Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies Volume 8 Article 4 January 1995 The Nature and Authority of Scripture: Implications for Hindu- Christian Dialogue Anantanand Rambachan Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Rambachan, Anantanand (1995) "The Nature and Authority of Scripture: Implications for Hindu-Christian Dialogue," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 8, Article 4. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1109 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]. Rambachan: The Nature and Authority of Scripture: Implications for Hindu-Christian Dialogue The Nature and Authority of Scripture : Implications for Hindu-Christian Dialogue . Anantanand Rambachan St Olaf College IN A THOUGHTFUL series of reflections Klostermaier laments the trend in on the future of Hindu-Christian Dialogue, contemporary Christianity and Hinduism "to Klaus Klostermaier observes that there are dismiss the intellectual approach to religion "few Hindus who are interested in (con­ as irrelevant and to cultivate only its temporary) Christian theology, and there are emotional and pragmatic sides". Arguing fewer still who have a desire to enter into that intellectuals and scholars must be dialogue with their Christian counter­ allowed to playa more vital and central role parts".1 Others have noted that, with few in the development of these traditions, notable exceptions, the initiatives for Klostermaier affirms that Hindu-Christian dialogue in recent times have been from the dialogue 2 Christian side. In an earlier study, I must recover the intellectual substance suggested, briefly, a few possible reasons of Hinduism and Christianity and must for this lack of interest on the Hindu side. contribute actively to the ongoing search The memories of colonialism and its for truth/reality in all spheres of life. association with aggressive Christian The intellectual dimension of life has missionary activity, misrepresentation of not lost its importance in our time. 4 other religions, and the lack of genuine The loss of intellectual vigour in interest in the study and understanding of contemporary Hinduism is a matter of deep these traditions are not easily erased. There 3 concern and the causes are many and are still barriers of mistrust to overcome. complex. There are also serious implications I interpreted this lack of interest also as a for the Hindu interest in dialogue with reflection of certain popular Hindu attitudes Christians and for the nature of such towards religious pluralism. The famous dialogue. In this article, I want to identify Rgveda text, "One is the Truth, the sages what I perceive to be one major cause for speak of it differently" (1.64.46), is often the erosion of intellectual life in Hinduism employed to explain away doctrinal and its divorce from spirituality. I wish to differences as merely semantic ones. The reflect also on the significance of this for point of this text, as its context makes quite Hindu-Christian dialogue. clear, is not really to dismiss the It is my contention that the decline in the significance of the different ways in which significance of Vedic exegesis and the we speak of the One or to see these ways as reinterpretation of the authority of the Vedas equally valid. The text is really a comment in contemporary times vis-a-vis personal on the limited nature of human language. experience are connected closely with the Such language must by nature be diverse in weakening of scholarship in Hinduism and its attempts to describe that which is One its lack of interest in vigorous dialogue with and finally indescribable. The text, however, Christianity. It is not possible here to is widely cited in ways that seem to make describe in detail and to trace the historical interreligious dialogue redundant. roots of this process of reinterpretation; I Hindu-Christian Studies Bulletin 8 (1995) 20-27 Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 1995 1 Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 8 [1995], Art. 4 The Nature and Authority of Scripture 21 have already attempted this elsewhere. 5 I pursuit of the same inquiry. Finally, the will, however, highlight some of the salient doctrine of Vedic infallibility was abolished and relevant historical developments and in 1850.7 Perhaps the main reason for draw attention to their significance for Tagore's rejection of the doctrine of Hindu-Christian dialogue. infallibility was his refusal to accept The Western impact on India in the passages in the Upanishads affirming the eighteenth century had far-reaching identity of atman and brahman. He chose to implications for almost every aspect of see brahman as lord and regulator of the Indian life and served as a catalyst for the universe and to see the atman as dependent cultivation of attitudes of rational inquiry on brahman for its existence. 