Rethinking India’s past (original) (raw)
2016
This book may be looked upon as the third of a trilogy that deals with the early development of classical Indian culture. The first, Greater Magadha, studied the culture of the eastern parts of the Ganges valley, a culture that was originally independent but came to be largely absorbed into Brahmanical culture, and which contributed many defining features to the latter. The second book in the trilogy, Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism, depicted how Buddhism in India, in spite of remaining nominally independent, underwent such strong brahmanization that it can be said to have joined forces with Brahmanism, in vain as it turned out. The present book concentrates on the extraordinary success story of Brahmanism, which developed from a movement in danger of extinction during the last centuries before the Common Era into one that, in less than a millennium, succeeded in imposing its imprint on the Indian subcontinent and much of Southeast Asia, and did this without the help of a conquering army or an all-powerful empire. Religious conversion cannot have played a role, for one could not convert to Brahmanism. This book seeks to understand how the Brahmins did it. This book uses material that has been published elsewhere. The material concerned has been freely modified, updated, and translated where necessary. A list of publications from which material has been taken includes the following: "The orthoepic diaskeuasis of the Ṛgveda and the date of Pāṇini.
“Interpreting ‘Brahmanization’ in the Indian Buddhist Monastery with J. Z. Smith”
Thinking with J. Z. Smith: Mapping Methods in the Study of Religion, 2023
This chapter will bring Smith’s insights on ritual to bear on scholarly discussions of the historical process in late ancient South Asia known as “Brahmanization.” In particular, I will discuss scholarly claims about how the political and cultural phenomenon of “Brahmanization” affected the Indian Buddhist monastic institution at the turn of the Common Era. By Brahmanization, I am referring to the spread of those social forces associated with the Brahmanical class of ritual specialists at the turn of the Common Era, which, over many centuries, and in piecemeal fashion, have insinuated purity norms into a variety of religious and political contexts throughout South Asia. In this chapter, I will challenge the notion that the process of Brahmanization in South Asia at the turn of the Common Era was the pervasive socio-religious juggernaut that it is often depicted as in Indological scholarship. In particular, I will argue that there was substantial resistance within the Buddhist establishment to the new ritual systems of the late ancient period, which was designed in Brahmanical circles of power to govern the relationship to the dead.
"At the Shores of the Sky" Asian Studies for Albert Hoffstädt, 2020
The Brahmanical tradition has exerted a profound influence on India, from an early time onward.1 This tradition, like all traditions, had a certain vision of the past, and its enormous success has given it ample opportunity to impose that vision. The task of the historian, here as elsewhere, is to verify the prevailing vision of the past, and correct it where necessary. One of the features of Brahmanism is that it has always presented itself as old and unchanging. Indeed, the claim was made, at least since the grammarian Patañjali in the second century bce, that Sanskrit, the language of Brahmanism, was not just old but beginningless. The same view came to be held with regard the Veda, the literary corpus connected with Brahmanism: the Veda was not just old but beginningless. Inevitably, Brahmanical civilization was also thought of as tremendously old, and as the background of other cultural and religious movements in India. This view came to prevail and has survived until today. Buddhism, in particular, was thought of as a reaction against Brahmanism; it was taken for granted that when Buddhism arose, Brahmanism had been around for a very long time, also in the region where the Buddha preached. My research over the years has convinced me that this vision of the past is not correct. It is true that Brahmanism had existed for a long while when Buddhism arose, but not in the region where the Buddha preached, nor in many other regions of India. Brahmanism is an ideology that in due time spread all over India and over much of Southeast Asia, but this spread had hardly begun at the time of the Buddha. At that time Brahmanism was largely centered in one part of the subcontinent, its northwestern corner. At the time of the grammarian Patañjali in the second century bce, some two and a half centuries after the death of the Buddha, the term Āryāvarta was used, and Patañjali gives a rather precise description of the extent of this Āryāvarta, which shows that it covered only a part of the Ganges plain. (GM, Introduction)
Religions, 2020
The classical account of the Brahmin priestly class and its role in Indian religion has seen remarkable continuity during the past two centuries. Its core claims appear to remain unaffected, despite the major shifts that occurred in the theorizing of Indian culture and in the study of religion. In this article, we first examine the issue of the power and status of the Brahmin and show how it generates explanatory puzzles today. We then turn to 18th-and 19th-century sources to identify the cognitive conditions which sustained the classical account of the Brahmin priest and allowed for its transmission. Three clusters of concepts were crucial here: Christian-theological ideas concerning heathen priesthood and idolatry; racial notions of biological and cultural superiority and inferiority; and anthropological speculations about 'primitive man' and his 'magical thinking'. While all three clusters were rejected by 20th-and 21st-century scholarship, the related claims about Brahmanical ritual power continue to be presented as facts. What accounts for this peculiar combination of continuities and discontinuities in the study of (ancient) Indian religion? We turn to some insights from the philosophy of science to sketch a route toward answering this question.
The Transmission, Patronage, and Prestige of Brahmanical Piety From the Mauryas to the Guptas
Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions …, 2005
This essay examines the mechanisms by which Brahmanical tradition reproduced itself, especially the regimens of discipline(vratas) undertaken in tandem with text-study, and their role in establishing the knowledge of Sanskrit religious texts (and the use of Sanskrit more broadly) as an important criterion of piety and high social status. I argue that such regimens functioned as markers of belonging to the Brahmanical religion and ‘pure’ Årya society, while also offering the ordinary householder a form of personal piety that promised all the rewards of the old priestly ‘high cult. At the same time, disciplinary regimens provided a traditionally recognized framework for mendicant movements and new deity cults, which helped carry Brahmanical texts, ideals, and practices, via royal patronage, into new regions in India beyond the Ganges Valley and on into Southeast Asia. The second part of this essay will consider what early inscriptions can show us about how Brahmanical doctrine and practice were projected in the public sphere, noting instances in which particular subjects, texts, and especially disciplinary practices are cited, and observing that the grants and foundations recorded in these inscriptions helped spread the tradition and enhance its prestige. My remarks, intended only as a point of departure, will focus mainly on early grants from Orissa.
