Pramāṇa: Reading between the lines
A big question that is frequently asked of me is about where I get the authority to say things, i.e., about my sources of knowledge, or pramāṇa. This is what we call epistemology: How do we know what we know?
Many devotees are appropriately very attached to the words of śāstra and their gurus. I have myself spent most of my life in a study of the Sanskrit and Bengali texts related to our school of thought out of a great respect for our acharyas, a respect that was instilled in me by Srila Prabhupada himself. As a result, I have long contemplated the value and meaning of these texts, along with my spiritual practices, and come to certain conclusions.
In the article linked to above, I simply wrote that I had no pramāṇas for my spiritual path, but this of course is not entirely true. I still need to know that what "I know" is real knowledge. So I do have a position on pramāṇas, which is as follows:
Pramāṇa is used in argumentation to verify one's position, to establish it, and then to convince others of it. So agreeing on pramāṇas is an important step in any debate, but in fact it is quite well known that there are many people, particularly those of an authoritarian bent, who have a remarkable ability to juxtapose contradictory beliefs uncritically; in other words, they are not really swayed by evidence in a rational way. Epistemology is not a particularly burning concern for them. To some extent we are all a mixture of rational and irrational tendencies, so a pure concern for truth ultimately falls down for what is convenient or pleasant. So an awareness of this tendency is necessary in any discussion of epistemology. In other words, we do not always want to know the truth.
In Indian philosophy, though the Naiyāyikas accept ten kinds of pramāṇa, others schools less, the Bhagavatam accepts four pramāṇas: pratyakṣa, anumāna, aitihya and śabda. This last is also called āgama and āpta-vākya. Vaishnavas most often accept three, dropping aitihya, i.e., tradition or history, which is subsumed into the other categories, particularly revealed authority. This is all in Tattva-sandarbha and various other places, and common knowledge to most devotees. But the Yoga-sūtra quite correctly places pramāṇa ("correct knowledge") in the realm of vṛttis (1.7) or mental modifications, meaning that they are external to real spiritual experience.
In practical terms, we generally tend not to accept pramāṇas that do not jibe with our personal experience, until as such time as we are ready to do so. In the matter of practical physical reality, we tend to be more open to being convinced by authority and reasoning when our physical senses, etc., fail us (the "four defects"). This is because verification in this area is becoming more and more simple.
In spiritual life things are not always so simple, however. In the Vaishnava tradition, as in most other religions, there is a strong belief in revelation, scripture and the authority of the "realized soul" or guru, whose importance is also stressed in the scripture. But we are also told that sadhu, shastra and guru should have a harmonious understanding, a kind of difficult trifecta that gets harder and harder to realize as our situation becomes more and more individualized, in other words as we become spiritually more advanced and individuated.
Those of an authoritarian bent in the Krishna consciousness movement tend to accept the unicity of these sources as a point of faith, even though in practical terms there are so many internal contradictions. For them the hermeneutical challenge becomes one of establishing consistency, something that may become quite a task. But certainly we must be able to distinguish between those things that are easily verifiable on the basis of direct perception and logical argument. The domain of revealed authority is, of necessity, an increasingly restricted circle.
Furthermore, the shastra and individual gurus have pointed out here and there that the scriptures themselves are nothing but the words of realized souls. What else is revelation? Revelation has to be revealed to someone through whom it comes into the world.
Of course, it is incumbent on us, as preachers (as it were) trying to convince others of the validity of our beliefs and practices, to make use of pratyakṣa and anumāna. No charismatic authority can establish any meaningful new direction without doing so. The playing field has changed since the 16th century (what to speak of earlier times). It is not adequate to call it "Kaliyuga" and condemn everything that today's enhanced or evolved pratyakṣa and anumāna have revealed to humanity. You cannot expect the more intelligent people to accept any external or ancient authority when it contradicts easily available evidence and common accepted wisdom.
