Gods and Demons, Priests and Scholars

Critical Explorations in the History of Religions

Bruce Lincoln

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780226481876, 9780226481869
• eBook ISBN: 9780226035161
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ancient History

Bruce Lincoln is one of the most prominent advocates within religious studies for an uncompromisingly critical approach to the phenomenon of religion—historians of religions, he believes, should resist the preferred narratives and self-understanding of religions themselves, especially when their stories are endowed with sacred origins and authority. In Gods and Demons, Priests and Scholars, Lincoln assembles a collection of essays that both illustrates and reveals the benefits of his methodology, making a case for a critical religious studies that starts with skepticism but is neither cynical nor crude.

The book begins with Lincoln's "Theses on Method" and ends with "The (Un)discipline of Religious Studies," in which he unsparingly considers the failings of uncritical and nonhistorical approaches to the study of religions. In between, Lincoln presents new examinations of problems in ancient religions and relates these cases to larger comparative themes. While bringing to light important features of the formation of pantheons and the constructions of demons, chaos, and the dead, Lincoln demonstrates that historians of religions should take religious things—inspired scriptures, sacred centers, salvific rites, communities graced by divine favor—as the theories of interested humans that shape perception, community, and experiences. As he shows, it is for their terrestrial influence, and not their sacred origins, that religious phenomena merit consideration by the historian.

 

Tackling many questions central to religious study, Gods and Demons, Priests and Scholars will be a touchstone for the history of religions in the twenty-first century.

NOTES

PREFACE

1. The Theses have been reprinted on numerous occasions, appear on many graduate and undergraduate syllabi, and prompted a sharp challenge from Tim Fitzgerald in “Bruce Lincoln’s ‘Theses on Method’: Antitheses,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 18 (2006): 392–423, which I answered in “Concessions, Confessions, Clarifications, Ripostes: By Way of Response to Tim Fitzgerald,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 19 (2007): 163–68.

CHAPTER ONE

“Theses on Method” was originally presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (November 1995), and first published in Method and Theory in the Study of Religions 8 (1996): 225–27. Reprinted by permission.

CHAPTER TWO

“How to Read a Religious Text” was originally presented at a conference hosted by the University of Copenhagen’s Institute of History of Religions (November 2003), and first published in History of Religions 46 (2006): 127–39. Reprinted by permission.

1. For a good general introduction, see Patrick Olivelle, ed. and trans., The Early Upanisads (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 3–27 and 166–69. Still useful are A. B. Keith, The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925); Louis Renou, “Remarques sur la Chāndogya-Upaniṣad,” in his Études védiques et pāṇinéennes 1 (Paris: E. De Boccard, 1955), pp. 91–102; and Henry Falk, “Vedisch upaniṣad,” Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 136 (1986): 80–97.

2. Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 136–41. See also the splendid discussion of Brian K. Smith, Classifying the Universe: The Ancient Indian Varṇa System and the Origins of Caste (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), which expands the analysis far beyond the givens of the Chandogya Upaniṣad.

3. On the place of this chant in the Sāman performance and the mystical significance attributed to it, see Otto Strauss, “Udgīthavidyā,” Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 13 (1931): 243–310.

4. Chandogya Upaniṣad 1.3.6–7:

atha khalūdgīthākṣarāṇy upāsītodgītha iti. prāṇa evotprāṇena hy uttiṣthati; vāg gīr vāco ha gira ity ācakṣate ‘nnaṃ tham anne hīdam sarvaṃ sthitam. dyaur evot, antarikṣaṃ gīḥ, p

thivī tham; āditya evot, vāyur gīr, agnis tham; sāmaveda evoṭ, yajurvedo gīr,

gvedas thām.

This and all subsequent Upaniṣadic extracts are taken from S. Radhakrishnan, ed., The Principal Upaniṣads (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1953). All translations are original.

5. Thus, for instance, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.3.11–13, 1.3.25–27, 1.4.17, 3.1.3–5, 5.8.1, 6.2.12; Chandogya Upaniṣad 1.7.1, 6.5.2–4, 6.6.3–5, 6.7.6. Certain passages do have the relations reversed, however. Thus: Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.3.24, 1.5.4–7, 6.1.1–14, 6.3.2; Chandogya Upaniṣad 5.1.1–15.

6. See, for instance, Aitareya Upaniṣad 1.1–2.

7. Bruce Lincoln, Theorizing Myth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 150–51.

8. Chandogya Upaniṣad 1.10.1: “uṣatir ha cākrāyaṇa ibhyagrāme pradrāṇaka uvāsa.”

9. Ibid., maṭacīhateṣu. The term maṭaci is rare, and some commentaries have suggested that the village was devastated by locusts rather than hail. The situation of need remains the same in either event.

