¹ This essay is a revised version of a paper presented at the April 1985 meeting of the Boston Theological Society, and takes into account some helpful suggestions made at that meeting. From the beginning I assume that readers of this essay will be more familiar with the Biblical tradition than the Indian tradition considered. The Mīmāṃsā is an extremely important school of Vedic and post-Vedic ritual theology; the Vedānta is a more philosophically oriented school which nevertheless retains a large part of the old Vedic worldview; the Vaiṣṇavas or Śrīvaiṣṇavas are members of the South Indian religion (continuing today as well) oriented to Viṣṇu as Lord.

² Some material presented here regarding the Mīmāṃsā-Vedānta- Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition is, I believe, new, particularly in regard to the continuities among the three schools.

³ E.g., see Knitter, Paul F., No Other Name? (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985). This work provides an excellent survey of Christian theologies of world religions, but the descriptions suggest that very few theologians take into account specific other religions in their reflections on “the religions.”Google Scholar

⁴ The use of the word “art” here suggests a fruitful way to understand what I am about here, although space does not allow me to elaborate on the idea beyond saying that what I have in mind has some of the advantages and disadvantages accruing to the decision to hang together two paintings: a Rembrandt near a Monet, for instance, or a Greek orthodox icon near a Tibet tanka.

⁵ Daly, Robert J., The Origins of the Christian Doctrine of Sacrifice, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978).Google Scholar

⁶ Ibid. 4–5.

⁷ By spiritualization, Daly means the process by which the Scriptural authors gradually focus their attention on the interior requisites for proper sacrifice, instead of the material performance itself. While this did not signify an anti-material prejudice (as was the case, perhaps, in certain schools of Greek thought), it did relocate the meaning of sacrifice as interior to the performer and not external.

⁸ Ibid., 136.

⁹ Ibid., 137.

¹⁰ Ibid., 138.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² I am thinking of the structure of the Third Adhyāya of the Uttara Mīmāṃsā (or Brahma) Sūtras, wherein the vidyās or upāsanās of the Chandogya and BṘhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣads in particular are organized in what seems to be a ritual model of a primary action (here, meditation) accompanied by supporting actions (various rituals).

¹³ This is not to say, of course, that therefore Upaniṣadic thought is unimportant for Rāmānuja and Vedānta Deśika. It helped shape the Mīmāṃsā alternative, and through the Uttara Mīmāṃsā Sūtras made it possible for them to be “more” than Mīmāṃsakas (i.e., attuned to realities beyond the ritual). For more on the (admitedly novel) interpretation of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā which my argument here and throughout presumes, see my article, “Jaimini's Contribution to the Theory of Sacrifice as the Experience of Transcendence,” HR 25 (1986) 199–212Google Scholar; and my Ph.D. diss., “Retrieving the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā of Jaimini” (University of Chicago, 1984), esp. chap. 6Google Scholar, “Mīmāṃsā in its Context: the Brāhmanas and Buddhism.” This dissertation is due to appear in the series Publications of the De Nobili Research Library, Indological Institute, University of Vienna.

¹⁴ It is not possible here to describe in any more detail the complex development of the Indian notion of sacrifice, and the points offered here are meant simply to assist in the elaboration of this essay's theme. For more background on the pre-Jaimini view of sacrifice, see Biardeau, Madeleine and Malamoud, Charles, Le Sacrifice dans L'lnde Ancienne (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1976) and bibliography therein.Google Scholar

¹⁵ References to the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Sūtras will thus be given in the text, referring to the traditional respective divisions of adhyāya, pāda and sūtra. Translations are my own, but the reader may wish to consult Ganganatha Jha's translation of Jaimini's text with Śahara's commentary: Śāhara Bhāṣya (3 vols.; Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1973–1974).Google Scholar

¹⁶ The Vedas, which themselves are authorless: language itself precedes any speaker of it, and these texts constitute a primordial, sophisticated verbal revelation. Word, not nature, is the starting point in this system; grammatical rules, not the “laws of nature,” govern reflection on revelation.

¹⁷ By “element” here I mean everything that you would see or hear at a sacrifice: the fire, the offered rice or butter or goat, the priests, the prayers chanted, the prescribed movements of each priest, the money paid to the priest at the end of the rite, etc.

