Why religion got
it all wrong? Conceptualizing new methods of reading.
Literary scholars
need to throw open the doors of what texts constitute the study of
literari-ness and the methods of doing so; such an act will allow the
discipline to examine and interrogate socio-discursive practices which affect
the lives of women all over the world. Religious
texts codify culture and gender norms and it is imperative that literary
scholars engage with these texts that perpetuate and maintain oppressive hegemonic
institutions.
The Hindu Shastras.
The Indian
Constitution in 1947, declared equality as a Fundamental Right. Equality was constructed as
being accessible to all and did not take into account that each individual,
being located within different social realities, was not similarly positioned
to enact this concept. This rhetoric, which
existed at the discursive level, did not affect women materially. The Indian Government’s commitment to equality was
seriously challenged and critiqued in 1974 when Towards Equality: Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India, a report on the status of women, was published. (Towards Equality: Report of the
Committee on the Status of Women in India. New Delhi: Govt. of India,
Ministry of Education & Social Welfare, Dept. of Social Welfare, 1974.)
Even if women are given parity in the realm
of the polity and the state, would the value systems and the cultural standards
change? The system of “religious tradition” was mentioned as being a root cause
that contributed to maintaining the cultural values, but no means were
mentioned in the report that would systematically address ways to undo these
value systems. If, as the report Towards Equality stated, a “woman’s
role and her position in society” in India is determined by cultural values
which in turn are defined by “religious traditions,” then we have to examine
the nature of these religious institutions; interrogating the Hindu shastras
will allow us to conclude that they are incredibly sex-ist and caste-ist in
nature and unconstitutional.
What we can take as a given is that these
texts that constitute our Hindu shastras are unreliable with numerous
variants existing simultaneously; it, therefore, stands to reason that there is
no authentic version that we can refer to as being the original. Who is to tell
as to which part comprised “revealed knowledge” and which sections were
subsequent add-ons? - for all we know – these texts might have
been amended and changes made as they were handed down generations.
The
Oriental scholar, Max Mueller, in the introductory comments to his translations
of the Upanishads, (Different Classes of Upanishads) wrote about the numerous
manuscripts he had to consult, and how these texts had many variants. (Sacred Books of the East; Clarendon
Press, 1879.)
One Upanishad may give
the correct, another an evidently corrupt reading, yet it does not follow that
the correct reading may not be the result of an emendation. It is quite clear
that a large mass of traditional Upanishads must have existed before they
assumed their present form. Where two or three or four Upanishads contain the
same story, told almost in the same words, they are not always copied from one
another, but they have been settled independently, in different localities, by
different teachers, it may be, for different purposes.
Lastly, the influence of Sâkhâs
or schools may have told more or less on certain Upanishads. Thus the Maitrâyanîya-upanishad,
as we now possess it, shows a number of irregular forms which even the commentator
can account for only as peculiarities of the Maitrâyanîya-sâkhâ. That Upanishad, as it has come down to us, is
full of what we should call clear indications of a modern and corrupt age. It
contains in VI, 37, a sloka from the Mânava-dharma-sâstra, which
startled even the commentator, but is explained away by him as possibly found
in another Sâkhâ, and borrowed from there by Manu. It contains
corruptions of easy words which one would have thought must have been familiar
to every student. … But here again the commentator explains that another Sâkhâ
reads 'vigighatsa, and that avipâsa is to be explained by means
of a change of letters as apipâsa. Corruptions, therefore, or modern elements
which are found in one Upanishad, as handed down in one Sâkhâ, do not prove
that the same existed in other Sâkhâs, or that they were found in the
original text.
Biblical texts.
In a similar manner, why
should we accept the misogyny that seems to be the bedrock of the Biblical
texts? What is surprising is that no one questions as to why exactly should the
Bible be so rabidly misogynous? Can we argue that as it is impossible for there
to be a single definitive text of the Bible, we should be able to rewrite out
those parts which really are nonsensical and misogynous.
An epistemic shift
occurred in Europe, in the modern period, with the introduction of printing
presses where diverse occupational groups worked with each other in the new
workshops that were set up by the early printers. Elisabeth Eisenstein
describes the numerous processes that were involved: “The advent of printing
led to the creation of a new kind of shop structure; to a regrouping which
entailed closer contacts among diversely skilled workers and encouraged new
forms of cross-cultural interchange.” Thus it was not uncommon to find
university professors and “former priests among early printers or former abbots
serving as editors or correctors,” thus, coming into closer contact with metal
workers and mechanics. (Elizabeth Eisenstein, “Defining the Initial Shift: Some Features of Print
Culture” in The Book History Reader, ed. David Finkelstein and Alistair
McCleery (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 156-157.) As the Bible was
being set into print, who is to tell the extent to which the abbots and the
priests, who now worked in the printing presses in the early modern period, set
about fixing and rewriting the text?
There is a need to engage
with all religious texts and conceptualize ways to re-read them; doing so will
allow for parity across society.
