Greater Magadha and the New Brahmanism: Recent Publications by Johannes Bronkhorst

Review Essay Greater Magadha and the New Brahmanism: Recent Publications by Johannes Bronkhorst GREATER MAGADHA: STUDIES IN THE CULTURE OF built on the best scholarship across a wide range of topics to EARLY INDIA produce a narrative that is both sensitive to the important By Johannes Bronkhorst Handbook of Oriental Studies nuances as well as original, clear, and crisply presented. 2/19 Bronkhorst already had a reputation in the field for bold Leiden: Brill, 2007 yet careful argumentation on many vexed issues in Indian Pp. xx + 420. $192.00. ISBN 97890041 5719 4. cultural history. He does not hesitate to challenge consen- sus, or to propose a hypothesis on matters for which hard BUDDHISM IN THE SHADOW OF BRAHMANISM proof may always be lacking. Not all of these arguments shift By Johannes Bronkhorst Handbook of Oriental Studies the consensus; in particular, the sharp distinction he made 2/24 in his earlier work between “the two types of meditation” Leiden: Brill, 2011 preserved in the Buddhist tradition (mental stillness and Pp. viii + 296. $169.00. ISBN 9789042 0140 8. insight meditation) as emerging from two quite separate cultural milieux has been regarded by some as overdrawn.1 LANGUAGE AND REALITY: ON AN EPISODE IN INDIAN But even if one does not accept all aspects of his argument, THOUGHT his approach offers many new insights and advances the By Johannes Bronkhorst Translated from the French field. by Michael S. Allen and Rajam Raghunathan Rev. ed. The first of the works to be considered here is his 2007 Brill’s Indological Library 36 monograph, Greater Magadha (GM). This book has been Leiden: Brill, 2011 written with the intention that it should be broadly acces- Pp. xiv + 170. $125.00. ISBN 97890042 0435 5. sible and understandable to anyone interested in ancient India. Hence, the main body of the book refrains from enter- KARMA ing into philological minutiae, though where he deems these By Johannes Bronkhorst necessary (e.g., where his argument is most innovative), he Dimensions of Asian Spirituality presents those details in appendices. The book proposes a Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2011. radically new interpretation of the circumstances in which Pp. xxii + 130. Cloth, $48.00, ISBN 97808248 3570 5; the Jaina and Buddhist traditions were developed, and their paper, $17.00, ISBN 97808248 3591 0. relationship to the Vedic tradition of the Brahmins. The old REVIEWER: Timothy Lubin consensus was that Mahavı̄ra and the Buddha (or their fol- Washington and Lee University lowers, in any case) were reacting against the Vedic ortho- Lexington, VA 24450 doxy of the Brahmin priesthood. This picture was based mostly on the Buddhist and Jaina scriptural accounts of these teachers’ careers, and a comparison with “late Vedic” Ancient India produced three of the world’s oldest religions texts that were presumed to predate and sometimes to antici- (known today as Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism) and a pate them. The picture had been adjusted and refined some- vast literary heritage in several languages, but her early what over the years, but had never been as sharply redrawn history is arguably one of the most difficult to reconstruct. as it is in Bronkhorst’s hands. The intricacies of the evidence and the complexities of the Bronkhorst begins by reviewing the well-known evi- arguments have conspired to generate publications on the dence that the Vedic Brahmins used to regard the Ganges period that are either hopelessly esoteric for all but special- Valley east of the confluence with the Yamuna River as ists or dispiritingly oversimplified. Johannes Bronkhorst, of populated by demon-worshipping (āsurya) and barbarous the University of Lausanne, has over the last several years people (as the Śatapatha and Jaiminı̄ya Brāhman·as say) Religious Studies Review, Vol. 41 No. 3, September 2015 © 2015 Rice University. 93  Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 41 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2015 (4–5). Moreover, the grammarian Patañjali (ca. 150 BCE) as material nature (whether through faith or through insight), a well as two younger Dharmasūtras describe the “land of the right attitude ensues, and “actions will follow suit” (36). “The Āryas” (āryāvarta) as having an eastern limit in a forest mind and the body, when left to their own devices, automati- region, while the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra, ca. 200 CE, has it cally carry out their caste duties,” while the “self obtains extended all the way to the eastern sea. Magadha is even liberation precisely because it leaves acts to the material listed among border regions inhabited by peoples of mixed world, where they will take a certain direction (that of the birth; at least as late as 150 BCE, Magadha “was not consid- caste duties) without affecting the self” (38). ered Brahmanical territory.” That does not mean that there Buddhism itself, however, though responding to the were no Brahmins living there at all—only