Indian Studies – Slovenian Contributions

Indian Studies
Slovenian Contributions

Edited by
Lenart Škof

SAMPARK
2008
 Indian Studies – Slovenian Contributions
Edited by Lenart Škof

Technical editing in Slovenia: Marko Gavriloski

Translators: Nuša Rozman and Violeta Jurkovič
Proofreading in Slovenia: Rick Harsh
Pre-press and design done in Slovenia: Lucijan Bratuš
Cover photo: Suzana Škof

Published by
Sampark
Journal of Global Understanding
Editor-Publisher
Sunandan Roy Chowdhury

P 34 Kalindi Housing Scheme, Calcutta 700089, India.

D 271 Defence Colony, New Delhi 110024, India.

Produced by Sampark in India

ISBN 97881-7768-022-6
Price Rs.750 / 20 Euros / 40 US Dollars

www.samparkpublishing.com

Supported by Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Indian Studies – Slovenian Contributions

Introduction

Diplomatic Worlds

Literatures and Cultures

Contemporary Slovenian Indian Studies

Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

–6–
 Contents

I Introduction

1 I Diplomatic Worlds
3 Z. Šmitek: Franc Gallenfels – Protector of the Golden Goa
15 J. Pirjevec: Tito, Nehru, and Slovenes
31 E. Petrič: India between Memories and the Future

47 II Literatures and Cultures

49 V. Pacheiner-Klander: Karol Glaser and Anton Ocvirk: Two
Mediators of Indian Literature to Slovenia
63 A. Jelnikar: Rabindranath Tagore and Srečko Kosovel:
At Home in the World
81 A. Črnič: Indian Religious Ideas and Practices in Slovenia
109 M. Sreš: Walking with Them: My years with Dungri Garasiya
Tribals in Gujarat

129 III Contemporary Slovenian Indian Studies

131 P. Pečenko: Sāriputta, the Author of the Pāli Ṭīkās
153 T. Ditrich: Ṛgvedic Goddesses: Their Roles and Signiicance
in the Vedic Pantheon
167 E. Cesar: Bhakti Movements Across India – Their Relevance
in a Global Religious Experience
201 N. Terbovšek Coklin: The Use of the Augmented Past Verbal
Tenses in Old Indian
223 L. Škof: The Upaniṣads, Hermeneutics and Indian Tradition

237 Notes of contributors

xx Index Nominum

–7–
Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
 Introduction

This collection of essays was occasioned by the coinciding

of two important events for Slovenia and India: in 2007, India
celebrated the 60th anniversary of its becoming an independent
state, while at the beginning of 2008, Slovenia assumed presi-
dency over the European Union as the irst of the new member
states, thus afirming its successful path to democratisation,
which began in 1991 with the declaration of independence. Ho-
wever, there is much more that Slovenia and India have in com-
mon, and the purpose of this book is to put forth a fragment of
the extensive history of relations between the two countries.
Undoubtedly, it is the economy that plays the principal role in
today’s globalised world. Both Slovenia and – even more so,
naturally – India are being confronted with questions touching
on the very heart of democracy: at the time of fast economic
growth and development of market economy, how to ensure that
social development would be balanced, that differences between
the rich and the poor would not only widen but rather we would
know how to couple economic development and welfare with
social welfare of the entire population. This is the fundamental
question of world politics and its political ethics of the 21st cen-
tury, and it will certainly not be easy to answer it. It will require
efforts to be made by all – political leaders, economists as well
as, and especially, societal workers, humanists and religious
leaders, who will have to both be able to identify the traps of
globalisation and offer new democratic visions and alternatives.
The cultural and religious past as well as the more recent past
(i.e. the period after World War 2) of both Slovenia and India ha-
ve equipped the two countries with a suficient amount of expe-
rience to make them capable of responding to those challenges
–I–
 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

in a way that would not only contribute to a future just society

in both states but would also represent an important vision of
development of the globalised world as a whole. Hence, this is
what I see as the principal task of, and tie between, the two co-
untries in the future. Presently, contacts between Slovenia and
India are therefore particularly important and binding for both
sides. Still, the essays collected in this book are not devoted to
questions of the economy. Rather, they primarily aim at outli-
ning the broadest cultural potential of the relations between the
two countries, while pointing to the areas that today are vital
in envisioning any cooperation among countries and cultures:
i.e. culture, language, history, religion and inally an area equal
to culture – science.

Slovenes and Indians do not only share the heritage of a com-

mon linguistic and cultural prehistory (Proto-Indo-European
language and Indo-European culture), but rather the two cul-
tures have been learning about – and from – each other for
centuries by way of a variety of historical contacts and mutual
inluences. In the irst section of the book, two important epochs
of this extensive history are dealt with. Zmago Šmitek explores
the time of the irst diplomatic contacts between Slovenia and
India. The irst recorded Slovene visitor to India was Odorik
Matjúc from Pordenone in 1321, followed by other missiona-
ries, explorers and discoverers. Franc G. Gallenfells (b. 1680)
from the town of Bled was successively in charge of several
Portuguese outposts in India in the 1830s. Šmitek’s paper on
this Slovene diplomat working on the Malabar Coast (“Protector
of the Golden Goa”) is concerned with the less-known aspects
of Slovene-Indian relations of that early age of ‘intercultural’
communication. Undoubtedly, connections between the two co-
untries culminated in the Non-Aligned Movement, which arose
in the 1950s as the idea of an original, alternative world policy

– II –
 Introduction

originated by the then Indian prime minister Nehru, which ac-

tually resulted in that movement’s irst conference by way of
Nehru’s contacts with the Yugoslav president Tito. An in-depth
account of the dynamics of those contacts (“Tito, Nehru, and
Slovenes”) was prepared for this book by one of the leading
Slovene historians, Jože Pirjevec. Jože Pirjevec possesses a
remarkably extensive knowledge of Yugoslav political history,
and in addition to the more general political history, his essay
includes an exceptional account of diplomatic, generally poli-
tical as well as related developments in India within the Non-
Aligned Movement in the 1950s. The Yugoslav president Tito
was the irst European state leader to visit India, where he was
received with royal honours. In 1954 he also delivered a speech
in the Indian Parliament, saying: “What I have in mind is not
some kind of passive coexistence but rather active cooperation
and agreed-upon solutions to all problems as well as removal of
any elements that could hinder the broadest possible cooperation
among all states, large and small.” The section is rounded up by
an essay by Ernest Petrič (“India between Memories and the
Future”), the Slovene diplomat who remembers his Ambassa-
dorship in India at the very time when Slovenia was stepping on
its path to independence. In addition, Mr. Petrič’s article brings
some personal observations about India then and today.
The second section opens with an article “Karol Glaser and
Anton Ocvirk: Two Mediators of Indian Literature to Slove-
nia” by Mrs. Vlasta Pacheiner-Klander, the Slovene translator
and Indological scholar whose rich productivity in translation
and scientiic work illed the gap that had opened up with the
death of Karol Glaser. Her essay is concerned precisely with
this irst developmental phase of Slovene Indology and the irst
translations of Indian texts to Slovene. In the paper about the
irst Slovene Indologist, Karol Glaser (1845–1913), she outlines
his biography and scientiic achievements. The most important

