This is a form of intertextuality that is both decentering and re-integrative: by virtue of its decentering tendency it can accommodate an indefinite number of members simultaneously in the nexus; in so far as it is re-integrative it is capable of sustaining itself. The dynamic of the whole permits individual members to be subtracted from or added to the grid in more or less contingent fashion. ‘Vedas’ can drop out of or enter the system by force of historical circumstance without impairing either the critical mass or the modality of the whole. This is one way in which polycentrism as a characteristic of the Hindu banyan expresses itself, and it is a way of tenacious survival and adaptive propagation.
The manner in which Vedic authority catapults from one location to another in the context of this interactive grid, can vary. We have given some examples. Thus in the case of the Sanskrit epics this appears to be achieved largely by declaration, ratified by acquiescence from the participating communities; implicitly, the rationale seems to be that the saving dharma articulated by the actions of the relevant epic characters, or their instructions as explained and justified by appropriate teachers, embodies the dharma recommended by the original Veda. No doubt there is much scope for interpretation as to what these manifestations of dharma must be, but we are talking here about the principle underlying the appropriation of Vedic status by these alternating texts.
In the case of the presumed relationship between the Vedas and the Āgamas of the Śaiva Siddhānta, the rationale seems to be different. The Vedas are a ‘general’ revelation, whereas the Āgamas are a special one, ‘special’ presumably in the sense dissected by Francis Clooney in an analogous context, where he analyses the spiritual efficacy of the Dvaya Mantra of the Sri Vaiṣṇava tradition:
What is at stake is not primarily secrecy in a material sense – the exclusion of listeners, the concealment of some knowledge as private – but rather the extraordinary demand that is placed on the person who begins to understand what the Dvaya Mantra [read: the Āgamas] mean [s]. The mantra is rahasya [mysterious, ‘special’] because, as it is uttered, reflected upon, and understood, it forces upon the reader truths not immediately accessible to uncommitted observers. It demands a surrender to God that would not ordinarily be considered accessible or practicable. Rahasya is tantamount to the truth that becomes available to and powerful for those who take to heart wisdom transmitted from generation to generation by ācāryas [teachers], encoded in the mantra as properly read in accord with the tradition. This rahasya is the ‘mystery of God’ in a deeper and richer sense, evocative of the sacred realm wherein intelligent and attentive human beings are transformed, irreversibly, blissfully.
(2007:55–6)
This deceptively universal scope may well accord with the intention underlying the theologian Śrikaṇṭha Śivācārya's declaration that there was no difference between the Vedas and the Śaiva Āgamas. Śrikaṇṭha continues, ‘Accordingly, Śiva Āgama is twofold, one being intended for the three higher castes, the other being intended for all. The Vedas are intended for people of the three classes, and the other for all’ (Dhavamony 1971:4). The relationship affirmed between the Vedas and the Tantras seems to imply a similar rationale, whereas Hardy suggests that for some followers of Nammāvār and his co-poets, the'Tamil Veda’ so-called completes the saving knowledge of the original Veda. Other, subtly different, justifications are offered in Hinduism for the textual appropriation of Vedic status. Let me give another example, taken this time from the thought of the philosophical theologian Vallabha (late fifteenth century), a south Indian Brahmin whose views continue to be influential for a number of religious communities especially in northern India. By the time Vallabha came on the scene in the Vedāntic tradition, devotion to Kṛṣṇna as the focus of a monotheistic faith had developed in a range of micro-centres of the Ancient Banyan. Literary and popular works, including songs and poems, propagated this devotion; what may be called a multi-faceted Kṛṣṇna-cult had become a going concern. Vallabha's theology contributed to this tradition. This is relevant for our understanding of his view of scripture.
