Introduction

Abstract

The study of Hinduism and its development coincides with the development of modern hermeneutics. Despite this co-emergence and the rich possibilities inherent in a dialectical encounter between the theories of modern and post-modern hermeneutics, and those of Hindu hermeneutical traditions, such an enterprise has not developed within the boundaries of religious studies. The aim of this volume is to initiate such an interface. The essays in this volume reflect one or more of the following categories: (1) The challenges and possibilities inherent in the application of Western hermeneutics to the study of Hindu traditions; (2) Critiques of certain heuristics used to "understand" Hindu traditions in the past; (3) The elicitation of new hermeneutical paradigms from the Hindu texts and traditions, in order to develop cross-cultural or dialogical hermeneutics. From its inception, the study of Hinduism has taken place under the purview of the Western academy. First, Europeans, and later, Americans have translated the texts and defined the traditions of the Hindu world. It was the Western Indological enterprise that classified "Hinduism" and examined it outside its embeddedness in the complex of sacred traditions that have constituted the Indian cultural world. It is well known that much of Hindu self-understanding derives from Western academic pronouncements on the meaning and the nature of the elements constitutive of the network of concepts and practices now known as Hinduism. To be sure, such endeavors performed a great service by laying open the richness and complexity of Hindu thought and tradition for examination and reflection. Yet the inevitable application, to the Indian cultural context, of interpretive methodologies developed and conditioned by Western cultural norms have, arguably, led to some results that bear investigation. Several essays in this volume (particularly Sharma, Tilak, Sugirtharajah, but also Bilimoria) examine the impact of Western hermeneutics on the Indian religious landscape and initiate a corrective discourse on the possibility of alternate interpretive models for understanding Hinduism in particular and the Indian religious world in general. While Western hermeneutics have been employed in the study of Hinduism for over a century, Hindu hermeneutics have rarely-if ever-been employed in the service of examining elements of Western history, religion, and culture. Nevertheless, thousands of years of exegesis, interpretation and reinterpretation, of adaptation and reconstitution of ancient norms, concepts, and practices have endowed the Hindu tradition with a wealth of hermeneutical systems and strategies, many of which may have the potential for cross cultural application. At the least, an examination of Hindu hermeneutics carries with it the potential for the stimulation of intersubjectivity, and the initiation of reciprocal hermeneutics. That, indeed, is one of the aims of this volume. Several essays offer original insights on the potential application of traditional Hindu philosophical principles and doctrinal concepts to cross-cultural hermeneutical frameworks (see Long, Bilimoria, Klostermaier, Adarkar, and Taneja). Others are concerned with the application of a philosophical approach to hermeneutical engagement with Hindu texts in order to elicit more complete interpretations (see Phillips, and Rukmani). This work, in presenting essays that are both critical and constructive, seeks to open up an intellectual space for a creative dialectical engagement that, we hope, will lead to a hermeneutics of reciprocity. The academic understanding of Hinduism has been greatly influenced by the interpretive mores of the different historical periods in the West during which it has been studied. While hermeneutics as the art and methodology of textual interpretation is ubiquitous in human history, hermeneutics as a modern philosophical category can be traced back to the German Protestant theologian and Romantic philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher. In order to facilitate the dialectical process for the reader, a brief synopsis of the development of modern hermeneutics follows. It is followed by a brief discussion of Hindu epistemological and hermeneutical theories and methods.