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

are his translations of Purāṇic legends, translations of the three

Kālidāsa’s dramas, and his scholarly articles covering Ancient
Indian linguistics, Indian mythology and Buddhism. In additi-
on to Karol Glaser, the essay also presents Mr. Anton Ocvirk
(1907–1980), Professor at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana who
made sure through his courses that Indian literary history was
included in the study of comparative literature to become part
of knowledge of future literary scholars. Ana Jelnikar explores
Tagore’s inluence on the poetry of one of the greatest Slovene
poets, Srečko Kosovel (1904–1926) in her paper “Rabindra-
nath Tagore and Srečko Kosovel: At Home in the World”. In
Kosovel’s and Tagore’s poems there is a similar inspiration to
be felt, i.e. a universal vision of a future society, conveyed in
the case of Kosovel in the Expressionist mode. Ana Jelnikar
presents wider contexts of their lives and the vital inluence
Tagore had on Kosovel and Slovene literature of the early 20th
century in general. This is one of the most interesting epochs in
the ield of comparative literature between Slovenia and India.
The paper thus explores Tagore’s reception in Slovenia in the
larger political and historical context shaping the outlook of the
day, and focuses particularly on Tagore’s keen impact on the
mind of the young and bourgeoning Slovene poet. On the basis
of their shared ideals of universalism, the two poet-intellectu-
als are put in conversation with each other, revealing striking
similarities in outlook, if not quite the same poetic sensibilities.
The sociologist of religion Aleš Črnič (“Indian Religious Ideas
and Practices in Slovenia”) makes an overview of the history of
contacts between Europe and India, analysing the presence and
impact of Indian religious ideas in Slovenia. In the Slovene reli-
gious market a great inlux of various religious and other spiri-
tual organisations and movements has been noted. The Western
way of life allows an individual to choose among a variety of
possibilities provided by the market of spiritual goods, trickling

– IV –
 Introduction

from the modern media into the carefully guarded oases of our
privacy. Clearly outlined religious and cultural patterns have
been disappearing, and the formation of the cultural identity of
a present-day Slovene is being inluenced not only by the Judeo-
Christian tradition but increasingly more by other religious and
philosophical ideas. The paper analyses Slovene encounters with
Indian spirituality, presents the oficially registered and other
religious groups in Slovenia that derive from Indian tradition,
and explores the presence of various ideas and concepts rooted
in Indian tradition (e.g. yoga, meditation, vegetarianism, rein-
carnation, etc.) in Slovenia. The section is rounded up by a paper
by Marija Sreš (“Walking with Them: My years with Dungri
Garasiya Tribals in Gujarat”), a Slovenian missionary and deve-
lopmental worker in India. In her personal narrative, Mrs. Sreš
remembers the time when she decided to step on the missionary
path that brought her to India, describing all the dilemmas she
was faced with when she began her work in India. Marija Sreš
shows that contemporary missionary work is committed to the
very ideals that we recognized at the beginning of this Intro-
duction as the biggest challenge for contemporary societies, i.e.
help to the poor and efforts to achieve that differences among
the rich and the poor would narrow and that every single human
being would be able to realize his/her unique humanity to the
extent that his/her dignity would remain intact. This is a task
that concerns the entire human race, and it is precisely today’s
missionaries that are – along with various individuals from nu-
merous NGOs and similar movements – among those who best
serve this noble purpose on the way to carrying out this task. In
this context, her paper focuses on tribal women’s issues, their
struggles for gender independence, the problems of religious
life of today and the question of development and education in
tribe communities in today’s India.

–V–
 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

The third and inal section of the book brings some of the
most important papers of Slovene Indologists of recent years.
Primož Pečenko needs not to be speciically presented, as he
is widely known as one of the principal world specialists in Pāli
literature. In his article “Sāriputta, the Author of the Pli ks”,
he presents the work of one of the most prominent Buddhist
scholars of the Polonnaruva period in ®ri Lank. The paper is
followed by a bibliography of the author’s works prepared by
Tamara Ditrich. In her article, “Ṛgvedic Goddesses: Their Roles
and Signiicance in the Vedic Pantheon”, Tamara Ditrich explo-
res the earliest epoch of Hindu religious history, analysing the
role of goddesses in the Vedic pantheon and the earliest textual
evidence of goddess worship in the Vedas. She shows how in
Vedic mythological narratives, goddesses are mainly portrayed
as creatresses of the universe, great nourishing mothers, fertile
and life-giving; it is already clear from the earliest written so-
urce, the Ṛgveda, that the maternal role is the principal theme
of goddess worship in India. Eva Cesar (“Bhakti Movements
Across India – Their Relevance in a Global Religious Experien-
ce”) belongs, along with Nataša Terbovšek Coklin and Lenart
Škof, to the younger generation of Slovene Indologists. Her arti-
cle explores the subtle philosophical and social nuances among
the various bhakti movements of the Indian subcontinent, at the
same time touching on the history of Indological studies, and
the interrelation of the concept of bhakti with other, principally
Christian and Islamic notions of piety. Nataša Terbovšek Co-
klin is a linguist, and in her “The Use of the Augmented Past
Verbal Tenses in Old Indian”, she makes an in-depth analysis of
a particular aspect of the under-researched issue of the Ancient
Indian verb syntax. The author presents the different manners
in which Vedic and classical Sanskrit augmented verbal tenses
were used, analysing the functional difference between them;
i.e. the difference in the use of the imperfect and the aorist with

– VI –
 Introduction

respect to their indicative meaning, as can be found in the ma-

jor works of classical literature, including the Ṛgveda. Lenart
Škof (“The Upaniṣads, Hermeneutics and Indian Tradition”)
is a philosopher and scholar in the ield of religious studies. In
his article about comparative philosophy between Europe and
Asia or, more particularly, between the philosophy of one of the
principal Western philosophers, M. Heidegger, and that of the
Indian philosopher J. L. Mehta, explores the prejudiced Europe-
an reception of Indian philosophy, particularly the Upaniṣads,
while in the main part of the essay he compares Heidegger and
Mehta to open up space for a new intercultural thinking betwe-
en Europe and India that draws from the ṛgvedic Saṃhitās and
the Upaniṣads as interpreted by Mehta (bráhman) and Ancient
Greek thought as developed by Heidegger (Ereignis). The article
thus deals with J. L. Mehta’s re-evaluation of the hermeneutical
nearness between ancient Indian and modern European philo-
sophical thought.

In the end, I wish to thank Mr. Bogdan Batič who, on the ba-
sis of numerous activities designed to promote Slovene culture
in India, suggested this collection of essays in 2006. Mr. Batič
was Second Secretary and Consul of the Slovene Embassy in
New Delhi in 2003–2006. Owing to him and to Mr. Miklavž
Borštnik, cooperation between the two countries was already
presented in 2005 in the review Slovenia in Focus. After Mr.
Batič had gone to take up new duties elsewhere, it was Mr. Mi-
klavž Borštnik, the current temporary chargé d'affaires of the
Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in New Delhi, who helped
inalize the realization of the idea of a collection of essays that
would further tie India and Slovenia, and contributed an equally
signiicant share to its coming into being. The book would also
not have appeared without the irm support by Mr. Sunandan
Roy Chowdhury, who did everything necessary for it to be pu-

– VII –
 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

blished by his publishing house Sampark Publishing. Further,

I wish to express particular gratitude to the Ambassador of the
Republic of India in Slovenia, the honourable Dr. V. S. Seshadri,
who provided continual support during our project. My grati-
tude goes to the Slovene Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which
provided funds for the translation of the articles to English, thus
enabling the book to come forth.
In the end, I also cordially thank Marko Gavriloski, a student
at our Faculty of Humanities, University of Primorska (Koper),
for his help in editing this monograph, and I also thank our trans-
lators – Violeta Jurkovič and Nuša Rozman.
Without any of the abovementioned people, the book would
not exist in the form it does, for which I once again give my
sincere thanks to all.

