Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Volume 26 Article 6

November 2013

Author’s Response: Cognitive Science, History-Centrism and the Future of

Rajiv Malhotra Infinity oundationF

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Recommended Citation Malhotra, Rajiv (2013) "Author’s Response: Cognitive Science, History-Centrism and the Future of Hindu Studies," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 26, Article 6. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1545

The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. Malhotra: Author’s Response

Author’s Response: Cognitive Science, History- Centrism and the Future of Hindu Studies Rajiv Malhotra Infinity Foundation

I thank all three responders to my books for primarily on two points: the question of the their careful and detailed consideration of my relationship of science to adhyatma vidya, or work. I will address the following concerns that the inner meditative practices taught by they raise: dharmic traditions, and the issue of the • their challenge to my claim that the coherence and integral unity of . dharmic traditions are more in tune with Rambachan regards the association of modern cognitive science than the Hinduism with science as spurious and Abrahamic ones are misleading, a product of the distorting • their challenge to my claim that history- influence of the West on such Hindu figures as centrism in the Abrahamic faiths is an Vivekananda and Aurobindo. He also regards important point of difference any claim to a Hindu unity as largely a • their claim that I ignore how historical construct of colonialism. In both cases, he forces influence thinks my views discount the role of the • their claim against a coherent Hindu exegetical tradition of as insisted upon philosophy and unity by Shankara vis-à-vis direct inner experience. • Brian Pennington’s tension with the reality In fact, I have asserted that the modern Hindu that the academy seeks to engage me. thinkers have revitalized and expanded their tradition in a way that is entirely in line with I. Response to Rambachan the past, that dharma has never been in tension has given the with science, and that in fact dharma and most thorough and substantive response to my today’s cognitive science come close to work, and I thank him for it. We disagree converging. I also hold that Hindu dharma has

Rajiv Malhotra is an Indian–American researcher and public intellectual interested in the philosophy of science, religion, and civilizations. A scientist by training, he is full-time founder-director of Infinity Foundation (Princeton, NJ), serves as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Center for Indic Studies (University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth), and is adviser to various organizations. In addition to : An Indian Challenge to Western (Harpercollins, 2011), he has co- authored with Aravindan Neelakandan Breaking : Western Interventions in Dravidian and Faultlines, (Amaryllis, 2011). His ’S NET: Reclaiming ’s Vision will appear with Harpercollins in 2014. He is finishing up a two-volume work on Buddhist Influences on the Mind Sciences, under contract with Harpercollins.

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Author’s Response: Cognitive Science, History-Centrism and the Future of Hindu Studies 29

a valuable and coherent past, present and contemporary scientific thought accords with a future with highly developed adhyatmic wide range of dharmic views and practices; he practices and experiences. fails to see that this area of thought itself draws I agree with Rambachan’s desire to protect directly and extensively on Indian sources. A ’s non-dualism and I share his large part of my work has to do with tracking position on the utter unknowability of the and repositioning certain Indian sources that divine by means of ordinary consciousness, are at the heart of the confluence of science owing to the subject/object split. I also share and spirituality, which is the cutting edge of his interest in preserving the diversity of the Western thought. By contrast, Rambachan Hindu dharma vis-à-vis those who would refutes the validity of these ideas in Hindu reduce it to homogeneity. However, I part dharma. So the West appropriates what company when he argues for reliance solely on Rambachan considers inauthentic. This third-person textual authority for knowing disconnect gets my attention. . As I shall explain, he is working from Furthermore, his assertion that Hinduism some wrong assumptions about the nature of lacks coherence is mistaken, as well as science, the Vedanta- relationship, and the debilitating insofar as it deprives Hinduism of internal coherence and innate pluralism of the its potential for providing an open architecture dharma traditions. of faiths that could serve as the basis for a truly It should be noted that Rambachan and I pluralist framework for humanity. come from different intellectual backgrounds Rambachan’s sweeping rejection of modern and therefore adopt different approaches to Hinduism (which he pejoratively calls “neo- the matter at hand. I speak from a background Hinduism”) cuts this project off at the knees. in science as well as personal sadhana in His emphasis on the primacy of the exegetical several dharmic approaches, based on which I tradition of Advaita Vedanta, while in many have extensively researched the Western ways a valuable corrective to the “anything appropriation of Indian thought in psychology, goes” kind of Hindu thinking that tends to cognitive sciences, cosmology, philosophy and prevail, is both extreme and limiting. religion. Rambachan takes what I believe to be Rambachan could make a great a more bookish and narrow approach that is contribution to Hindu Studies if he could only exclusively focused on Advaita Vedanta and recognize the new paradigms emerging in steeped in hermeneutical and exegetical science and religion and accept a broader problems that arise from the use of the Judeo- definition of what Hinduism is and how it Christian paradigm for religious studies. My relates to contemporary Western thought. most important conversations and debates Were he to open his eyes to the Western have been in the philosophy of science and the appropriation of Hindu ideas, he might (given history of the transmission of ideas from India his expertise) be able to shed some much- to the West. His have been largely in academic needed light on the matter in terms of religious studies. clarification and correction. The result is an ironic “disconnect.” Not only is Rambachan unaware of how closely

