In Christianity, Paul wrote
that if the resurrection of Christ Jesus didn’t really take place, then faith
is for naught, but he also wrote that faith without love is for naught. The assumption
that if Jesus was killed and raised historically speaking, why be a Christian, has
had much greater currency than the assumption that if a person is not kind and
compassion in heart and deed to people who have been insulting or have damaged
the person, that person is not really a Christian. In short, the value of the
religious meaning in the New Testament has typically been assumed to depend on
the extratextual (i.e., beyond the text of the Bible) existence of Jesus. Using
Vedanta hermeneutics (i.e., method of interpreting a text) in Hinduism, I argue
that the assumption is incorrect. This is not to make a historical claim one
way or the other regarding Jesus or Krishna; rather, I want to claim that the
religious meaning in a scriptural text does not depend on making the assumption
that the reality described therein exists beyond the text. Although hermeneutically
based, this argument may sway attention back to religious meaning itself
as primary, including in regard to engaging in pious actions.
In Hinduism,
Mimamsa and Vedanta commentators “’restain’ extra-textual reference within the
overarching frame of the text, which is not replaced by knowledge, even if the
object of knowledge remains ‘outside the text.’”[1]
To be sure, the Brahma-sutras “could lend itself to the idea that the Upanisads
communicate various authors’ intentions and point to a reality beyond the text.”[2]
This is problematic because “external reference to impermanent realities
threatened ultimately to undercut the posited eternity and permanence of the
sacred text itself. The system had to be nonreferential, meaningful in itself,
and expressive in that meaning, in order to be protected from a changing and
unpredictable world.”[3]
What about positing
of imperishable, and thus permanent realities as existing outside the text? Doing
so would not undercut the posited eternity and permanence of a sacred text itself,
but it would mean that such a text is referential and thus not meaningful as a
system within itself. Also, is not such a positing of something existent outside
of the text necessary for the extra-textual component of the hermeneutic (or else
the meditation is just on abstract knowledge)?
Both the Mimamsa and Vedanta schools presuppose that “text and
performance—meditational or sacrificial—imply, reflect, and instigate one another.”[4]
Perhaps it can be said that the meaning in the text is primary in the textual
hermeneutic, whereas the extra-textuality reality is primary in the extratextual
portion of the Vedanta hermeneutic. Hans Frei, who wrote in his Eclipse of
the Biblical Narrative that neither form nor historical criticism should
eclipse the religious meaning of a religious text. In other words, Frei holds that
asking about “the historical Jesus” and whether different authors, each having
their own agenda, contributed to a text gets in the way of giving the meaning
of a religious story enough air to breath in a reader’s heart and mind.
I wonder if questions concerning reality
beyond a text and being referred to textually should also be bracketed so not
to eclipse the meaning that is in the text. And yet, the Vedanta project “is
permanently about the reading and use of texts, and about brahman as
an extratextual reality communicated through texts, without either the text or
the reality being thereby rendered superfluous.”[v]
Perhaps the question is whether a text alone (bracketing extratextual praxis)
can only allow for the nominalist rather than a realist assumption as regards the
reality being described or discussed textually.
It may be
that making the realist assumption—that the reality described in a text really
exists outside the text—makes sense, for why would an author claim writing a
text that a reality has meaning if that reality doesn’t really exist outside of
the text. On the other hand, making a nominalist assumption keeps the focus on
the text itself, whose religious meaning is primary in a hermeneutic. Put
another way, even if brahman or Krishna do not exist beyond the meaning
in a text, the textual religious meaning can still have value. As Victor
Frankl discovered, the human need for meaning can be felt in even very dire circumstances.
Distinctly theological or religious meaning can sooth a troubled heart or mind
even if God doesn’t exist beyond the text. The textual meaning is real in that
it is hardly illusory and can have an effect on people without having to
approach a text as a realist rather than as a nominalist. This is not to say
that the realist assumption is never the correct assumption to make; rather, it
is to say that the validity and usefulness of religious meaning in a scriptural
text does not depend on making that assumption. If so, and because we mere
mortals cannot be certain whether an extratextual reality exists as it extends
beyond the limits of our thoughts, perceptions, and emotions, religious meaning
gleamed from a religious text ought to be primary in interpreting one and
the basis upon which a religious practitioner acts, whether in worship or
interpersonally in daily life.
In Christianity, for example, being compassionate to people whom the Christian doesn’t like or who don’t like the Christian should not depend on whether the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus occurred historically and even metaphysically. Even as a textual illustration, the Passion Narrative has meaning and thus value, which can be put into practice regardless of historical and metaphysical questions. Selfless love as to a detractor or even a hated or hateful enemy as a means to entering a different spiritual condition (e.g., the kingdom of God) has its own meaningfulness and value both in itself and as put into practice. Both Paul and Augustine wrote that God is such love. In Vedanta Hinduism, brahman itself can be grasped as identical to an person's self (atman) in experientially meditation, which, though extra-textual, is based on concentrating on the meaning of a scriptural passage.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p. 58.
5. Ibid., p. 61.