‘Vallabha begins [his work, the Tattva-artha-dīpa-nibandha, abbr. TADN] by making clear he follows a four-fold canon embodying Veda, Brahmā Sutra, Bhagavad Gītā and Bhagavata Purāṇa (Timm 1993:40).3 In his treatise, Vallabha uses the term pramāṇa, which means authoritative source of knowledge’, to describe the four texts listed above in relation to our knowledge of the Supreme Being.4 Strictly speaking, in the philosophical–theological tradition of Vedānta, the last three texts are smṛti, viz. traditional cognition corroborating and elucidating the saving knowledge of the Veda. The Veda alone is canonical scripture, also called śruti. In effect, in the quotation given, Vallabha, influenced by the interpretive constraints of the religious tradition that nurtured him, is dissolving this distinction with respect to these four texts and enlarging the concept of ‘Veda’ (if not of śruti, which now becomes just a formal description of how one of these four scriptures, namely ‘Veda'in the strict sense, was transmitted), so as to encompass all four works. This is clear from Vallabha's statement in verse 28 that the fourfold canon produces valid cognition only when it is seen to make sense as a coherent whole.
But how is this accomplished, since from the point of view of content, the four texts seem to be quite disparate? Vallabha now provides an interpretive bridge for the authority of śruti to leapfrog into the other works and legitimize his acceptance of Kṛṣṇna as the ultimate focus of all scripture:
In the early part [of the Veda], Hari [= KṛṣṇnaJ is intimated in the form of the sacrificial ritual (yajña), in the later [viz. Upaniṣadic] portion, he appears as Brahman. [In the Gītā he appears more clearly] as the avatārin [viz. God embodied in human form], while in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Kṛṣṇna [appears clearly as himself].
(TADN, verse38)
From the standpoint of interpretive criteria internal to Vallabha's system, this is backed up by the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s declaration that it is the essence of all the Vedānta; for the one satisfied by the nectar of its sentiment, there can be no pleasure anywhere else’ (12.13.15).5 Thus Vallabha espouses the idea of progressive revelation through sacred lore. The (Bhagavad) Gītā – later than the Veda and earlier than the Bhagavata Purāṇa – becomes the interpretive key to this divine self-disclosure. Ostensibly containing the words of the Lord himself, it allows us to make sense of what textually and theologically (though not chronologically) precedes and follows it, namely the Veda proper and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, respectively. Vallabha declares: ‘The Lord's words in the Gītā are the criterion ... It is in this way that the sense of the Vedas is determined’ (verse 17, TADN).6
However, we cannot quite agree when it is said that Vallabha ‘reverses the traditional scriptural hierarchy, dethroning the Veda and replacing it with the Bhagavad Gītā’(Timm 1993:42). The Veda has not been ‘dethroned’: as the starting-point of the divine self-disclosure it remains the seminal basis for discerning the revelative plan and trajectory. Further, it is important for Vallabha to show that a key is needed to unlock the Veda's true meaning. No doubt he locates this key in the Gītā, but the Gītā is given scriptural and interpretive significance only in so far as it basks in the authority of the Vedas and represents a crucial phase in revealing their purport.
This device of formal Vedic authority catapulting into all sorts of apparently alien contexts has been a common one in Hinduism, not least in those traditions that have sought some form of Brahminic sanction. We have seen how even originally extra-Vedic traditions such as Tantra have accommodated to this strategy and have as a result been drawn into the Hindu fold. This adaptive process continues to proliferate even in contemporary times. It features, for instance, in the Swaminarayan faith, which was established early in the nineteenth century and remains prominent among ethnic Gujaratis, both in India and abroad. In this broadly Vaiṣṇava tradition, both Sanskrit and Gujarati works, including the Vedas which are formally given priority
status, exist in a complex relationship of primary and secondary scriptures, though it is not clear exactly what the role of the Vedas is and which texts are included in what seems to be an extended concept of ‘Veda’ (see Williams 2001:184–5). Nevertheless, the Vedas retain their status as the symbol of scriptural authority.
Though the polycentrism of replicating Vedic authority as described above is widespread in Hinduism, it is not universal in the tradition, of course. I have emphasized it in this book because it remains indicative of what defines the Hindu phenomenon. Other expressions of polycentrism will help complete the identification process. In the Postscript at the end of this book, we shall endeavour to draw the strands together so as to appreciate the full force of this distinctive strategy.