that they “did not same issues, reformulates the problem in wholly new terms: receive the esteem which they deemed themselves entitled the central causal factor is not action but the “driving force” to” (2). On the other hand, the eastern Ganges valley pro- of action: “thirst” (tr·s·n·ā), that is, desire. Accordingly, “just duced at least three distinct movements of ascetics immobilization of body and mind,” or “the realization that (śraman·as)—movements that despite their differences one’s self never acts,” is of no use, and the Buddhists develop shared the belief in a perpetual cycle of rebirths, driven by a psychological training instead of one focused on the body one’s past actions (karman). These ideas are alien to the and its actions. older Vedic literature, making an appearance only in the Besides these ideas and practices, a few “other features” Upanis·ads. of the culture of Greater Magadha are identified in Chapter Part I aims to describe the “cultural features of Greater I.2: the use of round burial mounds (noted as an eastern Magadha.” The author compares passages from early Jaina habit already in the Śatapatha-Brāhman·a 13.8.1.5), a and Buddhist texts, descriptions of Ājı̄vika views, as well as humoral medical theory mentioned in the Buddhist Pāli lit- similar ideas expressed in the older Upanis·ads and the erature, the theory that time is infinite and cyclical, and Bhagavad-Gı̄tā. The early Jainas, he says, aimed ultimately at traditions about a deity named Kapila—who is disparaged the “suppression of all activity” as a means of averting the as an Asura (a demon or anti-god) in the Baudhāyana- creation of new karman. Their severe ascetical practices, Dharmasūtra (2.11.28), but accommodated several times in especially long-term immobility, were intended to destroy the Mahābhārata as the name Sām · khyas used for God, and the effects of past actions. The Ājı̄vikas, whose philosophy in the Śvetāśvatara-Upanis·ad as a name for Hiran·yagarbha we can know only from other sources that may distort (61–68). It is to be noted that Kapila’s system of thought, or caricature their view, are most closely associated with Sām· khya, was long regarded as incompatible with Vedic a strongly determinist emphasis on necessity (niyati). thought. However, tradition tells that their founder, Makkhali Gosāla Part two begins by examining a few texts—“no more than was at first a follower of Mahãvı̄ra, and the Ājı̄vikas are the tip of the iceberg” (77)—to show that the earliest depicted as ascetics. Moreover, the grammarian Patañjali Brahmanical sources to put forward ideas of rebirth and quotes “the wandering ascetic Maskarin” (who bears the karman did so under the influence of ideas originating Sanskrit name corresponding to the eastern Māgadhı̄-type in Greater Magadha. He reviews some well-known Prakrit name Makkhali) as advising, “do not perform Dharmasūtra passages that first recognized a set of per- actions, do not perform actions; peace is better for you.” manent ascetical roles (80–93). (Bronkhorst cites Bronkhorst takes this, and other hints such as a mention by Baudhāyana-Dharmasūtra 3.1–2, although this section the Buddhist writer Kamalaśı̄la (45 n. 81), to suggest that belongs to the later-added material that Olivelle calls although the Ājı̄vikas regarded past karman as unalterable “Deutero-Baudhāyana.”) He notes briefly that these ideals (thus constituting an inexorable force: niyati), they neverthe- were extensions of older temporary rules going by the name less felt that it was advisable to avoid new karman, and of dı̄ks·ā (or, one should add, vrata), which applied in the first adopted the śraman·a life for that purpose. instance to the Vedic student and the Vedic sacrificer while He further notes a Buddhist passage in which an Ājı̄vika they were engaged in their respective duties, and were named Pūran·a Kassapa denies that there is any act per- extended to provide a framework for a permanent state, either formed by oneself (attan) or by any other, or by a “person” as a perpetual student or as one of a few types of “pious (purisa), comparing it with the Bhagavad-Gı̄tā’s rehearsal of householder.”2 Even vrata/dı̄ks·ā practices, when adopted as a the Sām· khya tenet that all actions are performed by the body perpetual rule, were controversial in late Vedism. and mind, and do not touch the ātman or purus·a at all (46). In Of the three alternatives to the householder life fact, Bronkhorst goes so far as to suggest that the Gı̄tā leans mentioned as āśramas (pious modes of life) in the toward a sort of fatalism so far as the material realm is Āpastamba-Dharmasūtra (the oldest dharmasūtra)—they are concerned: one’s birth determines one’s proper dharma, and non-sequential, of course, as in all the Dharmasūtras3—one once one properly discerns the difference between self and has a Vedic character alongside two that Bronkhorst deems 94  Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 41 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2015 to be of Magadhan origin. A close reading of the description cultivating knowledge, while others lay out