Gospel Ferment in India among both Hindus and Christians Seeking India’s Christ-Bearing Word Some Reflections—Historical, Indological, and Theological— on the Quest for a “Christian” Vedanta by Richard Fox Young Who Needs to Rethink Hinduism and Why? o start these discussions off, let me share with you a few cursory observations of a philological nature on a Sanskrit word commonly T used in the Vedantic tradition, a word that comes close to describ- ing what I regard as a necessary predisposition for doing what this forum invites us to do, which is to “rethink” Hinduism. The word I wish to draw attention to is jijnasa, a desiderative form of the root verb jna, to “know” or “understand.” In the Vedantic tradition, salvific knowledge, mokashajnana or muktijnana, isn’t for just anyone, isn’t a universal entitlement. To qualify for it, one must seek for it single-mindedly, out of an overwhelming sense of urgency, because no other knowledge is more desirable, more salvifically con- sequential. Jijnasa, of course, isn’t the only prerequisite (among other quali- fications, one must also have a front-to-back familiarity with the Vedas), but without jijnasa, the predisposition to rigorously rethink the assumptions we routinely make, one might as well stay home (in the idiom of the Indian tradition, as a householder, grhastha), conduct oneself well according to the dharma, pursue the good things of life (artha, wealth, and kama, pleasure), and transmigrate a while longer to realize just how inconsequential all these things really are, compared with salvific knowledge. To repeat, one just isn’t ready for Vedanta unless the glint of jijnasa shines in one’s eyes.1 Since at this forum we too are being invited to rethink certain assumptions, the assumptions we routinely make about Hinduism, it wouldn’t hurt to muster up some jijnasa ourselves, or to talk about doing so in a Vedantic idiom even though the idiom isn’t ours. Otherwise we’ll find ourselves going around and around in a sansara of our own making, an endlessly repeating, ever worsening cycle of ignorance, superimposing upon Hinduism the same invidious misunderstandings of the past, like people who jump back in fear every time they see a coil of rope because they can’t help seeing it as a coiled snake. I’ll switch to a more familiar idiom in just a moment, but Vedanta Richard Fox Young, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of the History of Religions at here provides us with its own analogy for what we’re doing, a very familiar Princeton Theological Seminary. analogy for the way in which the true and the real (sat) gets confused with International Journal of Frontier Missions 19:3 Fall 2002•19 20 Seeking India’s Christ-Bearing Word Richard Fox Young 21 the false and the unreal (asat). It is at this point a whole cluster of collat- izing, reifying effect of referring to an analogy that can also speak to eral questions rears up. Among them, I this loose agglomeration by a single us cross-culturally about the need to address the following: which Hinduism name, “Hinduism,” sometimes seem rethink Hinduism and not be deceived do Christians need to rethink? where exaggerated or simply pedantic. by appearances. For that task, the pre- should Christian rethinking begin? The caution, however, is to be taken disposition of jijnasa is a prerequisite. how should Christian rethinking seriously, especially here, because to proceed? and—the most difficult of talk of rethinking Hinduism without Since, however, we are invited here to all— purpose(s) should Christian reference to contextually specifi- rethink Hinduism as Christians, the what rethinking serve? able, concrete particularities would glint of jijnasa in our eyes isn’t the only end in abstractions that would only thing, or even the main thing, Let me anticipate for you the trajec- themselves need further rethinking at required of us. Christian jijnasa must tory of my discussion by re-phrasing a subsequent forum. be accompanied by a change of heart the last question, the toughest, like and not only of mind, which is to say, this: would any other purpose than To sort through the multiform phe- in a more congenial idiom of our own, thinking about Hinduism with a view nomena that we sloppily, if inadver- that the proper predisposition of a toward its Christ-bearing potential tently, render uniform with the label Christian for the task at hand is that be sufficient to warrant a call for “Hinduism,” anthropology offers of metanoia, a turning from the false some helpful schemes of classification, and the unreal toward the true and especially the Great Tradition/Little the real. We need metanoia as well as I submit that Tradition distinction formulated years jijnasa because of the misunderstand- conservatives, who see a ago by Robert Redfield. According ings we superimpose upon Hinduism, to this, one of the primary and as if the