This does not mean that our spiritual path is lost. Rather it means that we need to think about it in ways that make it sensible to ourselves and to other intelligent seekers. That is our task. I have said that the failures of the IGM are failures of prema, but they are also failures of the intellect. We need to learn the path of positive argumentation also. We cannot argue from the negative ("The modern consumerist ethic is a dead end") or even from a quasi-mystical experience ("I feel bliss when chanting Hare Krishna") to a positive: "The Bhāgavatam is literally true in its every word." Even the Bhāgavatam warns that the rishis and Krishna himself sometimes prefer indirect or misleading speech (parokṣa-vāda), and there are even plenty of texts in the great scripture that have apparent monistic conclusions that need to be interpreted in the light of guiding revelations.
Our capacity to argue from anumāna and even śabda (selectively quoting supporting passages, etc.) comes from our very own personal ṛṣi-pratyakṣa or vidvad-anubhava, i.e., the enhanced experience of spiritual truth that comes from our own practice, i.e, which is revealed to us by divine grace. And this process of selective quoting and logical argument (such as using Nyāya syllogisms and principle like sat-kārya-vāda) is exactly what Jiva Goswami is doing in his hermeneutic of the Bhāgavatam. At any rate, the word vidvad-anubhava appears numerous times in the Sandarbhas, with Sri Jiva calling it the "crest jewel of all evidence" (sarva-pramāṇa-caya-cūḍāmaṇi-bhūtaḥ, KṛṣṇaS 115) and "the king of kings of all evidence" (pramāṇa-cakravarti in Sarva-saṁvādinī to BhagS 1), etc.
Divine grace does not take the same form with everyone. This is important to understand. But if we have an idiosyncratic mystical understanding (it must be idiosyncratic!, i.e., individual) we may make attempts to universalize it by using the three kinds of pramāṇa to convince others. But we must be careful here: Are we attempting to legitimize our own -- doubtful -- stance in order to confirm our ego attachment to a particular belief system, or are we genuinely sharing something beneficial with those who are in need and towards whom we feel compassion?
In this matter we only have history to adjudicate. If we can convince others of the utility and effectiveness of our realizations, then our ideas (or "memes") will survive. If we can't, they will end up in the dustbin of history, a loser in the free market of ideas.
The Role of Charismatic Leadership
Max Weber, the famous German sociologist whose influence in the study of religion is widespread, wrote that religious authority is of three kinds: charismatic, traditional and rational-legalistic. Generally speaking, there will be a mix of these three in any religion, even though foundations and major changes most often come from a charismatic leader or saint, like Srila Prabhupada, who is seen as a direct source of revelation. But Srila Prabhupada also pointed to tradition (paramparā) and, less so, to his legal or bureaucratic qualifications, since he had not been named by the Gaudiya Math as the acharya nor received any official status from them except for sannyas. As a matter of fact, the looseness of the legal status and sometimes the break with or critique of traditions -- such as Prabhupada of the Gaudiya Math -- often enhances the charismatic qualifications of a religious leader, and in this case it was true.
Most people in today's world are not willing to accept authoritative statements about the transcendent reality, and for good reason. There are too many conflicting statements, the authorities tend to act in ways that demean their authoritative status, but most of all, the authorities themselves tend to overstep the limits of their authority. This makes it difficult for many rational people not to be suspicious of charismatic leadership.
The kind of charisma we are talking about here is not simply a big smile and a loving demeanor, though all that may be helpful. The capacity to offer a consistent, meaningful and rationally convincing explanation of the world and its spiritual purpose is an integral part of charismatic leadership. Thus charisma is primarily an aesthetic and emotional phenomenon, and so very relevant to our understanding of bhakti.
Another thing is that charismatic authority tends to declare independence from shastra and tradition, primarily because of time and circumstance. Generally, the charismatic leader will say he is coming to give the same truth in some new form appropriate to a new circumstance, like Krishna at the beginning of Gītā, Chapter 4. Such a declaration, which must be made with appropriate logical argument and justifiable criticism of the break between the ideal and the real, can only be made by someone who is willing to dare renounce the established dharmas, as stated in Gītā 2.52-53 and 18.66.
In an important verse, the Mahābhārata says to follow the great souls, mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ, after one has become confused about the contradictory nature of the arguments of philosophers and the scriptures. In other words, following the charismatic authority, i.e., the carrier of new revelations or reformed understandings, stands above scriptures and purely logical argument as a sure way of progressing.
