest Indian travelers to the West, Abu Taleb, a Muslim, first sounded the often repeated notion of India’s spiritual superiority in the face of Western materialism. Vivekananda, upon his visit to the US in the late 1800s rhapsodized what a “beautiful sight it would be if Indian civilization should be the foundation on which European civilization is to be built.”⁸

In more recent years, romanticism has stimulated forms of Hindu nationalism and the reimagining of India’s gloried past. Partially in response to colonialism and the critiques of Westerners, there has been a resurgence of Hindu pride, not least of all in the Indian diaspora; this nationalistic romanticism has become yet another lens by which India has been viewed: India is sometimes presented as the “cradle” of civilization; the eternal abode of religion (i.e., sanatana dharma - eternal dharma); the source of “Indo­European” culture; and the spring of the world’s spiritual resources. History has been reimagined by some so as to dismiss immigrants to the sub­continent (such as Christians and Muslims are said to be) as extraneous to the Hindu motherland and to claim antiquity for the particular form of religion one practices, be it the worship of Rama or vegetarianism. A call for renewed virility, whether of one’s own body or of the nation, often accompanies this perspective. Sorting out reality from perception becomes more difficult for the scholar in the context of this exuberant nationalism.

At its worst then, romanticism has fed into forms of nationalism and the excessive glorification of the past.

The difficulty with romanticism as a scholarly lens, in short, is that it picks and chooses what it will study and celebrate. It tends to “commodify” Indian religion and thought as “things” which can be purchased as if from a bazaar as desired. It commonly glorifies a past without facing up to the realities either of history or of the present. More seriously, romanticism is often a form of self-love - it takes seriously, studies, and celebrates that which reflects one’s own values, and it interprets the “other” in the image of the self. In contrast, serious historians are obliged, as much as possible, to see the whole picture and seek to understand the parts (even those that seem less than pleasant) in terms of the whole.

“Noble savage"

Yet another lens which has been used to view Indian religion is characterized by the term “noble savage” made famous by the philosopher Rousseau. It lies somewhere between romanticism and disdain, but tends to be more paternalistic. It characterizes a tradition in relatively positive terms as the reflection of a primal innocence or even nobility. But as with the romantics of the post-Enlightenment period, there is an assumption that things pro­gress for the better. The assumption, often implied, is that this innate nobility will be capped or fulfilled by that which the West affords.

One is tempted to include in this mode of viewing the work of one of the early “Western” interpreters of India - Al-BirUni. Far more sensitive to Indian religion than many of the European interpreters who succeeded him, this eleventh-century Muslim astronomer worked with brahman pundits, studied Sanskrit and certain texts, and found in them much that reminded him of his own religion - Islam. Al-Birtini confessed to having a “great liking for the subject [of Indian culture and religion]” and claims that his intention is mostly to “simply relate without criticizing.”¹⁰ Where there were differences from his own belief system, he offers plausible excuses, implying the subcontinent had not had the opportunities for more enlightening revelations. He concludes his descriptions, nonetheless, with this reason for his study:

We have here given an account of these things in order that the reader may learn by the comparative treatment of the subject how much superior the institutions of Islam are, and how much more plainly this contrast brings out all customs and usages, differing from those of Islam, in their essential foulness.¹¹

Some later missionary scholars and translators similarly had a genuine appreciation for aspects of the Hindu tradition, though they often attributed these positive developments either to the influence of Christianity or saw them as intimations of Christianity. G. U. Pope, for example, in translating in the nineteenth century the devotional poetry of the ninth-century (dates uncertain) Tamil saint, Manikkavacakar, celebrated the notions of grace (arul) and divine love (anpu), which he thought were reminiscent of Christian pietism. Some missionary scholars of the twentieth century thought of Hinduism as a “preparatio evangelica” with the same relationship to Christianity as the Hebrew Bible or Greek mythology had - fulfilled, that is, by Christian teachings. The title of one of J. N. Farquhar’s books, The Crown of Hinduism, reflects this attitude, inasmuch as Farquhar saw Christianity as the fulfillment of Hinduism. R. Panikkar’s The Unknown Christ of Hinduism conveys a similar theme: there are thought to be intimations of Christianity even where not consciously seen by non-Christian adherents.¹²

Another term for this viewpoint may be “religionism,” which, however unintended, might be seen as the sibling of racism and sexism. Religionism is the propensity to understand and evaluate another’s religion in terms derived from one’s own religion. Almost invariably in these kinds of comparisons, the “other’s” religion is viewed less favorably than one’s own.

The story is probably apocryphal, but a quote ascribed to Marco Polo aptly summarizes the spirit of those who see in Asian religions the “noble savage”: “If Buddha had only been baptized a Christian he would have been a great saint before God.”

