One of the most popular stories found in the Upaniṣads centers around a debate between the ritualist and philosopher, Yājñvalkya, and a series of interlocutors about the nature of sacrifice, the ...self, and the cosmos. This story, from a textual—historical perspective, is unique in that the last interlocutor, Śākalya, is said to die by having his head shatter because he is unable to answer a question about the fundamental nature of immortality. In this paper, I analyze the interrelationship of these two main characters and argue that this relationship is one key to not only understanding the portrayal of these characters, but also the larger import of this debate about immortality. I provide an intratextual rationale for the head-shattering conclusion and discuss how character and doctrine are fundamentally intertwined in this text.
Who Invented Hinduism? Lorenzen, David N.
Comparative studies in society and history,
10/1999, Letnik:
41, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Over the past decade, many scholars have put forward the claim that Hinduism was constructed, invented, or imagined by British scholars and colonial administrators in the nineteenth century and did ...not exist, in any meaningful sense, before this date.I thank many scholars for their comments on this and earlier versions of this essay, particularly Saurabh Dube and Sabyasachi Bhattacharya. Prominent among scholars who have made this constructionist argument, if I can call it that, are Vasudha Dalmia, Robert Frykenberg, Christopher Fuller, John Hawley, Gerald Larson, Harjot Oberoi, Brian Smith, and Heinrich von Stietencron.See Dalmia 1995; Frykenberg 1989; Fuller 1992; Hawley 1991; Larson 1995; Oberoi 1994:16–17; B. Smith 1989; Stietencron 1989 and 1995. W. C. Smith is sometimes identified, quite correctly, as a noteworthy precursor of these scholars.Smith 1991. First ed. 1962. Romila Thapar (1985; 1989, 1996) and Dermot Killingley (1993:61–64) have offered somewhat similar arguments, but both display greater sensitivity to historical ambiguities, distributing the construction of a distinctly modern Hinduism among British orientalists and missionaries and indigenous nationalists and communalists. Carl Ernst (1992:22–29, n.b. 23) discusses early Muslim references to “Hindus” and their religion, but he joins the above scholars in claiming that the terms “do not correspond to any indigenous Indian concept, either of geography or religion.” J. Laine (1983) agrees with Smith and his modern epigones that Hinduism was invented in the nineteenth century, but credits the invention to the Indians rather than to the British.
Jie Shi analyzes the sixth-century epitaph of Prince Shedi Huiluo as both a funerary text and a burial object in order to show that the means of achieving posthumous immortality radically changed ...during the Six Dynasties. Whereas the Han-dynasty vision of an immortal afterlife counted mainly on the imperishability of the tomb itself, Shedi s epitaph predicted that the tomb housing it would eventually be ruined. This new, pessimistic vision of tombs was shaped by the experience people had in the Six Dynasties of encountering numerous ruined tombs in their daily life. To secure an afterlife for the deceased, they adopted a new strategy, which relied on words: they inscribed epitaphs on stone, concealed them in the tombs, and expected that after the tombs fell into ruin the epitaphs would resurface to be read by future audiences.
Hard-core Tantric practice is disgusting, a point several scholars make. Scholarly interpretations of Tantric disgustingness, however, tend to follow the lead of Mary Douglas in suggesting that what ...disgusts is ultimately a reflection of social-historical concerns with borders and boundaries. Such interpretations fail to take seriously the Tantric consumption of feces, menstrual blood, urine, semen, and phlegm. Likewise, they fail to take seriously the particular sexual act involved, that is, intercourse with a menstruating, riding-astride, out-of-caste, mother-substitute. Consulting contemporary disgust research, I suggest that hard-core Tantra is literally disgusting because it is literally maladaptive. Disgust was naturally selected to deter the ingestion of bio-toxic pathogens as well as the practice of suboptimal sexual intercourse. Disgust maintains the species' viability. Tantra confounds disgust and thus disgusts. Tantra engages antibiological behaviors in its characteristically religious war against the body. As a disgusting religion, Tantra may be a perfected religion.
This article compares the oldest Hindu versions of the Golden Rule found in the Mahabharata with those in the gospels. What may the Hindu texts, which usually receive little attention, contribute to ...the understanding of the New Testament renditions? Methodologically the article draws from Clooney’s Comparative Theology and Moyaert’s approach of hermeneutical hospitality. In the Hindu texts the rule is understood in terms of ahimsa (non-violence). This seems to be close to Luke’s version, in which the maxim is closely connected with the appeal to love one’s enemies. The Mahabharata, however, reveals also the maxim’s potency to use reciprocity as a strategy for making peace. So, the reciprocity stressed in Matthew is also important.
Here, Adluri and Bagchee suggest that the Greek myth of Orpheus and its Indian version, the myth of Run, are structured according to a distinction between poetic immortality and salvation. In ...highlighting the problem of partial or failed resurrection, the myths of Orpheus and Rum demonstrate that, in these myths, true salvation is an abidance in being rather than relating to the phenomena of becoming. The Orpheus and Ruru myths distinguish two levels of immortality: one, a poetic transcendence that grants a limited immortality, and, two, the unconditioned immortality of salvation. In the Mahabharata, the Ruru narrative continues into the Astika narrative, which addresses the need for salvation through being. The myths of Orpheus and Ruru establish that only the desire for self-knowledge and self-realization can lead to a permanent overcoming of mortality.
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