[INDOLOGY] Publication Announcement

Wed Dec 18 17:00:27 UTC 2013

Dear Andrew,

I just wanted to point out, in case you haven’t considered it, Rājaśekhara’s (early tenth C.) discussion of anvīkṣikī in his Kāvyamīmāṃsā chapter 2, in which he states that the pūrvapakṣa consists of “Jain and Buddhist schools, as well as the Lokāyatas (arhadbhadantadarśane lokāyataṃ ca)” while the uttarapakṣa consists of “Sāṅkhya and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika (sāṅkhyaṃ nyāyavaiśeṣikau).” 

Seems to me to be a clear binary (and hierarchical) distinction between the two groups, though admittedly it’s in the realm of logical debate (tarka) rather than belief/religion. But perhaps there is something to it?

All best wishes,
Adheesh

 ----
Adheesh Sathaye
Department of Asian Studies
University of British Columbia

On Dec 18, 2013, at 17.03, Andrew Nicholson <andrew.nicholson at STONYBROOK.EDU> wrote:

> Dear Aleksandar and Howard,
> 
> Thanks for your interest in the topic of my book.
> 
> In the Puranas there is certainly plenty of vilification of certain
> groups--Jainas, Bauddhas, Kapalikas, and Pasupatas among them. But in
> first-millenium Puranas there is not yet any clear binary
> classification of two groups of sects along astika/nastika or
> Vedic/anti-Vedic lines. It seems the first clear expression of this
> binary occurs in Krsnamisra's comedic play Prabodhacandrodaya (late
> 11th c.). By the 14th century, this way of classifying groups has
> become the dominant discourse.
> 
> In the concluding chapter I offer some possibilities for how and why
> this shift occurred. But no spoilers here--you'll have to buy the
> book!
> 
> Best,
> Andrew
> 
> _____________________________________
> Andrew J. Nicholson
> Associate Professor
> SUNY Stony Brook
> Stony Brook, NY 11794-5343  USA
> Tel: (631) 632-4030  Fax: (631) 632-4098
> http://sbsuny.academia.edu/AndrewNicholson
> 
> 
> On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 9:53 PM, Howard Resnick <hr at ivs.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> The Gita's full inclusivism, as you describe it, provides a historical alternative to later Hindu notions of unity under the banner of brahman.
>> Best,
>> Howard
>> 
>> 
>> On Dec 17, 2013, at 7:25 PM, Aleksandar Uskokov <uskokov at uchicago.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> Yes, but Gita's syncretism is almost fully inclusive, it appears to me. and vague--no one is openly denied place, except for the "asuras". With Sanatana and Jiva Goswamis, we see a worldview of progress towards Krishna in which advaitins fit, though not high on the ladder, but not Buddhist, Jains etc. This seems similar to what Vijnanabhiksu and Madhusudana were doing, with the order reversed. Brihad-Bhagavatamrita does read like a project of "Unifying Hinduism" if we have in view the milieu in which it was written -- Jains were not gone, Muslims were the rulers, sometimes even temple patrons, but they are not "on the way to Krishna". There is, in other words, an attempt of delimiting the borders of the orthodox.
>> 
>> Kind regards
>> Aleksandar
>> 
>> 
>> On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 8:57 PM, Howard Resnick <hr at ivs.edu> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Thanks for this great question. Of course one might say that the Gita itself is famously syncretistic, though certainly not metaphysically relativistic. We do have five occurences of 'brahma-nirvana', along with frequent, almost proto-Sankara references to Brahman, such as 13.31: "When one perceives that the state of separate beings stands as one, just from that one then advances to the brahman expansion." (my translation)
>>> All the best,
>>> Howard
>>> 
>>> On Dec 17, 2013, at 6:33 PM, Aleksandar Uskokov <uskokov at uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>> 
>>> It is, nevetheless, interesting to see Vaishnavas writing at roughly the same time as Vijnanabhiksu, Sanatana Goswami for instance, in his Brhad Bhagavatamrta, presenting a path in which those who we would classify as Hindus today find a place in the progression towards Krishna, and others -- Buddhists, Jains, what to say of Muslims -- do not. Do we see such schemes before the 16th century? If not, the question is, what has changed to allow for such a paradigm.
>>> 
>>> Kind regards
>>> Aleksandar
>>> 
>>> On Dec 17, 2013 7:00 PM, "Howard Resnick" <hr at ivs.edu> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Thank you Andrew, and congratulations on your prize-winning publication. Forgive me for commenting based on the blurb, but I assume it to be accurate.
