Religion in India: Introduction Overview -Objectives: -Gain a sense of how religion is studied in a liberal arts setting Understand how biases have historically shaped the ways in which Indian religions have been understood in the West. Begin thinking about what biases we might have Get ready to start reading the Ramayana -Why study religion? What is Religious Studies About? ~The true sense of theology is anthropology." -Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) -not the study of religion/theology, but the study of how people interact with religion -a way of representing the “Orient” in accordance with Western desires and imperial interests Distortion -Rene Magritte: The Treachery of Images (1929) -making the distinction between a pipe and the representation of a pipe -representations often result in distortion ‘The map is not the territory" -when maps are made, map makers. make decisions about how to project the spherical shape of the earth into.a 2D map - also leads to distortion -Scholarship results in distortion -this is not necessarily bad; just means it is never going ta be perfect Michel Foucault (1926-1984) -laid down groundwork for thinking about orientalism -talked about the relationship between power and knowledge -the power to-form representations is significant Edward Said (1835-2003) -introduced orientalism as a critical term -influenced by Foucault's idea that being able to put knowledg of power ~"Orientalism... [is] the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient - dealing with it by making statements about it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short: Orientalism [is] a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” 10 the world is a formPool in a Harem - Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904) -sense of sexual decadence in the Orient -meant to be an object of fantasy or condemnation “White Man's Burden’ (1899) -Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to-exile To-serve your captives’ need; To-wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild— Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. Take up the White Man's burden-- In patience to abide, To-veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain To-seek another's profit, And work another's gain. --Rudyard Kipling Muller and Monies: Williams, “19th century scholars Muller's form of orientalism : romanticism -Monier-Williams® : Pejorative Orientalism -religious studies used to solely involve studying texts -from Protestant Christian standpoint that saw all religions as revolving around a text -Vasudha Narayanan's story: “culture” or “religion” -What forms the center of a religion? Texts? Clergy? Laity? Identity and Reflexivity Discussion Questi ‘What sources should we use to study Indian religions? Whose perspectives should we hear? -What period of history should we focus on? ltihasa (Epics) -Ramayana and Mahabharata (MBh} -Written sometime before the 4" century BCE‘Texts developed in layers and changed over time, with devotional elements added later Focused on the interactions of brahmins, noble warriors, and deities Very interested in questions of dharma - but how? Bath contain @ major character considered to be an incarnation of Visnu — Rama and Krsna (Krishna) Bamayana: Major Characters -Rama, a prince -Sita, his wife -Laksmana, his brother -Hanuman, his friend and devotee -Ravana, a demon8/26 Lecture Ramayana Books 1-3 Overview: -Introduetion to Vedic Religion -Varnasrama dharma. -Yajna -Discussing the Ramayana Learning Goal: Understand religion historical contexts and key concepts of the Vedic You read the first three books of the Ramayana, and today we are going to talk about those books and we've also going to talk about the Veafe religion that is part of the context of the Ramayana. So as you've been reading so far, you are probably noticing specially early on, there are these sortions wheve Rama is tasked with protecting these sages and priests, as they do these rituals and this is a reference to the Vedic religion that we're going to be talking about a fittle bit today. Before we get ight into the reading. Tha first body of taxts that forms the earfest parts of what people think af as Hindu traditions as a body of texts, called the Vedas. If you're just; just to make an analogy for those of you who are maybe moze familiar with Chiistianity or Judaism. Right. It's not a single text, just like the Bible isnota single text, it's acollection of texts that go together And these texts have a special Status in Hindt traditions and that status is Indicated by them baing called Sruti. Right, as apposed to adifferent category which will be talking about later called Savritiso when a text is classified as Sruti (which is basically synonymous with the Vedas) Sruti means “that which was hoard. According fo Hindy tvaditions, they are net texts that are written by any human being or aven a god. they are texts that are just part of the fundamental fabric of the universe. And other points in ancient times, very, very ancient times, there were these people called Rishis means seers. Who wore able to hear the universe vibrating with the sound of the Vedas. So the Vedas were already there. Thay were part of nature, right, they're part of the universe. And these Rishis, According to Hindu tradition, just heard them and they were able to, they weren't too big on writing They were bigger on memorization. They felt that that writing stuff down was a sign ofa week memory: So they memorize the sounds that they heard and they taught them to other people. And this became the Vedas. Other other bodies of texts don't have that status as being part of the fundamental fabric of the universe, and they're called Smritt which is “that which was remembered.” The Vedas. -Sruti (not Smit) -ca. 1700-1000 BCEThere are four Vedas and these are leave for for names that are going down: Rig, Sama Yajur, and Atharva. So these are the four Vacfas nant. Each of these in tum has 4 you could say layers or parts to it: Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka, and Upanishad. According to historians as we move from top to bottom and from lett to right along this list, we're getting to later texts. so academic histarians don't necessarily have the same view that these texts.are eternal. They would say, well, they were yowr know we consider all texts to be written by humans. And based on the things of these texts are referring to their concerns, their deplotion of the warfd. You Know, in some cases, based on the earlest manuscripts we can give a very rough approximation of the dating. And so you have this very ong span of years 1760 to 1006 BC, which is quite old for these texts. some parts of these texts, particularly the oldest part, which was the Rig Veda Samhita - if you go back there are there are lots of similarities between ancient Persian religion ard ancient North Indian religion. And and the ancient texts of verson religions which is called the Zend Avesta, there are actually some passages in the Zend Avesta that are almost identical to passages that are in the Rig Veda, aside from some linguistic differences. So that’s how old they are. Some parts of It are from before these groups even split aff and migrated to different places. So the concerns of these four strata of texts (Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka, Upanishad) are a Nittle bit eliferent. The Samhita -we're going to look at some examples of the: Rig Veda Samhita ina minute. These are hymns. These are sort of ike prayers that people would say as thay were doing iitual offering. these prayers that are praising different deities. In some cases, you know, contemplating the nature of the universe, as we'll see. they usually aven't too philosophical though, they're very focused on worshipping deities and asking them for stuff. The Brahmanas are texts that describe in intricate detail extremely complex rituals that would take ke a couple weeks to perform completely. Rituals that involve, sometimes even before the two weeks that the ritual takes to do, several other weeks of preparation. Because the people whe developed the ancient Vedte religion, earlier on, they lived anomadc ifestyle and se they didn't have permanent tampfes in whieh thay could do these rituals’ they instead had these manuals The Brahmanas that said: Okay, you need to make an altar. it needs to be this shape. These are the dimensions, etc. and actually the Brahmanas give you the sense of the eartiast stages of geometry in India as they're as they're providing the dimensions for these these different altars on which these rittaals are being performed. so very complex rituals that the oriestly people would be performing while they ve chanting the hymns from a Samhita