But the words of the charismatic figures are also notoriously full of contradiction. In the case of Srila Prabhupada, though his fundamental message was unequivocal, there are many cases of internal contradictions in his writings, and matters both religious and secular are in question. These include the famous "fall" from Vaikuntha (the origins of the jiva, which still stirs up controversy) as well as the relation of Vaishnavism to Hinduism, women, and even evolution. Followers then have to come and clean up the mess, so to speak, through the use of hermeneutics based in their own experience and rational understanding.
The authoritarian mindset wants simple, ready-made, black-and-white truth. Truth however is primarily situational, especially spiritual truth, which makes things a little more difficult. Moreover, Gītā 4.11 and BhP 3.9.11 are both major pillars of the Vaishnava (and Hindu) understanding. All these verses, as well as Gītā 7.21, recognize the form that God takes for His devotee an almost entirely subjective matter and that God even assists a person with impure or incomplete understanding to follow a particular concept of God and religion that suits their qualifications.
The Nārada-pañcarātra also says:
Practically speaking, this process starts to take place for most people when their gurus, their spiritual community and scriptural authorities disagree with their own direct experience and rational or moral understanding, even if they first try to avoid confronting such conflicts. We may be able to juggle the distortions up to a point, but in some cases, such as the Bhāgavatam's cosmology or the wild stories of Ugrasena's bodyguards, and creation myths, etc., most reasonable people come to the conclusion that the Bhāgavatam must be read figuratively or mythologically in order to be able to extract any significant meaning. The literal meaning is inadequate as an explanation.
Hermeneutics
This is where the discussion of hermeneutics comes in. Our acharyas also talk about abhidhā (direct literal meaning), lakṣaṇā (indicative meaning) and vyañjanā-vṛttis (figurative meaning) in interpretation, even though officially the Gaudiya school follows Jiva Goswami (in Tattva-sandarbha), or Caitanya-caritāmṛta, where Mahaprabhu says that we only accept abhidhā in our scriptural interpretation. But even the acharyas recognize that this rule is untenable when we encounter both internal and external contradictions to direct experience or logical reasoning. Then we have to look beyond the literal to understand the meaning.
This is especially true when we deal with myth and symbol, which usually have multiple layers of meaning that are not extinguished by a purely literal understanding. As a matter of fact, the literal interpretation of myths and symbols is the most immature level of understanding and one who is locked into that gross (sthūla) dimension of interpretation is of necessity held back from subtler levels of realization.
The most important parts of our path are in our myths and symbols, and the history of any religious tradition is in its prioritization of certain myths and symbols over others. In a religious tradition like Hinduism, with its richness of such contents, a screening out, winnowing and weaning out of this mythological content becomes the essence of its evolution.
So we see that the Vaishnavism of the distant past -- even of the Gītā and Bhāgavatam -- and that of the 16th century are significantly different. The stories of Prahlad and Dhruva, though still surviving in the mythical world, become secondary, and of all the myths and symbols, the only ones that really count are Braj, Vrindavan and the Kunja. Again, of these three, the Kunja is the most important.
We accept this hierarchy on the insight and authority of Rupa Goswami. Generally speaking, hermeneutic consistency only comes when we accept certain statements as axiomatic (mahā-vākyas) or as guiding principles, paribhāṣā (aniyame niyama-kāriṇī, Cf. HNV 1.46, Kṛṣṇa-sandarbha 29). Some typical paribhāṣā statements established in the Sandarbhas are BhP 1.3.28 or 1.2.11, but in fact there are many, many more, especially when we move into the area of rasa-śāstra.
In my thinking, the words prema prayojana are such a major guiding principle.
It is somewhat interesting that the simple hermeneutic tool named above is the key to understanding. The literal meaning (abhidhā) is not always acceptable, and the indicative meaning (lakṣanā) is still gross. The example of the indicative meaning is "the cowherd village is on the Ganges." Now of course, no village can be on or in the water, so the meaning of "on" is revised to mean "nearby." But in the case of "her eyes are like a blooming lotus flower" no such secondary meaning is possible, so it must be understood metaphorically (vyañjanā).
