[INDOLOGY] bhakti

Wed Nov 9 02:59:09 UTC 2016

Correction:

But in the case of 'Vedic capitalism', 'Vedic socialism', 'Vedic
communism' , it can not be said that '' capitalism', ' socialism', '
communism'  are *not *intended to get legitimacy by the use of the
adjective 'Vedic'.

On Wed, Nov 9, 2016 at 8:19 AM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Robert,
>
> >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.
>
> > 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.).
>
> ------- Not after Arya Samaj and other organizations similar to that which
> are in vogue in huge numbers today.
>
> Traditionally, a potter had an exclusive right cum responsibility for the
> production of pots, a liquor-maker had an exclusive right cum
> responsibility for making liquor, a washer-man had an exclusive right cum
> responsibility to wash cloths,  why, even a performer of a particular folk
> performing art had an exclusive right cum responsibility for the
> performance of the particular folk performing art.
>
> People moving away from their traditional caste occupations (right cum
> responsibility occupations) is happening for all those occupations which
> are no longer givers of either a worldly benefit or a social status. Number
> of Brahmin families  moving away from their Vedaadhyayana and
> Vedaadhyaapana is on huge rise. Priestly Brahmins are depressed that they
> are not able to get marriage alliances.
>
> Dear Patrick,
>
> All the usages of the adjective 'Vedic' do not indicate the same cultural
> process. Academicians need to discern such differences carefully.
>
> 1.  'Vedic ' in Vedic astrology is used to distinguish it from the western
> astrology. Choice of 'Vedic' in preference to 'Hindu' seems to be to avoid
> a religious 'sectarian' image.
>
> 2. 'Vedic' in 'Vedic capitalism', 'Vedic socialism', 'Vedic communism' is
> in fact the opposite of the process that was proposed by your thread
> initiating post. Your initiating post was proposing an attempt to acquire
> legitimacy to the entity described by the qualified noun by the use of the
> adjective 'Vedic'. But in the case of 'Vedic capitalism', 'Vedic
> socialism', 'Vedic communism' , it can not be said that '' capitalism', '
> socialism', ' communism'  are not intended to get legitimacy by the use
> of the adjective 'Vedic'. In fact , the attempt here is to get the image of
> contemporaneity for the Vedas by adding words such as 'capitalism', '
> socialism', ' communism' as qualified by the adjective 'Vedic'. Talking of
> 'Vedic Communism' and 'Vedic Socialism' is as old as Rahul Sankrityayan and
> SA Dange.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 9, 2016 at 5:57 AM, patrick mccartney <psdmccartney at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> 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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>
>
>
> --
> Nagaraj Paturi
>
> Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
>
> Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies
>
> FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,
>
> (Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )
>
>
>
>

-- 
Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,

(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )

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