great sacrificial of prescriptions for non-householders provides a basis rites just with their minds” (svādhyāyayajñā r·s·ayo for Bronkhorst’s conclusion that only the perpetual jñānayajñās tathāpare | athāpare mahāyajñān manasaiva brahmacārin is grounded in the Vedic tradition in any sub- vitanvate). Vaiśampāyana emphasizes that these are still stantial way, while the other two non-householding types, forms of sacrifice, but it is clear that they are metaphorical or the parivrāja or muni, and the vānaprastha—are nothing but interiorized ones, accomplished merely through recitation or śraman·as, superficially Vedicized through the mention of meditation, options that are specifically promoted in the Vedic mantras and (in the latter case) a ritual fire. The Upanis·ads. former is homeless and fireless, silent except for reciting One of the most important (and most controversial) ele- mantras, finding peace (ks·ema) once he has been “awak- ments of the book may be his conclusions on the Uddālaka ened” (buddha), oblivious to pleasure and pain (sukha- and Yājñavalkya episodes in the “early Upanis·ads,” the duh·kha). The author of the sūtra is careful to refute the last Br·had-Āran·yaka (BĀU) and Chāndogya (ChU). It is there that point (2.21.7–17); indeed, Āpastamba rejects all three in we find the putatively earliest Brahmanical versions of the favor of the householder life. doctrine of rebirth and karman. Much has been made of the The forest-dweller, on the other hand, appears here in fact that in the case of Uddālaka, this idea is presented as two varieties, one who should progressively restrict his secret knowledge taught by a king to a Brahmin, inversely to intake of food, subsisting on forest products (the śraman·a- the normal direction of instruction (BĀU 6.2; ChU 5.3– type, apart from the passing mention of a fire in a 10)—a circumstance that the texts themselves emphasize, quoted stanza, and a prescription to recite the Veda), and which is itself remarkable. Bronkhorst takes this at face another type for whom Vedic ritual practice is pre- value, viz., as an acknowledgement that the idea of rebirth scribed. Bronkhorst concludes this section by noting that driven by karman and of liberation from that process Megasthenes’ description of three types of “philosophers” in through mystical knowledge originated outside of Vedic India corresponds very closely with Āpastamba’s categories. circles altogether. His close reading of the passages is The forest-dwellers of the second type (and/or the perpetual intended to show that they have merely “dressed up” the students?) match the brakhmanes, while the parivrāja and doctrine “in Vedic garb”: in the Br·had-Āran·yaka, the notion the first type of forest-dweller sound like Megasthenes’ two of rebirth is not connected with the quality of one’s action types of sarmanes. but only with knowledge; in the Chāndogya, the notion of Bronkhorst then reviews some passages in the good and bad deeds is tacked on in a separate paragraph; and Rājadharma section (on duties of a king) in the Mahābhārata only a still later version, Kaus·ı̄taki-Upanis·ad 1.2, “telescopes epic, which describe how some sages of old became free and the two into one” breath (121). By contrast, in his view, the happy by seeking knowledge of the eternal, invisible self absence of the kingly origin in the Yājñavalkya episodes (ātman) within the body, “getting rid of the continuum of suggests that these were “primarily composed to remove the past deeds” (karma-sam · tatim utsr·jya), a goal that required stain of ignorance from the Vedic tradition” (119), “to put them to “search outside the statements of the Veda” some matters straight,” so to speak (119–20). Furthermore, (vedavādān atikramya, 101). He argues that this and other other passages emphasize that the crucial element is knowl- passages show that the epic, which took shape in written edge that the innermost self (ātman), beyond the apprehen- form in the Śun·ga or post-Śun·ga era, during the last couple sion of the senses, is untouched by the effects of actions. of centuries BCE, still regarded as being non-Vedic the con- The section IIB points out the extent to which the most cepts of liberation from rebirth and the effects of karman “orthodox” of Brahmanical thinkers either ignored or through knowledge of the ātman or the life of a shaven- rejected the notions of rebirth and karmic retribution. The headed monk (munir mun·d·ah·) (111), while contrasting these Mı̄mām· sakas up to Kumārila (around the seventh century with a Vedic form of asceticism, that of a long-haired forest- CE) simply did not take cognizance of those ideas. The dweller who performs all required fire offerings and Vedānta school of thought might be considered as an ortho- observes stringent ascetical rules. Bronkhorst puts a lot of dox counterexample viewed in the traditional way as an weight on the short passages he cites to show that the epic organic extension of the Upanis·ads, but Bronkhorst rejects did not consider asceticism and meditation in pursuit of this idea, noting that Vedānta thought “played no role in the