The Ocean of Love: Middle Bengali Sufi Literature and the Fakirs of Bengal by David Cashin

Review by: Carol Salomon

Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 118, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1998), pp. 554-558
Published by: American Oriental Society
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554 Journal of the American Oriental Society 118.4 (1998)
mere fact, however that Jainas have used the lexeme arsa can-
not really make it so ambiguous ("nicht eindeutig") as to render
it unserviceable for us to express, in the context of Buddhism,
what a Buddhist writer meant by it. Furthermore,as explained
in this reviewer's previous observation on this matter in Dia-
lectes dans les litteratures indo-aryennes (ed. C. Caillat [Paris,
1989], 295-96), the word arsa(vidhi) possesses the distinct-
and very convenient-advantage over Edgerton's expression
"Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit" (BHS) of not, as a designation,
prejudging (and thus virtually forestalling) the crucial question
as to whether a given Buddhist sutrais actually in some form of
Old Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) or not. The availability of this term
is convenient because, as will be recalled, Edgertonwas himself
aware that the language underlying the group of texts he placed
in his Class I of BHS-the Mahavastu, etc.-was more a
Prakrit(Middle Indo-Aryan)than Sanskrit (see, e.g., his BHSG
[1953], xxv). Now, by not including any reference to Sanskrit,
the designation Arsa can, in a Buddhist context, serve as a gen-
eral designation covering not only canonical texts in Edgerton's
Classes II and III of BHS-which he considered to have been
composed in a more regularSanskrit-but also sutratexts in his
linguistically Middle Indo-Aryan Class I. This was indeed the
point of my observation in Dialectes . . about the potential
suitability and the convenience of the term Arsa to denote the
language of Buddhist sitras markedby forms that are grammat-
ically irregularby the standardof Sanskrit: if the language of
the group of texts (viz., Edgerton'sClass I) is indeed Prakrit,the
designation "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit"is something of a mis-
nomer for it. (It may be noted in addition that the very idea of
such a thing as [Buddhist] "Hybrid Sanskrit"has encountered
resistance, and engendered misunderstandings, in India ever
since this designation was publicized through lectures given
there in 1953 by Edgerton. In part this is because it is thought
that no Indo-Aryan grammatical form can be at the same time
linguistically hybridand linguistically samskrta.)Certainly,none
of this finally and conclusively demonstratesthat we must forth-
with abandon the familiar designation BHS, provided at least
that it is employed with due care. What it does show is that
thought and research still need to be devoted to the complex of
philological, historical, and social issues arising in relation with
the multi-layered,and sometimes heterogeneous, linguistic phe-
nomena we now globally call BHS (and sometimes also Bud-
dhist Sanskrit).These issues, which of course extend far beyond
the purview of the SWTF, arise in relation with the use of the
grammatical term arsa; in Prof. Bechert's reaction, printed on
pp. 597-98 of this dictionary, to what the present writer con-
siders to be a genuine problem in Indian historical linguistics,
enough space was clearly not available to addressthe issues still
in need of clarification.
The successful completion of this first volume of SWTFwill
be universally welcomed by scholars of Indo-Aryan and of
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Buddhism, and thanks are due to its editors for an invaluable
major work of reference. By the standardsof so many dictio-
naries the rate of its publication has been rapid, and it is hoped
that the remaining four volumes (see p. v of the preface in
fascicle 8) of SWTF can appear as quickly. Editions of the
Pratimoksasutra (by G. v. Simson) and the Karmavacand (by
K. T. Schmidt) are also announced (p. xvi). Envisaged for the
future (p. xvii) is a correspondingdictionary of canonical texts
of the Mulasarvastivadins,as well as critical editions of their
Ekottaragama,Lokaprajnapti(by S. Dietz), and Vinayavastu.
RUEGG
D. SEYFORT
LONDON
The Ocean of Love: Middle Bengali Sufi Literature and the
Fakirs of Bengal. By DAVIDCASHIN.Skrifter utgivna av
Foreningen for OrientaliskaStudier, no. 17. Stockholm: As-
SOCIATION OFORIENTAL STUDIES, STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY,
1995. Pp. 329. SK 10.
The Islam of Bengal, which has the second largest Muslim
population in the world-concentrated mainly in the eastern
delta comprising present-day Bangladesh-is characterizedby
flexibility, adaptability,and accommodation to local traditions.