8 and criticism. The earliest Hindu reformer From that tirne onwards, the non­ to reflect the impact of the West in his authoritative status of any text became thinking about Hinduism is the Brahmo enshrined in the creed of the Brahmo Samaj. Samaj leader, Rammohun Roy. While Roy's Nature and intuition took the place of attitude to the authority of the Vedas had an scripture as twin sources of knowledge. The element of ambiguity about it, even among basis of Brahmoism became "the pure heart his own followers, it is quite clear that his filled with the light of intuitive knowledge". approach to the texts was different from Tagore himself became increasingly reliant orthodox Pllrva Mfma,!,sa exegetes or from on personal intuition as his authority and the the Advaita Vedanta interpreter, Sankara. notion of divine command (adesa) assumed Roy applied an extrascriptural criterion of a significant role in his life. "true" religion in his evaluation of the worth Tagore's successor to the leadership of of any text, including the Vedas. He did not the Brahmo Samaj, the charismatic Keshub see religious truth as being limited to the Chandra Sen (1838-1884), rejoiced in the texts of the Vedas or see the Vedas as being rejection of Vedic infallibility. He saw it as indispensable for our knowledge of God. a grand step in the evolution of the Samaj The texts themselves and not only their and its embrace of monotheism which interpretations, he argued, must be subject was not confined to Hindoo books, to to rational analysis. the scriptures of their own countrymen, What I perceive as a watershed in the but was to be found in human nature in attitude of contemporary Hindu interpreters all the races and tribes and nations of to the authority of the Vedas occurred under the world.9 the leadership of Roy's successor, Keshub propagated a general theory of Debendranath Tagore (1817 -1905). The revelation in which he included nature, change was initiated as a consequence of a history, by which he means "great men", debate sparked by the conversion to and inspiration. He clearly emphasized Christianity of Umesh Chandra Sarkar and inspiration as the most direct and significant his wife. Sarkar was a student at Alexander form of revelation. He described it as Duff's school, and there was vigorous opposition to the school. Duff responded the direct breathing-in of God's spirit - with a challenge to the doctrines of the which infuses an altogether new life into Brahmo Samaj, questioning in particular the the soul, and exalts it above all that is belief in Vedic infallibility. 6 The Samaj earthly and impure. It is more powerful, initially defended the doctrine, but this being God's direct and immediate action stirred a great degree of unease in its ranks. on the human soul, while revelation made through physical nature and In an effort to resolve this issue, biography is indirect and mediate. to Debendranath Tagore sent four brahmin youths to Benares to study the Vedas. His Sen went much further than Tagore in own visit to the city in 1847 was partly in his denunciation of what he regarded to be https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol8/iss1/4 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1109 2 Rambachan: The Nature and Authority of Scripture: Implications for Hindu-Christian Dialogue 22 Anantanand Rambachan doctrine and dogma, and in his unfavourable Ramakrishna possessed a deep aversion comparison of these with the "fire of to formal learning and education. Learned inspiration". Doctrine and dogma which persons were likened by him to kites and relate to intellectual cognition, reasoning and vultures, which soar to great heights in the logical thought were cold and lifeless and sky but whose eyes are forever focused on had nothing to do with the attainment of the decaying carcasses below. They were salvation. He spoke of direct perception as also described as similar to foolish people in the only reliable, conclusive and self-evident an orchard who count the leaves and fruit means of gaining spiritual knowledge and and argue to estimate their value instead of saw this perception as affirmed in the plucking and relishing the juicy fruit. Upanishads. Reason and the intellectual life received little No expression is more frequently used attention or recognition in his teachings. in the Upanishads than the "perception" Ramakrishna confessed scepticism about of God (darsan). It appears that Hindu the value of scriptural study. The scriptures sages, not content with intellectual are diluted, containing, as he puts it, a conceptions of the Almighty or abstract "mixture of sand and sugar", difficult to contemplation of certain Divine distinguish and separate.