knowledge of the ātman a “Vedic” path. Yet there are cer- philosophical debates of the early centuries of the Common tainly passages in which a range of viewpoints are attributed Era” (141); he argues this point in Appendix I. On the other to Brahmins, such as Mahābhārata 12.12.23, which, after hand, the Cārvākas (or Lokāyatas, Materialists) explicitly describing the duties of a ritually observant household, adds: denied the notion of an “other world” or of a transmigrating, “Some brahmins perform the sacrificial rites by their daily immortal jı̄va or ātman. Bronkhorst calls attention to several recitations of the Veda, and others do the sacrificial rites by Jaina texts that assert that the Cārvākas cited 95  Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 41 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2015 BĀU 2.4.12 as a Vedic proof text (154–55). So although lived around or after the middle of the fourth century BCE, in later times, e.g., in the eleventh-century drama and although he knows the name Śākalya, the present form Prabodhacandrodaya, probably after actual Cārvākas had of the R·gveda, although traditionally attributed to the latter, ceased to exist, they were depicted as pointedly anti-Vedic, was likely not even in existence by the time of Pān·ini’s but for Bronkhorst this is “a cruel joke of history,” since they commentator Patañjali.4 should be seen as the last holdouts against the doctrine of Bronkhorst (180) reconsiders some arguments by rebirth, which the Brahmanical tradition gradually assimi- earlier scholars who noted linguistic similarities between lated (158). (An admittedly “highly tentative” [318] interpre- the Aitareya-Brāhman·a and Pān·ini’s As·t·ādhyāyı̄ so far as the tation of Mahābhārata 12.211–12, the “Pañcaśikha-vākya,” a use of cases (Liebich) and of verb tenses are concerned “difficult and corrupt” passage—as being not an exposition (Bhandarkar on the aorist, Cardona on imperfect and of Sām· khya, but rather “the probably earliest literary evi- perfect)—an overall affinity that “speaks for itself.” Argu- dence for the existence of Cārvāka thought”—is offered in ments pointing to differences as a general proof of the Appendix II.) priority of the Vedic texts are often “circular” or “intuitive” The last section of part II (IIC) proposes that among the (181). The point about the deliberate retention of archaic subsection of the Brahmanical community that first adapted features in a liturgical idiom is well taken; we should to the newly urbanized world of the post-Maurya era were thus hesitate to assume that particular texts within the the authors of the Arthaśāstra (the second-century CE trea- Vedic canon that are not explicitly known to Pān·ini never- tise on political science) and the Kāmasūtra (the famed trea- theless predate him based on their exhibiting certain Vedic tise on erotics). Moks·a (liberation from rebirth) has a features. peripheral role at best in the former, and perhaps none in So what Vedic texts did Pān·ini know? Pān·ini noted that the latter (if “moks·am · ca” at 1.2.4 is an interpolation, as there were linguistic forms that differed from standard Bronkhorst suspects). Meanwhile, the Lokāyata appears as speech yet were acceptable in texts he classed as one of the systems of thought called anvı̄ks·akı̄ in the chandas—broadly corresponding to what we call Vedic texts. Arthaśāstra, mentioned alongside Sām · khya and “Yoga” Many of these are quoted verbatim, which allows us to say, (viz., Nyāya, perhaps) without any sense of disapproval. of course, that they were known to him. He mentions other Bronkhorst concludes that “it is the skeptical, or at best forms that occur in Veda but also in the later ritual codes like distant, attitude of many Brahmins that finds expression in the Śrautasūtras. In that case, ambiguity can arise. More- both” those works (171). over, the rules describing forms used in chandas may also The final major section of GM may be the most con- have been used prescriptively to compose further Vedic troversial. Here, building on the foregoing arguments, texts (188). Bronkhorst challenges much of the received wisdom about There is quite a lot of complex argumentation here, but the chronology of many early Indian texts. The “classical” some main conclusions are these: Pān·ini knew mantras, position (as he calls it) holds that the Vedic texts, including brāhman·as (meaning prose statements of an explanatory or the oldest Upanis·ads, predate both the Buddha and the interpretive nature), and kalpas (rules of ritual perfor- grammarian Pān·ini. They are supposed to predate the mance), but nowhere is it clear that he knew particular Buddha (ca. 500 BCE) on the assumption that the oldest collections as we know them. For instance, he cites forms Buddhist texts presuppose the Veda. Bronkhorst critiques that occur only in mantra portions of the Taittirı̄ya-Sam · hitā, this picture by noting that not all of the Vedic texts were in but never any of the distinctive forms that occur in the fact presupposed by the oldest Buddhist works, that the brāhman·a portions of that collection, although