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‘New’ paradigms imported from India into Buddhist sources, it became generalized into a the West broader discourse on “science and religion,” My book Being Different claims that the one which permeates the academy today inner sciences of the dharmic traditions are (except ironically in the study of Indian closer to the spirit and substance of religions). contemporary scientific inquiry than are the In simple terms, this scientific paradigm beliefs and practices of the Abrahamic developed from the recognition of the role of religions. Rambachan’s resistance to this claim the observer in cognition. Newtonian physics is the basis of much of his critique of my work assumed an objective reality independent of (and of modern Hinduism in general). In my consciousness. This is now considered view, his phobic response to the association of reductionist. The recent scientific shift is science and religion is based on an outdated toward a metaphysics that is closer to the paradigm of science. What’s more, it reflects a cosmology of the than to Christian narrow reading of the dharmic traditions. He theological constructs (based, as they usually underestimates, for example, the significance are, on classical Greek models). This new of direct inner inquiry and first-person insight involves cultivating the ability to experience in Shankara’s teachings and in experience reality in radically new ways. The Hinduism and Buddhism in general. new scientists of cognition know Hinduism to Rambachan insists on denying the be closely related to their field, and adhyatma connection between dharmic meditative vidya is positioned as an important means of practices and the methods and metaphysical scientific inquiry. Rambachan’s refusal to assumptions of cognitive science as they are engage with my work is therefore indicative of practiced today. He ignores both the empirical a broader dis-connect between academic nature of the rishis’ experience and the new Hinduism studies and the emerging cognitive scientific paradigms that are emerging. I wish science. to stress that have had no cause to be Rambachan would probably agree with me afraid of science in the way the Abrahamic that this interrelation between science and traditions have had cause, and that is because dharma should not be studied (as it often has the metaphysical and theological assumptions been) by shearing off the cultural, religious and of dharma are not dependent on the defense of philosophical context in which it was born. dogmatic historical revelations. Furthermore, This attempt to “sanitize” what is trivialized as contemporary physics and cognitive science “eastern wisdom” and repackage it in western challenge precisely the dualistic model of secular scientific terms has been going on for subject/object split – and they challenge it in too long. A large part of my current work is terms actually appropriated from the study of aimed at documenting and understanding this Hinduism and Buddhism. It is first-person process of “digestion” and deracination. experience and experiment that bind dharma The pattern is a recurring one: an and cognitive science together. Once this new intellectual entrepreneur “goes east” in much paradigm of cognitive science became the same way that American frontiersmen crystallized with the help of Hindu and “went west.” He may feel that the Abrahamic

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religions are too restrictive or oppressive, have, in effect, redrawn the boundaries of what and/or that they are intellectually bankrupt in is considered science today. the face of new evidence in physics, psychology The box on the top left lists some of the and healing sciences. New treasures are main dharmic sources that have been mined, unearthed during this process of eastern and that continue to be mined in this exploration, and these are especially prized enterprise. These Indian source traditions when they can be made to operate outside of include: Buddhism (especially Zen and Indo- accepted western categories, including the Tibetan), Kashmir Shaivism, Patanjali’s yoga, category of religion itself. At first, the Indian Tantra, Vedanta (especially Advaita and aspects of these new bodies of knowledge are Vishitadvaita), Vipassana, and the work of Sri noted and relished as the basis on which the Aurobindo. This is far from an exhaustive list, entrepreneur/frontiersman can establish and one could easily add other influences such himself as an expert before his western peers. as J. Krishnamurti, , But as that knowledge gets repackaged for Vivekananda and , to consumption in the West, the original contexts name just a few. are removed and left behind as “exotica.” The box at the top right lists a few of the The repackaged knowledge and new many Western organizations involved in this disciplines supersede the old Western religious large-scale project. The Western disciplines paradigms. Removing the original Indian digesting this knowledge encompass contexts leads to forms of perennial philosophy philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, religion, or secular scientism which are supposedly medicine, and so on. I have been studying value-free and operate outside of religious several of these groups for a forthcoming series myths and devotional practices. In my view, of books which will explore how Western this is a mistake, and if Rambachan believes organizations go about identifying, selecting, Vedanta is in need of being protected from this validating and repackaging the dharmic deracination and de-contextualization, then I knowledge, and then claim the status of entirely agree with him. But it would also be a “original discoverers” by gradually erasing the great mistake to throw the baby out with the source traditions. (In Being Different, I explain bathwater, i.e., to deny all relationships how lack of acknowledgment in this between dharmic traditions and the new appropriation differs from the appropriations science. that were made from Hellenistic sources, and The chart below shows the “digestion” why Western scholars do not treat Indian and process by which dharma gets assimilated into Hellenistic sources on par.) modern cognitive science. It shows the Indian The Western players cited in the top right sources of the new scientific paradigm and lists box have criticized the old-school approach some of the channels by which those sources taken by Western religions, science, psychology have entered Western consciousness, as well as and philosophy. They find these disciplines to some ways in which they have constituted and be reductionist and in need of radical reform. shaped new areas of study (even new They often criticize Western thought by departments in the academy). These sources turning directly and primarily to Indian

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32 Rajiv Malhotra

sources, and they do so to a degree that is not established as pioneers and original sufficiently recognized. The two lower boxes thinkers for Western audiences. indicate that this “churning” process in the • Once the Indian sources have been used to West is crystalizing into well-defined and well- gather knowledge and create credibility for respected fields that are rapidly becoming themselves, the intermediaries dilute the accepted into the mainstream academy. This significance of those sources (this often appropriation from India and tension or involves elaborate cover-ups) and conflict in the West between old and new sometimes even attack the dharmic sources models started a century ago, but the as being inferior. challenges to older paradigms have recently The framework for this “digestion,” as I call intensified, prompting a dramatic rethinking in it, is partly secular science and partly Judeo- mainstream circles. The very notions of science Christianity. While many appropriations have and religion are changing. entered directly into Christianity (such as Indian gurus both in India and in the West Christian Centering Prayer from T.M., Christian trained individual American “frontiersmen,” Yoga from Hindu Yoga, to name only two), who then turned the knowledge gained at the others have arrived via a longer route. This feet of those teachers into what was at first a latter category includes holistic healing, fringe movement. Over the past two neurosciences, and cognitive sciences. generations, these proto-movements have As I have said, much of my disagreement solidified and advanced from the fringe to the with Rambachan centers around (1) his lack of mainstream of Western research, all the while awareness of what science is today and (2) the losing sight of, or repressing, their Indian roots. absorption of Indian thought into this new The list of mainstream institutions and major science. My approach is different. When I use intellectual figures participating in this process the term “adhyatma vidya,” for instance, I’m is indeed impressive. There has often been a relating it to the modes of empirical inquiry as double role played by the various currently understood in cognitive science. This intermediaries, individuals as well as method involves first-person experience institutions. combined with third-person analysis of mind. • These intermediaries appropriate from Rambachan works from a different model of dharma what is (or until recently was) what science is and he finds it to be antithetical novel in the West, and often express harsh to Advaita Vedanta. We also differ on the criticism of the prevailing Western importance of text and transmission in religious models. This helps them get dharmic traditions vis-à-vis the West, an issue to which I will return.