The book underreview, which was the author'sStockholm Uni-
versity dissertation, is a study of Bengali Sufi esoteric litera-
ture dating from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. This
highly abstruseliterature,composed by some of the most distin-
guished authorsof medieval Bengal, includingthe late-sixteenth-
century epic poet Saiyid Sultan, was influenced by the beliefs
and practices of Bengali Tantricyogic traditions.To my knowl-
edge, this is only the second book-length study of the literature
(not including discussions in text editions) published to date,
following Ashim Roy's The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in
Bengal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).
Cashin's aim in writing this book is to demonstratethat (pp.
111-12) "the majority of these texts hold a specific cultic line
which is directly traceable to one or another of the Hindu
cults."He rejects MuhammadAnimul Haq'sand Ahmad Sharif's
view of Bengali Sufi literatureas the product of a combination
of influences, including Vedantic,Tantric,Nath, Vaisnava Saha-
jiya, Sufi, and Buddhist. He also rejects Ashim Roy's assess-
ment that Muslim authors derived their Tantricand yogic ideas
largely from the Naths, arguing that Roy had only part of the
picture (p. 40). Instead, he sets out to prove that the texts can
be divided into two distinct and for the most part exclusive
groups, according to whether they are Nath in orientation or
Vaisnava Sahajiya-the former texts predating the latter but
virtually disappearingby the nineteenth century.
 Reviews of Books
According to Cashin, his method differs from that of previ-
ous scholars in that he does not merely discuss isolated terms,
but ratherprovides the contexts in which they occur, including
detailed textual analysis, since technical terminology tends not
only to be recycled but also often reinterpreted.In cases where
a term has both Nath and Vaisnava Sahajiya antecedents, he
first determines the distinctive sense in which it is used in each
traditionin orderto be able to trace the source of the word used
in the Sufi text. He combined his study of texts with fieldwork
in Bangladesh. At the beginning of several chapters he quotes
from a Sufi song he collected, or from an interview he con-
ducted with a pir, in order to show continuity between the
medieval textual tradition and modern Sufi belief and practice,
in which he finds Vaisnava Sahajiya to be the predominant
"cultic" influence.
For this study Cashin examined numerous manuscripts and
published texts. He translates here for the first time four short
works into English, namely Nir Nama, by Sekh Paran; Cari
MokamerBhed, by Abdul Hakim; Har Gauri Sambad, by Sekh
Canda;1and Satyandaryaner Puthi, by Ballabha, and appends
their texts in roman transliterationat the end of the chapters in
which they are translated and analyzed. This is also the first
time that Sekh Paran'sand Abdul Hakim's Bengali texts have
appearedin print. In supportof his arguments,Cashin includes
translatedportions of several other works as well. In addition,
in the course of his discussions, he quotes from Nath and Vais-
nava Sahajiya literatureto serve as a basis for comparison with
the Sufi literature.
The book is divided into nine chapters. Chapter two, "The
Sahajiya-Nath-SufiConfluence in Bengal,"discusses the factors
which led to the emergence of a large Bengali Muslim popula-
tion and also gives an overview of Bengali Tantric traditions.
"
Chapterthree, "In the Beginning ... comparescreation myths
in Bengali Sufi texts with those in Bengali Nath and Vaisnava
Sahajiyaworks. In chapterfour, "Yogic Texts,"Cashin translates
and interpretsAbdul Hakim'sCari MokamerBhed, which, along
with Saiyid Murtaza's Yoga Kalandar, is one of the two Sufi
texts he found that deals primarilywith yogic techniques. These
are identified by Cashin as deriving from Nath sources on the
grounds of the much greaterimportancethat the Naths place on
yoga for its own sake than do the Vaisnava Sahajiyas. Chapter
five, "LoverBecomes Mother,Desire Becomes Love,"compares
Nath and Vaisnava Sahajiya views on women, arguingthat there
are more similarities between these views than meets the eye.
