> What shifts  from the early to the later period is that in the early mantra period worshiping a deity was motivated by desire for outcomes—a practice that is consequentialist as consequentialism is the view that right procedure is justified by a good outcome.

------ Do you have the pūrvamīmāmsā in mind when you say "worshiping a deity was motivated by desire for outcomes" , or do you have internal evidences within the early mantra texts for this observation of yours?

Mantras by themselves are stutis and we have both desire-expressing and non-desire-expressing stutis. To view all  stuti as an indirect instruction to perform (ritual) with a desire for result is the pūrvamīmāmsā way of looking at the mantras. To view the same mantras/stutis as instructing (the practices for) mōkṣa (e.g. Br.U.--> aśvamēdha mantras are instructions to do tapas) and as descriptions of Brahman is the uttaramīmāmsā (vēdānta) way. Both the ways have their foundations in the non-upanishadic brāhmaṇa-āraṇyaka texts and upanishadic brāhmaṇa-āraṇyaka texts respectively.

Leaving aside these two ways of viewing, the stuti aspect itself of the mantras can be seen to have continuity into the stutis/stōtras/sankīrtanas with bhakti label.These stutis/stōtras/sankīrtanas with bhakti label too have desire-expressing and non-desire-expressing tones and expressions. The cultural complex of which these stutis/stōtras/sankīrtanas with bhakti label make part, has the temple rituals and domestic pūjā rituals as part of it.Temple rituals and domestic pūjā rituals can be seen to have continuity from the yajna rituals, just as stutis/stōtras/sankīrtanas with bhakti label have their continuity from the stutis of the Veda mantras.To perform such rituals with a desire for result is also a part of that cultural complex. But to view all these texts and rituals as meaning and meant  for moksha is what is called as Bhakti Vedanta. This view has its continuity from uttaramīmāmsā (vēdānta) way of looking at the Veda mantras.To view the stutis/stōtras/sankīrtanas with bhakti label as meant for temple rituals and domestic pūjā rituals with a desire for result has its continuity from the pūrvamīmāmsā way of looking at the Veda mantras. 

Thus from both the pūrvamīmāmsā type and uttaramīmāmsā (vēdānta) type perspectives, stutis/stōtras/sankīrtanas with bhakti label have a contiuity from the stutis of the Vedas. This is what makes the stutis of the Vedas to get viewed as the older form of or prototype of bhakti . 






On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 8:06 PM, Shyam Ranganathan <shyamr@yorku.ca> wrote:

Dear Patrick ,

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.

A theme he emphasized is that the idea of bhakti, or binding oneself to a deity, is pretty old in the Vedic tradition as the Mantras often express sentiments of loyalty and fidelity to the deity that is invoked.

What serves to bring the continuity of this theme to the fore is to follow the development of Yoga, which is pretty much the same as Bhakti, as a philosophical movement.

The early mention of yoga of course is in the Kaṭha  Upaniṣad where Yama describes success in Yoga as taking one to Viṣṇu’s realm. Later, this idea of approximating the Lord becomes central to Yoga in Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra  as Īśvara praṇidhāna. Ramanuja carries on this theme by identifying bhakti as a kind of jñāna but further a kind of upāsana, which evokes images of meditation but also offerings to sacrificial fires. This serves to highlight a continuity of a theme stretching back to the early Vedas of the approximation of a deity via Vedic themes of sacrifice.

What shifts  from the early to the later period is that in the early mantra period worshiping a deity was motivated by desire for outcomes—a practice that is consequentialist as consequentialism is the view that right procedure is justified by a good outcome. What happens by the time of the Upaniṣads is that consequentialism starts to be viewed with suspicion because, as Yama himself describes in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, those who are geared towards outcomes do not take control of their life and this results in ruin. So what we see happening is a switch to a radical procedural ethics, that treats practice as defined by a regulative ideal, the Lord, and the worship or approximation of this ideal as resulting in the good. It is superficially like consequentialism but it is contrary. This radical proceeduralism is Yoga, or Bhakti. The main difference is that Yoga or Bhakti is a causal story of how the right brings about the good and is the opposite of Virtue Ethics that claims that the good character brings about the right action. Bhakti/Yoga rather claims that the right practice is defined by the ideal of the right (the Lord) and perfecting this practice is the good.  Consequentialism in contrast is an account not of moral causation but justification.  