Finally, let me say that the book is dedicated to the memory

of the Slovene Indologist who died last year, Primož Pečenko
(1947–2007). Primož Pečenko was the principal Slovene Indo-
logist and one of the main world experts in Pāli and the litera-
ture related with it. He made vigorous effort for this book to be
published, but suddenly left us – his friends and colleagues in
the preparation of this publication – at the peak of his creative
powers. Therefore I speciically thank his wife, Mrs. Tamara
Ditrich, who edited the text he was preparing to be published
herein.

Lenart Škof
Ljubljana, December 2007

– VIII –
 I
Diplomatic Worlds
Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
 Franc Gallenfels –
Protector of the Golden Goa
Zmago Šmitek

That what Slovenes knew of India in the 17th and 18th centuries was
burdened by old and new stereotypes: it was mainly limited to sugges-
tive images of Indija Koromandija (“Wonderland of India”) of folk leg-
ends and the devotional “exempla” on Thomas the Apostle’s and Francis
Xavier’s missionary deeds propagated by the Catholic church. The handful
of cultivated Slovenes, including the erudite Baron Valvasor, only knew
India indirectly and deiciently from foreign travelling and scientiic texts.
However, the wide variety of Europeans who – by luck or adverse fate –
experienced the reality of India, included the Carniolan nobleman Franc
Genuin Gallenfels.
He was born on 11 February 1680 in the town of Bled.1 The irst Baron
Gallenfels was his grandfather, Janez Jakob, who died in 1665. The fam-
ily gave several important military leaders and church dignitaries to the
Duchy of Carniola – i.e. the central part of present-day Slovenia, which
at the time was part of Austria. Two of Janez Jakob’s sons died in ights
with the Turks: Karel in the defence of Vienna in 1683 and Franc Herman
in the Battle of Slankamen in 1691. One of their brothers, Jakob Sigmund,
also held a high military position, while Rudolf was a Franciscan superior,
Jurij Andrej a priest and Janez captain of Bled. The latter’s sons by his
wife Marija – Franc Genuin’s brothers – were Karel (a Jesuit, confessor of
the Portuguese Queen), Albert (a Dominican prior), Anton (abbey in the
monastery of Stična), Ludvik (a Franciscan provincial), Jakob Sigmund
(priest in Šentvid near Stična) and Janez Daniel, who succeeded his father
as captain of Bled. Their sisters were Marija Jožefa and Zoija Terezija.2
Franc Genuin Gallenfels went to Portugal and from there to India main-
ly thanks to his younger brother Karel, who had become an important per-
sonality at the Portuguese court. He took care that his brother’s career of a
mercenary ran as smoothly as possible and, whenever needed, secured him
the King’s support and recommendations.3 Karel had entered the Jesuit
order on 22 October 1689 in Ljubljana, at the age of less than seventeen.
Ljubljana was also where he spent the period of his novitiate (1690–91).
—3—
 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
After studying philosophy in Vienna (1692–94) and Ljubljana (1695-96), he
became Master of Grammar (in Klagenfurt in 1697), Master of Humani-
ties (in Leoben in 1698) and Master of Rhetoric (in Ljubljana in 1699).
In 1700–1703 he studied theology in Graz, after which he passed three
probations in Judenburg in 1704. He taught philosophy in Passau (1705),
Ljubljana (1706-08) and Klagenfurt (1709-11), while he also occasionally
performed the duties of confessor, catechist, school prefect and consultor.4
In 1729 he succeeded the deceased Anton Stieff of Lienz as the confessor
of the Portuguese Queen, Mary Ann of Austria. He remained in this ofice
until his death on 18 September 1741.5 A letter of his from Lisbon, which
he likely sent to his homeland in 1721, had been published. It included a
report on the death of Kilian Stumpf, a missionary in Beijing, President
of the Mathematical Tribunal and Visitor of the Chinese Province. Stumpf
was succeeded as President of the Department of Mathematics by Father
Ignaz Kögler, who had come to China four years earlier.6 This shows that
Karel Gallenfels had come to live in Portugal before 1729, perhaps even
as early as in 1712.7 This is in line with the fact that it was before 1717 that
the Portuguese King already offered to his brother, Franc Genuin, a post
in India, where he needed courageous and educated commanders.8 The
reason was that the Portuguese possessions in India were being imperilled
by the Marathas, a native people of the western part of the Deccan Plateau,
today’s territory of the state of Maharashtra. A decree that was in force in
1719-1766 shows how serious the situation in Goa was: it stipulates that
each village was to give a certain number of men to serve as mercenaries
and provide food for cavalry units whenever they stopped there. All men
aged between 15 and 60 had to participate in Sunday military trainings.9
This was the situation that Gallenfels was faced with upon his arrival
in Goa. No details are known concerning the time and circumstances of
his voyage from Lisbon to India. The solemn vow (homenagem) signed
on 29 October 1728 by him and two witnesses shows that, in the name of
the King, he thereby assumed command over a Portuguese fort, Manorá,
in succession of João de Saldanha da Gama.10
The fort was located on the northern bank of the Manorá river, by its
conluence with the river Dantora (Dativara) not far from where they both
lew into the sea. Closeby, there was the fortress of Agaçaim (present-day
Agashi), which protected the southern bank of the river mouth. Both gar-
risons were under the command of the garrison in Bassein (Basaim). Since
1556, Manorá had been intended by the Portuguese for the protection of
their northern border against the Marathas. It was one of the compara-
—4—
 Zmago Šmitek
tively small and weak fortresses. It was mainly wooden, with a palisade
encircling a settlement of dwellings and storage huts that was about 1200
metres wide in diameter. In the fort’s longitudinal and transverse axes
were four entrances, connected by two wide roads that intersected in the
centre of the circle. Inside the palisade was a two-storey bastion with nine
cannons. The garrison possessed over seventy muskets and large quanti-
ties of gunpowder and ammunition. It was made up of two hundred Indian
soldiers.11
Despite the unwholesome environment of rainforest remote from urban
centres and important routes, Gallenfels was rather well-off in Manorá. He
was entitled to receive a share from the trade in tropical timber, which yield-
ed signiicant proits.12 Otherwise, military wages were low, and a report of
1733 mentions that soldiers (including some of those in Manorá) deserted
the army on account that they could not survive on their income.13
In 1731, Gallenfels underwent a severe test. On 27 February the Mar-
athas, after they had failed to invade the island of Salcette near Bombay
and had burned down the palisade in Saybana, laid siege on Manorá with
two thousand infantrymen and ive hundred cavalrymen. In the follow-
ing days they only strengthened their positions around the fort and on 1
March disrupted its water supply. As the garrison of the fort was not strong
enough to sally forth, Gallenfels limited himself to iring at the enemy
troops, while he could not prevent them from making preparations for a
capture. In spite of everything, he managed to hold out until 5 March when
a reinforcement from Bassein (two hundred Indian sepoys and a hundred
and ifty grenadiers under the command of Antonio dos Santos) sailed in
to help him. This rescue expedition irst demolished the Maratha palisade
at the river mouth, which was armed with cannons and muskets, and then
advanced to the fortress itself. The battle for the fort came to a close with
an admirable manoeuvre of the grenadiers and twenty-ive sepoys who
made a quadrangular formation and successfully confronted two hundred
Maratha cavalrymen and even more infantrymen. Immediately after the
fortress was freed, the Marathas attacked the company of sepoys, who
led in different directions. At this critical moment other Portuguese units
entered the battle, making the enemy run away after sixty Maratha caval-
rymen and over a hundred and ifty of their infantrymen had been killed.14
The Marathas retreated and in the next day’s ights with the Portuguese
also lost their military camp in the nearby Amboana, while Dos Santos
later also drove them away from the fortiied and dificultly accessible hills
of Judana and gave orders for the settlement by their fortress of Bhivandi
—5—
 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
to be burnt down. The Portuguese lost two sergeants and fourteen privates
during those ights. Thereafter the situation stabilised and on 3 July a peace
treaty was signed, which, however, allowed the Marathas to remain on
certain slopes in the surroundings, collecting taxes in nearby villages.15
With his resolute command, Gallenfels won promotion. On 9 March