some of the oldest Buddhist works as we have them date to the first forms occurring there are “conspicuous” as non-Pān·inian century BCE at the earliest, that the Buddha may have died (e.g., the ending -ai for -as), or even explicitly rejected by closer to 400 BCE, and that the concepts of rebirth and him. This leads Bronkhorst to conclude that the Taittirı̄ya- karma were not borrowed from the Upanis·ads but “from the Brāhman·a and Taittirı̄ya-Āran·yaka (and maybe even the spiritual culture of Greater Magadha which preceded both brāhman·a portions included in the Taittirı̄ya-Sam · hitā) were in time” (176). either unknown to Pān·ini or not recognized by him as As for the argument on Pān·ini, Bronkhorst challenges chandas. Similar arguments are made for other recensions of the assumption that because Pān·ini’s own language is more the Yajurveda, other Brāhman·as, and the recensions of the modern in form than that of the Vedic literature, Vedic texts Atharvaveda. must be older. Rather, we have in the Veda, particularly the Bronkhorst acknowledges the need for caution in such Vedic prose, an archaizing register, and the language of considerations. “For one thing, it is not known in any detail Brāhman·as and early Upanis·ads is actually quite similar to what changes were made in the texts during the process we Pān·ini’s. Moreover, Pān·ini himself is now considered to have refer to as their ‘orthoepic diaskeuasis’. This implies that 96  Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 41 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2015 we cannot be altogether sure what features of those texts BCE—though even so these words may well have been added can be used to determine their relationship with Pān·ini’s later to an earlier form of the text (240–47). As·t·ādhyāyı̄” (198). Considerations of regional distribution What about textual reflections of the Ganges urbaniza- may have influenced what texts Pān·ini, in the far northwest, tion of the sixth to fourth centuries BCE, the economic knew or recognized as Vedic. Nevertheless, he feels confi- and political development that gave rise to Magadha as an dent enough to conclude that Pān·ini and many texts of the imperial capital? The fact that the Buddhist and Jaina brāhman·a type probably belong to the same period, that “the sources put cities at center stage while the Vedic texts Veda was no finished body of texts at the time of Pān·ini,” and (including the early Upanis·ads) make no mention of them that “Vedic texts were still being modified, perhaps even cannot, Bronkhorst says (248–55), necessarily be taken to produced, down to the time of Patañjali, and perhaps show that the Buddhist and Jaina sources are all younger. beyond” (203–06). Several scholars have suggested that the Vedic texts were Turning to the Buddhist literature, it is rife with allu- intentionally endowed with archaic features, both in linguis- sions to Brahmanical ideas and practices, but he finds that tic form and content, and may thus have remained silent there is no secure basis for showing that the early Buddhist about a social milieu deemed incompatible with the tradi- texts (let alone the Buddha personally) knew the tion’s outlook and values. This becomes explicit in the Upanis·ads. Several specific examples cited by Richard Dharmasūtras, which warn good people to avoid cities and Gombrich to show that the Buddha knew the “Hymn of the markets. Cosmic Man” (R·gveda 10.90) or the Br·had-Āran·yaka- So did the karman doctrine and the ideal of ahim · sā Upanis·ad are dissected to deny that they can be used to (non-injury) emerge from the Vedic tradition, or from one show knowledge of those texts per se (as opposed to of the ascetic movements? Part III ends by recapitulating similar ideas circulating in the larger culture). Be that as it the contending views and suggesting that, since the may, the circumstance remains that even those Buddhist Brahmanical sources (especially those mentioning rebirth) passages thought to be oldest likely took their surviving may not be as old as they are usually claimed to be, and thus form no earlier than the second or first century BCE. not older than the origins of Buddhism and Jainism, the Bronkhorst moreover rejects the idea that Buddhist teach- possibility must be acknowledged that the latter groups ing at its inception was a reaction to Brahmanism at all; the introduced these ideas, or that all of these traditions inher- anti-Brahmanical elements found in Buddhist texts are a ited them from some no longer extant source, which may product of later centuries when the traditions were com- have derived from Greater Magadha (258–62). peting for patronage. While most of the conclusions advanced in earlier sec- The following section (III.4) examines the three distinct tions of the book were advanced in a cautious and qualified sections of the Br·had-Āran·yaka-Upanis·ad to show how the way, Bronkhorst permits himself, in the book’s general con- middle portion, known as the “Yājñavalkya Section” (BĀU clusion (Part IV), to present a Gestalt scenario in more con- 3–4) was intended to