Interpretation by imposition

This lens consists in the tendency to see the history, culture, and religious life of India in terms of preconceived theories and assumptions. Any number of scholars in seeking to interpret Indian peoples have employed a variety of theoretical models, not all of which have been faithful to the data, and virtually none tell the whole story. Early scholars like Oldenberg, for example, following E. B. Tylor and the general assumptions of the late 1800s, assumed cultural evolution was a fact of life. Hence, for Oldenberg, the Vedas were a “primitive” form of religion which evolved and culminated in the flowering of Buddhism.¹³ Similarly, Indian rituals have been variously interpreted by theories extant at the time of the interpretation: as a form of cosmogony or re-creation of the world (Eliade¹⁴), as the following of lin­guistic structures (Staal¹⁵) or “archetypal” rules (Humphrey and Laidlaw¹⁶), the exchange of honors (Appadurai, et alf⁷); and many others. At the same time, some social scientists have tended to read into Indian social and religious life patterns sometimes derived from Western sources. Max Weber, for example, after exploring the connections between Protestantism and capitalism, concluded that there was no similar apparatus which made capitalism plausible in India - hardly an accurate perception. ¹⁸ Peter Berger concluded (without doing primary research in Indian sources) that the notions of karma and dharma found in Indian religion were forms of religious masochism!¹⁹ Some interpreters of Indian religion like Weber (and Albert Schweitzer in his Indian Thought and Its Development) claimed that the basic Indian worldview was life and world negating, hence, “other­worldly,” which only in modern time (thanks presumably to Western influence) has become more socially conscious. Persistent perceptions such as these are not only inaccurate; they have also colored much Western discourse about India.

There are certain basic assumptions which need to be challenged as one begins to study Indian religion. One of these is what might be called “tempocentrism.” This is a view that understands the “modern” to be the optimal moment in history, the apex of human achievement; development, often understood in economic terms, is thought to be superior to something called “tradition.” The “past” is presumed to be bad or primitive and “tradi­tion” something that needs to be discarded. In fact, India’s past has been rich indeed, and, as we shall note later, “tradition” and “modernity” are not opposites. Indeed, the modern moment in India is frequently characterized by selective appropriation from the past, and the construction of “tradition.”

Another of these basic assumptions is the supremacy of a “logocentric” approach to knowledge - that is, the idea that the word or the text should have priority in one’s study of people. Many in the West, especially those engaged in the study of religion, have assumed that texts embody the quintessence of religion. Of course, Indian religion includes a vast reservoir of texts; but of at least equal importance in the expression of religion on the subcontinent is the role played by ritual, iconography, temple architecture, and other manifestations of visible, even somatic, expressions. Further, we soon learn that one cannot entirely trust any book (including this one) which purports to interpret Indian religions, for every book has a point of view; even every text written in India reflects the milieu of its author.

Yet another perspective that inhibits the study of Indian religion is that which assumes that certain forms of practice derived from India are the same as the classical forms of religion found in India. Nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than in the way yoga has been appropriated in the West. Yoga has become a form of bodily exercise, taught in churches and YMCAs, usually stripped of its cosmological and soteriological underpinnings. It has been adapted to the Western penchant for health and bodily fit­ness, but is not necessarily consistent with the way it was understood or practiced in classical India. Similarly, various techniques of meditation have been marketed in the West as “quick fixes” for whatever ails one and have been accommodated to various religious orientations. One cannot assume these Westernized practices are one and the same as classical practices of meditation in India.

In short, some of our perceptions of religion in India need to be unlearned or, at least, “put on hold,” as one seeks to gain a balanced under­standing of religion on the subcontinent. There is a need to re-examine the presuppositions, theories, and paradigms with which any author or student engages in the study of religion in India.

“Benign neglect"

Yet another lens commonly used in approaches to people of alternate religions or cultures is one that can be euphemistically called “benign neglect.” This is an approach that assumes one can live in one’s own world and let the “others” live in theirs. This may be the most common approach in the American and European attitudes toward India. After all, in American schools, a student is lucky in the course of twelve years of schooling to have had more than three to five hours of study on India. American history is presumed to have started in Greece and Rome, worked its way through Europe, and culminated in North America. Further, many religious persons and communities, whether in India or in the United States, tend to live, think, and interact socially within religious enclaves. Many undergraduates still receive baccalaureate degrees without ever having studied seriously a culture outside their own.

There are a number of reasons why “benign neglect” is no longer a viable option (if indeed it ever was). For one thing, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists are no longer exotic objects existing on the opposite side of the world; nor are Christians and Jews to be found only in “the West.” All are neighbors living in cities of North America and Europe and on every populated continent. A globalized world makes it no longer possible to ignore people who may be different. Indeed, to paraphrase James Baldwin, “to ignore a person is to think of him/her as dead.” In that sense, to avoid study of any culture or peoples becomes a form of psychic or academic genocide. Further, one does not understand oneself without the context of difference: self-understanding is enriched, perhaps even made possible, only in the context of understanding others. Moreover, people who do not make an effort to understand another’s point of view are destined eternally to be “victims” - victims, that is, of any demagogue who wants to characterize, stereotype, or demonize the other.

Violence in the name of religion has become commonplace in today’s world. Many factors go into these eruptions - economic disparity, political marginalization, the quest for ethnic territory or personal space; cynical exploitation by the powerful; and many other factors. But invariably in the mix is a basic ignorance - ignorance of the religious and cultural values of others as well as an ignorance of the finitude and limitations of one’s own religious commitments.

The study of the religions of India is an invitation to a pilgrimage - a pilgrimage of understanding a rich, multifaceted, complex universe as well as a pilgrimage to self-understanding. For as we let “India” ask its questions of us, we find we are constantly in need of rethinking our answers and refocusing our lenses.