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Main sources of appropriation: Some leading individual & • Vedanta institutional appropriators • Zen Buddhism • ’s Integral Institute • Indo- • John Templeton Foundation • Kashmir Shaivism • Mind & Life Institute • Patanjali Yoga • Consciousness Studies Programs • Transcendental Meditation • Mindfulness Meditation • Tantra, Kundalini, Chakras • Center for & Altruism • Vipassana Research & Education

• • Neuro-phenomenology

Re-contextualization of Appropriations: • Emerging New School of Religious Studies • Cognitive Science and Religion • Integral Theory of Wilber • Rejecting Western hermeneutics, philosophy, psychology

Scientific Re-training Attacking Old Validation as Jewish & Disciplines new ‘Discovery’ Christian Clergy

Figure 1

New Science of Consciousness without considers the to be the only way of dualism/objectification knowing Brahman. Along with this, Rambachan Rambachan cites Shankara as the great argues that science deals only with dualistic counter-example to my emphasis on adhyatma objects, i.e., it objectifies whatever object is vidya. He makes the valid point that Shankara being studied as something that exists

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independently of the subject. It is true that this has mushroomed and now spans many fields, dualistic method cannot lead one to knowledge including the philosophy of science, of Brahman, but Rambachan shows an psychology, arts, neuroscience, religion, awareness only of old-school science when he healing, etc. I shall not attempt here to present makes this point. a tutorial on this vast terrain. Suffice it to say Quantum mechanics has radically changed that the term “first-person empiricism” is now science in this regard. According to QM (as per widely accepted as the means to knowing many interpretations), consciousness plays a consciousness directly by experiencing non- role as the observer in “creating” (by collapsing dual states. Although initially marginalized into) the state of the object that is observed. In upon its arrival in the West, this new paradigm other words, there is no particular state that has become respectable and is seriously the object is in until it is observed. Prior to an challenging old reductionist views of science. object’s being observed, what we have are What is most relevant to our discussion is probabilities for its existence in various that the pioneers in this science of possible states. In a sense, the very act of consciousness start off by attacking the observation “creates” the state of the object in classical Western (Newtonian and Cartesian) which it is found. models as being reductionist, and precisely for The link between this new physics and the reasons cited by Rambachan: the models dharma has been noted since the discovery of are dualistic in their separation of subject and QM by Heisenberg and Schrodinger (both Nobel object, and assume wrongly that objects have a Laureates in physics). Each of these pioneers separate self-existence. Rambachan, then, cited the Upanishads as the only source of cannot very well accuse the new science of philosophy known to them that was consistent consciousness of the very problem it seeks to with the paradoxical nature of reality resolve, i.e., the reductionism intrinsic in according to QM.1 Western philosophical “objectification” as practiced in scientific frameworks at that time (the 1920s and early enquiry. '30s) failed to accommodate any such possibility as QM. This ushered in a new era of Are we all potential rishis? speculative research into the nature of I call adhyatma vidya “inner science” for a consciousness and its relationship with the reason, which is to emphasize that after the physical cosmos. rishis meditated and articulated in the Most of the early philosophical Upanishads what they “saw,” these first-person explanations of QM explicitly invoked ideas experiences were systematized and debated in from Vedanta. There was a frenzied attempt to peer reviews in India. This tradition of purva replace the separate Western frameworks for paksha and uttara paksha is how major Indian consciousness and matter with a unified systems were established, i.e., through a framework based on Vedanta. (In most dharma, combination of empirical observation, metaphysical systems, consciousness, and argumentation, and peer review which strongly matter were never separate frameworks.) The resembles the scientific method. This process research literature on such ideas in the West has never been in tension with the scientific

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method because it is not bound to absolutist inherently incapable of “seeing” as the rishis claims of history that are non-reproducible and did, then he would be setting himself up for a hence non-verifiable. It is this conjunction that massive contradiction, with core tenets of the Vivekananda and other modern Hinduism atman being the same in everyone, rishi or not. intuited and that is being developed today. I am unaware of any way out of this Rambachan has not addressed the key problem other than my concluding that each question: How did the rishis “see” the shruti in the human also has the same potential as the rishis, first place? Unlike the , in and that this potential is realized through which prophets hear from an external God, in disciplined sadhana (the inner sciences of the Vedas there is no external voice. There is adhyatma vidya), even though very few of us no entity equivalent to Yahweh who speaks the are able to realize the ultimate result in one Vedas to the rishis. Nobody says anything like: human lifetime; most of us will need to be “I am , the Creator, and I am giving you reborn many times in order to evolve to the these covenants . . .” So Rambachan must rishi state. explain how the Vedas were “seen” by the rishis. Summarizing my position on meditation He cannot respond by saying that the • Since the Vedas were “seen” by the rishis, Vedas were original compositions by the rishis, and we humans have this same capacity, because Vedas are a-purusheya, i.e., each of us has the potential to achieve the beginningless and authorless. They existed same experience on his own. In other before the rishis “saw” them. So if the rishis words, we, too, can know Brahman. This neither composed them nor heard them spoken knowledge is not achieved by means of by an external person or entity, how is it that dualistic cognition but by non-dual they were able to “see” them? To the best of my cognition, which Western science is only knowledge, Rambachan, in his four decades of beginning to examine. re-stating his position on the dichotomy • This study of non-dual cognition is between Vedanta and direct experience, has “scientific” in that it relies on first-person never dealt with this key question. What I am empiricism which may be replicated, and doing here, in effect, is sending the problem because the results of that experience are back to him and asking him for a solution in his examined and correlated by a community own framework. of interpreters who are free from history- It is important to note that Hinduism does centric constraints. not regard the rishis as inherently different in • This brings us head-on to Rambachan’s substance or essence from the rest of us. problem, namely, that Shankara did not Therefore, if the rishis had the capability of accept any method of knowing Brahman “seeing” the shruti without any external God other than the Vedas. But Shankara did speaking to them, and without any previous develop his own meditation system (called textual tradition or “revelation” to draw on, “Nidhidhyasana”) that uses specific why can’t we do so as well? If Rambachan were Upanishadic mantras as the means to attain to respond to this question by saying we are . Unfortunately Shankara does not