10. Ibid., 1.10.2–5. According to Sir Monier Monier-Williams, Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899), p. 296, kulmāṣa is “an inferior kind of grain, half-ripe barley” or a sour gruel made from same. Hardly what a rich man (ibhya) would eat, except in times of privation; yet the text has him assert that he has no other food. 1.10.2: “sa hebhyaṃ kulmāṣān khādantam bibhikṣe, taṃ hovāca, neto ‘nye vidyante yac ca ye ma ima upanihitā iti.”

11. Chandogya Upaniṣad 1.10.5. The text comments on the shameful nature of leftovers at 1.10.3–4. On this point, see Charles Malamoud, “Observations sur la notion de ‘reste’ dans le brâhmanisme,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens (1972): 5–26, esp. p. 20.

12. Chandogya Upaniṣad 1.10.6: “sa ha prātaḥ saṃjihāna uvāca, yad batānnasya labhemahi, labhemahi dhanamātrām: rājāsau yakṣyate, sa mā sarvair ārtvijyair v

ṇīteti.”

13. Ibid., 1.10.7–8.

14. Ibid., 1.10.8–11.

15. Ibid., 1.11.1–3.

16. Ibid., 1.11.4–5: “na svid ete ‘py ucchiṣthāḥ iti, na vā ajīviṣyam imān akhādann iti hovāca, kāmo ma udakapānam iti. sa ha khāditvā ‘tiśeṣāṇ jāyāyā ājahāra, sāgra eva subhikṣā babhūva, tān pratigṛhya nidadhau.”

17. Ibid., 1.11.9: “annam iti hovāca, sarvāṇi ha vā imāni bhūtāny annam eva pratiharamāṇāni jīvanti.” The homology of the Udgītha, Udgāt

, and Sun (āditya) occurs at 1.11.6–7.

18. Cf., for example, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.5.3–13 (Sun/Fire/Moon); Chandogya. Upaniṣad 3.15.6 and 4.17.1 (Sun/Wind/Fire); Taittirīya Upaniṣad 1.5.2 and 1.7.1 (Sun/Wind/Fire).

19. B

hadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.4.1–2.

20. To gain an initial hearing and not be rejected outright, such a simulacrum needs to meet two conditions: (1) in form, it should resemble other, more orthodox doctrines sufficiently closely that a knowledgeable audience should find it plausible; (2) in content, it should be sufficiently different from others that the same audience would find it novel and intriguing, thereby entertaining the possibility it is an esoteric teaching, previously held secret by a spiritual elite. Should it become widely accepted, it loses its nature as simulacrum and becomes a doctrine proper.

21. Chandogya Upaniṣad 1.10.6.

22. Thus, for instance, Chandogya Upaniṣad 1.3.6 (quoted above), 1.8.4, 1.11.5–9 (quoted above), 5.2.1, 6.5.4, 6.6.5, 6.7.6, 7.4.2, 7.9.1. Numerous like statements are found in the other Upaniṣads. On the importance of Food (annam) in Vedic speculative thought, see R. Geib, “Food and Eater in Natural Philosophy of Early India,” Journal of the Oriental Institute, Baroda 25 (1976): 223–35; Bernhard Weber-Brosamer, Annam: Untersuchungen zur Bedeutung des Essens und der Speise im vedischen Ritual (Rheinfelden: Schauble, 1988); Brian K. Smith, “Eaters, Food, and Social Hierarchy in Ancient India: A Dietary Guide to a Revolution in Values,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 58 (1990): 177–205; and Carlos Lopez, “Food and Immortality in the Veda: A Gastronomic Theology?,” Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 3 (1997), online at http://www.ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/ejvs0303/ejvs0303.txt (accessed June 6, 2011).

23. One of Kafka’s finest stories, “Researches of a Dog,” seems to have been inspired by this chapter of the Chandogya. Consider, for instance, the following passage:

I began to enquire into the question: What the canine race nourished itself upon. Now that is, if you like, by no means a simple question, of course; it has occupied us since the dawn of time, it is the chief object of all our meditation. . . . In this connection, the essence of all knowledge is enough for me, the simple rule wi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface
• One. Theses on Method
• Two. How to Read a Religious Text
• Three. Nature and Genesis of Pantheons
• Four. The Cosmo-logic of Persian Demonology
• Five. Anomaly, Science, and Religion
• Six. Between History and Myth
• Seven. Poetic, Royal, and Female Discourse
• Eight. Ancient and Post-Ancient Religions
• Nine. Sanctified Violence
• Ten. Religious and Other Conflicts in Twentieth-Century Guatemala
• Eleven. In Praise of the Chaotic
• Twelve. Theses on Comparison
• Thirteen. The (Un)discipline of Religious Studies
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index