So while the ideas that the bhakti tradition rely upon are ancient, and not implausibly described as Vedic, it is true that there is a radical shift that characterizes the latter part of the Vedic tradition starting with the Upaniṣads. We see this transition from consequentialism to a radical proceeduralism of bhakti as a theme of the Gītā , for instance. I think it also explains why Brahman as development comes to occupy a central place in later Vedic thought.

If you are interested in this, I’ve written a bit about it:

Ranganathan, S. (forthcoming) 2017. Vedas and Upaniṣads. In  Volume 1: The History of Evil in Antiquity (2000BCE-450CE). Edited by Tom Angier. Of History of Evil  edited by C. Taliaferro and C. Meister. London: Routledge.

For a wider survey of this tradition, please see

Ranganathan, Shyam. 2017. 'Three Vedāntas: Three Accounts of Character, Freedom and Responsibility.' In The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Ethics edited by Shyam Ranganathan, 249-274. Of Bloomsbury Research Handbooks in Asian Philosophy, edited by Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad and Sor-hoon Tan. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

If you are interested in how Bhakti/Yoga is a different moral theory from Consequentialism, Deontology and Virtue Ethics, please see:

Ranganathan, Shyam. 2017. 'Patañjali’s Yoga: Universal Ethics as the Formal Cause of Autonomy.' In The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Ethics edited by Shyam Ranganathan, 177-202 Of Bloomsbury Research Handbooks in Asian Philosophy, edited by Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad and Sor-hoon Tan. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 

The latter two should be out in a couple of weeks.

Best wishes,

Shyam

 

Shyam Ranganathan

Department of Philosophy,

South Asian Studies, Department of Social Sciences

York University Toronto

 


On 04/11/2016 7:03 AM, Howard Resnick wrote:
Nagaraj has stated the ‘insider’s point of view’ very well. 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.’
Best,
Howard

On Nov 4, 2016, at 2:43 AM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Patrick,

I went to the website you directed us to.

It is an ISKCON activity.

It is well known that ISKCON is based on Goudiya Vaishnava Vedanta which is one of the Bhakti (centred) schools of Vedanta.

What they are saying here is that GEV is based on their philosophy. Their philosophy is a school of Vedanta and Vedanta is Vedic. So GEV is based on Vedic Bhakti Vedanta is not wrong. The word Bhakti Yoga is used here in that sense. So I don't see anything wrong in the word Vedic here.

The word 'Vedic' is not always used in the sense of ' as in Vedas'. The word is quite often used in the sense of 'belonging to the lineage of the cultural/textual complex of which the Vedas are (of course, vital) part. From the insider's point of view , Vaidika is Veda- aviruddha, Veda-anuroopa, Veda-anusaari etc. not necessarily Vedochcharita/Vedas'ruta.

It probably would be an interesting study to survey how far the pull for such cults among people is based on their claims to be Vedic.

For something which is already 'Hindu' , the claim of Vedic, I guess, does not add any new value.

For that matter , it is intriguing to see that pamphlets are distributed in India, (at least here in the Telugu region) claiming that Jesus is in the Vedas. 'Mohammed in the Vedas' is also one of the internet-popular themes.  It is interesting to study the motives behind such claims.

On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 7:39 AM, patrick mccartney <psdmccartney@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Friends, 

Is this the first mention of the term 'bhakti' ? 

yasya deve parā bhaktir yathā deve tathā gurau /
tasyaite kathitā hy arthāḥ prakāśante mahātmanaḥ prakāśante mahātmanaḥ // SvetUp_6.23 //
 I ask this question as I'm trying to understand the following statement:   

GEV is based on the sacred Vedic principles of bhakti-yoga. 

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. 

As I am certainly not an expert on bhakti I would appreciate clarification. 

I am interested in how organisations operationalise the 'vedic' sign in their marketing and promotional material to generate 'authenticity' and legitimacy. 



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





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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 )