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explain his method in much detail, though Locating Integral Unity in the New his own practice and development of the Discourse system do indicate he was not dismissive of Rambachan has devoted his distinguished direct experience. (Some scholars have career to the study of Advaita Vedanta and so it argued that his emphasis was on refuting is natural that he would want this philosophy the opponents of his time and that this did to be the central point of any discussion he not require that he explain his method of enters. But my notion of integral unity cannot meditation.) be collapsed into and limited to Advaita • In my book, I do not recommend any Vedanta per se, and I certainly do not consider specific method of meditation. I merely ultimate reality to be a homogeneous, assert that various methods are available to otherworldly realm, as is sometimes claimed. every human. My only purpose is to My interest in integrality originated as part of contrast the meditative approach with the my study of the science of consciousness Abrahamic notion of history-centrism and mentioned above. in so doing, demonstrate that we can Again, fundamentally, our greatest achieve what the rishis achieved. The Jew disagreement has to do with the different ways or Christian or Muslim cannot participate we locate our analyses. I am primarily in prophecy (i.e., directly receive and then interested in the Western appropriation of declare the word of God), whereas in Eastern ideas, not in defending a “pure” version dharma all humans are capable of self- of Hinduism. My project is located in the enlightenment without having to depend history of ideas, with emphasis on the on any such historical event. transmission of ideas from India to the West. • I refer to the methods of achieving higher For example, I have tracked Ken Wilber’s states of consciousness as a “science,” but appropriation of Sri Aurobindo’s theory of not in the limited sense that the term has integral unity, as well as Kashmir Shaivism, been used in the past. Science has taken on Tantra and Madhyamika Buddhism. I want to a new meaning; it no longer denotes discuss Wilber in some depth, not only because dualistic reductionism, something that his work and influence are much greater than bothers Rambachan as much as it bothers most scholars of religion realize but because he me. exemplifies much in the contemporary None of Rambachan’s arguments has any Western digestion of Eastern thought. bearing on my book’s central point, which is Wilber’s early books explicitly translated that dharmic systems are not history-centric Indian ideas for the benefit of Western whereas Abrahamic religions are. He simply researchers, especially psychologists and dodges the issue of history-centrism and thus philosophers. Initially he attacked Judaism and misunderstands many of my related points. Christianity for the same kinds of problems I have cited in my book: dependence on historical and exclusive revelation, dualism, and so on. In effect, he used Indian ideas to attack Western religion and psychology and

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thus became established as a Western pioneer foremost given that the theory is based on in what were considered “new” discoveries. principles that exist in Hinduism. But gradually his ambition grew. Not only Wilber’s reformulated dharmic ideas appeal did he appropriate Indian ideas using his own to those Westerners who want to “come home,” terminology; he also claimed to have surpassed as it were, from their journeys into Hinduism them. He said he found serious flaws in the or Buddhism, and this appeal accounts for his Indian sources and that these discoveries made success in raising funds. In the process, he has him reject Hinduism and promote his own rekindled Western chauvinism, using so-called formulations. His chief criticism addresses only universal terms in a totalizing, Hegelian Advaita Vedanta, which he uses to dismiss all of fashion. Hinduism. He cites only secondary Despite Wilber’s prominence and influence, interpretations of Advaita Vedanta, which he no scholar of has bothered to uses to claim that it is otherworldly escapism respond to what he is saying. Whenever I raise and hence incapable of achieving progress or concerns about his misappropriations and promoting social ethics in this world. In this, he misinterpretations among scholars of Hinduism parrots the old interpretations of Christian and Buddhism, they show no interest and even missionaries. (These are the same views that dismiss his ideas as irrelevant and nonsensical. were unfortunately adopted by Ram Mohan But he is relevant, and his repackaging of Roy and other Indians in the modern period as dharmic thought has profound implications for a sort of standard critique of Hinduism.) how Hinduism is received and understood. Wilbur’s appropriations and redefinitions An important objective of Being Different is are disingenuous given that most of his sources to re-establish the dharmic foundations of what (again, Sri Aurobindo, Kashmir Shaivism, has become a large “Integral Studies” Tantra and Madhyamika Buddhism) do not at movement led by Wilber, and this requires that all espouse a homogeneous and otherworldly we redress the misinterpretation of sources reality, as he is well aware. He cleverly borrows (and concomitant reductionism) in his from many Indian sources, which we will call formulation. I wish to remind Wilber’s camp of “X”, and uses this to criticize one specific his own earlier assertions that Western Indian school (Advaita Vedanta). He uses this religions are in conflict with the new ideas he criticism as the basis for rejecting all Hinduism. has “discovered” – assertions that suggest that Even if his arguments about Advaita Vedanta these religions need to be revised or reinvented were valid, his rejection of that school could in light of integral theories. What we have, not apply to all of Hinduism. then, is a massive importation of Indian ideas Wilber and his followers formulated a that are used in the transformation of Judaism theory that contains no references to dharma and Christianity but no acknowledgment of the sources; instead it refers to what are called original sources of those ideas. “Integral Christianity” and “Integral Judaism.” My own view of the integral unity of Ironically there is no Integral Hinduism in his dharmic traditions is based on their shared schema, despite my having suggested to his methodology in terms of adhyatma vidya. This acolytes that this ought to have been first and position enables me to defend these traditions