Among Bengali Sufi texts, Sekh Canda's Talib Nadm, which
describes women as "stealing the candra" ("moon"; a code
word for semen, the preservationof which is essential to Nath
1 For the most
part, Bengali names and words are transliter-
ated as they appear in the book under review.
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555
practice), represents, according to Cashin, the Nath position.
Ali Raja's Agam, which regards a woman who is married to
someone else (parakiya) as a superiorpartnerto one's own wife
(svakiya), expresses the Vaisnava Sahajiya stance. Chaptersix,
"The Elixir of Immortality,"discusses the meanings of rasa in
Nath and Vaisnava Sahajiya traditions and in the Muslim texts
influenced by them. Chapter seven, "Sekh Canda'sHar Gauri
Sambdd,"compares this text which uses Hindu Tantric termi-
nology with Talib Namd, a parallel text written by the same
author which uses Sufi terminology to express essentially the
same concepts. These interesting texts, Cashin concludes, dem-
onstratethat Hakim viewed Hindu Tantric,especially Nath, and
Sufi traditions as equivalent. Chaptereight, "Muslim Vaisnava
Poets,"compares Vaisnava lyrics writtenby Muslim poets influ-
enced by the Naths with those influenced by the Vaisnava Sa-
hajiyas. Finally, the last chapter,"The Cult of the Pir,"includes
a translation of Ballabha's Satyandrayaner Puthi, a popular
narrativetale about a saint known as Satyapir or Satyanarayan,
who was worshipped in common by Hindus and Muslims. This
text is unrelated to the main theme of the book, i.e., Nath and
Vaisnava Sahajiya influence on Sufi texts, and so should not
have been included.
Conceptually, the book is a jumble. On the one hand, Cashin
states that he is attempting to prove that the texts are "exclu-
sively Nathist or exclusively Vaisnava Sahajiya" (p. 40), and
sometimes even goes so far as to identify an authorof a Bengali
Sufi text as a "straightforwardNathist yogi" (p. 141) or "Vais-
nava Sahajiya"(p. 104). On the other hand, he admits that there
are Nath elements in Muslim texts which he considers to be
Vaisnava Sahajiya in orientation and vice versa, but holds that
it is the tradition that predominates which indicates the "cult"
of origin. Clearly, "exclusively" is an overstatementand not apt
to characterize the premodern Bengali religious scene, which
tended to be fluid and inclusivist. In any case, the book for the
most part discounts exogenous Sufi influence.
While I agree with Cashin that the concepts in the texts are
largely borrowed from Tantricyogic traditions, there are more
Sufi elements in them than he realizes. For example, Cashin
remarks that the belief that creation was produced from Nir
Muhammad'ssweat (or in the case of Ali Raja's Agam, from
the sweat of both God and Nur Muhammad)is "typical of eso-
teric texts in Bengali" and is found "even in Sheikh Paran's
more orthodox text" (p. 104), but he does not note that similar
Sufi cosmogonic beliefs were recorded in Arabic and Persian
texts dating at least as early as the eleventh century. He also
states that silent dhikr (Bengali jikir, "recollection," i.e., repe-
tition of the names of God or of religious formulae) mentioned
in Bengali Sufi texts is due to the influence of (p. 132) "the
mantraconcept of word-power"and that this represents"a clear
distinction from Sufi practice."Actually dhikr can be performed
silently or aloud and, in fact, the latter is generally considered
superior to the former.
556 Journal of the American Oriental Society 118.4 (1998)
It is well known that it was through the Naths that Tantric
yogic ideas and practices were incorporatedinto various tradi-
tions of northIndia,influencingSufi works such as Rushd-Nama,
by Shaikh CAbdu'l-QuddusGangohi (1456-1537), Ismaili Gin-
ans, and Sant poetry.Cashinendeavorsto understandthe process
whereby such Tantricyogic ideas and practices were absorbed
into Sufism in Bengal, yet the history of this close association
between Naths and Sufis in medieval India tracing back to the
beginning of Muslim rule is hardly noted. The key role played
by the Amrtakunda,a Nath yogic manual, which is said to have
been first translated from a Sanskrit original into Persian and
Arabic as early as the thirteenthcentury, is only mentioned in
a footnote (pp. 55-56, note 135). Had Cashin adequately pro-
vided the historical context for the literature,it would come as
no surprise that Nath influence is strong in Bengali Sufi texts.