But the Veda can also act as a contrastive symbol of religious authority in Hinduism. This happens among the bartamān-panthī s or so-called Bauls of Bengal, described ‘ as declassed and dispossessed’ (Openshaw 2002:195), whose numbers are made up of persons of Hindu and Muslim origin. Both groups reject Vedic knowledge and prescriptions as ‘hearsay’ and therefore not worthy of following. In the spiritual life, the bartamāns distinguish between'what is heard’ and what is seen’.
What is seen has the wider implication of one's own experience, one's own knowledge as against what is heard which is dismissed as the knowledge or judgement of others. Thus what is heard also means hearsay (anuman) ... [B]artaman-panthis often say: How can I worship what I haven't seen? ... Orthodoxy (as ti) legitimises itself with reference to scripture, that is, śruti (literally, what has been heard, the Vedas) and smṛti (literally, what has been remembered). While, in the final analysis, these are predicated on the vision of the seers ... such a source would be rejected by bartamān-panthī s as another's vision and therefore useless.
(ibid.:195)
Even Muslim bartamāns use this distinction to affirm their stand on personal, experiential knowledge. Openshaw writes:‘Anumān [hearsay] is therefore most characteristically expressed in what is called “bed-bidhi” (Sanskrit: veda-vidhi). Veda means, in addition to its restricted sense, any orthodox text (for example, in this sense the Koran is Veda), while vidhi means “conventional rites and precepts”. Bed-bidhi therefore amounts to orthodox ideology and prescriptions legitimized by reference to authorized scriptures, be they Hindu or Muslim’ (ibid.:197). Thus, one way or another, the Vedas emerge with a high profile in the context of religious authority, whether as positive or negative markers, even in contemporary times.
Historically, the authority of the Vedas was appealed to in defence not only of religious orthodoxy but also of political legitimacy. Instances of rulers performing Vedic sacrifices, especially the aśvamedha or horse sacrifice, as a testament of territorial sovereignty, dot the historical and geographical landscape of the subcontinent. Thus Pusyamitra (second century B.C.E.), the Brahmin founder of the Śuṇga dynasty which once controlled much of the Ganges valley and parts of northern India, is said to have performed two aśvamedha sacrifices. In the first century B.C.E., Śatakarṇī, a notable king of the Śatavāhana dynasty (based in the north-western Deccan), after a number of expansionist military campaigns, ‘performed a horse-sacrifice to establish his claim to an empire’ (Thapar 1966:101). Again, among the Pallavas who came to power in the sixth century C.E. in the south, at a time when we may speak more or less of the growing pan-Aryanization of the subcontinent, kings:
took high-sounding titles ... such as dharma-maharajadhiraja (great king of kings ruling in accordance with the dharma), and the more usual aggitoma-vajapey-assamedha-yaji (he who has performed the agnishtoma, vajapeya, and ashvamedha sacrifices), which sounds rather like a self-conscious declaration of conformity with Vedic ideas.
(Thapar 1966:174)
And so on. The royal performance of these sacrifices would have been a public event, designed to display to maximum effect the king's adherence to the dharma of the Vedas. This would have reinforced, in the public eye, the symbolic value of Vedic authority as final. Of course, once the northern regions of the subcontinent and the central Deccan came under Muslim rule in the second millennium, such royal attestations of the Veda would no longer have been feasible.
Subsequently, the Vedic sacrificial rites continued to act as a source of religious inspiration for Hindus in limited circles. There were outposts of Vedic chanting in various parts of India, and specialist study of the śruti continued in Vedāntic and other schools. This was not without importance for they kept the tradition alive, but these contexts were somewhat inward-looking. Popular theistic devotional groups scattered about India were gaining in strength, and though many may have paid lip service to Vedic authority, they had embarked spiritually on a different trajectory from that of Vedic study (the rise of the Swaminarayan faith is a case in point). But in the early nineteenth century, it was the untiring efforts for social and religious reform in Bengal of a remarkable man, Ram Mohan Roy, that gave Vedic religion a new lease of outward-looking life.