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against piecemeal appropriations such as worlds, or of the distinct “parts” of reality we Wilbur’s and point out the shortfalls of those perceive as differentiated, and the putative appropriations. Ironically Rambachan opposes “whole,” which is not. The diagram in Figure 2 my view of the integral unity of dharma, partly, summarizes this idea. The left and right I think, because he is unaware of the way in extremes show the two common views most which the term “dharma” is already in play people have concerning the nature of a “part” both among intellectuals and in popular of the whole reality.2 A part of the totality can discourse as well. Rambachan inadvertently be a physical object, an idea, an emotion, etc. – provides a great service to Wilber’s movement anything we can perceive as an entity. The by denying that Hinduism has the metaphysics question then arises: What is the status of such of integral unity. While Wilber appropriates his an entity in relation to the whole? The stated key ideas from Hinduism, Rambachan argues assertion on the left portion of the diagram is that such ideas are not part of Hinduism and that the entity exists by itself, i.e., that it has seems unaware of the broad discourse at work. self-existence. This seems intuitively obvious to It is a triumph for Wilber to have co-opted such the ordinary mind. After all, the tree, the table, a major figure in Hinduism studies. keyboard, I, and everything I experience seem to exist. This view is dualistic. It stems from the Reclaiming Integral Unity as a principle of ordinary ego state of objective cognition dharma whereas the dharmic approach has to do with My concept of integral unity is not to be transcending that level of experience or conflated with a strict view of Advaita Vedanta consciousness. as the linchpin of that unity. In fact, Appendix The assertion on the right side represents A of my book explains integral unity with the other extreme, which is that the entity does respect to several different dharmic traditions. not exist at all, i.e., its existence is an illusion. Hinduism’s integral unity is mainly illustrated As discussed above, this latter view has been by Sri Jiva Goswami’s Achintya-Bhedabheda, advanced as a common interpretation of which is similar to Ramanuja’s . Advaita Vedanta, and it is one with which I The appendix also explains integral unity from strongly disagree. the perspective of Buddhism and Jainism. I espouse the view in the middle, which is One disagreement I have with Rambachan that the entity is mithya, a Sanskrit word with concerns the status of the relative and absolute no exact equivalent in English.

Object exists Object is Object is independently mithya an illusion

Figure 2

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Unfortunately mithya has been seriously are pre-conceptual and non-linguistic levels of mistranslated as “illusion.” As many vibration, and hence cannot be replaced by commentators and acharyas in the tradition conventional language at all. But Sanskrit has a have stressed, this is incorrect. According to unique claim in that its beej mantras, or the this middle view, every entity exists relative to primordial sounds that comprise its building something other than itself. Jiva Goswami’s blocks, operate at all four levels. At the lower interpretation is that an entity exists only as a two levels, madhyam and vaikhari, the mantras mode or form of Bhagvan and does not exist manifest as the Sanskrit primordial sounds independently as itself. In other words, since which we speak and hear. But these levels are Bhagvan is real, his forms are also real, but they directly linked to the higher ones, para and do not have independent self-existence. pasyanti. Sanskrit is non-translatable in two (Analogy: A smile exists as a form or mode of respects: first, according to the dharmic view, the face, and cannot exist independently of the this link is not found in any other language. face.) I explain In Being Different how mithya as There is thus a unique and irreducible non- relative existence fits in with Buddhism’s idea translatability here. Second, any language is a of mutual co-existence, though this is different web of contextual relations that cannot be from the relative existence in Hinduism mapped onto a different network of contexts. because there is nothing equivalent to Different contexts carry different meanings. Brahman as an absolute. Integral unity, Although this problem is not particular to understood this way, is not homogeneous but Sanskrit, translation problems here are has parts that are mithya. Nor is integral unity especially acute because the original social and in one dharmic system the same as in another. cultural context is largely lost. Rambachan accuses me of the view The non-translatability principle does not depicted in the diagram’s right extreme, mean I do not want any Sanskrit word ever to namely, that I see reality as one homogeneous be translated or that the work of translators is whole. In doing so, he does an injustice to the unimportant. It simply means that there should concept of integral unity as I have articulated be a preference for bringing the important it, and responds instead with his stock position terms of Sanskrit into other languages as intact concerning Advaita Vedanta. as possible (including sharp attention to pronunciation and intonation, which are being Mantra, language and non-translatability quickly eroded through the popularity of yoga A lesser but still important point and Westernized kirtan today) and that when Rambachan raises has to do with my emphasis translation is necessary, it should be done with on the non-translatability of Sanskrit, the appropriate contexts and alternatives especially in relation to mantra. I wish to indicated. This is especially important when it respond by drawing on a perspective from comes to practice. Efforts to find discursive Kashmir Shaivism. Kashmir Shaivism holds that equivalents to mantra – as when, in meditation, vac (speech) exists at four levels of subtlety. “shantih” is replaced by “peace” -- entirely From most subtle to most gross, these are: para, miss the point. pasyanti, madhyam and vaikhari. The first two

