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language in their treatment of Advaita, even when it would have been easier to draw on the many theological discourses available in India and the West. There are at least three important reasons why scholars have favored the philosophical approach to Advaita, according to which the textual-exegetical-commentarial side of the tradition is downplayed in proportion to the doctrines of self and non-dualism. |
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The first reason is of course that such a focus is not entirely inimical to Sankara's estimate of his project, which is much less apparently theological in the ordinary sense than would be Ramanuja's Vedanta, for example. Though Sankara constantly uses scripture, he will on occasion refer to exegetical concerns as merely indicative of the popular or lower knowledge of Brahman.
35 Though, as we will see in Chapter 3, such claims do not allow us to disregard Advaita's predominantly verbal and scriptural orientation, it cannot be denied that Advaita makes distinctions within knowledge which lend themselves to the super-session of much of what counts for theological discourse. But Indologists, historians and philosophers have appealed to this hierarchization of the exegetical and the "higher" knowledge in order to justify focusing almost exclusivelytoo much soon the latter.36 |
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The second reason for a nontheological and philosophical reading of Advaita takes us onto more sensitive ground. Some have denied the appellation "theology" to Advaita not because they overlooked its theological aspects, but out of respect for the system in an age when "theology" was not a term of praise, in order to emphasize its relevance by privileging one or another of its aspects, and so calling it ''philosophy," "metaphysics," even "mysticism." For centuries theology has been portrayed as a way of thinking which unduly subordinates reason to extrinsic authoritarian structures, authoritarian authors and leaders, and unquestioned priestly norms. Scholars undertook an obligatory search for alternatives which would redeem thinkers and their texts, deemed worthy of retrieval, from their theological context, and have often identified its exegetical portion with unthinking dogmatism or constraint upon the rational mind. At best, theology is "lower knowledge," successful in communi- |
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