Now what the poeticians, and Rupa Goswami after him, understood, is that there is no rasa in direct or secondary meanings, or at least whatever rasa is there is weak in comparison to that which is elucidated when we enter the realm of rasa. But, as Bharata Muni says, rasād ṛte na kaścid arthaḥ pravartate (Nāṭya-śāstra 6): "No substantive meaning is established without rasa."
When we talk about the three kinds of authority taught by Weber, also, we will see that charismatic leadership is based on rasa, even at the expense of logical reasoning or tradition. It is also rasa that distinguishes the vaidhī from the rāgānugā path (BRS 1.2.277). The vaidhī bhakta has a gross understanding of spirituality based on scriptural injunctions and their corollaries, as in the Karma Mīmāṁsā philosophy (codanā-lakṣaṇo’rtho dharmaḥ, Mīmāṁsā-sūtra 1.1.2). In other words śāstra (scriptural injunctions and prohibitions) and yukti (logical argumentation and reasoning) are both external impetuses for devotional actions; though a vaidhī bhakta believes in grace and thereby does not believe in the gross causal relationship between devotional acts and the promised results, he is nevertheless subtly infected by such thoughts. Therefore he is tied to the shastric words, like Arjuna at the beginning of the Gītā, and needs to find the way to go beyond the limitations that are placed by such injunctions.
Similarly, yukti or tarka, logical reasoning is clearly an intellectual (jñāna) admixture to bhakti. Uprooting the jñāna and karma admixtures is a necessary part of our spiritual progress in devotion, as the paribhāṣā verse of Bhaki-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.1.11 makes perfectly clear.
For the rāgānugā devotee, the impetus is rasa alone. Rupa Goswami's philosophy of rasa (rasa-darśana), it should be noted, gives an indication of how to understand these things, and no one can experience rasa better than one who is well prepared (saṁskāra-yugalojjvalā, BRS 2.1.8), but ultimately bhakti-rasa is totally independent of śāstra and yukti. Therefore, though the vaidha-bhakta is a devotee, he is not entirely free of the effects of karma and jñāna. Though, as Rupa Goswami says, knowledge and renunciation may have some value in the beginnings of bhakti, but they are not actually bhakti themselves (BRS 1.2.248). This is the beginner's big handicap.
In the final analysis, then, one has to learn how to come to pure bhakti, and the only path is rasa. Therefore, for instance, Rupa Goswami highlights the difficulty here in this verse, which is truly worth contemplating:
Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur, as we have noted before in these pages, was a believer in hermeneutics and is interpreting the revealed knowledge according to time and place. Ultimately, this may be a more important tradition than the words that were written down in some distant time and place. Putting old wine into new bottles may surprise many an old bottle lover.
It may appear audacious to some that I would claim authority to be a vidvat who has some anubhava, but that is indeed my claim. If I cannot make that claim now that I have crossed over into senior citizenship, with a lifetime's experience of engagement with the texts and practices of this tradition, then what was the point of such an engagement. The Bhagavata says that just as one's hunger become satiated and one is nourished with each mouthful one takes, as one surrenders to the spiritual master and the Lord, one attains direct experience of the Lord (pareśānubhava). The process thus starts from the very beginning, one should hope that a lifetime's commitment will produce more than just trivial insights.
Many devotees are appropriately very attached to the words of śāstra and their gurus. I have myself spent most of my life in a study of the Sanskrit and Bengali texts related to our school of thought out of a great respect for our acharyas, a respect that was instilled in me by Srila Prabhupada himself. As a result, I have long contemplated the value and meaning of these texts, along with my spiritual practices, and come to certain conclusions.
In the article linked to above, I simply wrote that I had no pramāṇas for my spiritual path, but this of course is not entirely true. I still need to know that what "I know" is real knowledge. So I do have a position on pramāṇas, which is as follows:
Pramāṇa is used in argumentation to verify one's position, to establish it, and then to convince others of it. So agreeing on pramāṇas is an important step in any debate, but in fact it is quite well known that there are many people, particularly those of an authoritarian bent, who have a remarkable ability to juxtapose contradictory beliefs uncritically; in other words, they are not really swayed by evidence in a rational way. Epistemology is not a particularly burning concern for them. To some extent we are all a mixture of rational and irrational tendencies, so a pure concern for truth ultimately falls down for what is convenient or pleasant. So an awareness of this tendency is necessary in any discussion of epistemology. In other words, we do not always want to know the truth.