Even in the later texts, which were influenced by Vaisnava
Sahajiya traditions, Nath influence remains discernible.
Bengali Sufi esoteric texts, like Bengali Tantrictexts in gen-
eral, are not systematic, standardized,or consistent. Yet Cashin
attempts to regularize the texts, imposing a structure on them
that they do not have. He occasionally uses arbitraryand un-
substantiatedcriteria for determining what are Nath and Vais-
nava Sahajiyaelements. For example, he mentions as a defining
feature of the Naths the goal of avoiding death and attaining
immortalityby preservingsemen. However, this is equally char-
acteristic of the Vaisnava Sahajiyas. He also mentions that for
the Naths rasa connotes bodily fluids, whereas for the Vaisnava
Sahajiyas it is primarilya sentiment. According to Cashin, Nath
texts advocate the consumption of rasa whereas Vaisnava Saha-
jiya texts do not. Actually, in Vaisnava Sahajiya texts rasa con-
notes both an emotional state and sexual fluids that are ritually
ingested. In addition,Cashintakesjivatmd andparamatma,often
mistranslated as "body" and "spirit,"to be Vaisnava Sahajiyf
concepts, whereas they actually can be tracedback ultimately to
Vedantic literatureand are not exclusive in any one tradition.
Cashin's interpretationssometimes reflect preconceived no-
tions of what he believes the works ought to say, as in this
example: In Cari MokamerBhed, a text that was influenced by
the Naths, Muhammad Hakim explains the practice of breath
control performed during dhikr. Commenting on this passage,
Cashin remarks (p. 137): "[Hakim] describes the pulling up
of the abdomen (khicite) while releasing air associated with
certain syllables. This is the yogic khecari practice which is
associated with the perfect retention of semen." While the
khecarimudra, a distinctive Nath technique which consists of
curling the tongue back into the opening at the back of the soft
palate, is one method used during dhikr to arrest breath, it is
nowhere mentioned in Hakim's text. Yet later on, Cashin re-
verses himself and says that (p. 142) " ... Hakim just left out
a description of the technique [i.e., khecari mudrai]."
In other cases Cashin concocts interpretationsbased on in-
correct translations.For instance, he renders a passage in Sekh
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Canda's Tdlib Nama, another text influenced by the Naths, in
this way (p. 173):
Sah Daula Pir speaks this secret of sexual intercourse,
the teaching by which the dtmd is preserved in inter-
course for the one with the desire to annihilation (nir-
bdna).... by drawing in the stomach 10 or 15 (times)
you will place a blinder for the eye. When this blinder
has been fully placed from root to tip, at that time you
will keep gazing at the woman's face.
He comments (p. 173):
What Canda describes is the ulta sadhand of the Naths
in which the male is inflamed sexually and then by
means of the kumbhaka,"drawing in the stomach 10 or
15 times," causes the semen to flow in reverse back to
the reservoirin the head. The eyes are considered an out-
let for the essence within the body which is why this is
referredto as a "blinder"for both the eye and the penis.
This experience is described as the means for achieving
nirbdna or annihilation.
As Sekh Canda makes clear later in the text, this is indeed a
description of ulta sddhand, although it is a Vaisnava Sahajiyf
as well as a Nath practice. But little else in the translationor the
interpretationmatches the Bengali original. Sekh Canda neither
mentions kumbhaka(breath control) in this passage nor uses
any word that indicates "stomach.""Blinder for the eye" trans-
lates thuni, which in this sense occurs more commonly as thuli;
but it is the wrong meaning for the context. Thuni here means
"pillar" (Skt. sthiina) and is a metaphor for penis. Although
Cashin indicates that "annihilation"translatesnirbdna, no such
word occurs in the passage. Apparently,he renderedlay as "an-
nihilation" and then, without checking the text, replaced it in
his translation and commentary with its synonym nirbdna. In
this passage, however, lay in the phraseydr lay mati is the third
person of the verb laoya "to take" and the entire phrase means
"whoever (lit., 'whosoever's mind') is so inclined." (Cashin also
mistranslates the verb lay as "annihilation" on pp. 138-39,
line 3.) A correct translationof the passage would be:
Pir Sahdaula tells this secret sexual intercourse to who-
ever is inclined to learn it to preserve the dtmi. ... With
five or ten thrusts he will plant the pillar (i.e., penis).
