Malory Nye

In a recent article Rasamandala Dasa (1994: 51-68) set out hisideas for reforming the ways in which British academics and othereducationalists perceive and teach 'Hindu' traditions. In a discussionwhich was well argued and well presented I found very little thatI disagreed with, and indeed I would venture that most scholarsin the non-Vaishnavite audience that Rasmandala is working withwould feel similarly about his approach.

It is true, as Rasamandala argues, that there are still popularmisconceptions and misrepresentations of Hindu traditions - ideasof caste, sati and now infanticide and dowry death, provepopular and sensationalist images. The reality of the daily devotion,regular puja and darshan, and the spiritualand religious development of individual Hindus often prove to beless newsworthy and thus less noticed. One could argue, however,that this is a problem with the study of all religions - it is moreinteresting to look at the excesses of Christianity or Islam thanthe mundanity and routine of being a Christian or Muslim. However,the fact that it occurs elsewhere does not justify it happeninghere - it is the duty of both the scholar and the devotee (althoughfor rather different reasons) to correct misrepresentations of thefaith traditions to which they dedicate themselves.

For me, the most provocative and interesting part of Rasamandala'spaper was Section 4 (pp. 57-9), in which he explores the contrastbetween the academic and the devotee - indeed he highlights a crucialproblem with what I (and other academics) are trying to do in ourresearch and teaching. For Rasamandala (and probably most readersof this journal) the Western academic tradition of studying religionis itself based on a miscomprehension of what 'religion' is; thatis, the empiricism of the Enlightenment, upon which most modernscholarship is founded, is unable to accept religion (as superempirical)for what its adherents claim it to be. Thus, God is not God - Heis the product of something else (whether it be human psychology,sociology, culture, history or whatever).

Indeed, the academic study of religion takes the premise thatthere is more to religion than the purely ontological reality ofthe 'spiritual'. However, it is only in extreme cases that the scholarwill make the assumption that the spiritual is non-existent (suchas the great 'reductionists' like Freud and Marx, who 'reduced'God to no more than human neurosis and economic inequality respectively).For most scholars, though, the spiritual may or may not be 'real'- they usually admit that they cannot know. We can talk about God,and the ways in which humans think about and relate to God, andalso how they organise their lives around God in a multitude ofways - but in the end we cannot say anything academic about thecore of this activity. This is as true for academics with a faithperspective as those who are atheists. The conventional wisdom isthat to be effective the scholar of religion needs to take an agnosticattitude (the jargon term is 'methodological agnosticism'). It ispossible to say a great deal of sense about religion without being'religious'. Such an approach is very useful and can help to uncovermany aspects of religious life which are not noticeable from withina faith tradition.

However, I feel there is more to say than this, that the academicstudy of religion can go further. There is a great deal of religionthat is reducible to human terms, but not all of it is completelycomprehensible by reducing it to our (current) understanding ofhumanity. To put this another way, scholars do not understand humanbehaviour well enough (in anthropology, sociology or psychology)to say that religion is purely human - perhaps we never will. UnlikeRasamandala, however, I do not think this means that it is necessaryfor the scholar to go the other way and accept the authority oftraditions that say religion is more than human (i.e. that thereis an ontological super-human reality). For someone within a faiththere is every reason to accept this, but for the scholar I believethat what is needed is merely a shift towards this position; I wouldlike to see the academic study of religion take it (or the spiritual)a bit more seriously for what it claims to be.

In his article Rasamandala quotes from a paper I wrote severalyears ago discussing a study I made of a Hindu group in Scotland.In that paper (Nye, 1992:12-5) I began to explore a basic paradoxbetween what I was saying in my research and what the subjects ofmy research (i.e. the Hindus themselves) were feeling. The problemwas that in my (social anthropological) doctoral thesis I had beenconcerned with placing the religious behaviour and concepts of theseHindus into academic paradigms that made sense to me. In this way,I had come to perceive activities occurring at a Hindu temple ashaving an interesting social dimension: religious gatherings actedas a space in which different conceptualisations of Hindu and culturalidentity came together, but were not resolved. [1]

Of course, such concepts were not primary to the Hindus themselves;they articulated their motivations in terms relating to 'devotion'and 'relationship to God'. They saw spiritual and devotional reasonsfor their behaviour, whilst I could also see social and culturalfactors. In doing this I may have been describing an unconsciousexperience operating among certain individuals at a 'hidden' level.However, on looking at the material in retrospect, I feel I wasalso imposing my own models and paradigms onto their living realities,and was therefore creating partial representations.