Commandment not to bear venomous snake in every most symptomatic features of Great false witness against our neighbors harmless rope, need to Tradition Hinduism would be its tex- doesn’t apply to the faithful of this tuality, the fact of its being embedded religion or others. rethink Hinduism . and in the Veda and its auxiliary literature the same goes for liberals, in Sanskrit, and along with textual- It isn’t, therefore, only to rethink ity there is the literacy that textuality Hinduism that we are meeting, but who see a harmless rope in implies. It follows from this, of course, also, I would suppose, to rethink every venomous that Great Tradition Hinduism is Christianity and who we are as about as universal, or pan-Indian Christians in relation to Hinduism. I snake. as Indian religions ever get, because would further suppose that rethinking radical “rethinking”? That is not literate communities everywhere enjoy Hinduism—intellectually and meta- virtually unlimited access to it. noically—as faithful Christians who to deny, of course, that other, non- confess that the misunderstandings theological purposes would be served Where Little Tradition Hinduism is we’ve been content to perpetuate, is by rethinking Hinduism, or that I concerned, one of its most primary something we all need to do, whatever downplay the need to be more aware and symptomatic features would be theological tag we care to wear, con- of them—I refer here to the academic orality, the fact of its being embedded servative, liberal, or something else. discipline of the history of religions, in unwritten texts, which implies the about which theologians need to be absence of literacy, although oral texts At the risk of caricature, I submit that more cognizant if their theologies of can be just as complex and highly conservatives, who see a venomous religion are to be anything more than developed as written texts. It fol- snake in every harmless rope, need to a priori abstractions. lows from this that Little Tradition rethink Hinduism (Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism is geographically localized etc.), and the same goes for liber- Which Hinduism Do and linguistically restrictive, since for als, who see a harmless rope in every reasons of language anyone who isn’t venomous snake. As unlike in their Christians Need to Rethink? Because “Hinduism,” like all world a part of the community will find it theologies as conservatives and liber- difficult of access. als are, they are at least alike in being religions, our own included, is a aloof from, or indifferent to, the deep, semi-fictional construct of European As obvious as it seems, it needs to be origin, superimposed upon a loose jijnasa-like and metanoic engagement further observed in this connection with Hinduism (or, for that matter, agglomeration of variable and con- that Great Tradition Hinduism, being Buddhism, Islam, etc.) that this trastive phenomena, any rethinking of Sanskritic, contextually specifies the forum refers to as “rethinking” what it, by theologians or non-theologians, religious complex of the privileged we think we already know. ought to be contextually specifiable, minority, a miniscule community in by which I mean verifiable in regard terms of percentages, whereas Little To say that Christians across the to concrete particularities. One can Tradition Hinduism contextually board need to “rethink” Hinduism, hardly afford in today’s academic specifies the religious complex of the intellectually and metanoically, isn’t climate to be slack in this regard, even marginalized majority, known in saying very much, of course, because though concerns about the essential- today’s nomenclature as Dalits (or in International Journal of Frontier Missions 19:3 Fall 2002 20 Seeking India’s Christ-Bearing Word Richard Fox Young 21 the outdated Gandhian terminology themes that Advaita Vedanta perenni- The objection is one to which I am of the past as Harijans, and so forth). ally addresses with a variety of per- sensitive. One would have to search mutations, two stand out as being of long and hard for a Vedantic coun- One can get more contextually spe- special relevance for Christian rethink- terpart to Christian theologies of cific than this, and it would, of course, ing: the Brahman/ dichotomy, liberation, because the only liberation be the responsible thing to do, but my Ishvara or the ontological difference between of interest to classical Vedanta is the purpose is only to suggest a way, a way unqualified ( ) and qualified liberation from rebirth ( ). among others, in which our rethink- nirguna samsara ( ) being ( ), and its corol- But such theologies have emerged ing of Hinduism might be made saguna sat lary, the epistemological trichotomy among neo-Vedantins even in Dalit more verifiable in regard to concrete between 1) transempirical ( communities, as was demonstrated particularities.