In Indian philosophy, though the Naiyāyikas accept ten kinds of pramāṇa, others schools less, the Bhagavatam accepts four pramāṇas: pratyakṣa, anumāna, aitihya and śabda. This last is also called āgama and āpta-vākya. Vaishnavas most often accept three, dropping aitihya, i.e., tradition or history, which is subsumed into the other categories, particularly revealed authority. This is all in Tattva-sandarbha and various other places, and common knowledge to most devotees. But the Yoga-sūtra quite correctly places pramāṇa ("correct knowledge") in the realm of vṛttis (1.7) or mental modifications, meaning that they are external to real spiritual experience.
In practical terms, we generally tend not to accept pramāṇas that do not jibe with our personal experience, until as such time as we are ready to do so. In the matter of practical physical reality, we tend to be more open to being convinced by authority and reasoning when our physical senses, etc., fail us (the "four defects"). This is because verification in this area is becoming more and more simple.
In spiritual life things are not always so simple, however. In the Vaishnava tradition, as in most other religions, there is a strong belief in revelation, scripture and the authority of the "realized soul" or guru, whose importance is also stressed in the scripture. But we are also told that sadhu, shastra and guru should have a harmonious understanding, a kind of difficult trifecta that gets harder and harder to realize as our situation becomes more and more individualized, in other words as we become spiritually more advanced and individuated.
Those of an authoritarian bent in the Krishna consciousness movement tend to accept the unicity of these sources as a point of faith, even though in practical terms there are so many internal contradictions. For them the hermeneutical challenge becomes one of establishing consistency, something that may become quite a task. But certainly we must be able to distinguish between those things that are easily verifiable on the basis of direct perception and logical argument. The domain of revealed authority is, of necessity, an increasingly restricted circle.
Furthermore, the shastra and individual gurus have pointed out here and there that the scriptures themselves are nothing but the words of realized souls. What else is revelation? Revelation has to be revealed to someone through whom it comes into the world.
Of course, it is incumbent on us, as preachers (as it were) trying to convince others of the validity of our beliefs and practices, to make use of pratyakṣa and anumāna. No charismatic authority can establish any meaningful new direction without doing so. The playing field has changed since the 16th century (what to speak of earlier times). It is not adequate to call it "Kaliyuga" and condemn everything that today's enhanced or evolved pratyakṣa and anumāna have revealed to humanity. You cannot expect the more intelligent people to accept any external or ancient authority when it contradicts easily available evidence and common accepted wisdom.
This does not mean that our spiritual path is lost. Rather it means that we need to think about it in ways that make it sensible to ourselves and to other intelligent seekers. That is our task. I have said that the failures of the IGM are failures of prema, but they are also failures of the intellect. We need to learn the path of positive argumentation also. We cannot argue from the negative ("The modern consumerist ethic is a dead end") or even from a quasi-mystical experience ("I feel bliss when chanting Hare Krishna") to a positive: "The Bhāgavatam is literally true in its every word." Even the Bhāgavatam warns that the rishis and Krishna himself sometimes prefer indirect or misleading speech (parokṣa-vāda), and there are even plenty of texts in the great scripture that have apparent monistic conclusions that need to be interpreted in the light of guiding revelations.
Our capacity to argue from anumāna and even śabda (selectively quoting supporting passages, etc.) comes from our very own personal ṛṣi-pratyakṣa or vidvad-anubhava, i.e., the enhanced experience of spiritual truth that comes from our own practice, i.e, which is revealed to us by divine grace. And this process of selective quoting and logical argument (such as using Nyāya syllogisms and principle like sat-kārya-vāda) is exactly what Jiva Goswami is doing in his hermeneutic of the Bhāgavatam. At any rate, the word vidvad-anubhava appears numerous times in the Sandarbhas, with Sri Jiva calling it the "crest jewel of all evidence" (sarva-pramāṇa-caya-cūḍāmaṇi-bhūtaḥ, KṛṣṇaS 115) and "the king of kings of all evidence" (pramāṇa-cakravarti in Sarva-saṁvādinī to BhagS 1), etc.
