[These] other ‘gods’ and ‘goddesses’ – themselves perhaps supreme centres in one particular stem-system or other of the Hindu banyan ... such as Siva or Gaṇeśa or Rādhā or Kālī – may also be accommodated, perhaps with their own specificities of ritual, worship, and mythology, as lesser but interrelated centres in the dispensation of the whole [Śrī Vaiṣṇava cult]. The entire far-flung system functions in that it is a theologically unified network of textual, metaphysical, mythological, ritual and social centripetal and centrifugal forces ...
It is a polycentric reality in that the ‘divine’ centres of the [extended] system – higher and lower, with their own sometimes apparently conflicting cultic histories – are interpreted as actual expressions of the one ultimate Godhead, Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa. Further – and this is important – the Śrī Vaiṣṇava (stem-) system itself is but one centre among many in the extensive tracery of the Hindu banyan, drawing its distinctive life force from the shared environment of the whole.
(Lipner 2006b:100)
Polycentrism in Hinduism pervades other key domains. Consider, for example, those of (i) scripture, (ii) dharma, and (iii) the disposition of space.
(i) In Chapter 4 we described the (polycentric) phenomenon of alternative Vedas in Hinduism. We noted how such popular texts as the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa ascribe to themselves, sometimes explicitly, salvific efficacy equivalent to the Vedas. They are accepted, in effect, as an alternative or ‘fifth’ Veda because, in fact, they are widely perceived to convey, when appropriately interpreted, the soteriological power of the four canonical Sanskrit Vedas. They are perceived to do this in so far as they coexist interactively with the ‘original’ Vedas through one or other interpretive strategy. In the case of the Mahābhārata, for instance, this would involve something like the claim that the Mbh. makes the dharmic essence of the Vedas didactically more accessible than the original Vedas. In the case of the scriptures (āgamas) of the Śaiva Siddhānta, on the other hand, where it is claimed by one follower that ‘the Vedas and the Āgamas are both true and both are the word of God’, the legitimating strategy is that whilst the Vedas represent general revelation, the Āgamas function as a preferred form of special revelation (see Chapter 4).
We also noted in Chapter 4 how the theologian Vallabha employed yet another method to justify his privileging of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa as the culmination of Vedic revelation. For Vallabha, the original Veda provides an implicit revelation that is made progressively more explicit in subsequent texts till we arrive at the decisive teaching of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa that Kṛṣṇa-consciousness is the supreme path to salvation. ‘Original’ Vedic authority and salvific efficacy flow dialectically between the various textual centres we have been considering so as to endorse the Vedas as the original conduit of soteriological power; at the same time, however, this dynamic legitimates the scriptures that enter into this relationship as sharers in this power. The idea underlying this perception is that of a unique śakti or energy that has been refracted and multiplied through this dialectical relationship. In an earlier work, I described the dynamics of this polycentric system as follows:
This is a form of inter-textuality that is both decentring and re-integrative: by virtue of its decentring 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 a 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.
(Lipner 2004:27)
With respect to the last sentence of this passage, we note further that polycentrism is a way of accommodating even those traditions that have arisen from non-Vedic origins, e.g. Tantra (see Chapter 4 where this is exemplified in some detail), into the Sanskritized, Brahminic fold (under the broad canopy of ‘Hinduism’).
(ii) We need not dwell too long on our other examples. Where dharma is concerned, we can discern the same tendency at work. At the end of Chapter 6, we adverted to the way the pervasive concept of dharma is understood polycentrically across the tradition, not least through the ‘open’ notion of sanātana dharma, which is invested with specific content when it is applied to different empirical contexts. The vaunted ‘subtlety’ of dharma in the texts points to a hidden (adṛṣṭa), universal principle of prescriptive and descriptive order that manifests ‘to different kaleidoscopic effect in different lives, or at different times in the same life’ through such determinate notions as varṇāṣrama dharma, strī-dharma, gṛhastha-dharma, kṣatriya-dharma etc. ‘Properly, one can only act dharmically in the round, so to speak, allowing each centre of dharma that is circumstantially active in one's life to interact with other such centres’ (Chapter 6).
