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unexamined supposition that meaning can be detached from the language in which it is expressed, and from the ways in which that meaning is composed and elaborated, without much being lost in the process. The detachment of this meaning from its textual expression must be recognized as a significant act of reinterpretation which requires careful reassessment. Texts must be appreciated first as texts, even if our goal is to skillfully build systematizations on them. Though Iser's treatment of fiction requires some modification if it is to be applicable to theological texts, his notice of what is lost in summarization compels us to reconsider the relationship between the reading we do, the way we gain our understandings, and the manner in which we "write these up" in acts of communication for larger and different audiences. Whatever their differences, theological texts too have their own repertoire of strategies, to which we must remain sensitive in our treatment of them. |
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3. On the importance of the Chandogya for the Vedanta, see Deussen 1973, Modi 1956, and especially Bhatkhande 1982. |
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4. All translations from the upanisads here and below are drawn from the excellent Bedekar/Palsule (1987) English rendering and correction of Deussen's German translation; occasionally, I have made small modifications for the sake of clarity in English and in order to follow the Sanskrit word order more closely. |
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5. Below we shall return to this text, to examine how the Advaitins argue the meaning of the upanisads within the structures of the Text. |
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6. The "verses," signalled by quotation marks, comprise the mantra portion of the text; the rest is the brahmana portion. |
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7. Brian Smith's study (1989) of earlier and parallel Vedic materials and much of what counts as knowledge is organizational and homological: to know is to know where things are properly located in relation to one another, and therefore what they are akin to, like. The organizational reconstruction of the known occurs regarding, and by, a model of the Vedic ritual and the traditional Vedic knowledge. This can occur, as implied, by a strictly spatial model, according to which knowledge is rearranged on a spatial grid; but it can also occur according to temporal/genealogical ordering, as what is here and now known is traced back to its source. We move from what happens to be first known to the underlying source of that knowledge, upon which it depends. |
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8. On the possibility of a more straightforward reading of the PMS, which are more accessible than the UMS, see Clooney 1990b, pp. 34ff.; the obscurity |
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