Divine grace does not take the same form with everyone. This is important to understand. But if we have an idiosyncratic mystical understanding (it must be idiosyncratic!, i.e., individual) we may make attempts to universalize it by using the three kinds of pramāṇa to convince others. But we must be careful here: Are we attempting to legitimize our own -- doubtful -- stance in order to confirm our ego attachment to a particular belief system, or are we genuinely sharing something beneficial with those who are in need and towards whom we feel compassion?
In this matter we only have history to adjudicate. If we can convince others of the utility and effectiveness of our realizations, then our ideas (or "memes") will survive. If we can't, they will end up in the dustbin of history, a loser in the free market of ideas.
The Role of Charismatic Leadership
Max Weber, the famous German sociologist whose influence in the study of religion is widespread, wrote that religious authority is of three kinds: charismatic, traditional and rational-legalistic. Generally speaking, there will be a mix of these three in any religion, even though foundations and major changes most often come from a charismatic leader or saint, like Srila Prabhupada, who is seen as a direct source of revelation. But Srila Prabhupada also pointed to tradition (paramparā) and, less so, to his legal or bureaucratic qualifications, since he had not been named by the Gaudiya Math as the acharya nor received any official status from them except for sannyas. As a matter of fact, the looseness of the legal status and sometimes the break with or critique of traditions -- such as Prabhupada of the Gaudiya Math -- often enhances the charismatic qualifications of a religious leader, and in this case it was true.
Most people in today's world are not willing to accept authoritative statements about the transcendent reality, and for good reason. There are too many conflicting statements, the authorities tend to act in ways that demean their authoritative status, but most of all, the authorities themselves tend to overstep the limits of their authority. This makes it difficult for many rational people not to be suspicious of charismatic leadership.
The kind of charisma we are talking about here is not simply a big smile and a loving demeanor, though all that may be helpful. The capacity to offer a consistent, meaningful and rationally convincing explanation of the world and its spiritual purpose is an integral part of charismatic leadership. Thus charisma is primarily an aesthetic and emotional phenomenon, and so very relevant to our understanding of bhakti.
Another thing is that charismatic authority tends to declare independence from shastra and tradition, primarily because of time and circumstance. Generally, the charismatic leader will say he is coming to give the same truth in some new form appropriate to a new circumstance, like Krishna at the beginning of Gītā, Chapter 4. Such a declaration, which must be made with appropriate logical argument and justifiable criticism of the break between the ideal and the real, can only be made by someone who is willing to dare renounce the established dharmas, as stated in Gītā 2.52-53 and 18.66.
In an important verse, the Mahābhārata says to follow the great souls, mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ, after one has become confused about the contradictory nature of the arguments of philosophers and the scriptures. In other words, following the charismatic authority, i.e., the carrier of new revelations or reformed understandings, stands above scriptures and purely logical argument as a sure way of progressing.
But the words of the charismatic figures are also notoriously full of contradiction. In the case of Srila Prabhupada, though his fundamental message was unequivocal, there are many cases of internal contradictions in his writings, and matters both religious and secular are in question. These include the famous "fall" from Vaikuntha (the origins of the jiva, which still stirs up controversy) as well as the relation of Vaishnavism to Hinduism, women, and even evolution. Followers then have to come and clean up the mess, so to speak, through the use of hermeneutics based in their own experience and rational understanding.
The authoritarian mindset wants simple, ready-made, black-and-white truth. Truth however is primarily situational, especially spiritual truth, which makes things a little more difficult. Moreover, Gītā 4.11 and BhP 3.9.11 are both major pillars of the Vaishnava (and Hindu) understanding. All these verses, as well as Gītā 7.21, recognize the form that God takes for His devotee an almost entirely subjective matter and that God even assists a person with impure or incomplete understanding to follow a particular concept of God and religion that suits their qualifications.