(iii) We come, finally, to the way polycentrism works in Hinduism in the disposition of space (and time). Here too, in religious context, multiple spatio-temporal focuses co-exist in an interrelated grid whose dynamics co-ordinate the eternal with the temporal so as to divinize empirical portals of sacred power multilocationally. We saw how this was expressed with reference to the way the salvific effect of Kāshī (the sacred precincts of Benares) is active distributively in other pilgrimage centres in the north and south of the subcontinent, by virtue of their dynamic relationship with the ‘original’ site (Chapter 14); a similar process operates with respect to the dispersal of the purificatory power of the Ganges in rivers or bodies of water revered by Hindus worldwide.
The examples of polycentrism adduced here do not exhaust the scope of the theme discussed throughout the book, but enough has been said, I hope, to give a coherent and comprehensive idea of what is intended by the term. I do not claim to have identified the determining characteristic of what passes for Hinduism, nor do I claim that the principle of polycentrism analyzed here cannot be extended further, both on its own terms and by other criteria that might act as determinants of what Hinduism may be. I do suggest, however, that we have in this principle a unique characteristic of the Hindu phenomenon, one that enables us to understand such features as the longevity, adaptability and assimilativeness that are usually associated with Hinduism.
Let me conclude this postscript with an observation I have made elsewhere:
In scope and practice, I believe, there is nothing quite like this [polycentric tendency] in the religious expression of any other world-faith. The many denominations of so-called mainstream Christianity, for instance, admit of no other text on a par with the Bible, converge on but one Name by which all must be saved, do not admit of various incarnational or other forms of the deity co-existing in and through different cultic practices, and have hardly developed an official theology of inclusiveness (with respect to intra-Christian denominations, leave alone non-Christian faiths). Most important of all, perhaps – and this is where they depart radically from the ethos of polycentrism – they seek inherently to polarize, to prioritize the centripetal forces of authority and belief over the centrifugal, rather than to maintain the two in a form of life that is expressed in the tensive equilibrium that characterizes the dialectical grid of polycentrism. Judaism and Islam seem to exhibit on the whole an even sharper contrast with Hinduism in this respect.
(Lipner 2006: 100–1)
In short – this is no more than an observation – the Abrahamic faiths tend not to operate poly-centrically. If, however, our description of Hindu polycentrism has the merit of real plausibility, then we may well have here the basis for a real and ongoing constructive dialogue between the dominant paradigms of two historically disparate religio-cultural matrices – those of the Abrahamic faiths on the one hand, and of Hinduism on the other – that embrace in their capacious folds the greater part of the hum
an family.
Select glossary
ahiṃsā:
benevolent ‘non-injury’ towards others.
ānanda:
bliss (sometimes contrasted with sukha).
artha:
an object/thing; the meaning of a sentence; something of substance, property; one of the four puruṣārthas.
āśrama:
one of the four stages of life to be entered upon by the twice-born: brahmacarya (celibate studentship of Vedic dharma), gārhasthya (the householder's life), vānaprasthya (the life of a recluse), saṃnyāsa or renunciation.
asura:
counterpart of deva, an ‘anti-god’; demon.
ātman:
self, spirit.
avatāra:
‘descent’ of deity or superhuman being in embodied form.
bhajan:
devotional hymn.
bhakta:
a devotee (masc.; bhaktā, fem.).
bhakti:
devotion or attachment to someone or something (in religious contexts, to the deity).
Brahmā:
the deva who fashions the world; the demiurge (not to be confused with Brahma/Brahman – without the ā at the end).
