[INDOLOGY] bhakti

Wed Nov 9 00:27:59 UTC 2016

Robert,

The term 'Vedic astrology' is certainly interesting. I have been contacting
astrologers in the West who use this term on their websites. Their
responses as to what they actually mean by it are revealing of a certain
discomfort and cognitive dissonance. One particular respondent said they
did not like the term but it was something of an 'industry standard', so
not using the term was counter productive to their own vocational interest.
They also said that 'Hindu astrology' sounded even 'less authentic'. This
is while knowing that the predictive aspects of 'Vedic astrology' developed
well past the Vedic period.

Personally, I find the phrases 'Vedic capitalism
<http://www.sabhlokcity.com/2012/09/vedic-capitalism-clear-affirmation-of-equality-and-pursuit-of-wealth/>',
'Vedic socialism
<http://www.sabhlokcity.com/2010/08/what-is-vedic-socialism/>' and 'Vedic
communism
<http://vaniquotes.org/wiki/I_think_the_Vedic_concept_of_socialism_or_communism_will_much_improve_the_idea_of_communism>'
to be amongst my favourites.

I wonder if anyone has a .pdf of this book
<http://www.worldcat.org/title/vedic-socialism/oclc/643866103> ?

All the best,

Patrick McCartney, PhD
Fellow
School of Culture, History & Language
College of the Asia-Pacific
The Australian National University
Canberra, Australia, 0200

Skype - psdmccartney
Phone + Whatsapp:  +61 414 954 748
Twitter - @psdmccartney

academia <https://anu-au.academia.edu/patrickmccartney>

   -

Linkedin
<https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=241756978&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile>

Edanz <https://www.edanzediting.com/expert/anthropology/patrick-mccartney>

#yogabodyANU2016 symposium <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X80KxW2bb0w>
<http://chl.anu.edu.au/news-events/events/658/yoga-and-body-past-and-present-symposium?#tab>

Ep1 - Imagining Sanskrit Land <https://youtu.be/jMi7tkPBbJ4>

Ep 2 - Total-am <https://youtu.be/7tAp8m9RHPU>

Ep 3 - Jalam ≠ Chillum <https://youtu.be/cLZeuCT_mwQ>

Ep 4 - It's Time to get Married
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B3un7aHEAc>

A Day in our Ashram
<https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ek+din+hamaare+ashram+mein>

Stop animation short film of Shakuntala
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVqBD_2P4Pg>

Forced to Clean Human Waste <http://youtu.be/y3XfjbwqC_g>

One of my favourite song <http://trinityroots.bandcamp.com/track/all-we-be>s

The Philosophy of Cycling
<http://elibrary.com.ng/UploadFiles/file0_2221.pdf>

On Wed, Nov 9, 2016 at 4:59 AM, Robert Zydenbos <zydenbos at uni-muenchen.de>
wrote:

> By coincidence, just yesterday I gave a lengthy interview to a lady from
> the Bavarian radio who is doing a program on bhakti. She came with a heap
> of references and quotes and asked me what we are to make of all this. As
> with so many things, it is context-sensitive.
>
> patrick mccartney wrote:
>
> > While 'bhakti' is mentioned at least in the above upanishad, I thought
> 'bhakti yoga' was quite clearly a post-vedic development, and that the
> bhakti movement developed from the 6th century CE. To the devotee this
> statement might seem unproblematic, but to the scholar it appears to
> conceptually and temporally conflate disparate things.
>
> Perhaps it is relevant to stress that the occurrence of a word as a series
> of writing symbols in a text is one thing, and that the meaning of the word
> in a given context may differ from the one in another context. For instance,
>
> Howard Resnick wrote:
>
> > […] I will add that the Bhagavad-gita often mentions bhakti,
> bhakti-yoga, bhakta etc, and the Gita is one of three standard members of
> the ‘Vedanta apparatus.’
>
> Shyam Ranganathan wrote:
>
> > When I was a grad student in Joseph O'Connell's class on Bhakti in the
> 90s, he started the class with a review of some portions of the Mantra
> section of the Vedas, as a backdrop to later developments in Tamil (āḻvārs
> etc.,) and further developments in Bhakti Vedanta---including Gaudiya
> Vaishnavism.
>
> If such statements are meant as claims that bhakti is Vedantic or even
> ‘Vedic’, they are purely theological, not historical. By this I mean that a
> word such as ‘bhakti’ is ‘interpreted’ by later religious thinkers as
> ‘implied’ in the ‘Veda’ or ‘Vedānta’. Indeed, as
>
> George Hart wrote:
>
> > Gaining legitimacy through identification with the Vedas is nothing new.
>
> Already at a conference in Toronto, 26 years ago, I argued that the word
> ‘Vedic’ in a traditional sense is just a sort of sociological label and
> means nothing more than ‘accepted by brahmins’. (Here one must again be
> careful and ask ‘which brahmins’ and ‘why’.) Only when one accepts the
> religious authority of brahmins does the ‘legitimacy’ to which George Hart
> refers become relevant. (For instance, Vīraśaivism is a bhakti tradition,
> but for the vast majority of Vīraśaivas it is not relevant whether bhakti
> can be called ‘Vedic’ or not.)
>
> Therefore (this is for Patrick): watch out. Böhtlingk and Roth’s
> Petersburger Wörterbuch (vol. 5, col. 163) tells us that the word ‘bhakti’
> is already found in the Ṛgveda (8,27,11) in the sense of ‘distribution’
> („Austheilung, Vertheilung“). Böhtlingk and Roth give a long list of other,
> later meanings. But if you say
>
> > […] I thought 'bhakti yoga' was quite clearly a post-vedic development,
> and that the bhakti movement developed from the 6th century CE.
>
> then you are starting from a particular concept that is labelled ‘bhakti’,
> and in that sense you are right. If, for instance, one soberly reads the
> Bhagavadgītā without later commentaries, one must conclude that later
> ‘bhakti’ is a far cry from the rather subdued theism in that text. The same
> goes for the Śvetāśvataropaniṣat.
>
> > I am interested in how organisations operationalise the 'vedic' sign in
> their marketing and promotional material to generate 'authenticity' and
> legitimacy.
>
> It is basically simple: the brāhmaṇa varṇa claims the exclusive right to
> vedādhyāpana, in other words: traditionally, brahmins decide what the Vedas
> and ‘Vedic’ literature are and what their meaning is. With some
> imagination, one can declare all sorts of things ‘Vedic’ (my personal
> favourite is ‘Vedic astrology’).
>
> The words ‘Veda’ and ‘Vedic’ at some point in time acquired a special
> halo, and this is associated with the brāhmaṇa varṇa in its idealized,
> mythical form (cf. BhG XVIII.42: śamo damas tapaḥ śaucaṃ, etc.). This
> sometimes happens to words (e.g., ‘democracy’. Everybody wants to be
> ‘democratic’, even if there are big differences of opinion about just what
> democracy is and how it should be. Meanwhile, it’s November 8, and the
> world is shuddering…).
>
> RZ
>
>
> --
> Prof. Dr. Robert J. Zydenbos
> Institut für Indologie und Tibetologie
> Department für Asienstudien
> Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU)
>
>

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