I recently attended a debate here in Liverpool featuring William Lane Craig, and when someone posed the question to him of the validity of other religions, he acknowledged that the three Abrahamic faiths were coherent because they had a transcendent God as a central doctrine, whereas other religions such as Shinto, Taoism, and Advaita Vedanta Hinduism do not. Craig did not of course say that his list was exhaustive, but it is common for "Western" philosophers of religion to equate Advaita Vedanta with Hinduism considered qua religion. I wish to briefly examine why this is and explain why this assumption is mistaken.
First, it's simply mistaken that Advaita Vedantins do not believe that there is a God. The fact that they make distinction between Brahman as nirguna (imperceptible) vs. manifestly as Ishvara, as well as all the condemnations of atheism in Advaita literature should make it clear that the Advaitins are not atheists.
Still, whatever the nature of the Advaita God, Advaita Vedanta should not be considered as the sole intellectual representative of Hinduism. It has been accorded this status on the one hand because of its successful presentation as such by a number of Indian intellectuals, such as Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan, and on the other by Western interest in exotic elements of non-Western religions and certain picture of philosophical theism with which Advaita comports.
Advaita Vedanta is however a philosophical school which has traditionally restricted itself to a cultural and intellectual elite. To gauge Hinduism according to Advaita would be as misguided as using Hegel's Weltgeist as the template for Christian theology. As Robin Collins has pointed out (also see work by Francis X. Clooney), there are viable conceptions of God within the Hindu philosophical tradition which are not Advaitic, and the religious traditions associated with them are decidedly more devotional and revelatory, and consider God more strictly as a person than is done in Advaita Vedanta. Given that most Hindus are not Advaitins, and that Advaita Vedanta represents only a small and fairly recent addition to the Indian philosophical tradition, no one should seriously believe that they have given due consideration to Hindu theology simply because they have refuted the central tenets of Advaita Vedanta.
First of all I donot understand how William craig argued that Hindu faith is not coherent because a part of it,Advaita Vedanta,believes in complete unity of existence.As rightly pointed out by you that Advaita is not the whole of Hinduism and yet even if we concede to the fact that it is, how does that belief make it incoherent is beyond my understanding. Infact the theme of unity is something that resolves all the contradictions, smoothes out all the rough edges. Vivekananda was the most forceful presenter of Advaita vedanta and he has argued in a perfectly consistent manner to the opposite effect. In one of his lectures in America he has outlined how the Abrhamaic faiths are a step in the direction of Advaitisc religion. Schelling,Herder,Hegel and Emerson have believed in a king of religion akin to Advaita vedanta. It is true that Advaita is not the whole of Hindu religion but that is because it is not a practical doctrine. It is impossible to make rituals out of Advaitic doctrine. But most Hindus believe in it though that does not mean that they do not go to temples and bow before an image. Both are perfectly consistent. All Hindus believe in Advaita though they practice Dvaita (Duality, Worshipping) systems because Advaita cannot be put into practice.
Advaita Vedanta as it has come down to us is is generally susceptible to the same arguments made against idealist metaphysics. The open question is whether Shankara was himself an idealist.
It is also a bit odd that you refer to Vivekananda while stressing that Advaita is not a practical doctrine, since he is significant for his advocacy of the view that Advaita has practical social applications (see the last chapter of Wilhelm Halbfass's Tradition and Reflection). The Advaitin tradition is also not severed from Hindu ritual tradition, as they fully appropriated the philosophy of the Mimamsakas.
Finally, you're mistaken to say that all Hindus believe in Advaita, as Ramanuja and Madhva are two prominent classical philosophers who are clearly opposed to it. Outside of that, I also have personal acquaintances who are Hindus and yet are not Advaitins.
Let me make here a distinction between what Hindus believe and what Hinduism actually is. Very few Hindus will claim to know all about Hinduism. The universally acknowledged source of Hinduism is the Vedas. You must be aware of how Non Dualistic the Upanishads are.
The myth of the Vedic Samhitas, which antedated the Upanishads, as not preaching Non Dualism was vanquished by Sri Aurobindo in his “The Secret of the Vedas”. So that is what Hindu religion is all about. There have been others who have founded their own schools and preached Dualism llike Ramanuja and Madhava and they also are Hindus in the cultural sense. But it is important to distinguish Hinduism from its philosophical aspect and cultural aspect. William Craig, if he equated Hinduism with Advaita ( Vedanta is superfluous because Samhitas also say the same thing),is quite right in doing so though his conclusion of incoherence is baffling to me. When I say all Hindus believe in Advaita I am talking about people who have been made aware of it. Most of the Hindus are ignorant of the Vedic aspect of their religion though they have infinite regard for it. So if someone tells them about the Upanishadic doctrines it is impossible that they will not accept it. It’s just that they are ignorant of it. The Essence of Hinduism as a Vedic religion is Advaita.