rebut the idea that knowledge of karmic fident terms. He affirms that “there was indeed a culture of retribution and liberation originated outside the Brahmin Greater Magadha which remained recognizably distinct community, and to demonstrate Yājñavalkya’s superiority to from Vedic culture until the time of the grammarian Uddālaka, who is elsewhere depicted as learning these Patañjali (ca. 150 BCE) and beyond,” and that its most dis- matters from a king. This suggests that BĀU 3–4 were com- tinctive feature was the idea of rebirth and karmic retribu- posed later than other parts of the Upanis·ad. Further, tion (along with a view of time as cyclical, and a distinctive Kātyāyana restricts the application of rule 4.3.105 in Pān·ini’s medical system) (265). The contrasts between the grammar (which concerns “brāhman·as uttered by the Brahmanical culture and the products of Greater ancients”) such that it not apply to “Yājñavalkya, etc.” Magadha—Jaina, Cārvāka, Buddhism, Āyurveda—are laid (meaning, in Patañjali’s view, the brāhman·a chapters attrib- out on the analogy of worlds described in the fantasy novels uted to Yājñavalkya) “because [they are] of the same time” of Terry Pratchett: Discworld and Roundworld. He also notes (237). This suggestion that the grammarians regarded the the overlaps and mutual influences between these worlds Yājñavalkya section as recent or contemporary is taken to over time: the way the karman and rebirth ideas ended up indicate that even this “old” Upanis·ad was being modified and permeating Brahmanical ideas to the point where they were updated after the time of the Buddha. As a coda to this taken to be original to the system, and the way Brahmanical discussion, the ingenious (but unconfirmable) idea is pro- ritual norms led to shifts in the “heterodox” cultures (e.g., in posed that the words sūtrān·y anuvyākhyānāni vyākhyānāni the eventual replacement of bodily relics with substitutes that conclude some lists of genres in the BĀU actually refer to and the increasing use of mantras). the grammatical works of Pān·ini, Kātyāyana, and Patañjali, The arguments made in GM were substantially extended respectively, which would imply a date of no earlier than 150 in 2011 in Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism (BSB). 97  Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 41 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2015 This volume is divided into three chapters. The first reviews he makes a strikingly global claim: that almost all the major the main conclusions of GM, by way of introduction, and schools of Indian philosophy deal in part with what he calls goes on to describe how Buddhism came to prominence the “correspondence principle,” that is, the notion that “the under Aśoka and developed in the directions it did. He notes words of a sentence correspond rather exactly to the things that Brahmins were not unknown to Aśoka—he showed constituting the situation described by the sentence” (1). He them honor on a par with ascetics (śraman·as)—but they had finds examples of the principle at work in the early no role in administration and no position of dominance. Upanis·ads and in the early Buddhist texts, both of which Aśoka seems expressly to disapprove of some of their prac- speak of “name and form” (nāmarūpa) as parallel yet tices.5 Meanwhile, in the northwest (“Greater Gandhara”) equally superficial distinctions of phenomenal experience. Buddhist thought developed an atomistic theory completely Bronkhorst also proposes to understand Pān·ini’s word for in the absence of Brahmanism. grammar, vyākaran·a, as meaning “separation, or differentia- The second chapter in a sense picks up where GM left tion, not of stems and suffixes, but of linguistic elements off, arguing that following the Maurya era, the Brahmanical from the objects they denote” (11). In support of this he cites tradition redefined itself, partly by forging a place for itself Br·had-Āran·yaka-Upanis·ad 1.4.7, in which the primordial in the new, urbanized royal courts. The most notable textual indistinct world gets “divided (vyākriyate) by name and artifact of this “new Brahmanism” was the Arthaśāstra of form.” Now this does indeed show an early emphasis on Kaut·ilya. This programmatic work on the proper governance name and form, but of things being distinguished by differ- of a royal state was traditionally attributed anachronistically ent names and different forms, not names being distin- to a legendary Brahmin minister of the Candragupta guished from forms; similarly, grammatical vyākaran·a must Maurya, the founder of that dynasty. Bronkhorst calls this a surely have meant “analysis,” that is, the distinguishing of Brahmin “colonization of the past” (65), but it also reflected the units by which words are formed—in other words, as it is the efforts of a section of the Brahmin community to sell usually understood.6 their services as experts in the practical affairs of gover- The bulk of Language and Reality, however, is a tour nance and administration. That they were largely successful through the various schools of Indian