¹⁸ Even the primary (pradhāna) action need not be a single act, but is usually complex. The “sacrifice,” the basic sacrificial alienation of one's own property, is ultimately a mental resolution.

¹⁹ śeṣa-tva indicates the “state of being śeṣa.” The tva- is like “-hood” or “-ness” in English. The source of the notion of śesa is somewhat prosaic: what is śeṣa, in the more practical, rubrical texts, is what is leftover after some action or in reference to some wider consideration. Thus, the butter remaining in the spoon after an oblation is śeṣa, and the part of a sentence not subject to analysis in a certain debate is śeṣa. We can see in such instances the root of the more theoretical meaning we are considering: what is present, yet aside from that which is the central motivation, is śeṣa.

²⁰ Later on Jaimini adds that the prayers (mantras) said at the sacrifice are śeṣa to the part of the sacrifice they “illuminate “(3.2.1); he implicitly adds, using a different term, that the gods are also śeṣa to the whole of the rite (8.1.34 and 9.1.5).

²¹ For an exposition of the concept of dharma as a kind of identifying attribute of each element in the sacrifice and yet also as the whole constituted by the entirety of those elements, see my article, “The Concept of Dharma in the Mīmāṃsā Sūtras of Jaimini,” in the Professor Kuppuswami Sastri Commemoration Volume II (Madras, 1985) 175–87.Google Scholar

²² See Stein, Burton, Peasant, State and Society in Medieval South India (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), for a discussion of the general social “climate” of Rāmānuja's part of India. Stein's work deals with a somewhat later period, but the general principles are pertinent.Google Scholar

²³ See, e.g., Śatāpatha Brāhmaṇa 1.1.2.13; 1.2.5.3; 1.7.4.20; 14.1.1.6.

²⁴ As cited by John Carman in his valuable The Theology of Rāmānuja (Bombay: Ananthacharya Indological Research Institute, 1981) 148.Google Scholar The translation is that of Ayyangar, Rajagopala (Vedārtha Saṃgraha [Madras, 1956]).Google Scholar

²⁵ The Tamil tradition probably influenced Rāmānuja, despite the lack of solid textual evidence in this regard. More certain is the fact of his influence on subsequent theologians who attempted to interpret Tamil works according to the thought structures of Rāmānuja's Sanskrit theology.

²⁶ Vedānta Deśika, Śfimad Rahasyatraya Sāra with the Sāravistara, (ed. SriViraghavacharya, Uttamur T.; 2 vols.; Madras, 1980). There is an English translation with the same title by M. R. Rajagopala Ayyangar (Kumbakonam, 1956). The translation is not easily available, and so my references are only to the Tamil text which I used in my analysis.Google Scholar

²⁷ Ibid., 2.477–96. Kāṇṭhā is not a common word, and perhaps recalls the Kātha Upaniṣad 1.3.11, where it is stated that the puruṣa or “great person” is the highest kāṣṭhā or goal. Rajagopala Ayyangar translates the title as “The farthest extent of our ultimate object in life.”

²⁸ Ibid., 478.

²⁹ For a slightly expanded exposition of Deśika's argument here, see my paper, “Nature, Consciousness, Joy,” presented at the Second Lewis Conference, on “The Future of Theology in a Threatened World,” St. Louis, 18–20 October 1985.

³⁰ Śrīmad Rahasyatraya Sāra, 478. Deśika cites Rāmānuja's Vedānhasaṃgraha, section 121 in van Buitenen's edition (Poona, 1956). Rāmānuja continues his explanation by drawing an analogy between the human relation to the Lord and the way the actions of the sacrifice are śeṣa to the attainment of the result.Google Scholar

³¹ Ibid., 480.

³² Ibid., 486.

³³ Ibid., 483. “He is (or becomes) śeṣa to them”— bhāgavataśeṣanāy. Rajagopala Ayyangar translates as “(the Lord) who has the Bhāgavata as his body.” Given the fact that Deśika would be stating, according to my translation, almost in passing that the Lord is śeṣa to the bhāgavatas, Ayyangar's more cautious translation (although “body” is a loose translation, to be sure) may be preferred. Mine, however, seems to make more sense in the context: like any śeṣa, the Lord cares for nothing but his śeṣin, the devotee.