What I meant by Advaita being difficult to put into practice is that Advaita is a state of Being and not a practice. That is what Vivekananda pointed out as well. He wanted people to have the realization of Advaita which will lead to an understanding of their infinite potential with which they can commence their work. In his institutions ,he wrote Hymns for dualistic worship and took part in all the Dualistic celebrations. He emphasized the importance of dualism though he said that that was not the end.
It's misleading to say that the Vedas are the universally acknowledged source of Hinduism, for their presence in Indian intellectual and religious life is quite limited and they contain none of the creeds or dogmas recognized as being part of modern Hinduism. For the orthodox schools and Tantrics or other theists, the Vedas are either validated by cognition or are given by God (along with other texts originally considered to be unorthodox), and so it's either experience or God for them who is the source of the Vedas, and thus the source for Hinduism.
As for the non-dualism of the Upanishads, I am aware that there are elements within them which are later taken to support Advaita, but there are also elements which do not, so it would be a mistake to say without qualification that the Upanishads are non-dualistic. It would be anachronistic to argue about whether the Samhitas which predate the Upanishads are non-dualistic, as they would also predate the elaboration of Advaita to begin with. Aurobindo doesn't "vanquish" any non-dualist reading of the Vedas, but simply reinterprets them esoterically and psychologically.
The 'philosophical' vs. 'cultural' Hinduism distinction really doesn't make much sense here, given that Ramanuja and Madhva are both widely agreed to be philosophers and Hindus. It seems that you're simply excluding the possibility of anyone being Hindu and not being an Advaitin, but why should anyone think that to be the case?
It's difficult to see one can talk about Hinduism as "a Vedic religion," given that 1) the Vedic religion itself and Hinduism are two distinct things, and 2) the Vedas and the Vedic religion are almost entirely focused on ritual. Since you want to say that 1) Hinduism is Advaita, and 2) Advaita isn't concerned with ritual, this is at least problematic, if not outright contradictory.
Considering the Shankara himself discusses the varna-based qualifications for reading the Vedas and performing the related rituals, and he's as good an Advaitin as any, why assume that worship or rituals are inherently dualistic?
Dear David and Alok,
I hesitate to interject my opinion into an interesting debate from which I am learning a lot. However, I suspect that this debate will never be resolved between you, since it seems to be a classic case of the difference between an 'insider' and an 'outsider'.
I'm deducing from the postings so far that David is an expert on Hinduism, but is not a Hindu, whereas Alok is a Hindu. If that is incorrect, then my comments don't apply, and of course I apologise if either of you are offended.
When a term such as 'feminist' or 'Christian' or 'Hindu' is used as a badge of identity, indicating membership of a certain community that shares certain commitments, the ideal is that everyone who describes themselves as a 'b' will be recognised as a 'b' by others who describe themselves as 'b'. If I describe myself as a 'b' but another self-described 'b' fails to acknowledge this, then we have a boundary-problem. Can feminists be opposed to abortion? Are Mormons (or indeed Catholics) Christians? Can a Hindu reject Advaita? All of these are boundary disputes. Of course, one can say 'It depends what you mean by feminist/Christian/Hindu', but for each of these words, the community that identifies itself by means of that badge wants it to have a shared meaning. I would presume that Ramanuja did not want to be seen as a 'cultural Hindu', but a Hindu. Similarly, Mormons don't want to be seen as 'sort of Christians' but as Christians. The disputes are won or lost according to whether other people who call themselves a 'b' accept your right to call yourself a 'b'.
Outsiders are those who simply do not aspire to call themselves a 'b'. They may understand the history of the dispute perfectly, and be able to follow the logic of arguments that are used by each side, but they are like spectators at an election who are not entitled to vote. Of course, the outsider must adopt some vocabulary to describe the participants in the dispute, but the outsider is hardly in a position to say, for example, that belief in the Nicene Creed is essential to Christianity, as opposed to being something that lots of Christians see as being essential to Christianity. For the purpose of historical description, it frequently most useful to use such designations in the broadest sense: a non-Christian who wants to understand Christianity as an historical phenomenon probably aspires to understand all those communities that call themselves Christian. Still, one can use the term 'Christian' in this broad sense without casting a vote on the self-definition of Christianity or, in this case, Hinduism.