Brahman (Brahma):
‘the Great One’: the Supreme Being or Reality.
darśan(a):
a systematic, intellectual viewpoint or stance; ‘viewing’ the deity or some other respected person in their presence.
deva(masc.)/devī(fem.):
celestial; ‘god’/‘goddess’; sometimes, the Supreme Being himself/herself.
dharma:
distinctive characteristic of something; order; code of practice; virtue; religion.
duḥkha:
suffering (counterpart of sukha).
dvija:
Brahmin; member of twice-born caste.
guṇa:
quality, property; constituent of Prakṛti.
guru:
spiritual preceptor; revered teacher.
iṣṭadevatā:
one's ‘chosen deity’.
jāti:
birth-group; more loosely, caste; sometimes, race, nation.
kāma:
desire; pleasurable experience; concupiscence, lust.
karma:
action; ritual action; acquired merit or demerit that leads to rebirth.
līlā:
(in religion) the deity's activities in the world; unnecessitated or spontaneous action of the deity; the effect of this action.
liga:
phallus; distinctive mark.
mantra:
empowering and transformative religious utterance or formula (often in Sanskrit).
māyā:
wondrous power; illusion, deceptiveness.
mokṣa:
ultimate liberation (from saṃsāra).
nivṛtti:
disengagement/withdrawal from worldly activity (cf.pravṛtti).
Oṃ:
mystic syllable; a mantra.
paddhati:
authoritative manual.
pāṭha/pāṭhaka:
(religious) recitation/reciter.
Prakṛti:
non-spiritual, non-conscious cosmogonic principle constituted from the three guṇas of sattva, rajas, and tamaṣ Operates in conjunction with spirit or Puruṣa.
pravṛtti:
engagement with the world (cf.nivṛtti).
pūjā:
ritualistic image-worship.
Puruṣa:
(generally male) person; conscious spirit.
puruṣārtha:
one of the four traditional goals of life: artha, kāma, dharma, and mokṣa.
ṛṣi:
seer, sage (usually of ancient times).
śabda:
word; speech; language; testimony.
sādhaka:
follower of a sādhana; religious practitioner.
sādhana:
spiritual/religious discipline or path.
śakti:
force, energy; power as or of the Goddesṣ
sampradāya:
teaching tradition; religious denomination.
saṃsāra:
cycle of existence, flow of life (incorporating rebirth).
saṃskāra:
rite of passage; mental or physical impression.
śāstra:
authoritative text.
satya:
being/reality; truth.
smārta:
pertaining to or derived from smṛti qua accredited tradition; derived from the Veda.
smṛti:
tradition; remembrance.
śraddhā:
trust, confidence, faith.
śrāddha:
rite(s) for the dead.
śrauta:
pertaining to or derived from śruti.
śruti:
the Veda as textual ‘hearing’.
sukha:
happiness, pleasure (counterpart of duḥkha; contrasted with ānanda).
tantra:
esoteric ritualistic path following which the adept seeks progressively to establish embodied union or identity with the deity; text describing this discipline or its theory.
tapas:
ascetic energy or power.
tīrtha:
religious crossing or ford; pilgrimage site.
vāc:
sacred utterance; speech.
vāhana:
deity's (iconographic) animal or person mount.
varṇa:
appearance, colour, form; one of the four basic strata (‘castes’) of Hindu society, viz. Brāhmaṇa (Brahmin), Kṣatriya, Vaiśya, Śūdra.
varṇa-saṃkara:
producing offspring of mixed varṇas through sexual intercourse.
yajña:
Vedic sacrificial fire-rite.
yoga/yogī:
discipline integrating mind and body/practitioner of such a discipline.
yoni:
source; womb; female sexual organ.
Notes
Chapter 1 About ‘Hindu’, Hinduism and this book
1.