The Nārada-pañcarātra also says:
maṇir yathā vibhāgena nīla-pītādibhir yutaḥ |
rūpa-bhedam avāpnoti dhyāna-bhedāt tathā vibhuḥ ||
Just as a crystal when in contact with different colors takes on a different appearance, so too, the Supreme Lord appears differently according to the particular method of meditation. (Cf. BhagS 39)Again, the Gītā (2.39-53, 10.10-11, etc.), stresses the goal of directly and individually accessing the divine intelligence (buddhi-yoga), meaning that ultimately we have to understand that there is no other authority but ourselves and the God who sits in our hearts, i.e., our conscience. In other words, the authority of tradition, scripture, logic or the charismatic teacher has the greatest role in the beginning stages of spiritual life, particularly in determining the general direction one will take on his or her path (such as Gītā 4.34), but in the later stages, we will have to trust our own personal revelation. What is the meaning of God-realization itself if we do not have a personal revelation?
Practically speaking, this process starts to take place for most people when their gurus, their spiritual community and scriptural authorities disagree with their own direct experience and rational or moral understanding, even if they first try to avoid confronting such conflicts. We may be able to juggle the distortions up to a point, but in some cases, such as the Bhāgavatam's cosmology or the wild stories of Ugrasena's bodyguards, and creation myths, etc., most reasonable people come to the conclusion that the Bhāgavatam must be read figuratively or mythologically in order to be able to extract any significant meaning. The literal meaning is inadequate as an explanation.
Hermeneutics
This is where the discussion of hermeneutics comes in. Our acharyas also talk about abhidhā (direct literal meaning), lakṣaṇā (indicative meaning) and vyañjanā-vṛttis (figurative meaning) in interpretation, even though officially the Gaudiya school follows Jiva Goswami (in Tattva-sandarbha), or Caitanya-caritāmṛta, where Mahaprabhu says that we only accept abhidhā in our scriptural interpretation. But even the acharyas recognize that this rule is untenable when we encounter both internal and external contradictions to direct experience or logical reasoning. Then we have to look beyond the literal to understand the meaning.
This is especially true when we deal with myth and symbol, which usually have multiple layers of meaning that are not extinguished by a purely literal understanding. As a matter of fact, the literal interpretation of myths and symbols is the most immature level of understanding and one who is locked into that gross (sthūla) dimension of interpretation is of necessity held back from subtler levels of realization.
The most important parts of our path are in our myths and symbols, and the history of any religious tradition is in its prioritization of certain myths and symbols over others. In a religious tradition like Hinduism, with its richness of such contents, a screening out, winnowing and weaning out of this mythological content becomes the essence of its evolution.
So we see that the Vaishnavism of the distant past -- even of the Gītā and Bhāgavatam -- and that of the 16th century are significantly different. The stories of Prahlad and Dhruva, though still surviving in the mythical world, become secondary, and of all the myths and symbols, the only ones that really count are Braj, Vrindavan and the Kunja. Again, of these three, the Kunja is the most important.
We accept this hierarchy on the insight and authority of Rupa Goswami. Generally speaking, hermeneutic consistency only comes when we accept certain statements as axiomatic (mahā-vākyas) or as guiding principles, paribhāṣā (aniyame niyama-kāriṇī, Cf. HNV 1.46, Kṛṣṇa-sandarbha 29). Some typical paribhāṣā statements established in the Sandarbhas are BhP 1.3.28 or 1.2.11, but in fact there are many, many more, especially when we move into the area of rasa-śāstra.
In my thinking, the words prema prayojana are such a major guiding principle.
It is somewhat interesting that the simple hermeneutic tool named above is the key to understanding. The literal meaning (abhidhā) is not always acceptable, and the indicative meaning (lakṣanā) is still gross. The example of the indicative meaning is "the cowherd village is on the Ganges." Now of course, no village can be on or in the water, so the meaning of "on" is revised to mean "nearby." But in the case of "her eyes are like a blooming lotus flower" no such secondary meaning is possible, so it must be understood metaphorically (vyañjanā).