thought, beginning in this can be seen from their prominence in lists of officials with the Buddhist Nāgārjuna, who sets out to deconstruct in inscriptions. Brahmins’ success in securing royal patron- the coherence of both words and things through a dialectics age is also seen in the practice of kings settling groups and of inexorable paradoxes. Each subsequent school of even large communities of Brahmins on agrahāras, lands thought, Bronkhorst insists, can be seen as an alternate set aside within their realms, and endowing them with vision of the world responding in some way to the corre- income from the surrounding villages. This practice is spondence principle. recommended in Sanskrit works, but is also prolifically To the extent that his analysis holds up, this state of substantiated in inscriptions from many parts of the subcon- affairs might be taken to be a by-product of the Indian scho- tinent over a wide span of history. The idealization of these lastics’ reverence for the discipline of grammar as the Queen communities as enclaves of piety and learning mirrored that of Śāstras, much as European thought after Saussure made of the forest hermitage (āśrama) evoked so often in the epic language the model for analyzing much else. Moreover, and story literature in Sanskrit. though Bronkhorst does not mention it, it may be significant The longest section of BSB, “Buddhism Confronted with that this millennia-long culture-wide philosophical preoccu- Brahmanism,” suggests how the “new Brahmanism” influ- pation begins with Nāgārjuna, who belonged to just that enced Buddhism. The Buddhists, he argues, effectively period of Buddhism when Sanskrit became the standard yielded the courtly sphere to the Brahmins, who promoted scriptural and scholastic language (outside of the Theravāda themselves as counselors and functionaries, and invested tradition). In that sense, this development chimes with much of their intellectual energy in pitching Dharma as an Bronkhorst’s theme of “Buddhism Confronted by Brahman- integrated vision of society and the state. This is what led ism” in BSB. to the adoption of Sanskrit as a courtly language, and Another valuable contribution of BSB is its critique of Bronkhorst further concludes that this development pushed Sheldon Pollock’s alternative model, which was developed many Buddhists to adopt Sanskrit as a liturgical language. first in a series of articles and then assembled into his He points to Aśvaghos·a as exemplary of that shift. massive volume, The Sanskrit Cosmopolis (2006). That work, Bronkhorst broaches the interactions between Brah- equally as bold and comprehensive in scope as Bronkhorst’s mins and Buddhists in another way in his volume Language volumes, is much more oriented to making theoretical cri- and Reality (a translation and revision of his 1999 book in tiques of the rest of the field. The quixotic aspect of Pollock’s French, Langage et réalité [Turnhout: Brepols], itself based approach is that he wanted to explain the creation of a cos- upon a series of lectures given in Paris in 1997). There, too, mopolitan literary and political culture of Sanskrit usage 98  Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 41 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2015 across South and Southeast Asia while minimizing the role are indispensable?—the overall picture begins to go blurry, of religion and the Brahmins. For Pollock, all earlier argu- and threatens to dissolve altogether. For non-South ments erred in making those the focus, and then in reflex- Asianists, the three volumes discussed so far here may be ively, mechanically, naively explaining the phenomenon in too daunting. terms of legitimation. Happily, apart from his numerous article-length treat- Bronkhorst notes that Pollock’s silence on the role of ments (many of which underlie the material in these books) Brahmins is awkward considering that they have been Bronkhorst has also supplied us with a more generalist- present in every part of Asia where Sanskrit spread. oriented point of entry. Karma, in the University of Hawai’i’s Bronkhorst correctly observes that even where Buddhism “Dimensions of Asian Spirituality” series, is a slim textbook was favored, Brahmins were often still found in bureaucratic designed for use by university students and other educated and official positions within the royal state. He emphasizes a general readers. It provides an elegantly presented, synthe- conclusion drawn by de Casparis and Mabbett in regard to sizing tour of “Greater Magadha” and its legacy in Indian Southeast Asia: “it is appropriate to speak of Brahmanism as religions and philosophies through the lens of theories of distinct from the specific cults of Śiva or Vis·n·u, or any of karma (the idea that one’s actions determine future rebirths their innumerable kin: the priests stood for a social order and are thus at the crux of the problem of suffering and its and for the rituals that gave to the political or local commu- potential remedy). The issues raised are still complex, cov- nity a sense of its unity and its place in the world.”7 In the ering