1733 he was succeeded at Manorá by H. Gomes da Silva16, while he took
over the command of the fort of Diu on the Gujarat coast, “the biggest and
best planned of all those that the Portuguese built in the East”.17 This was
shortly reported by another Slovene, the Carniolan nobleman Avgu tin
Hallerstein. He mentioned in the letter dated in Goa, 13 January 1738, that
a few weeks earlier Gallenfels had arrived there after he had administered
the fort and town of Diu for three years. According to this evidence, Gal-
lenfels thus began to serve in Diu even before the end of 1734, i.e. precisely
on the two hundredth anniversary of the fort’s construction. The irst one
who told Hallerstein of his excellences, particularly justice, was a rich In-
dian merchant that Hallerstein had met in Mozambique during his voyage
to Asia.18 In Goa, on the other hand, one of its most distinguished citizens
said to Hallerstein that Gallenfels’s popularity was attested by the very
fact that he, although of foreign origin, was trusted with Diu, “the key of
India”, which was something unheard of.19 The town, with its fortress, was
particularly distinguished by its advantageous location on an island, about
eleven kilometres long and three kilometres wide and separated from the
mainland by shallow straits. Merchant ships sailing along India’s western
coast and further on to the East or West had to pay duties there. It is clear
from Hallerstein’s letters that at the time, the town of Diu was also a nexus
of the highly proitable silk trade.20 Nevertheless, its economic power had
been declining. Only two hundred Portuguese had remained in the fort
in the late 17th century, while 75% of town houses had been deserted.
Because of the decline in sea trade, no more than 10,373 people still lived
there in 1749.21 In slightly more than a century (1621-1736), the number of
Catholics had dropped from 5,500 to a mere 500; partly on account of the
reduced garrison.22 Military signiicance of the fort, however, remained
essentially intact. It was built of square slabs of sandstone, allowing cross
ire by cannons from within.
Gallenfels’s duties in Diu are known from his correspondence with
the Viceroy of Goa, Pedro Mascarenhas, Count of Sandomil. The let-
ters, which are kept in the Historical Archives of Goa (Panjim), deal with
organisational, military, inancial and stafing matters.23 Naturally, a par-
ticularly important issue in the correspondence was Gallenfels’s regular
—6—
 Zmago Šmitek
reports on political and military proceedings of the Marathas. In addition,
he was involved in the Portuguese plans to capture the coastal town of
Veraval, about a hundred kilometres west of Diu. The matter was even
the more delicate because vigorous trade was going on between the two
towns, which would wither if wrong moves were made. In relation with
these plans, the Portuguese also held negotiations with the Patan ruler and
with the nabob of Junagadh, in the hinterland of Veraval.
Gallenfels remained the commander of the fort of Diu until February
1737, when he was succeeded by Antonio Lobo de Melho.24 Next year
he was transferred closer to the centre of trouble, i.e. the coastal fort of
Chaul in the imperilled Northern Province. Chaul was one of the oldest
Portuguese strongholds in India. On this piece of coastland some ifty
kilometres south of Bombay, the Portuguese had set up a trading settlement
back in 1510. They used it as their starting point for advancing to the north,
towards Diu. In the late 16th century, the town was strongly fortiied, and
the period from then until the 1630s was its golden age. The main source
of earnings was trade. Ships from the coasts of Arab countries, Ethiopia,
Persia, India and East India stopped in its port. For this reason, Chaul did
not have any agricultural estates like, for example, the nearby Portuguese
enclaves of Daman (Damão) and Bassein. It only stretched on a narrow
strip of coast, being very vulnerable to attacks and sieges. The town houses
were neat, two-storied and built of stone. Several churches, monasteries
and palaces bore witness to a one-time prosperity.
However, because Bombay and Diu had been its rivals in terms of trade
and because the Dutch and the British had blockaded Portuguese ports in
India, Chaul’s position had weakened and it had been reduced to poverty.
Since the second half of the 17th century, the number of people living there
had also been falling.25 The missionary Gottfried Laimbeckhoven, who
sailed along the Indian coast towards Goa together with the Slovene Avgu
tin Hallerstein in 1737, wrote of Chaul that even the wealthiest families
had lost their fortunes so that nothing had been left of the once merry
and wanton Babel but sad memories, ruined palaces and a poor, scarcely
populated little town.26
In spite of its decline, however, Chaul was a perfect target for attacks
by the Marathas, as it blocked their access to the sea.
The town stood on a territory that was 600 metres long and 473 metres
wide. The walls, no less than 1826 metres long, were ten metres high on
the side facing land and eight or nine metres high on the side facing the
sea, and were protected by a wide and deep moat passable by a drawbridge.
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
South of town walls the Kundalika river lew into the sea, while from the
river’s opposite bank Chaul was protected by the fort called Morro de
Chaul, which stood on a promontory.27
As soon as in April 1737, the Marathas again began to attack the bor-
ders of Portuguese possessions. According to a Goan decree of 1735, all
adult men had to serve the army. A greater problem was how to provide
the soldiers with arms, ammunition and food, and how to pay for their
wages. Gallenfels was confronted with such problems soon after taking
over the command of the fort of Chaul.28 The town was too poor to support
the garrison itself, so that it had to rely on help by Daman and Bassein.29
A testimony of the fact that it was precisely the forts of Chaul and Diu
where conditions were the worst is a decree according to which soldiers
were transferred into one of these two towns as a punishment for non-
compliance with orders.30
In assessing the military situation, Gallenfels wrote that the most dan-
gerous Portuguese enemy was Manaji Angria, who had strongholds in
Alibag and Kolaba, north and south of Chaul. Being in conlict with his
half-brother Sambaji, he had linked himself up with the Marathas, and
Gallenfels claimed that he had been disclosing deiciencies of Portuguese
defence to them.31 And indeed, it was him that some two months later Gal-
lenfels was confronted with on the battleield in front of Chaul. Right be-
fore that, on 21 March 1739, Manaji Angria had conquered the Portuguese
fort of Karanja near Bombay. The siege of Chaul began on 27 March with
eight hundred soldiers and three cannons. On 1 April, Gallenfels ordered
an attack against the enemy from the coast with a company of Indian
soldiers (bhandaries) under the command of Captain Perseval Machado.
With the rest of the garrison – two hundred trained soldiers led by Captain
Miguel Pereira de São Paio – he carried out a simultaneous attack from
land. They forced the enemies, who had lost sixty men, to retreat, conis-
cating or destroying some of their cannons. Still, because the Marathas
took refuge in their fortiied camp to prepare for a new attack, Gallenfels
ordered the townspeople to desert their dwellings and withdraw in the for-
tress.32 The Marathas opened ire from some thirty cannons and mortars,
and the large stone missiles destroyed several houses. Then they decided
to redirect their attack to the weaker neighbouring fortress of Morro de
Chaul, trying to capture it to prevent it from providing help to Chaul. They
also tried to dig underground trenches and blow up the walls. Meanwhile,
the protectors of Chaul had got a hundered soldiers, food and ammuni-
tion from Bombay. On 5 April at midnight, Gallenfels took a hundred
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 Zmago Šmitek
volunteers and two grenadier units across the river to the pier at Morro
de Chaul to free the fort. In the morning, of 6 April, at eight, they made a
joint attack with the Morro de Chaul garrison. One group broke into the
enemy’s trenches, while the other captured the church that the Marathas
had fortiied. In this, seven Portuguese soldiers were killed and nineteen
wounded, while sixteen Maratha cannons were coniscated and seventeen
prisoners freed. Then Angria neared his positions to sixty steps from the
Chaul walls, but inally had to give up and retreat.33
For the time being, Chaul was thus saved, but its fate was decided else-
where. In May 1739, the Marathas, after bitter ights, managed to capture
the strongly fortiied Bassein north of Bombay. To prevent help from Goa,
part of their troops also attacked the southern provinces of Goa, and in
January 1740 they conquered the territories of Salcete and Bardez. They
only retreated from there after the Portuguese surrendered to them the