³⁴ This needs to be mentioned because it is sometimes claimed that only in the Biblical tradition does one get beyond mere ritualism while still retaining the value of ritual action; also because well-meaning Christian theologians frequently write as if the spiritualized notion of sacrifice is a direct and necessary consequence of the Christian revelation alone.

³⁵ In saying this I am of course aware of the attribution to God of paratva, which is tantamount to an expression of transcendence (see Carman, op.cit., 77–87, where Rāmānuja's notion of paratva is described). The fact that (as Carman well describes) paratva is to be paired with saulabhyatva (‘accessibility’) suggests that transcendence is descriptive of God without being the single definitive characteristic of the divine nature. It is moreover true that claiming inclusion of God in a sacrificial system is not identical with claiming that God is part of the natural world; the sacrifice, as a highly complex linguistic and action-centered system, entails a different set of relations. For more on the problem of the use of the term “transcendence,” see my article referred to in n. 13.

³⁶ In the texts we have been considering: of course, the Bible criticizes Canaanite and other local ideas of the divine, while Jaimini's predecessors criticize and reshape the Indo-European notion of the gods.

³⁷ This permanent parallelism of the traditions probably remains even if we examine an entirely different aspect, that of the functioning of the modern communities based on these systems and theologies. To be sure, Hindus love and care for one another, as do Christians; and, in the tradition examined here, they do so “in Viṣṇu.” Nevertheless, it would perhaps be an oversimplification to assert that the communities function in exactly the same fashion, even if we allow for the great differences due to cultural and economic factors in general.

³⁸ While this admission is not in itself novel, it has been a temptation of Christian theologians to portray non-Christian religions as either unreflectively material, or devoid of rational reflection, conscious theological growth and change. Such portrayals are, I think, efforts to express an absolute experience of Christ rather than responsible judgments of other religions. The absoluteness of the Christian experience need not entail such denigration of non-Christian experiences.

³⁹ Both these general suggestions point up to the relativity not of faith or religions but of theological frameworks and language, and urge upon us, as a basic attitude, a willingness to try to express the Christian message in theological paradigms different from those encountered within the Christian tradition as we have known it thus far: if many of our theological conceptions are not necessarily uniquely Christian and are not uniquely derivative from revelation itself, they are also unlikely to have captured without remainder (as far as theological systems can capture) the mystery of Christ. The work of comparison should generate in us a kind of freedom in relation even to the initial categories by means of which we have been accustomed to reflect theologically, a willingness to suspend our use of these and adopt new ones or ones borrowed from other traditions.

⁴⁰ A further step would be to suggest that just as in Hinduism Dharma is the transcendent significance of the sacrificial event founded in the harmonious totality of śeṣas, in Christianity the Resurrection is the transcendent significance of the death of Christ, his śeṣatva. In neither case, the argument would be, is the further significance something “other than” the event of sacrifice itself, nor is it the “sum” of the temporal-spatial events comprising the whole.

⁴¹ Since the community's formation in mutual śeṣatva relies on God's prior gracious self-establishment as śeṣa, the model need not imply a lack of distinction between Christ's and the community's relations to the Father.

⁴² Moreover, the use of this one concept would of course generate interest in (and perhaps necessitate the use of) related concepts, thus opening up new possibilities for understanding the mystery of Christ outside the traditional background of Christian thought.

So too, the use of this Indian concept in reflection on the Christ-event would demonstrate that the issue of “world religions” can be pertinent not merely on the periphery of theology, but also at the core of reflection on Christian existence—being.

⁴³ To attempt this is on one level simply a kind of “thought experiment,” since Jaimini did not have the last word in the development of Indian thought (and it would be odd to give him a more central and modern status in Christian thought). But since it is also true that later Hindu thought was profoundly influenced by his position, even when trying to rethink theism in another way, the “thought experiment” is worthwhile when we are considering the future of fruitful theological reflection.

⁴⁴ It is important to keep in mind that to state that God does not transcend the sacrifice is not the same as stating that God does not transcend the created world; hence the problems traditionally posed regarding the latter possibility need not arise regarding the sacrifice.

⁴⁵ This point is not far from the modern theological understanding of the “economic” Trinity: attention is paid to God's giving himself into the world, instead of conceiving of some “essential Trinity in itself beyond the work of salvation.