One has only to read the following extracts from Diana Dimitrova's essay, ‘The Development of sanātana Dharma in the Twentieth Century: a Rādhāsoamī Guru's Perspective’ (IJHS April 2007), to appreciate how problematic recourse to prototype theory is here: ‘All the saṃskāras [rites of passage] and rituals that the two thinkers [the founder of the Arya Samaj, a nineteenth-century reform movement, on the one hand, and a leading Rādhāsoamī teacher, on the other] propagate are based on Vedic ritual and religion, and it is stated many times throughout both the texts of Rādhāsoamī and the Ārya Samāj that sanātana Dharma is the ancient way of life’ (p.94). She concludes, ‘Not only does Rādhāsoamī remain within the Hindu fold; it claims for itself sanātana Dharma, the eternal true Hindu religion’ (p.96). It is hard to see from these extracts how Rādhāsoamī faith can be described as ‘not prototypically Hindu’.
2.
This must be so. In 1803 the second earl of Valentia (George A. Mountnorris) writes of a visit to the Calcutta ‘Botanical Garden’: ‘The finest object in the garden is a noble specimen of the Ficus Bengalensis’. See Nair 1989:5.
3.
There is evidence to suggest that ‘Hindoo’ was in use by the early seventeenth century, and ‘Hindooism’ by at least the 1780s;see Sweetman 2003:56, footnote 12. On the history and formation of such abstractions as ‘Hinduism’, see W.C. Smith 1978, especially Chapters 3 and 5.
4.
Note, we are talking of a cultural not a political family here.
5.
For a fuller account of the debate see Erdosy 1995, and especially Bryant 2001, who in his painstaking study traces the history of the debate from both points of view; see also Bryant and Patton 2005.
6.
A leading scholar in the origin and development of the language of the Veda, Michael Witzel, writes: ‘[I]t is known from i
nternal evidence that the Vedic texts were orally composed in northern India, at first in the Greater Punjab and later on also in more eastern areas, including northern Bihar, between ca. 1500 BCE and ca. 500–400 BCE. The oldest text, the gveda, must have been more or less contemporary with the Mittani texts of northern Syria/Iraq (1450–1350 BCE)’. See his ‘Vedas and Upaniṣads’, Chapter 3, in Flood 2003.
7.
This account has been constructed from discussion with the distinguished Cambridge archaeologist, Dilip Chakrabarti.
8.
As is well known, the head-waters of the Indus and its tributaries in the Himalayan foothills flow swiftly; this phenomenon well may have appeared to contrast markedly with the flow of waters of the Sarasvatī identified with the largely dried-up river futher south mentioned earlier, when encountered by the Indo-Aryans. The name Sarasvatī seems to suggest much slower-moving waters (from saras, ‘a body of water’, or ‘lake’, and vat-, meaning ‘consisting of’, ‘abounding in’).
9.
An account is given in Cartledge 2004.
10.
See Alberuni's India, Sachau 1888:39, n.9. This work has been hailed as a landmark, and likened to ‘a magic island of quiet, impartial research in the midst of a world of clashing swords, burning towns, and plundered temples’ (Sachau's Preface, ibid.:xxiii). More soberly, but with an equally positive assessment a hundred years later, a modern scholar has summed up the work as exemplifying ‘scholarly distance and objectivity’ (Halbfass 1988:28). Al-Biruni's endeavour may be important from a historical viewpoint as, on the whole, a creditable attempt to write temperately in a world of virulent Hindu–Muslim relations, but it is also full of (sometimes nonsensical) misrepresentation. The tendency of foreign observers to assimilate Hinduism simplistically to Brahminic religion is persistent in his work. This is the basis on which another well-known pioneering record was written, viz. the Abbé Dubois’ A Description of the Character, Manners, and Customs of the People of India; And of their Institutions Religious and Civil, which was translated into English from a French manuscript apparently completed in 1806, and which itself seems to have been based on the work of another researcher (see Sweetman 2003:127–8, footnote 5). On the title page Dubois is described as ‘Missionary in the Mysore’. As this description indicates, Dubois’ record is south-India centred.
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