When the pillar goes in from the base to the tip he will
look at the woman's face a moment.
In another example, Cashin renders a line in the Vaisnava
Sahajiya text Amrtarasdballas (p. 189): "He stares eye to eye,
he sucks again and again, pulling at the nipple of the breast."
According to his interpretation,this refers to a ritual of drink-
 Reviews of Books
ing breast milk (loc. cit.): "Breast milk as rasa materialized,
is a representative substance to be consumed." (Curiously, he
does not seem to notice that this interpretationcontradicts one
of the main criteria he set up for judging a work as Vaisnava
Sahajiya in orientation-i.e., that rasa is not a substance to be
consumed.) The translation, however, bears little resemblance
to the Bengali text, which reads: naydne nayana cdhe kuca
pane, ghana ghana tane ndsd. Apparently, Cashin incorrectly
takes pane which he translatesas "he sucks" to be third person
of a denominative verb formed from pdn "drinking."There is,
however, no such verb in Bengali. Pane in this context is the
postposition "towards,""at."The line translates: "He looks in
her eyes and gazes at her breasts. He draws in his breath (lit.,
'nose') again and again."
Such mistranslations abound. A few more examples will
suffice to give an idea of the extent of the problem: "Elephant
goad of love" (p. 62 note 7) translatespremer ahkura"sproutof
love": ankura obviously was mistaken for ahkuSa. Sometimes
the English sentence does not make sense: ". .. the universe is
the writing of the bodiless" (p. 200, line 3) translates i tina
bhubane tar aghat likhana (text on p. 218, line 3). A correct
translation would be: "In these three words his miracles (lit.,
'impossible acts') are written."Errorsare found not just in trans-
lating esoteric texts but also in the Satyandrdyaner Puthi, a
straightforwardnarrativepoem. For example (p. 258, line 22):
"He... sat in a tree which swayed (under his weight) to and
fro" is Cashin'srenderingof gacha nare gdcha cale gdche kare
bhara (text on p. 288, line 22). The verse is not, as Cashin con-
tends (p. 258 note 50), "in disguised passive form"-whatever
that might mean. Ratherthe verbs ndre and cdle are causatives.
The line translates:"He makes the tree sway. He makes it move.
He possesses it." Even a sentence referring to the famous Ma-
hdbhdrata story of Draupadiis mistranslated(p. 267, line 16):
"Dusbasana took all of Draupadi'sclothes and slowly handed
them over to Krsna"is Cashin'stranslationof dropadirjata bas-
tra nei [ney] dusbasana, dinala kariyd dena nander nandana
(text on p. 296, line 16). Diiala is probably an errorfor dinala
(Skt. dirgha) "long." A correct translationis: "Krsnaincreased
the length of (lit., "made long") Draupadi'scloth by as much as
Dusbasana (i.e., Duryodhana)took off."
While textual corruptions are sometimes indicated with a
question mark, at other times, although the published text is
clearly corrupt,there is no indication of a textual problem. For
example, Cashin reads a line in Abdul Hakim's Cari mokamer
bhed (p. 153, line 6): chadar tala manta ho jana biryir mokam.
This is translated (p. 139, line 6): "You are aware that mantra
is the root of this ultimate place, the mokamof semen (birya)."
Although he does not say so, Cashin apparently takes manta
to be a variant of mantra. Ho, which is not a word in Bengali,
is not translated. Actually, the first four words should be only
two, chadartal mantaho, intended for chddratul mantahd (Ar.
sidratu 'l-muntahd), the celestial Lote tree mentioned in the
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557
Qur'an which marks the boundarybetween the seventh heaven
and God's domain. In Hakim'stext it is identified with thejabrut
mokdmlocated in the head where semen is believed to be stored.