Now what the poeticians, and Rupa Goswami after him, understood, is that there is no rasa in direct or secondary meanings, or at least whatever rasa is there is weak in comparison to that which is elucidated when we enter the realm of rasa. But, as Bharata Muni says, rasād ṛte na kaścid arthaḥ pravartate (Nāṭya-śāstra 6): "No substantive meaning is established without rasa."
When we talk about the three kinds of authority taught by Weber, also, we will see that charismatic leadership is based on rasa, even at the expense of logical reasoning or tradition. It is also rasa that distinguishes the vaidhī from the rāgānugā path (BRS 1.2.277). The vaidhī bhakta has a gross understanding of spirituality based on scriptural injunctions and their corollaries, as in the Karma Mīmāṁsā philosophy (codanā-lakṣaṇo’rtho dharmaḥ, Mīmāṁsā-sūtra 1.1.2). In other words śāstra (scriptural injunctions and prohibitions) and yukti (logical argumentation and reasoning) are both external impetuses for devotional actions; though a vaidhī bhakta believes in grace and thereby does not believe in the gross causal relationship between devotional acts and the promised results, he is nevertheless subtly infected by such thoughts. Therefore he is tied to the shastric words, like Arjuna at the beginning of the Gītā, and needs to find the way to go beyond the limitations that are placed by such injunctions.
Similarly, yukti or tarka, logical reasoning is clearly an intellectual (jñāna) admixture to bhakti. Uprooting the jñāna and karma admixtures is a necessary part of our spiritual progress in devotion, as the paribhāṣā verse of Bhaki-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.1.11 makes perfectly clear.
For the rāgānugā devotee, the impetus is rasa alone. Rupa Goswami's philosophy of rasa (rasa-darśana), it should be noted, gives an indication of how to understand these things, and no one can experience rasa better than one who is well prepared (saṁskāra-yugalojjvalā, BRS 2.1.8), but ultimately bhakti-rasa is totally independent of śāstra and yukti. Therefore, though the vaidha-bhakta is a devotee, he is not entirely free of the effects of karma and jñāna. Though, as Rupa Goswami says, knowledge and renunciation may have some value in the beginnings of bhakti, but they are not actually bhakti themselves (BRS 1.2.248). This is the beginner's big handicap.
In the final analysis, then, one has to learn how to come to pure bhakti, and the only path is rasa. Therefore, for instance, Rupa Goswami highlights the difficulty here in this verse, which is truly worth contemplating:
siddhāntatas tv abhede’pi śrīśa-kṛṣṇa-svarūpayoḥ |
rasenotkṛṣyate kṛṣṇa-rūpam eṣā rasa-sthitiḥ ||
rasenotkṛṣyate kṛṣṇa-rūpam eṣā rasa-sthitiḥ ||
According to scripture and logical reasoning, there is no difference between Krishna and Narayana, i.e., both are God. Nevertheless, when looked at from the point of view of rasa, Krishna is superior, for his form is the ultimate resting place of rasa.At any rate, hermeneutics is the art of finding guiding principles and significant fundamental insights, marginalizing certain kinds of statements while synthesizing contradictory passages, and then of reading between the lines. In my approach, I will use all the tools at my disposal to establish the conclusions that I have come to after more than forty years of research, study, and practice. We will see whether history has any sympathy for them.
Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur, as we have noted before in these pages, was a believer in hermeneutics and is interpreting the revealed knowledge according to time and place. Ultimately, this may be a more important tradition than the words that were written down in some distant time and place. Putting old wine into new bottles may surprise many an old bottle lover.
It may appear audacious to some that I would claim authority to be a vidvat who has some anubhava, but that is indeed my claim. If I cannot make that claim now that I have crossed over into senior citizenship, with a lifetime's experience of engagement with the texts and practices of this tradition, then what was the point of such an engagement. The Bhagavata says that just as one's hunger become satiated and one is nourished with each mouthful one takes, as one surrenders to the spiritual master and the Lord, one attains direct experience of the Lord (pareśānubhava). The process thus starts from the very beginning, one should hope that a lifetime's commitment will produce more than just trivial insights.
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