Reception of the Gita

[gruenendahl]

May I take the reaction to my remarks on Marchignoli's  
postcolonial treatment of German interpretations of the 
Bhagavadgita as an encouragement to explain my point a little 
further? Well then, as said before, Marchignoli certainly has a 
thorough knowledge of the German sources he discusses, and this 
distinguishes him from other players in this field. But I think he puts 
his expertise to questionable use by subjecting his sources to a 
more or less random selection of prefabricated postcolonial 
concepts (the full catalogue of postcolonial prefabs has been spelt 
out, e.g., by Ashcroft et al.).

As the title, "Canonizing an Indian text? ...", suggests, Marchignoli 
has decided for the postcolonial key concept of "canonizing" (the 
"palimpsest" concept, e.g., may also have been worth a try). He 
works on the premise - and it remains a premise throughout - that 
there have been calculated attempts to incorporate the 
Bhagavadgita into a German literary canon of sorts, with clearly 
nationalist undertones, of course. The very term "canonizing" tacitly 
implies the agency of some hegemonic power claiming cultural 
superiority, a claim the postcolonial theorist feels constantly called 
upon to expose.

Now, it may be asked whether August Wilhelm Schlegel, one of the 
key figures under Marchignoli's scrutiny, ever expressed aspirations 
to "canonizing" at all, or whether he really thought that the 
Bhagavadgita had any place in a would-be "project connected to 
German culture's self-understanding", or that it could help Germany 
overcome an assumed "self-conscious crisis" (247). Marchignoli 
assures his readers that there is "much evidence" for his quasi-
psychological diagnosis, but as far as I can see, he doesn't produce 
any. For his "underlying assumptions of German 'Indology'" he 
relies on Sheldon Pollock, whose pronouncements are equally 
unfounded and distortive, as will be shown elsewhere.

Hypothetically assuming that A.W. Schlegel actually intended to 
incorporate the Bhagavadgita into a would-be German literary 
canon, as Marchignoli claims, it must be stated that he made a very 
bad job of it by translating it into Latin, not German! There can 
hardy be a question whether this "points to a contradiction within 
Schlegel's attempt to canonize the text" (253), or rather to the 
inadequacy of Marchignoli's self-help psychology with regard to 
Schlegel's motives. Marchignoli's stance that Schlegel took this 
classicist detour to make the Bhagavadgita more acceptable seems 
to me utterly unconvincing. Latin simply was the language of the 
"educated world" (gebildete Welt), and it was his declared intention 
to make India's "spiritual treasures (...) the common property of the 
educated world" ("diese geistigen Schätze sind ein Gemeingut der 
gebildeten Welt"; Indische Bibliothek, vol. 1, p. 15, quoted with 
variatons by Marchignoli, p. 252, and by McGetchin in the same 
volume, p. 207).

In the course of postcolonial proceedings, Kalidasa's Sakuntala is 
adduced as another object of would-be canonization. According to 
Marchignoli, "the well-known story of enthusiastic German 
responses to the Indian drama confirms that Forster's proposal was 
profoundly consonant with German projects of cultural self-
construction". Now, all Foster had proposed was to investigate "all 
that which is beautiful, good and perfect that is scattered here and 
there in fragments and variants upon the surface of the globe, 
without worrying about our own personal gain" (quoted p. 249). I for 
one cannot see any trace of "cultural self-construction" in this. By 
comparison, what kind of conclusions with regard to "cultural self-
construction" could then be drawn from Franco Alfano's opera "La 
leggenda di Sakuntala", ending with the bombastic prophecy of an 
Aryan Duce/Führer figure, when one takes into account its political 
background of the early 1920's? Can it be concluded by analogy, 
then, that "this self-representation became part, and in a sense a 
dangerous part", of Italian cultural identity?

In my view, the most important conclusion to be drawn from 
Marchignoli's paper is aptly expressed at its outset, viz., that "by 
focusing only on the limited issue of the 'canonization' of Indian 
texts, one loses sight of many historical and philosophical 
implications related to the subject" (246).

Reinhold Grünendahl


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Dr. Reinhold Gruenendahl
Niedersaechsische Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek
Fachreferat sued- und suedostasiatische Philologien
(Dept. of Indology)

37070 Goettingen, Germany
Tel (+49) (0)5 51 / 39 52 83
Fax (+49) (0)5 51 / 39 23 61
gruenen at mail.sub.uni-goettingen.de

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In English:
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