Veda and Torah: Transcending the Textuality of Scripture

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION The differences between the Hindu and Jewish traditions have often been emphasized, so much so that these traditions have generally been characterized as representing opposite ends of the spectrum of world religions. Indeed, "Hinduism" and "Judaism" have been thought to have so little in common that few scholars have attempted substantive comparative analyses of these traditions. "Polytheistic," iconocentric "Hinduism," with its panoply of deities enshrined in images, is generally held to be antithetical to "monotheistic ," iconoclastic "Judaism," with its emphasis on the unity and transcendence of God and abhorrence of image-making practices. These traditions have been characterized as further set apart by their cyclical vs. historical views of existence. However, such characterizations represent gross oversimplifications that fail to take into account the rich diversity of perspectives within the traditions themselves. The categories "Hinduism" and "Judaism" are themselves problematic in this regard, for, like the category "religion," they represent abstract theoretical constructs that attempt to impose unity on a myriad of different religious systems. The complex amalgam termed "Hinduism" encompasses a variety of "Hinduisms." Beginning in the Vedic period and throughout Indian history the orthodox brahmanical tradition has been continually challenged by competing traditions and movements-local village traditions, ascetic groups, devotional (bhakti) sects, tantric movements, and, more recently, modern reform movements. While the centripetal force of brahmanical power structures has sought to absorb and domesticate competing currents, the centrifugal force of these countervailing centers of power has persisted, giving rise to that uneasy conglomerate of heterogeneous tendencies which Western scholars term "Hinduism." Similarly, "Judaism" represents a composite category within which are subsumed a variety of "Judaisms." Following the biblical period, a diversity of competing movements flourished in the Second Temple period, including the Sadducees, Pharisees, Zealots, Essenes, and various Hellenistic traditions. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., the Pharisaic trend prevailed in the form of rabbinic orthodoxy, which itself encompassed a variety of different schools. The medieval period saw the emergence of a number of contending currents, including the 1 2 Veda and Torah newly burgeoning kabbalistic and philosophical traditions. The modern period has similarly given birth to a variety of new "Judaisms"-Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Zionist, and so on.l Within this array of "Hinduisms" and "Judaisms," the present study focuses on those traditions for which scripture is a constitutive category: the brahmanical Sanskritic tradition and the rabbinic tradition, with some attention also to kabbalistic traditions that have absorbed and reinterpreted rabbinic conceptions of scripture . Both the brahmanical and rabbinic traditions constitute elite "textual communities"2 that have sought to shape and articulate the central norms of their respective traditions through codifying symbol systems and practices in the form of scriptural canons of which they are the custodians. In the process of delineating the normative tradition and its standards of orthodoxy, these textual communities have accommodated, domesticated, and at times muted the multiplicity of voices representative of the competing trends in any particular period. Canonical authority is thus constitutive of both the brahmanical and rabbinic traditions. The authority of the brahmin priests and the rabbinic sages themselves is to a large extent derived from their privileged role as the preservers and transmitters of the scriptural canon. In each canon a certain corpus of texts has been set apart as having special sacrosanct and authoritative status: the Veda in the brahmanical tradition and the Torah in the rabbinic tradition. In the brahmanical tradition acceptance of the authority of the Veda has been the primary criterion for distinguishing orthodox from heterodox systems since at least the period of the early Dharma-Sutras and Dharma-Sastras (ca. 3d or 2d c. B.C.E.).3 Acceptance of the authority of the Torah has constituted one of the few dogmas of the rabbinic tradition since as early as the Mishnah (ca. 220 C.E.).4 The authoritative status of Veda and Torah is, moreover, connected to their roles as symbols, in which each functions simultaneously as a bounded textual category and as a potentially boundless, encompassing symbol that is paradigmatic for its respective tradition.5 A comparative study of the categories of Veda and Torah is of particular significance because of the ways in which these categories , as the paradigmatic symbols of the brahmanical and rabbinic traditions, reflect the more basic affinities between these religious traditions. Indeed, contrary to the stereotypical characterizations that emphasize the oppositions between "Hinduism" and "Judaism," and despite the fact that there is little evidence of historical contact between these traditions, I...