The line can be rendered: "Know that the Lote tree of the
boundary is the place of semen."
In his discussions Cashin tends to quote only those portions
of a text that support his arguments and to omit material not
consistent with them. This is especially the case in his analysis
of Ali Raja's late-eighteenth-century works Agam and Jidn
Sdgar. Only the considerable Vaisnava Sahajiya influence on
the Agam is commented on in any detail. The fact that Ali Raja
writes about Nath practices such as ajapajap (saying the silent
mantrahamsa consisting of exhalation and inhalation) and re-
fers to Nath concepts such as andhata sabda "unstrucksound"
is not discussed, although in his chart of Nath and Vaisnava
Sahajiyf elements in the texts (p. 110) Cashin does check off
some Nath categories for the Agam. Given the Nath and also
Sufi influences on the texts, it is hard to see how Ali Raja can
be described as representing"an exclusively Vaisnava Sahajiya
viewpoint" (p. 38).
I append some comments on specific chapters. In chapter
one Cashin's sources are outdated. Some of the theories he
repeats to account for the large Muslim population in Bengal,
such as conversion by "force of arms" (p. 34), have been dis-
credited, most recently in Richard Eaton's seminal study The
Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier (Berkeley and Los An-
geles: Univ. of California Press, 1993). In chaptereight Cashin
holds that the colophons of Vaisnava poems composed by
Muslim authors who wrote works influenced by Sahajiya Vais-
navism are participatory and devotional, whereas those com-
posed by Muslim authors who wrote works influenced by the
Naths are not. Based on this observation he concludes (p. 233):
"In fact these participatorycolophons demonstratethat the Mus-
lim authors of them were followers of the Vaisnava Sahajiya
philosophy."There is, however, no clear difference between the
two groups of colophons quoted by Cashin. Moreover, it is just
as possible for a Muslim author like Phayjullah, who wrote a
Nath text, to compose devotional Vaisnava poetry as it is for a
Muslim author like Ali Raja, who was strongly influenced by
SahajiyaVaisnavism.Popularreligious traditions,whetherHindu
or Muslim, were often not viewed as mutually exclusive. In ad-
dition to esoteric Sufi texts and Vaisnava poetry, Ali Raja com-
posed Syama sarigit in which he even subordinated Krsna to
Kali in one of the colophons, calling him the servantof the god-
dess (sydm kdlika dds), while a Hindu named Kesab Ray was
the author of a Sufi work entitled YogaKalandar.
The book could have benefited from careful editing and
proofreading.There are a large number of spelling errors, such
as hansom and handsom throughout chapter nine, amendation
(p. 200), hemaphrodite (p. 176), extent for extant (p. 31), and
roll for role (p. 49). The r is sometimes dropped from Maij
Bhandar(e.g., p. 234). Tamasa and rajasa are frequentlywritten
558 Journal of the American Oriental Society 118.4 (1998)
in place of tamasa and rajasa (for example, p. 63, note 9).
Apostrophes are often omitted from possessives, e.g., "Gods"
(p. 67) and "Sekh Mansurs"(p. 57).
CAROLSALOMON
OFWASHINGTON
UNIVERSITY
Theology after Vedanta:An Experimentin ComparativeTheol-
ogy. By FRANCIS X. CLOONEY,S.J. Towards a Comparative
Philosophy of Religions, ed. Frank Reynolds and David
Tracy. Albany: STATEUNIVERSITY OF NEW YORKPRESS,
1993. Pp. xviii + 265.
Theology after Vedanta presents an ambitious yet carefully
circumscribedfoundation for rereadingand rewriting a form of
Roman Catholic theology at the end of the twentieth century in
the light of an attentive reading of key Advaita Vedanta texts.
At the outset, the author warns that, although indologists and
theologians may want to read different parts of the book selec-
tively, it is best read as a whole. I bear this in mind in this
review, even though, for the readership of this journal, I shall
focus on the indological material.