entire Northern Province and paid reparations. The only forts the Portu-
guese still held on India’s western coast were thus Goa, Daman, Diu and
Chaul. However, as the latter had become isolated and practically indefen-
sible after the loss of Bassein and other fortresses, they decided to desert
it. They irst offered it to the Dutch, then to the British and to the Siddis
who held the nearby fort of Janjira, but nobody wanted it.34 By the Treaty
of 18 September 1740, Chaul was thus inally ceded to the Marathas. The
Portuguese townspeople moved out to Goa, while the Christianised natives
in the nearby village preserved their identity until the present day.35
Such outcome was brought about by negotiations and agreements, in
which Franc Gallenfels again played a vital role. Talks had been initiated
by the British, who were concerned that the Marathas, having triumphed
with the fall of Bassein, might start to also consider a conquest of Bombay.
In June 1739, Captain Inchbird was therefore sent to Bassein, where he
concluded a treaty of friendship and peace. Concurrently, Captain Gordon
went to the Maratha capital Satara to deliberate there. At the end of 1739,
Captain Inchbird himself set off on a journey to the Maratha ruler with
a new peace treaty proposal that in part was also based on Portuguese
interests; he met with Baji Rao, the ruler, in January 1740 at Paithan by
the Godavari river. Thus everything was prepared for a Portuguese pleni-
potentiary to join in. The Viceroy of Goa entrusted the negotiations and
the conclusion of a peace treaty with the Marathas to Franc Gallenfels.
He recalled him from Chaul to Goa but, being pressed for time, failed to
inform him about all the details. When he sent him on his way on 5 April
1740, he told him to also consult the British Governor in Bombay, Stephen
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
Law, who had offered to serve as the mediator. After a dificult journey,
Gallenfels reached Bombay on 22 April, and there met with Law.36 The
latter sent a request to Chimnaji Appa, the army leader of the Marathas
and their ruler’s brother, to determine time and location of a meeting
with the representatives of Portugal and Britain. Gallenfels and Inchbird
then set off for the town of Alibag, north of Chaul, where Chimnaji Appa
camped with his army. They arrived there on 4 May and were the next day
formally received. The real talks began on 7 May. It was in the interest of
the Portuguese to reach an agreement as soon as possible, as the Marathas’
relations with the Moghul ruler based in Delhi had improved, which meant
that all their army might be engaged against Goa. Gallenfels doubted that
the Portuguese defence would be equal to forces that would so greatly
outnumber them. He also believed that terms for peace would only grow
harder in case of such an unfavourable development.37 In weighing the
points of the prospective peace treaty, it seemed that it would be possible to
reach an agreement on most issues. Gallenfels’s sole demand was that the
fort of Daman got back its agricultural lands from which it had sustained
itself. He inally had to drop it as, according to him, “no one (was) more
stubborn than Chimnaji Appa”.38
The negotiations were suddenly broken off as news came that Baji Rao,
the Maratha ruler, had died. Chimnaji Appa returned with his army to
Poona, the location of Baji Rao’s royal palace. From there, he sent a word
that he was willing to proceed with talks provided that the emissaries came
there. Captain Inchbird hesitated, knowing what efforts it took to cross
the mountainous and dangerous territory in the midst of monsoon rains.
The journey to Poona was therefore postponed until 2 August, when the
negotiators inally set off from Bombay.39 They were accompanied by a
Goan Indian, Babullu Pai Gontiya, who spoke the Maratha language.40 It
is clear from one of Gallenfels’s letters to the Viceroy of Goa that after
a strenuous seven-day journey, they arrived to Poona, where they waited
until 24 August for Chimnaji Appa to return from Satara. The latter i-
nally received them on 27 August in the presence of the seventeen-year-old
Balaji, the eldest Baji Rao’s son, who had inherited his father’s sovereign
title of peshwa. Gallenfels and Inchbird presented them with long ceremo-
nial gowns sarapas (Persian: sar a pa, “from head to toe”) and other gifts.
With the interpreter’s help, they began to discuss peace terms on the next
day.41 The negotiations were tough, and Gallenfels was disappointed to ind
that “these people are never guided by sense”.42 Nevertheless, he managed
to reach an agreement that was rather favourable for the Portuguese. For
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 Zmago Šmitek
example, they did not have to pay the Marathas 40% of their proits from
lands in the provinces of Salcete and Bardez, which had been the case after
the truce of 1739. However, the price for that was to surrender the fort of
Chaul. On 7 September 1740 Balaji signed the treaty.
In September Gallenfels returned from Poona to Bombay and from
there to Chaul. In October the Viceroy of Goa sent him letters for Cap-
tains of the forts of Chaul and Morro de Chaul and for the townspeople, in
which he explained the reasons why the town and the fortresses had to be
deserted. Gallenfels’s duty was to speed up the moving away of the troops,
families, church possessions, trade company, granary, boats and barges,
and the belongings of the local administration. The fort and the town were
then to be taken over by the Governor of Bombay, who was to give them
over to the Marathas. Gallenfels informed the Indian peasants who grew
coconut trees in the town’s surroundings that the King had given them
permission to move to Goa and set up new farms there. As Goa needed
experienced sailors for the purpose of its protection, Gallenfels was to
draw them from Chaul by promising them facilities of payment, privileges
and paid jobs on sea and river ships. However, both the peasants and the
ishermen decided to remain in their native village.43
After Captain Inchbird had brought two hundred British soldiers to
Chaul, it leaked out that the garrison of the Morro de Chaul fort had been
secretly holding talks with the Siddis of Janjira to go over to their side.
Gallenfels took quick measures. With a hundred Portuguese and seventy
British soldiers, he marched into Morro de Chaul under the pretext that he
was bringing help. He lined up the fort’s garrison and ordered their com-
mander to remove them to Chaul. There he locked all the one hundred and
twenty men up and held an investigation. He found that two hundred Siddi
soldiers had already been waiting near Morro de Chaul for the outcome
of treason.44
In late November Gallenfels and his army retired to Bombay, while in
early December 1740 the Marathas took over the forts of Chaul and Morro
de Chaul. Shortly before that, they had ceded the last occupied territories
in the Goan province of Salcete.
As early as in February 1741 the treaty between the Portuguese and
the Marathas was put to a test. Jairam Bhonsale, a Maratha ally, dissatis-
ied with the peace terms, on his own initiative landed soldiers at several
points along Goan coast. In Bicholim (Dicholi), north-west of the town of
Goa, he gathered around a thousand and ive hundred soldiers and there
was danger that before long, the centre of Goa might simultaneously be
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
attacked from land and from the rivers. However, his initiative failed to
gain wide Maratha support; partly because he was Balaji Rao’s rival45 and
partly because the Maratha army commander, Chimnaji Appa, had died in
Poona in December 1740. Furthermore, Balaji, the young Maratha ruler,
was not a warrior like his father and uncle had been, but rather preferred
to be principally concerned with state administration and diplomacy.46
In 1761, in the Battle of Panipat, the Marathas were terribly defeated
by the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani, after which their expansion
slowed down. As the Moghul empire, centred around Delhi, was also
completely falling apart, India came to be increasingly more dominated
by Britain. The latter’s East India Company gradually excluded all other
pretenders to power. In 1817 the British occupied Poona, and the next year
they triumphantly ended the war with the Marathas. Thus, Goa preserved
for over two centuries what Gallenfels had managed to negotiate for it.
The Viceroy of Goa, Count of Sandomil, recognised his service: “I know
what great efforts you invested in this treaty … I thank you for this favour
and assure you that His Majesty will receive my report on the excellent
service that you rendered for Him in this matter.” 47 Gallenfels, who had
meanwhile turned sixty, perhaps returned to Lisbon when his brother Karel
died in September 1741. Like Karel, Franc Genuin Gallenfels was also
buried abroad, as family trees drawn in Slovenia know neither of the place
nor time of his death.