Still, one can learn a lot from a debate like this; I'd be interested to read more from either of you about the history of Advaita and of Hinduism.
Hi Ben,
I think your assessment is generally correct, although this particular boundary dispute is, within Hinduism, a fairly recent development. That still doesn't mean that it's any less pressing for those whom it concerns, nor that there aren't good reasons that can be offered for positions like Alok's.
Historically, being properly considered a Hindu by other Hindus was a matter of orthopraxis rather than orthodoxy: it wasn't so important what one believed about the nature of God, the cosmos, and humankind's relation to them so much as what practices one followed. This has of course changed in some circles, and the change can be at least partly--though certainly not entirely--attributed to the influence of intellectual traditions of Christian origin on certain strains of Hindu thought.
My primary problem with Alok's view of what makes someone a Hindu would be that require either 1) a drastic reinterpretation of the meaning of 'Hindu' such that its origins would be relevantly recent, or 2) that viewpoints be assigned to the authors of significant sacred texts which they probably did not hold. These are mostly scholarly problems, but they are also problems which cannot be entirely overlooked by insiders.
Hi David and Ben
You are right Ben. I am a Hindu. So I am an insider according to you. What David Says about Hinduism though, is not limited to him or other western scholars of Hinduism alone but to even Hindu Scholars of Hinduism who accept some of the text books on Hinduism literally and uncritically . In religious studies on Hinduism, Advaita Vedanta is presented as a school of thought in Hinduism. I think that is where the whole misunderstanding and misrepresentation arises. The word ‘school’ is a word which implies division and separation. Advaita can be a school in the Indian philosophy but it is not a school of thought in the Hindu Religion or Hinduism. It is a stage of realization and experience which is supposed to be the highest. All the others realizations are not supposed to be different from Advaita but leading to Advaita. In their attempt to sort out the different ways of assembling and presenting the information that the sages had left, the scholars thought it proper to classify and divide them in schools. Except Advaita none of them claim to be the ultimate understanding.
It’s true that an insider understands the category he belongs to in a way which an outsider may find it difficult. But that does not necessarily mean that an insider is always right or an outsider is always right. There are certain advantages to both the perspectives. I think it is vitally important for any insider to uproot his beliefs and ideas from the cultural security where they took birth and plant them in alien modes of thinking to get a better and critical understanding. So a Hindu thought being seen from a western perspective is a kind of exercise which I willingly indulge in from time to time and also find it fruitful.
For Example I find it hard to understand that so many sects in protestant Christianity have developed based on differences of the Divinity of Jesus . Unlike Hinduism I guess
The differences here were mostly of opinion than a difference of realization.
I certainly do not believe that “intellectual traditions of Christian origin” influenced the structuring of Hinduism in various philosophical sects. It has been there since antiquity.
The confusion regarding Advaita is entirely a creation of Text books which were originally created by Westerners in the 19th century and then uncritically imitated by the Indians in their universities.
Hi Alok,
I understand Advaitins' understanding of their own position within Hinduism, which is that Advaita Vedanta is the correct view and interpretation of all prior views, and that those are subsumed under Advaita. You must also realize, however, that not everyone who considers or considered themselves to be a Hindu agrees with the Advaita take on the matter.
The use of the word 'school,' at least in Indian philosophy, has to do with the fact that Advaita Vedanta is a philosophical school opposed to other ones, such as Nyaya-Vaisheshika and Samkhya-Yoga. From what we know of these schools, their proponents seem to be pretty convinced that do claim to be "the ultimate understanding." It's also not as if the schools opposing Advaita's views stopped defending them simply because Advaitins claimed that they and only they had the final understanding of things.
Intellectual traditions of Christian origins influencing Hindu philosophical traditions does not preclude those traditions having origins in antiquity. I said, in fact, that the shift focus on belief as a means of defining Hinduism was not entirely a result of Christian influence, as certainly earlier responses to Buddhist and Jain critiques, as well as the influence of sectarian, Tantric traditions on the orthodox Smarta, played a role as well. There was still less focus on orthodox belief in these earlier developments, and the role of ritual as defining one's status as a Hindu wasn't called into question by groups internal to the tradition in the way that it is by some Advaitins now.
I'm not sure what "confusion regarding Advaita" that you're referring to is, but it's not as if 19th century scholarship on Advaita Vedanta was purely the product of Europeans. To the extent that it is flawed--and we can certainly always look back to scholarship of earlier eras and identify significant flaws relative to contemporary methods and understanding--the fault also lies with Indian scholars.