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II. Response to Pennington with some precision. History-centrism is not Much of Pennington's critique has nothing the same as historical consciousness or interest to do with my book, but is about me personally. in historical truth, both of which are definitely This special issue of the Journal of Hindu- present in Indian thought. Rather, it is about a Christian Studies was designed as a discussion certain reification of the historical record of and critique of my book, Being Different, but a God’s interventions through prophets. These good deal of what Pennington writes amounts (alleged) recorded occurrences are then used as to personal attacks on me. In fact, Pennington the basis for theological claims, political states explicitly that he is left wondering what projects, and religious practices. my motive/agenda is; he is troubled that the The point of difference, again, concerns academy treats me as a serious scholar worthy shruti, not : The direct experience of of a seat at the table. I have decided not to shruti is possible for all humans whereas in the respond to him by going "tit for tat" on Abrahamic religions, prophecy is not available personal matters or with insinuations. to all humans, in part because the time and place matter and sometimes even determine History Centrism Ignored the content of the revelation. Let me repeat: in Brian Pennington would seem not to the dharmic view, shruti is independent of understand my main points in Being Different, in history, but smriti is not. The are particular my analysis of history-centrism as it careful to keep these separate and the contrasts with the relative freedom from traditions have generally drawn a clear and history found in the dharmic traditions. He logical boundary between them. In the Judeo- charges that I am mounting “an uncritical Christian religions, the two categories are promotion of a homogenized Indic heritage collapsed. Both the Hebrew Bible and the New whose superior character… rests on the fact Testament have content for which shruti status that it is protected from the forces of history.” may be claimed as well as other content that Apparently he is unaware of the distinction can only be explained as smriti. (In fact, the between smirti and shruti, even though my Bible is full of material that, from a dharmic book goes to considerable pains to highlight point of view, would be called purana or itihas.) this distinction. Smirti is clearly historical; shruti The primary task of Christian and Jewish is not. Smriti, by definition, is a product of the exegesis is to draw and redraw the line forces of history and is shaped by the between these two aspects. There are extreme psychology, social position, and general positions at both ends. Fundamentalists argue cultural context of humans involved in its that the whole of their Bible is revelation, what development and transmission. Throughout his the dharmic view would label as shruti; liberal argument, Pennington suggests I am somehow revisionists and secularists argue that all or “against” history and historical readings of past most of it is historical tradition, i.e., what the texts. This would be tantamount to my being dharmic would classify as smirti. The whole against smriti, which is simply untrue. process in the west is, however, clouded and Pennington entirely misreads my concept sometimes even violent, once again because of of history-centrism, which I have explained the problem of history centrism. The particular

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manifestation of God in specific and Hindu dharma were the same as arguing for the unrepeatable events in time and through homogenization of India and thus for fascism. specially honored persons or prophets implies This prejudiced reading of my work creates a that the very content of these revelations is smoke screen for failure or refusal to engage historical and the historical identity, authority with my particular assertions about Hinduism. and destiny of the messengers affects, and to So let me say once again that I fully support the some degree determines, the message (which pluralistic construction of political and social does not have the same weight if uttered by structures that will protect and advance the anyone other than a prophet). History- rights of all peoples and especially minorities, centrism also puts witnesses in conflict with women and the poor. one another since there cannot be a plurality of There is a silent assumption that the only views on the actuality of a historical event. way to avoid Hindu fundamentalism is to adopt Hence the two categories of history and eternal the position that there is no such thing as a truth become cloudy at every turn. The unified Hindu dharma. I have already spoken of dharmic traditions do not have this problem, a version of this view which I think Rambachan not because they are a-historical but because holds, albeit tacitly. Pennington has to confront they distinguish clearly between the two this view more directly as he faces high stakes categories. in this debate. He is best known for having None of the three scholars really engages written the book Was Hinduism Invented?, which with history centrism, which is a central argues that Hinduism was fabricated under concept in my work. In part, this is because British influence and that this fabrication they do not look at the Judeo-Christian accounts for its alleged lack of coherence, unity tradition through dharmic lenses. Their view of and continuity, i.e., it is a sort of fraud. Western religions is conditioned (no doubt I argue the contrary. Not only is there such unconsciously) by their Western training and a thing as Hinduism; it has a long history and assumptions. Westerners often find it troubling has a vital role to play in the public sphere. The to deal with their history centrism as seen from alternative of a repressive secularism -- which a dharmic viewpoint. many scholars, either explicitly or implicitly, would seem to support -- is a disaster in the Creating a Binary: Hindu making. I wish to see the dharmic principles Fundamentalism or non-existent adapted for a contemporary pluralistic society. Hinduism In my book I expressly advocate mutual respect Pennington further implies that in for other faiths; hence arguing in favor of the defending the “difference” intrinsic in dharma integral unity of dharmic traditions does not, in I am in some way colluding with the rise of any way, subordinate other traditions. By the Hindu fundamentalism and with its attempted same token, this mutual respect does not mean suppression of minorities. Unfortunately, today that the voice of Hinduism should be silenced -- it is virtually impossible to make any positive an outcome to which Pennington’s position assertions about Hinduism without incurring would surely lead. this kind of slur. It is as if arguing for a distinct

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Pennington argues, in a related vein, that it “unity templates for moral action and the is my intention “to studiously avoid any apprehension of reality,” but I do so because suggestion that dharmic traditions are this is precisely how they have functioned in multiple, distinct in their various expressions, the religious lives of many people. To study and or products of disparate influences.” He quotes critique narratives in these terms is a well- me — quite accurately -- as saying that “if established practice in the humanities, and to dharma is put forward merely as an eclectic suggest that my doing so is somehow collection of disparate ideas, it will lack the tantamount to a denial of historical context cohesiveness necessary to function as a force and conditioning is a serious misreading. for change.” But these two statements, his and mine, do not correspond in any way. Of course, Pennington’s high stakes dharmic traditions are multiple and distinct; Pennington has long argued against that is precisely the thing about them that I “Hinduism” as a legitimate term, and naturally wish to uphold. And of course they are the he wishes to safeguard and defend his previous product of various influences: historical, social, work. Hence, he attacks my treatment of intellectual, cultural and experiential. I have Hinduism as coherent and also a positive often said as much. I do not, however, hold that resource. Yet he has not been able to pinpoint they lack internal coherence. any central or fundamental flaws in my treatment, at least not in any compelling way. Differences in ‘Chaos’ Narratives Perhaps it is for this reason that he turns Pennington goes on to question my from the book he was supposed to review and “categorical” assessment that Westerners are takes aim instead at my prior, unrelated work especially uneasy about the notion of variation of many years ago. In fact he states explicitly and nuance in the domain of ethics, that they that he accepted this invitation to write in see India and Indians as lacking in ethical order to address his old gripes with what he principles, and that for similar reasons they are sees as my “career as a Hindu activist.” He baffled and disturbed by Indian aesthetics. But writes: my position here is based squarely on a great Why do Princeton and the University of deal of evidence in a large number of Massachusetts offer him a podium? Why does sociological and psychological studies, evidence the International Journal of Hindu Studies which I present and annotate copiously in Being organize a symposium on his work? Why does Different. the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies honor My book adds two analytic points to that him with serious discussion of his book at one of body of evidence: (1) the Western response the only two sessions it holds annually and with originates in a fear of chaos, and (2) this fear a symposium in the one issue of its annual has deep roots in both Biblical and Hellenistic journal? cosmology. It is in this context that I offer a Unable to refute, or even engage with, my comparative reading of narratives found in book’s arguments, he thus resorts to dismissing Genesis, Homer and Indian sources. I do indeed, my right to be at the table in current debates. as Pennington claims, treat these narratives as