all the major traditions of ancient and classical India, context of Bronkhorst’s larger thesis, and his critique of but all the terms are explained, core positions are illustrated Pollock, this point is crucial, and deserves to be formulated with passages from the primary sources, and the “lucid and more explicitly: Brahmanism should be viewed as a system accessible prose” (as promised on the back cover) smooths of ideas and practices definitive of an idealized social order, the way. I used the book recently with a class of first-year and not merely as a religious sect. Brahmanism is religious undergraduates to good effect, and even for experts the in the sense that Brahmins invoked a cosmic order, and repackaging of the GM/BSB thesis in the form of a primer engaged in an elaborate ritualism, but in a post-Vedic world offers an enjoyable, crystalline overview of Bronkhorst’s at least, Brahmins were not wholly dependent upon sectar- picture of India’s intellectual early history. I have not been ian cultic services. convinced on every point, but I remain convinced that In a way, this vindicates part of Pollock’s position: reli- Bronkhorst has asked questions that needed asking, that he gion (in a narrow sense anyway) was not the driving force in has made revealing connections that others have overlooked, producing the Sanskrit Cosmopolis (although neither was it and that much of the big picture he has limned is “true to as unimportant as he claims). But Pollock’s denial that Brah- life.” mins had a role in the transformation of Sanskrit into a vehicle of public and literary expression remains indefen- NOTES sible. The Śakas and Kus·ān·as favored Sanskrit precisely 1. See, e.g., Olivelle (1995). because of the social order of the Brahmins (as opposed to 2. For another account of this process, see Lubin (2005). their cultic institutions), and the rituals that encoded every- 3. Olivelle (1993) provides the best discussion of this genre and day social relations were their stock-in-trade. Rudradāman’s its presentation of the āśrama system in its “pre-classical” Sanskrit inscription of 150 CE says nearly as much directly, form. mentioning for the first time in epigraphy the Brahmanical 4. Witzel (2009: 287–90) makes similar but more qualified varn·a categories (as Bronkhorst notes, BSB, 42). remarks on these points. It should be clear by now, even from this summary 5. On this point, see Lubin (2013). discussion, that Bronkhorst’s macro-level account of India’s 6. Bronkhorst (Language and Reality, 8–12) of course is well intellectual and religious history is founded upon an intri- aware of this understanding, but dissents from it, arguing cate network of complex arguments. On the one hand, this (following Thieme) that although Patañjali regarded it so, is to be expected when one is proposing to rewrite impor- Pān·ini did not. “His grammar does not divide words into stems and suffixes. On the contrary, it combines these constituent tant chunks of ancient cultural history and to identify the elements in order to form words.” Thieme accordingly takes contextual factors hidden below the surface (or between the vyākaran·a to signify “[word-] formation” on the basis of an lines) of philosophical and religious texts. Such a grand interpretive etymology found in a traditional gloss. But the rewrite could hardly persuade without careful and methodi- etymologically sound sense of “separation,” which Bronkhorst cal argumentation and plenty of data. On the other hand, prefers, could by a small extension lead in the context of lan- this complexity comes with risks. Readers will not accept guage to the notion of inflection, whereby separate word forms all the connecting links in the reasoning, and if too many of are distinguished relative to their distinct significations. them are cast into doubt—how many is too many? Which 7. De Casparis and Mabbett (1992: 288), quoted in BSB, 57. 99  Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 41 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2015 REFERENCES Olivelle, Patrick 1993 The Āśrama System. Oxford: Oxford University Press. De Casparis, J. G., and I. W. Mabbett 1992 “Religion and Popular Beliefs of Southeast Asia Olivelle, Patrick Before c. 1500.” In Nicholas Tarling (ed.), The Cam- 1995 “Review of The Two Sources of Indian Asceticism, by bridge History of Southeast Asia. Volume One: From Johannes Bronkhorst.” Journal of the American Orien- Early Times to C. 1800, 276–339. Cambridge: Cam- tal Society 115, 1, 162–64. bridge University Press. Pollock, Sheldon Lubin, Timothy 2006 The Sanskrit Cosmopolis. Berkeley: University of Cali- 2005 “The Transmission, Patronage, and Prestige of fornia Press. Brahmanical Piety from the Mauryas to the Guptas.” In Federico Squarcini (ed.), Boundaries, Dynamics Witzel, Michael E. J. and Construction of Traditions in South Asia, 77–103. 2009 “Moving Targets? Texts, Language, Archaeology and Florence, Italy: Firenze University Press. History in the Late Vedic and Early Buddhist Periods.” Indo-Iranian Journal 52, 2/3, 287–310. 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