Notes
Introduction 1 Introduction to translation of the Muõóaka Upaniùad, English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy, Part 2. 2 This expression for the “religions of the Book,” or referring to them as Abrahamic is preferable to the amorphous and geographically imprecise Western religions. 3 For an incisive critique of the stereotype of Jewish tradition as intrinsically aniconic, see Bland (2000). 4 This characterization is problematic on several counts: the Brahmo and Arya Samaj were themselves neither monistic nor “esoteric.” Subsequent figures from what could be called “neo-Vedànta,” while monistic and not stressing image-worship, did not attack it as idolatry . 5 This is not to say that a child necessarily formulates the problem in theological language. The disillusionment can result from something as non-verbal as sadly realizing that the nocturnal gift-bestower, Santa Claus, was really a parent and not in fact the driver of a celestial sleigh. 6 By “authentic” I mean with historical precedent. My use of the word should not be construed as suggesting that I wish to make normative judgments about what is, or is not, legitimately Hindu. 7 The Greek word eikon means “image” and “likeness,” and from it we get the English icon. Icon in its broad sense means “image,” but in the history of religions it usually refers not to just any image, but to a sacred image invested with some (or all) of the sacrality of the sacral entity it is meant to represent (or even make present). An icon can then represent a sacred being in the sense of being intended to depict that being, or it can be intended to present that being in the sense of making that being present. To those who deny the possibility of the divine’s being present in an image, the eikon is an “idol.” 8 For a detailed discussion of the concept of idolatry, see Smith (1987: 53–68). 9 The use of images in Hindu India, in fact, exhibits a series of gradations along the iconicaniconic continuum: “images in the round may be avyakta, non-manifest, like a lingam; or vyaktàvyakta, partially manifest, as in the case of a mukha-lingam [the øiva lingam with a face]; or vyakta, fully manifest in ‘anthropomorphic’ or partly theriomorphic types” (Coomaraswamy 1985: 136). See also Bäumer (1989). 10 I am indebted to Robert A. Segal for bringing this to my attention. 11 J.M. Blaut (1993) provides a recent discussion of diffusion theory which takes up on this point. He suggests that diffusionism is part of a Eurocentric conceit about “the European miracle” of world dominance. Diffusionists traced this dominance to inherent European socio-cultural qualities instead of to colonial expansion. Blaut argues that colonial hegemony is the cause, not by-product, of European dominance. He also contests the model of modernization as non-European imitation of Western innovation. I return to the debate on modernization as Westernization in the last chapter. 12 Pye has subsequently published a translation of Tominaga; in the introduction to the book he reiterates his commitment to the view that Tominaga’s writings are autonomous, independent of European influence and “organically related to Asian intellectual traditions” (Pye 1990: 46). 13 This point is echoed in a recent article by Jeffrey Carter: “Any comparative study of religion is faced with a problematic contest between the concern for particularity (historical and cultural detail) and a desire for generality (similarity, relationship, and so on). More 139 Notes than merely fashioning lists or simply declaring superficial commonalities, a sound comparative study somehow negotiates this contest and accommodates both the general and the particular” (1998: 133). It appears to me that the only thing worse than ignoring local particularities is being entirely (and blithely) ignorant of any equivalents in another culture or of any cross-cultural patterns. Chapter 1 1 Eck (1985), 24. 2 The conjectural identification of this seal as a proto-øiva was first made by Sir John Marshall (1931: 52 ff.) and was accepted recently by Lal (1997). Asko Parpola provisionally accepts the interpretation of the seal as showing a “Lord of Beasts” but suggests that the so-called yogic pose may, in fact, imitate the proto-Elamite way of representing seated bulls (1984) 3 The identification is, of course, debated. For instance, Walter Fairservis identified the whole scene as a wedding ceremony. Parpola generally seeks to demonstrate continuity between Indus forms and the linguistic and iconographic manifestations of much later Hinduism ; he holds that the...
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