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Aastika: Coherence and change gurus formulating innovative interpretations Why does Pennington wish to exclude me that challenge established ones can be traced from the table? To answer this, we must back to classical times. Vivekananda, Gandhi, address the difficult question of what Sri Aurobindo, Ramana Maharshi – these are constitutes religious studies – and indeed but a few of the modern gurus who have religion itself – in today’s world. Is religion reformulated Hindu dharma for their own defined by one fixed and frozen canon to be contexts. But again, the trend is much older. interpreted only by academic scholars and There is nothing new or “manufactured” about “legitimate” exegetists? Or is it a living, organic this dynamism, in spite of what Pennington entity that evolves, with new discoveries and would have us believe. contexts that encourage “churning” among its So coherence and unity exist but in a practitioners, often resulting in new forms of dynamic equilibrium that is conducive to consensus that challenge and replace old ones? rigorous, constructive debate. This aspect of I claim it is the latter. Hinduism is arguably the Hinduism poses a serious problem for Western most dynamic of the major religions, with a academics, whose methods were developed for long history of diverse schools and a seemingly the less fluid and more reified “religions of the inexhaustible supply of new gurus who debate book.” It is time for the academy to re-imagine amongst themselves without a central nexus of Hindu dharma on new terms, and this requires authority to adjudicate over them. Put another engaging those thinkers whose voices the way, these gurus are like intellectual Hindu communities recognize as their own. entrepreneurs who compete with each other by advancing new ideas, revising old ones, etc. I Pennington’s problem in locating me in have argued that Hinduism’s freedom from his stereotypes absolutist history centrism accounts for this With respect to my work in particular, it dynamism, which I think should be encouraged troubles Pennington that he cannot locate me at the academic level as well. in his limited, narrow framework of where The term “aastika” is useful in gaining an Hindus belong. There are two main ways in understanding of this churning practice in which Hindus have participated in the Western Hinduism’s long history and in appreciating the academy. unity in dharma. “Aasitka” encapsulates how One way is as an outsider, or “native Hindus have vigorously debated the criteria for informant,” who has less power in relation to what constitutes their faith. The very existence the scholar and who seldom talks back or of such a term at the center of Hindu discourse shares in the prestige and recognition of shows that the quest for coherence is very old. authorship. He certainly does not get a chance At the same time, the definition of aastika has to articulate what he sees when he “reverses long been vigorously contested and debated. In the gaze,” i.e., ceases to be the object and fixes stark contrast to the Nicene Creed of his own gaze on the Westerner. It is mostly Christianity3, there is no static, history-centric poor villagers who have been “studied” as statement or institutionalized criterion for native informants, though many gurus have aastika. The phenomenon of multiple Hindu been as well, and often with their full co-

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operation. These gurus are largely ignorant of argument would have gained no hearing the “playing field” and in many cases are whatsoever. dependent on Western patronage. In the case of Being Different, however, The second way a Hindu participates in Pennington is simply wrong in stating that I Western studies is as a scholar inside the wrote it as a way of “speaking back to the academy, where he is under great pressure to academy.” He also alleges that I wrote the book adopt the syndicated and authorized as a way of engaging directly with the scholarly hermeneutics of his mentors and peers, and world. Indeed, a decade back I did focus on often compromises his own tradition’s changing the Western system through its own siddhanta (theory and method) in doing so. guardians, but for many years now, most of my Many such individuals have told me they, in target audience has been from the Hindu effect, lead double lives: privately they can dharma community in the broad sense. In the agree with me and even help me in my own process, I have actively engaged the leading pursuit of reform, but in front of peers, they gurus, civic and industry leaders, as well as must protect their careers by closing ranks. scholars, both in India and North America. As Some Hindu scholars have gone even further the record shows, my book has reading lists in and marketed themselves as “sepoys,” to be Indian university departments of psychology, used as “hit men” against uncontrollable management, social sciences, technology, etc. Hindus like me who refuse to submit. Also, my critique of the inauthentic Pennington’s problem is that I fit into appropriation of Indian ideas and practices has neither category. I am not a benign, passive placed certain Western schools of thought native informant available to help scholars by under scrutiny. This broad reception is based supplying them with the data that they want to on the realization that what I am proposing is hear. Nor do I tailor my scholarship to fit “a new gaze,” both internally, at Hinduism current academic norms in the study of itself, and externally, at the West -- a gaze Hinduism. moreover which empowers Hindus to see Pennington also takes umbrage at my themselves as global citizens with dharma- pointed attacks on the self-validating and based identities. Thanks to the power of the closed circle of peer review in the academy and internet and social media in general, my book is on the prevalence of heavy funding for the having a global impact. It is also now reaching study of hypotheses that “just happen” to American classrooms, where people like support or benefit projects of Western Pennington teach. hegemony, both intellectual and political. I As a result not just of my work in this area would simply like to point out that while but also of a much broader movement of ideas, corruptions of the peer review system in the the Western academy no longer enjoys a academy become scandals in the sciences, they monopoly on shaping the public’s go largely unnoticed in the humanities, and understanding of “the East.” today had I taken a more deferential and subaltern receive their ideas about Indian traditions tone in drawing attention to them, my through travel, the workplace, Indian friends,