Greater Magadha and the New Brahmanism: Recent Publications by Johannes Bronkhorst
Religious Studies Review, Vol. 41 No. 3, September 2015, pp. 93-100.
Ancient India produced three of the world’s oldest religions (known today as Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism) and a vast literary heritage in several languages, but her early history is arguably one of the most difficult to reconstruct. The intricacies of the evidence and the complexities of the arguments have conspired to generate publications on the period that are either hopelessly esoteric for all but specialists or dispiritingly oversimplified. Bronkhorst, of the University of Lausanne, has over the last several years built on the best scholarship across a wide range of topics to produce a narrative that is both sensitive to the important nuances as well as original, clear, and crisply presented. Bronkhorst already had a reputation in the field for bold yet careful argumentation on many vexed issues in Indian cultural history. He does not hesitate to challenge consensus, or to propose a hypothesis on matters for which hard proof may always be lacking. Not all of these arguments shift the consensus. But even if one does not accept all aspects of his argument, his approach offers many new insights and advances the field.
Early Buddhism and its Relation to Brahmanism. A Comparative and Doctrinal Investigation
Dissertation, 2021
This dissertation investigates the relation of early Buddhism to the Brahmanism of its time. Both religions are usually researched by their own academic traditions, and due to the lack of bigpicture crossover research we still find the opposing views that Buddhism was anti-Brahmanical and, in contrast, that it developed as a reformed Brahmanism. In order to provide more clarity to the religions’ connection this study offers an analysis and discussion of several main topics as they are presented in the Buddhist suttas: the portrayal of different types of Brahmins, rituals, deities and supernatural beings, and the concepts of brahman and ātman. Throughout this study we also attempt to stratify the Buddhist content linguistically and contextually and to arrive at statements whether a specific content related to Brahmanism belongs to an early or a later Buddhist sutta period. In the end we conclude that early Buddhism had a very differentiated relationship to Brahmanism: The Buddha’s relationship to Brahmins is mostly portrayed as benevolent and respectful. Only later suttas display an attitude of polemic criticism. Early Buddhist concepts of deities and supernatural beings are strongly influenced by Vedic Brahmanism, and likewise the concept of spiritual studentship (brahmacariya). Further, the early suttas are not anti-ritualistic but deem Brahmin rituals to be ineffective. Instead of condemning all rituals, they replace the Vedic gods with the Buddha and declare that devotion and religious giving to the Buddha and his monastics are the most efficient ways for lay people to secure a good afterlife. The Buddhist anattā (not-self) turns out to be a general strategy and not specifically directed at Brahmin concepts of ātman (self). Additionally, statistical analyses of the suttas show that Brahmins were less likely to receive the teaching of anattā. We come to the conclusion that early Buddhism as a whole has developed independently from Brahmanism, with selective influences from Brahmanism and non-Vedic spiritual movements, altering and utilizing these influences for its own growth against its religious competition.
2020
Caste is, as Ambedkar said, "not just a division of labour but, a division of labourers. " Wherever this institution went, it tried to freeze the society into a fossilized rulership and a fossilized disposable and disciplined labouring class. And just as division of labour alienates the workers from her work, product of her labour and life itself; the division of labourers alienated the whole of society and deeply fractured the spirit of human morality and solidarity. The caste structure gave birth to the caste society which has outlived the mode of domination it was invented to serve. The straitjacket of caste did not emerge in isolation. It is one part of the centuries old project of societal control-Brahmanism. This entry is an attempt to find an anarchist orientation towards Bhrahmanism and its annihilation by looking at some episodes in its history and mutations. Brahmanism, primarily, is and always has been a socio-political ideology and not a religious movement. The ideology consists in the believe that Brahmans have established links with the higher realms, they are the natural advisors to the rulers on social and political matters and, that they hold the highest place in the social hierarchy. The hierarchy consists in a four tier system of Varna and those who are out of this hierarchy forming the Avarna strata, based on Brahmans principles of standardized purity. Within this image of the Brahmanical society the caste becomes the essential of realizing the dominance of Brahmans as the priestly caste. To insure the success and reproduction of this institution every aspect of human life from the cradle to the grave are governed by strict laws codified in various books and laws of local kingdoms. This vision of society was largely realized in significant parts of the sub-continent with varying degrees of success, modifications and compromises with other power system. This was not an easy task and beginning with the invasion of Alexander of Macedon, the Brahmans were prosecuted in the northwestern region of what is now called India, the only region where they had influence. This continued with Ashoka's and later his son, Kunala's murdering of the "treacherous" Brahmans who were fueling anti-Maurya sentiments in local courts. The situation was so bad for the priestly caste that they were sure that the end of the world has finally arrived-the end of Kali Yuga. But Brahmanism not only survived but thrived and the impacts of its unfortunate success to this day are leaving bloody marks on human body and spirit. Brahmanism conquered not by the blade of the sword but with the succor of the myth. Brahmans spread stories of their demigod like powers, the benefits of befriending and dangers of crossing them. Most importantly they provided to the rulers a divine lineage and right to rule till