Notes

1 Gallenfels, Lazarini’s Genealogic Collection, Town Archives – Historical Archives

of Ljubljana, Ms. Lit. no. X.
2 Gallenfelses’ family tree, Archives of Slovenia, Genealogic Tables and Trees, Lit. G.
3 See e.g. Livro das Monçoes no. 108, fol. 8, and the letter from the Viceroy of Goa, Count
of Sandomil, to Gallenfels, dated 6 February 1736, Historical Archives of Goa (Panjim),
Diu 1735-1751, Vol. 994, fol. 2 r.
4 Ladislaus Lukács S.L, Catalogus generalis I (Romae, 1987), p. 389.
5 Francisco Rodrigues S.J., Historia da Companhia de Jesus na assistencia de Portugal,
Tomo 4, Vol. 1 (Porto, 1950), p. 452.
6 Aus einem Brief P.P. Gallenfels e Soc. JESU Königlichen Portugesischen Hof-Patris, Welt-
Bott I, Part 8 (Augsburg-Grätz, 1728), no. 193, p. 18.
7 Lukács. op. cit.
8 Gracias Amancio, Alemãis na India nos seculos XV a XVIII, Boletim do instituto Vasco
da Gama, no. 50 (Bastora, 1941), p. 84.

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 Zmago Šmitek
9 A. R. Kulkarni, Marathi Records on Village Communities in Goa Archives, in: II Se-
minario internacional de historia indo - portuguesa, Actas, ed. by L. de Albuquerque
and I. Guerreiro, Estudos de historia e cartograia antiga, memorias Vol. XXV (Lis-
boa, 1985), p. 896-897.
10 O Menagem que faz D. Francisco Baron de Gallenfels pello Capitanio de Fortaleza de
Manora, Historical Archives of Goa (Panjim) (Homenagem, 1717-57), no. 1261, fol.
141.
11 (Antonio Bocarro), Relacão das Plantas, & Dezcripsões de todas as Fortalezas,
Cidades, e Povoações que os Portuguezes tem no Estado da India Oriental, Lisboa 1936,
p. 25; Antonio Bocarro, Livro das Plantas das Fortalezas, in: Arquivo Portugues Orien-
tal, Tomo IV, Vol. II, Parte I (Bastora, 1937), p. 168; Pandurang P. Pissurlenkar, The
Portuguese and the Marathas (Bombay, 1975), p. 198.
12 Pissurlenkar, op. cit., p. 198.
13 Alexandre Lobato, Relações Luso-Maratas 1658-1737 (Lisboa, 1965), p. 129.
14 Ibid., p. 110-111, n. 3.
15 A. B. de Bragança Pereira (ed.), Arquivo Portugues Oriental, Tomo I, Vol. III, Parte
IV (Bastora, 1936), p. 241–243 (no. 115), 264–265 (no. 130); Frederick Charles Danvers,
The Portuguese in India, Vol. 2 (London, 1894), p. 397-398; Panduronga S. S. Pissur-
lencar, Assentos do Conselho do Estado, Vol. V (Goa, 1957), p. 417 (no. 147); ibid.,
The Portuguese..., p. 174–176.
16 Historical Archives of Goa (Panjim) (Homenagem, 1717-51), no. 1261, fol. 192.
17 Gritli von Mitterwallner, Chaul. Eine unerforschte Stadt an der Westküste Indiens, Neue
Münchner Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte, Bd. 6 (Berlin, 1964), p. 43.
18 Letter from Avguštin Hallerstein to his brother Vajkard, dated Goa, 13 January 1738,
Welt-Bott IV, Part 30 (Wien, 1755), no. 586, p. 78.
19 Letter from Avguštin Hallerstein to his brother Vajkard, dated Beijing, 4 November
1738, Welt-Bott IV, Part 30, no. 587, p. 93.
20 Op. cit., p. 93.
21 A. B. de Bragança Pereira, Arquivo Portugues Oriental (Nova edição), Tomo IV,
Vol. II, Parte II (Bastora, 1938), p. 401–403.
22 Fr. Achilles Meersman OFM, The Ancient Franciscan Provinces of India (Bangalore,
1971), p. 473.
23 The letters to “Dom Francisco Baron de Galenf(e)ls Castelhão da Fortaleza de Dio”
are kept in the Historical Archives of Goa (Panjim), bound in the book Diu 1735-51,
Vol. 994. Their sender, Count of Sandomil, dated them Goa, 8 December 1735; 4 and
6 February, 10 May, 7 July, 4, 27 and 28 October, 1 and 24 November 1736 and 12
February 1737.
24 Letter from the Viceroy of Goa, Count of Sandomil, to Antonio Lobo de Melho, dated
21 February 1737, Historical Arhives of Goa (Panjim) (Diu, 1735–51), Vol. 994.
25 Mitterwallner, op. cit., p. 7.
26 Letter from Gottfried Laimbeckhoven to his relatives in Vienna, sent from the peninsula
of Salcete near Goa on 31 December 1737, Welt-Bott IV, Part 28, no. 555, p. 131.
27 Mitterwallner, op. cit., p. 10–14.
28 Letter from Captain João de Frias Sarmento, dated Chaul, 10 January 1739, in A. B. de
Bragança Pereira, Arquivo Portugues Oriental, Tomo I, Vol. III, Parte V (Bastora,
1940), p. 290–291.
29 Pissurlenkar, The Portuguese..., p. 343–344.
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
30 Kulkarni, op. cit., p. 897.
31 Gallenfels’s letter, dated Chaul, 10 January 1739, in A. B. de Bragança Pereira, Arquivo...,
Tomo I, Vol. III, Parte V, p. 288–290.
32 See n. 29.
33 Danvers, op. cit., p. 413–415; Pissurlenkar, The Portuguese..., p. 343–345. Also see
the report by Metelho de Souza Menezes in Historical Archives of Goa (Panjim),
Livro das Monçoes 1740-43, no. 112–113, fol. 27 v. British aid in the form of am-
munition given in April 1739 is mentioned in the letter from the Viceroy of Goa,
dated Goa, 5 May 1739, to the Governor of Bombay, Stephen Law (A. B. de Bragança
Pereira, Arquivo... Tomo I, Vol. III, Parte V, p. 470–471).
34 Pissurlenkar, The Portuguese..., p. 382.
35 Mitterwallner, op. cit., p. 211.
36 Gallenfels’s letter to Count Sandomil, dated Bombay, 25 April 1740, Livro das Monçoes,
no. 113, fol. 42 (Pissurlenkar, The Portuguese..., p. 392).
37 Gallenfels’s letter to Count Sandomil, dated Alibag, 14 May 1740, Livro das Monçoes, no.
113, fol. 47 (Pissurlenkar, The Portuguese..., p. 402).
38 Gallenfels’s letter to Count Sandomil, dated Poona, 28 September 1740, Livro das Monço-
es, no. 113, fol. 59 (Pissurlenkar, The Portuguese..., p. 422).
39 Letter from Stephen Law to Count Sandomil, dated Bombay, 23 July-3 August 1740, Livro
das Monçoes, no. 113, fol. 57v.
40 Panduronga S.S. Pissurlencar, Agentes da diplomacia Portuguesa na India, Bastora 1952,
p. 103-109, no. 9, 11, 12.
41 See n. 38 (Pissurlenkar, p. 419–420).
42 Op. cit. (Pissurlenkar, p. 421).
43 Letter ftrom Count Sandomil to Gallenfels, dated Goa, 14 Octtober 1740, Livro da Cor-
respondencia de Chaul, fol. 166v–168v; Gallenfels’s reply, dated Chaul, 31 October, Livro
das Monçoes, no. 113, fol. 68 (Pissurlenkar, The Portuguese..., p. 425–428).
44 Pissurlenkar, The Portuguese... p. 428.
45 Govind Sakharam Sardesai, New Historv of the Marathas, Vol. 2 (Bombay, 1948),
p. 190.
46 Rajaram Vyankatesh Nadkarni, The Rise and Fall of the Maratha Empire (Bombay,
1966), p. 197.
47 Letter from Count Sandomil to Gallenfels, dated Goa, 14 October 1740, Livro da Cor-
respondencia de Chaul, fol. 166v–168v (Pissurlenkar, The Portuguese..., p. 424).