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novels, art, popular culture, the Internet, and legal disputes over the teaching of evolution in other emerging channels. American schools today. Second, I am well This increasingly well-informed readership aware of the blurring of the line between regards many of the old-school portrayals of science and religion today, though I do not Hinduism as bizarre, inaccurate and unreliable. think it takes quite the simplistic form Edelman My own work provides a much-needed analytic suggests. I have explained my views on this in platform for their concerns, as even those detail in my response, above, to Rambachan. A within the academy are starting to realize. third point: the Templeton Foundation’s When I do address the academy (and I do so program on science and religion was largely only by invitation), I try to hold its leading built by scholars who borrowed Hindu and scholars accountable for the misinformation Buddhist ideas; most of its initial thinkers and confusion they spread, and to expose how drank heavily from those wells. Figure 1 lists these errors arise from self-perpetuating Templeton as one of the major organizations structures and entrenched positions. If this in built on digesting dharmic knowledge and itself makes me appear as a threat, I feel transforming it into new frameworks that satisfied that my work is making a difference. I appear to be original. am glad there are a growing number of serious With respect to the question of history- and open-minded academicians who wish to centrism, Edelman notes that certain Hindu engage with the substance of my arguments traditions give central theological authority to while taking the wider context into account. a particular purana and make its author central as well. But here again, he misses the point. It is III. Response to Edelman not that Indian thought does not take note of Like Rambachan and Pennington, Jonathan the particular circumstances of certain texts or Edelman expresses concern about my value their association with certain authors. Of treatment of science and history-centrism, and course these texts and authors arrive in time; takes me to task for not understanding the how else could they occur? Of course the diversity of both Hinduism and Christianity. He teachings about Brahman have a history and a asserts that I oversimplify the tension between context and even, at points, an internal religion and science in the West, and cites the unfolding order. But these teachings do not (very infrequent) acceptance of scientific views depend on specific historical events and by Christians and the new blurring of the validations equivalent to the exodus of the boundaries between science and religion as Israelites from Egypt under Moses or the exemplified by the John Templeton resurrection of Jesus. In Judaism and in Foundation. Christianity, respectively, they do. The First, it is a matter of historical record that distinctions between shruti and smriti help to Christianity and science in the West have long illuminate this point. been violently opposed. Galileo was censured The important question here is: Would the by the church and Darwin’s theories were theology of be significantly different if it strongly resisted in most mainstream Christian were “proved” that the Bhagavata Purana came circles. This resistance lives on in political and to someone other than Vyasa, or at some other

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time or place? The answer is: not at all. But if it not at all operate like a parampara or line of were proved that the Ten Commandments were transmission in dharma, even though Edelman delivered outside of the Jewish tradition and claims it does. Among other things, these Jewish history, or if they were, say, delivered prophets are in competition with one another out of sequence with regard to other key for complete and exclusive control over their revelations in Judaism, then that religion would respective traditions, and that control depends, be profoundly affected. Jews could no longer as I have said, on their place in an unfolding see themselves as unique bearers of truth in linear temporality and on the events and history with unique privileges and outcomes of history itself. responsibilities. Likewise, if the revelation that Edelman also criticizes what he takes to be God is the savior came to someone other than my lack of awareness of the diversity within Jesus, Christians could no longer believe either Christianity. In my view (that is, the dharmic in the incarnation or the trinity, the two view), this notion of Christian diversity is essential doctrinal pillars of their faith. For myopic at best. Clearly people like Edelman feel Vaishavites, however, the bhakti the need to rescue the West from its history of reinterpretation of the whole of the Vedic past violent suppression of diverse religious views, is true, and would be true even if someone else and so they repeatedly hold up the example of in some other time and place had discovered it. a few dissenters. (These are mostly American Its validity does not depend on historical Protestants of the past two centuries who no events contemporary with the discovery or on longer represent the Christian mainstream, if the particular ethnic and historical identity of in fact they ever did.) Edelman cites, for Vyasa himself. Vaishnavites do not claim that instance, Christians who do not find it this history created a new, unique covenant or necessary to believe in the historical Jesus and new ritam that was previously unavailable and his resurrection or in the basic historical that is available today only through the accuracy of the gospels’ accounts of this event. knowledge of that covenant and no other way. That such persons exist I do not doubt; indeed I The importance of history to salvation in have enjoyed meting a few. But strictly the West is well-recognized and if that were all speaking they are not mainstream Christians I were saying, I would indeed be uttering a and cannot, in good conscience, sign on to any commonplace, as Edelman claims. But that is of the basic creeds and affirmations by which not all. I am speaking of a primacy given to Christianity, in any recognized denomination, historical events themselves that goes beyond is defined. An affirmation of precisely this set the role of history in other major religious or of beliefs is, as I point out in Being Different, built philosophical traditions and that seriously into the creed that is the gold standard of blocks any genuine pluralism. For Hindus and Christian orthodoxy and that is said every Buddhists this point is often difficult to grasp. Sunday in every church with a legitimate claim The complex relationship between the line of to Christian identity. Belief in the historical prophets in the Abrahamic religions -- that is, accuracy of the accounts of Jesus’ rising from between Abraham, Moses, Jesus and the dead in the gospels was re-emphasized as a Mohammed, to name only the key ones -- does key article of faith even at Vatican II, the

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Church council that supposedly liberalized so many other Roman Catholic doctrines. On the matter of Hindu education, the importance of the study of Sanskrit, and the full recognition and support of both Western and Indian scholars who attempt to save and preserve the textual tradition, I am entirely in agreement with Edelman, as the record of projects I have funded through the Infinity Foundation clearly shows.

Notes 1 See Being Different, pp. 124-126. 2 A similar point can be made using particulars and universals instead of parts and wholes. 3 The criteria for being aastika have varied over time. These include: one who “affirms the value of ritual” (Medhatithi); one who “affirms the existence of virtue and vice” (Hariibhadra); one who “affirms the existence of another world after death” (the grammarians); and one who “affirms the Vedas as the source of ultimate truth” (Vijnanabhiksu Madhava, etc.).

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