Under the influence of British rule, the subcontinent had just entered a period that was to bring far-reaching changes to Hinduism. In effect, the British had displaced Muslim paramountcy; the way was clear for a new kind of cultural interaction between Hindus and ‘the West’. The bridgehead for this interaction lay in and around the city of Calcutta, situated near the mouths of the Ganges towards the Bay of Bengal, and the capital of British India for the duration of the nineteenth century. Socially well-placed Bengalis increasingly realized that it would be only through English education that they and their children could hope to come to terms with British rule. Capturing the mood of the day, the Scottish educationist and missionary, Alexander Duff (1806–78), Calcutta-based at the time, reported that excitement [for English education] continued unabated. They pursued us along the streets. They threw open the very doors of our palankeen; and poured in their supplications with a pitiful earnestness of countenance that might have softened a heart of stone’(Duff 1839:526–7). The demand for English education increased inexorably, thereby introducing new ideas derived from the Western intellectual tradition concerning history, national freedom, personal autonomy, patriotism, society and religion. Whereas in the past, a sometimes uncritical Brahmin orthodoxy tended to prevail in socio-religious matters, now rational inquiry based on empirical knowledge, deployed not least by reformist Hindus themselves, began to challenge the old ways. Hinduism would never be the same again. Much of the credit must be given to Ram Mohan for initiating this transformation among the intelligentsia and upper classes.
Ram Mohan was born into a Brahmin family in 1772 in the village of Radhanagar in a Bengal firmly under British rule.7 As a youth he had been deeply influenced by the monotheism of Islam and formal studies in Śaṣkarite Advaita, a tradition of monistic interpretation of the Upaniṣads. In time he learned proficient English, and drank deeply of the current social, philosophical and religious ideas streaming in from the West. By 1815 he had become a man of means, the result of sound business dealings in the ambit of the British East India Company. He took up residence in Calcutta, the hub of British influence, with a view to devoting himself to the social, moral and religious reform of his compatriots.
On the basis of classicist assumptions – that old is gold, and that the ancient Aryan Sanskritic past represented a ‘purer’ and pristine way of life – British scholars had reached the conclusion that the culture of ancient India was a far superior thing to the practices of contemporary Hindus. The following judgement by Sir William Jones (1746–1794), an influential administrator–scholar who founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal, is typical: ‘[N]or can we reasonably doubt, how degenerate and abased so ever the Hindus may now appear, that in some early age they were splendid in arts and arms, happy in government, wise in legislation, and eminent in various knowledge’ (Marshall 1970:251). Many with a vested interest in India, Hindus included, accepted this contrast. Ram Mohan was no exception.
Spurred on by the criticism of contemporary Hindu
religion made by British missionaries, administrators and scholars (for which he had considerable sympathy), Ram Mohan was keen to rehabilitate his ancestral faith. Hinduism had become degenerate, he maintained, because it had fallen into the grip of self-seeking priests who played on the fears and superstitions of a people largely ignorant of their religion's original high standards of belief and practice. The priests, he argued, based their teachings not on the Vedas, the original revelation of the Hindus, but on secondary religious texts such as the Purāṇas and Tantras. Ram Mohan's early studies in the monotheism of Islam and in Advaita, as well as a growing appreciation of Unitarian Christianity, led him to locate the revelational high point of the Vedas in the Upaniṣads. Ram Mohan alleged that the Hindus, misled by the Brahmins, had deviated from their ancient faith in the ‘one, true God’, author and provider of the universe, who desired one and all equally to walk the path of virtue irrespective of sex and race. Ram Mohan claimed that this teaching was enshrined in the Upaniṣads no less than in the scriptures of the world's great religions. Instead, Hindus now adhered to a religion of rampant polytheism, idolatry and ritualism, which was riddled with the canker of priest-craft and such abominable practices as suttee (the immolation of widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands), and caste and sex discrimination. The remedy was to revert to the insights of the Upaniṣads.
Ram Mohan was on strong ground. He knew that implicit in his position was an appeal to a distinction that the orthodox couldn't challenge, the distinction, that is, between the authority of the śruti and that of all other sacred texts. Nothing could match the former authority, which was supreme. If he could show that the śruti, in the form of the Upaniṣads, inculcated a vision of the transcendent that was anything but polytheistic and idolatrous, then the religion of contemporary Hinduism with its attendant evils would be overthrown.
Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices) Page 14