>>>> "…thinkers treated the philosophies of Vedanta, Samkhya, and Yoga, along with the worshippers of Visnu, Siva, and Sakti, as belonging to a single system of belief and practice. Instead of seeing such groups as separate and contradictory, they re-envisioned them as separate rivers leading to the ocean of Brahman, the ultimate reality."
>>>> This is certainly true in the case of some thinkers, and these thinkers did eventually emerge as powerful shapers of what one might call unified Hindu thought.
>>>> It bears mentioning that some of the involuntarily "unified" communities, certainly strict Vaishnava groups, perceived this development with something akin to theological horror. Indeed the greatest Vaishanva Vedantists, including Ramanuja, Madhva, and Baladeva, explicitly sought to refute the notion that all paths lead as rivers into the ocean of Brahman, unless by that one meant Krishna as param brahman (Gita 10.12)
>>>> Thus for centuries there has been strong tension, and theological battles, between on the one hand the unifying Hindu view, including what Halbfass called the "Neo-Hindu" thought of Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan etc, with their roots in Sankara et all, and on the other hand the various Vaishnava traditions including the Sri Vaishnava followers of Ramanuja, the Dvaita-vadi followers of Madhva, and the Gaudiya Vaishnava followers of Caitanya.
>>>> I present all this not as an argument against your thesis, which I basically accept, but rather to elicit your learned view on the matter.
>>>> Thanks!
>>>> Howard
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Dec 17, 2013, at 2:07 PM, Andrew Nicholson <andrew.nicholson at stonybrook.edu> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Dear list members,
>>>> 
>>>> I am pleased to announce that my first book, Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History, is now available in an affordable paperback edition from Columbia University Press.
>>>> 
>>>> In addition, if you enter the discount code UNINIC when ordering the paperback edition from the Columbia University Press website you will receive $8.40 off the normal list price of $28.
>>>> 
>>>> For more information on the contents of the book, please click on the link or see below.
>>>> 
>>>> http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14986-0/
>>>> 
>>>> Warmest season's greetings,
>>>> Andrew
>>>> _____________________________________
>>>> Andrew J. Nicholson
>>>> Associate Professor
>>>> SUNY Stony Brook
>>>> Stony Brook, NY 11794-5343  USA
>>>> Tel: (631) 632-4030  Fax: (631) 632-4098
>>>> http://sbsuny.academia.edu/AndrewNicholson
>>>> 
>>>> --------
>>>> 
>>>> Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History
>>>> 
>>>> Paper, 280 pages,
>>>> ISBN: 978-0-231-14987-7
>>>> $28.00 / £19.50
>>>> 
>>>> Winner of the Book Award for Best First Book in the History of Religions, American Academy of Religion
>>>> 
>>>> Some postcolonial theorists argue that the idea of a single system of belief known as "Hinduism" is a creation of nineteenth-century British imperialists. Andrew J. Nicholson introduces another perspective: although a unified Hindu identity is not as ancient as some Hindus claim, it has its roots in innovations within South Asian philosophy from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. During this time, thinkers treated the philosophies of Vedanta, Samkhya, and Yoga, along with the worshippers of Visnu, Siva, and Sakti, as belonging to a single system of belief and practice. Instead of seeing such groups as separate and contradictory, they re-envisioned them as separate rivers leading to the ocean of Brahman, the ultimate reality.
>>>> 
>>>> Drawing on the writings of philosophers from late medieval and early modern traditions, including Vijnanabhiksu, Madhava, and Madhusudana Sarasvati, Nicholson shows how influential thinkers portrayed Vedanta philosophy as the ultimate unifier of diverse belief systems. This project paved the way for the work of later Hindu reformers, such as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Gandhi, whose teachings promoted the notion that all world religions belong to a single spiritual unity. In his study, Nicholson also critiques the way in which Eurocentric concepts—like monism and dualism, idealism and realism, theism and atheism, and orthodoxy and heterodoxy—have come to dominate modern discourses on Indian philosophy.
>>>> 
> 
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