The book is structuredwith care. After a first chapter which
explores possible senses for "comparativetheology" and intro-
duces Advaita as a commentarialtradition,the "texture,""truth"
and readership of the Advaita Vedanta "Text" (I conserve the
capitalizationon purpose)are investigated,respectively,in chap-
ters two to four. This trio forms the basis for "Theology after
Advaita Vedanta:The Text, The Truthand The Theologian," as
chapter five is called. In line with its basic thesis that reading
and rereading is at the heart of the Advaitin enterprise and
should become so for the comparative theologian, the book
constantly forces the reader to reread and reconsider what goes
before, through its structure,its repeated returnto texts exam-
ined earlier, the comparison of texts in parallel columns, the
gradual refinement of vocabulary (from Brahman referred to
first as "post-textual,"then as "extratextual,"then as both) and
a progressiveuse of capitalization(from "texts" to "Text";from
"truth"to "truthof comparison"to "Truthof comparison"). I
found this embedding of its pedagogical standpoint refreshing
and rewarding, not least in the chapters which, though "in-
scribed" with the comparativeproject (a perhaps overused term
in the book), concentrate on Advaita.
A "credible Indological study" (p. 7)
Without doubt, this is a valuable contribution to studies of
Samkara's Brahmasutrabhasya and its commentaries, by a
scholar whose knowledge of the Purvamimamsa tradition
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enables him to read (Advaita) Vedanta in its importantlight. I
select four of the book's key points which follow from this.
i) The distinction between the Advaita as Uttaramimdmsa
and as Vedantaphilosophy (p. 74). As I have also argued,'
there are good grounds for studying Samkara as a theologian
primarily interested in scripturaltexts as the medium for liber-
ation, rather than purely as a philosopher whose conceptual
analysis can be abstractedfrom its exegetical context. Theology
after Vedantamakes a strong case for understandingAdvaita in
relation to the "Mimanmsa practice of reading"which it extends
to "a new set of texts," namely, the upanisads (p. 25). In an
investigation of the scheme of the Brahmasatrabhdsyain terms
of sutras, adhikaranas ("case studies"), padas and adhydyas,
which will be very useful for students startingto study Advaita,
the reader learns from practical experience that it is the process
of reading and assembling meaning that is important, not just
the summary given (on pp. 70-71). The notion, drawing on
Modi,2 that the Bhdsya is best understood "backwards" and
that to read only from 1.1.1 to 1.1.4 is to miss the point, is very
fruitful and could be extended much further, especially in as-
sessing the sections on meditation in 3.3 (pp. 64-68, 89-92).
The tension between Advaita as Uttaramimamsa and as
Vedanta philosophy is necessary to the structureand argument
of the book as a whole (see further below), but the latter is
perhaps too downplayed when it is claimed that Advaita's co-
herence "subsist[s] in... textual relatedness, and not in the
themes, nor even the referent(s), of Advaita knowledge" (p. 63).
Potter'sremarkson the interrelatednessof Advaita'sthemes3do
not seem to me to be abrogatedby a strongly textual approach.
ii) Reading the Text,not just texts. On p. 157, a summative
definition of "Text"is given:
... a series of (written) acts of language which are ir-
reducible to any author's or authors' intention(s) or to
the announced and practiced purposes of any particular
later tradition,but which are read as intertextuallycom-
posed into a largerwhole comprisedof a series of related
texts: e.g., a text along with those which are inscribed in
it by citation, and those which exist in the form of com-
mentary upon it.
1 J. G. Suthren Hirst, "The Place of Teaching Techniques in
Samkara'sTheology," Journal of Indian Philosophy 18 (1990):
113-50; idem, "Strategiesof Interpretation:Samkara'sInterpre-
tation of the Brhadaranyakopanisad,"JAOS 116 (1996): 58-75.
2 P. M. Modi, A Critique of the Brahmasutra (111.2.11-IV),
with Reference to Sahkardcdrya'sCommentary,2 vols. (Baroda:
private publication, 1956).
3 Karl H. Potter, ed., Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies:
Advaita Vedantaup to Samkaraand his Pupils (Princeton:Prince-
ton Univ. Press, 1981), 100.