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 Tito, Nehru, And Slovenes
Jože Pirjevec

Among the portraits of important contemporaries with whom Jawaharlal

Nehru socialized that are displayed in his former residence in New Delhi,
today the seat of his museum, a prominent position has been accorded to
a photograph of Yugoslav Marshall Josip Broz-Tito. His presence in the
premises where Nehru lived and died is a testament to the intense personal
and political relations that were established between the two statesmen in
the 1950s and early 1960s.
The Yugoslavs ‘discovered’ India soon after World War II when they
were still under the inluence of revolutionary enthusiasm sparked by their
successful war of national liberation and revolution. Inspired by military
heroism that granted them a (real or imaginary) special role and function
within the Soviet Bloc, they felt the need to share their experience not
only with their neighbors (primarily Greeks and Italians) but also with the
Asian nations whose struggle for independence they attentively observed.
Deriving from the conviction that only communist parties could be the
bearers of the interests of exploited masses, they looked for contacts with
their local organizations. In the name of this conviction, in late February,
1948, a Yugoslav delegation consisting of Vladimir Dedijer and Radovan
Zogović accepted the invitation of the secretary general of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of India, P. C. Joshi, to attend a con-
gress that was expected to become a milestone in the development of the
Indian subcontinent. Of course, at the congress (accompanied by some
blood-shed) the two Yugoslavs expressed their support for the leftist fac-
tion led by B.T. Ranadive who had sharply condemned Joshi’s “opportun-
ism” on the grounds that he opposed the struggle of the peasant masses
against landlords, believing that revolution can only be carried out by the
working class. Regardless of the ideological friction that involved both
Yugoslavs because of their experience with a national liberation struggle
that had leaned on the peasant population, the narrative of the Yugoslav
rebellion experience was very popular in India. “When I stepped onto the
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
speaker’s podium,” Vladimir Dedijer reported, “greetings to comrade Tito
roared …”1
Several months later, when on 28 June, 1948, Stalin expelled Tito
from the Cominform, the family of most important European communist
parties, under the pretext that he was leading a neo-orthodox domestic
policy, Tito’s popularity among Indian communists decreased. In fact, the
Tito-Stalin split had been caused by different foreign policy aspirations
deriving from the inlated self-conidence of the Yugoslav leaders. This
dramatic event that left Yugoslavia entirely isolated deeply affected Tito
and his associates; for several months they were unable to free themselves
from the conviction that they were victims of a mistaken evaluation of
the Kremlin “master” regarding their orthodoxy. Hoping to prove their
faith, land collectivization was accelerated in the ield of internal affairs
while their foreign policy became declaratively homophonic with Mos-
cow’s. These developments were most clearly conirmed at the session of
the General Assembly of the United Nations called in the second half of
September, 1948, in Paris. In order to emphasize the renegade status of
Yugoslavia, the Soviets ostensibly ignored the Yugoslav delegation while
the latter would use any public occasion to express their support of the
Moscow line, hoping that their servile behaviour would help them win
back the lost appreciation. Many years later the leader of the Yugoslav
delegation, Slovene politician Edvard Kardelj, admitted in his memoirs
that he was ashamed of the role he had to interpret then.2 Kardelj’s harsh
criticism targeted, among others, Nehru and his Kashmir policy that the
Soviets disapproved of. Nehru was defamed as a hypocrite, a front man
for the hidden interests of Indian reactionaries, British colonialists, and
foreign companies.3
The Yugoslavs adopted an entirely different stance as early as a year
later at the session of the General Assembly of the United Nations held
in New York. In the preceding months they had inally realized that the
split with Stalin was irreversible, forcing them to look for support in the
West in order to survive and to pave their own path toward a socialism
that would be innovative both in terms of domestic and foreign policy.
Their stance was again clearly worded by Edvard Kardelj in an important
speech delivered in September, 1949, in which he emphasized that the
reasons for international conlicts should not be sought in the class strug-
gle but rather in the unequal relations between powerful and weak states.
By saying so, he rejected the Soviet thesis on the inevitable division of the
world into two blocs and advocated peaceful coexistence and international
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 Jože Pirjevec
cooperation unburdened by ideological prejudice. To further highlight their
independence from Moscow, in October, 1949, the Yugoslavs decided to
run against Czechoslovakia for a seat on the Security Council. As Anton
Bebler, one of the Yugoslav delegates, said: “If the Russians attacked us,
we would be like its members, among their judges”.4 A feral propaganda
and diplomatic conlict that was inally won by the Yugoslavs, partly as a
result of U.S. State Department support, followed. In fact, the leaders of
Truman’s administration believed that if Stalin considered him to be his
enemy number one, Tito had to be supported.5
Great Britain displayed a more cautious attitude toward Yugoslav can-
didacy, fearing that in the eyes of Moscow its support of Belgrade could
harm its candidate for the Security Council–India. Finally, on 20 Octo-
ber, 1949, India was elected to the Security Council in the irst round and
Yugoslavia in the second, triggering an hysterical reaction by the leader
of the Soviet delegation, Vyshinsky, who asserted that the Yugoslav pres-
ence on the Security Council was tantamount to an attack against the very
core of the United Nations.6 The election success signiied a new chapter
in Yugoslav foreign policy, as the United Nations emerged as a forum in
which the struggle for survival could be fought, and promoted increasing
awareness of the problems of the Asian-African worlds and their efforts to
break free from the chains of colonialism. The Yugoslav delegation in New
York was headed by the Slovene diplomat and ighter Aleš Bebler, who
soon won international recognition with his charm, acute intelligence, and
rich experience. In addition, he was a luent speaker of the languages of
all permanent members of the Security Council: English, French, Russian,
and Spanish. Given that Yugoslavia and India became elected members
of the Security Council in the same mandate, it was natural for Bebler,
immediately after his arrival to the Glass Palace of the United Nations, to
establish close contacts with the leading representatives of India. In his
memoirs he says that “for us the most important delegate was Bengal Rau
from India, former supreme judge, slender, with a high forehead and thin-
ning grey hair, and a sharp look behind thick glasses. His manners were
that of man brought up in a noble, aristocratic house. He spoke quietly and
slowly, rocking backwards and forwards in his chair as if in meditation”.7
Bebler was a learned man himself, which is why human harmony further
strengthened by related foreign policy choices developed between the two.
When the war between North and South Korea broke out at the beginning
of the summer of 1950, the USA submitted a resolution to the Security
Council in which the blame for the situation was attributed to Pyongyang.
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
The Soviet delegation left the hall in protest while the Yugoslavs, Indians,
and Egyptians abstained from voting. By doing so they allowed the reso-
lution to be adopted without any dificulty, enabling Washington to start
a campaign defending Seoul in the name of the United Nations. “We did
not support this policy,” Bebler recalls, “which is why we did not vote for