Therefore, when Rasamandala used a quotation from this paper inhis own article I felt that somehow my second thoughts must be leadingme somewhere. On another level, however, my words were being readin two different ways. Rather than how I intended, Rasamandala wasusing my anthropological exploration as a half-recognition of atheological certainty. I would not go as far as he did in sayingthat people act primarily for reasons of devotion, but I would saythat it can be a very important factor in people's lives. What Iam suggesting, therefore, is an approach that can accommodate thesignificance of the religious perspective and yet still make sensewithin the tradition of academic studies of religion. In doing soI am perhaps evaluating the Western empiricist tradition above Vedicscholarship, but that is primarily because I am a Western academicand not a Vedic scholar.[2]

To take another example, the phrase 'I am not my body' is a well-knownand well-used 'hallmark' of Krishna Consciousness devotees. It isa summation of much of what devotees believe and think about therelationship between the self / soul and the material world. Onecannot take a devotee seriously without taking this concept on board.On another level, however,a Westerner who is converting to KrishnaConsciousness goes through changes that appear to contradict thisidea: he / she puts on a new set of clothes (saris and dhotis),eats a new type of food (it is vegetarian, but also Indian) andbehaves differently. What the devotee is doing on the surface isbecoming 'Indian', or at least beginning to look and behave likean Indian.

It is possible to 'explain' this contrast in a variety of ways:perhaps one could say that this is hypocrisy, that devotees aresaying one thing and doing another, i.e. they say they are beinganti-materialist and yet underneath they are as equally concernedwith physical symbols (showing that they are being properly Indian)as a karmi (non-devotee) is with his material goods(such as cars and houses). Otherwise one could say the appeal ofISKCON is the chance to become an Indian, to change one's ethnicidentity, to opt out of the perceived failures of Western societyinto the perceived strengths of Indian culture.

I do not think either of these interpretations are useful, andthough they might be true of a small handful of devotees, I cannotsay I have met any like this. For the majority, the outside symbols,although material, are a sign of the inside process; that is, thematerial clothes (or even type of food) is not as important as thestate of consciousness. I am sure devotees could express this ina better way than I am putting it, but to me it appears that thephilosophy and theology are paramount over the materialism (althoughnot completely - I think that most would admit they are 'only human').In this case, therefore, it would be better to hear the way in whichthe devotee thinks through the paradox (if indeed they see it assuch) from their religious / faith perspective, rather than seekto explain it completely in social or cultural terms.        Asa further example, I have been thinking a lot about BhaktivedantaManor and the conflict that has been taking place over worship atthe temple. [3] Onequestion I find myself asking is 'Why do so many people want tovisit the Manor?' After all, if there were not so many people goingto the Manor at times such as Janmasthami then it is unlikely thatthere would have been so many complaints. Although a temple shouldnot be punished for being 'too popular', the crowds can cause somedifficulties to local residents.

There have been a number of writers who have tried to explain thepopularity of the Manor with the local Indian community. Of course,one needs to accept that there are a number of reasons that varyfor each individual devotee. Generally, however, the appeal of theManor is usually explained in terms of its provision of good facilitiesfor Hindus to worship in Britain, along with the educational facilitiesfor both mature and young Hindus. In particular, the ISKCON devotionaltradition is easily accommodated to British Hindus' own experiencesand expectations, as is much of ISKCON's philosophical / theologicalapproach. Furthermore ISKCON has a first class religious centre- it is a place where Krishna is obviously manifest and well caredfor, and is therefore a place worth treating seriously. Althoughmany non-ISKCON temples in Britain cater for all of these needs(to some degree or other), there are very few which are able toprovide them quite as well as ISKCON does.

Conclusion

In the end, the scholar of religion will always have differentconcerns from those who are living within the Vedic tradition. Weeach have different agendas, and of course different audiences toplease. However, we should also try to learn from one another -and try to understand each other's point of view. This is axiomaticfor the scholar of religion: it is impossible to write about a religioustradition without first learning about it. For me, this requiresdetailed first-hand experience of devotees within the tradition.

Despite this, there can often be a fault line between the researchand the book and articles that come from it. Whilst researching,the scholar is usually more sympathetic to the religious dimensionthan they are in the account that is published afterwards. If scholarscan try to see not only the significance of religious and spiritualassumptions but also their influence on behaviour of devotees, thenit is quite likely that devotees themselves will get more from whatacademics and educationalists have to say.

Notes

[1] cf Nye, 1995.

[2] It was interesting to read Rasamandala's comments on the relationshipbetween the two traditions, in showing how the empiricism of theWest can be considered immature according to Vedic knowledge - whichis indeed a good counter to the misrepresentation of Hinduism as'primitive' (see Rasamandala's third point).

[3] A paper I have written on this conflict will be published ina later issue of this journal, and I am also currently writing abook on it.

References

Nye, M. 'Constructing a Hindu Temple Community in Edinburgh',Religion Today, Vol.8 (1), 1992.

Nye, M. A Place For Our Gods: The Construction of a Hindu TempleCommunity in Edinburgh. London: Curzon Press, 1995.

Dasa, Rasamandala. 'The Western Educationalists' Perspective onthe Vedic Tradition', ISKCON Communications Journal, IssueNo. 4.

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