On understanding the “nature” of religion
The viewpoint of the observer/interpreter is reflected in the way very basic
terms are defined. The term “religion” is no exception. In fact, it may be
presumptuous to use the term “religious” to speak of the manifold
expressions of “religion” in the Indian subcontinent, inasmuch as the term
“religion” has Western origins and is not indigenous to India. Deriving as it
has from the Latin religare, meaning “to be incumbent upon” or binding,
and from religio/nesas an act directed to the Roman household deities, it has
nonetheless come to mean a great many things in Western discourse. At the
very least, theories and definitions of “religion” as much reflect the world
and cultural/religious orientation of the theorist as they do that of the
people they purport to describe. Two theories of religion will illustrate this
difficulty.
Rudolph Otto, a Lutheran theologian, writing early in the twentieth
century, became interested in comparing the “essence” of religion across
cultures.^20 Starting with his own reading of the Hebrew Bible and Lutheran
theology, he was intrigued when studying the Bhagavadgı ̄ta ̄by what seemed
to him to corroborate his view as to what was at the heart of religion. There
was Arjuna, hesitant to go to battle, being instructed by Kr.s.n.a, his charioteer
and a manifestation of the divine; Kr.s.n.a offered an epiphany to Arjuna,
revealing himself in all his glory; Arjuna was overwhelmed, and with goose
bumps prostrates himself.
In this, Otto perceived the essence of religion as the experience of the
“numinous” – that which is “wholly other,” “Holy,” beyond words. Arjuna’s
experience seemed to match that of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Luther. Ironically,
the “numinous experience” is indeed not far removed from the experience
of Arjuna and the idea of a “numen,” a “wholly other” to which the mystic
responds, is not inconsistent with the idea of brahman, the cosmic essence
of which the Upanis.adic thinkers spoke. What then is the problem with
Otto’s view of “religion”? First, it is derived from his own tradition and
appliedpost factoto another. Second, it may do justice to the Upanis.adic
mystic but it is not fair to the classical Buddhist, who denies the existence of
brahmanor anything numinous or “wholly other.” Third, most religious
persons on the Indian subcontinent have never had the intense mystical
experience of which Otto wrote, but rather express their religious
commitments in household rituals, temple visitations, or in a host of other
relatively routine ways. Should one say of them they are not “religious”?
A very different understanding of religion is that expressed by the
American anthropologist Clifford Geertz.^21 Geertz, after years of studying
religion and culture in Southeast Asia and the Islamic world, suggested that
10 On Wearing Good Lenses