it. Neither did India nor Egypt. The three of us would make proposals to
end military activities and restore the initial situation. We demanded that
both sides should send their delegations to the UN to discuss a truce. Our
three delegations were coming closer and closer and becoming better and
better friends.”8
The further development of these initial stirrings of the non-aligned
policy was hindered by the raging of the Cold War in the early 1950s;
Yugoslavia was under attack from the powerful Stalin and hence needed
western, in particular US, economic and military assistance in order to
survive. Nevertheless, because of the intense cooperation with India in
the Security Council Yugoslavia opened an embassy in New Delhi in the
spring of 1950. It was initially led by the Serb Josip Djerdja and then –
from December, 1951 – by the Slovene Joža Vilfan. Vilfan, from a promi-
nent Trieste family, enriched Yugoslav diplomacy with an elite cultural
bearing that was enhanced by his wife Marija, a brilliant politician and
interlocutor. Joža and Marija Vilfan and their children settled in the Yu-
goslav residence located in one of the most prestigious districts of New
Delhi, in a villa opposite the Birla House, from where they managed to
weave a network of social contacts reaching to the very top of Indian so-
ciety. Furthermore, the local population welcomed their decision to stay in
the city during the summer and not follow the example of other diplomats
who followed the British colonial tradition, leeing the heat by summer-
ing in hill stations. The Yugoslav ambassador established genuinely close
contacts with Nehru, with whom he regularly met and engaged in lively
discussions. Their conversations, in which Nehru’s view of world peace
based on Buddhist values of a moral life – “Pañca-śila” – were certainly
thoroughly discussed, were carefully recorded in Vilfan’s diary that, how-
ever, has not been preserved: the Belgrade ministry for foreign affairs, in
fact, had issued a circular prohibiting Yugoslav diplomatic representatives
abroad form keeping any personal records on their activities and following
this order Vilfan obediently set ire to all his notes on his discussions with
Nehru. We can only imagine his surprise (and in part ironic disdain) when
more than twenty years later he learned that the author of the circular,
a Montenegrin politician, member of the secret services, and ambassa-
— 18 —
 Jože Pirjevec
dor, Veljko Mićunović, had published his conversations with Khrushchev,
which became an international bestseller.9
Vilfan did not stay in New Delhi for a long time. As early as 1953 he
was appointed secretary general of the President of the Republic. He did
not wish to part from India and his transfer was accompanied by deep
personal doubts. Yet he could not renounce one of the most prestigious and
responsible positions in contemporary Yugoslavia. As a result, in a highly
signiicant moment following Stalin’s death in March, 1953, two Slovene
diplomats who had strong personal bonds with India or some among its
most important representatives – Aleš Bebler and Joža Vilfan – held key
positions in Yugoslav foreign policy.
What did Stalin’s death mean for the Balkan state? It indicated the end
of the threat of a Soviet attack and opened a new chapter in the relations
between Belgrade and Moscow. Soon after Stalin’s funeral the irst signs
of reassurance began issuing from Moscow. In the following two to three
years these developed into a lively discussion on possible solutions to the
disharmonious condition between the two states. The resolution of the
conlict with the Soviet Union that became a concrete possibility in the
mid-1950s opened broad maneuvering space for Tito in his relations with
the west. Despite still being largely dependant on western countries and
despite signing a defence agreement with Greece and Turkey, members of
the North-Atlantic Alliance, in August, 1954, reconciliation with Moscow
remained a highly attractive objective both at the personal level (he was
still essentially a Bolshevik, as he himself would say) and at the political
level given that the opportunity to return to the Soviet Bloc opened up
again. Whether he truly experienced such temptations cannot be estab-
lished with certainty. A fact is, though, that in this period two circles, lean-
ing on the rivalry among Tito’s associates, formed in Belgrade. One circle
was led by the Slovene politician and ideologist Edvard Kardelj and the
other by the Serb leader of secret services Aleksandar Ranković. Kardelj
personiied the expression of the most dynamic forces within Yugoslav
society, while Ranković was a representative of the most conservative pole.
Both were supervised by Tito as the supreme arbiter, which means that the
top of the Yugoslav establishment engaged in a determined ight for his
appreciation (and succession). This is the context in which Kardelj’s circle,
including Bebler and Vilfan of course, made every effort to convince the
Marshall of the value of political liaisons with leaders of former western
colonies and semi-colonies in Africa and Asia, among them military dic-
tators and feudal lords.10 These can be viewed as the origins of the idea
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
of the non-aligned movement, mostly an expression of the rejection of the
more dangerous Soviet Bloc, as perceived by the liberal communists, and
less so of the western.
Not without problems, Kardelj’s circle managed to convince Tito to opt
for their foreign policy alternative, which soon opened broad possibili-
ties for international participation for Yugoslav diplomacy. Parallel to the
development of relations among states we can record an intensiication
of contacts between the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and a variety of
European and non-European socialist parties. After the split between Bel-
grade and Moscow, these parties realized that Yugoslav self-management
socialism was an experiment worth paying attention to. As early as July,
1951, Yugoslavia was visited by Ram Manohar Lohia, an important repre-
sentative of the Indian socialist party, who had been invited to Yugoslavia
to learn about “the achievements of the people’s revolution, in particular
the participation of workers in the management of the economy”. His was
followed by visits from Prabaker Padi, editor of the socialist paper Nav-
sakti of Bombay, who was received by Tito himself, and Mata Pahi, leader
of the “Indian youth”.11 In October, 1951, Marija Vilfan led the organiza-
tion of an international conference in Zagreb on international coexistence
and peace in Korea. Numerous European, American, and Asian repre-
sentatives were invited to the conference, conirming Yugoslav large-scale
ambitions regarding both domestic and foreign policy based on economic
development and equality of all states, large and small. Their interlocu-
tors gladly listened to them and expressed their interest in the Yugoslav
path to socialism.12 “Decentralization”, Farid Ansari, leader of the Indian
socialist delegation that came for a visit in June, 1952, said, “has become
the basis of political and economic life in new Yugoslavia. Indian social-
ists view the realization of the decentralization program as an expression
of their own democratic and socialist aspirations. The Yugoslav refusal to
subordinate its politics to orders from Moscow provides the most important
proof of its aspiration toward freedom, which will give new power and a
new awareness to the progressive forces in the world in their ight against
a two-headed demon – capitalism and Stalinism”.13
In mid-December, 1952, representatives of Indian and Indonesian so-
cialists were invited to the 6th Congress of the communist party, renamed
the Union of Communists of Yugoslavia at the congress. On the eve of the
congress Tito and his closest associates (mostly from the Kardelj circle,
including Bebler and Vilfan) met with their guests from Asia to explain
the signiicant changes they were planning to introduce in relation to the
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 Jože Pirjevec
democratization of Yugoslav society, and to express their interest in the
problems of the third world.14 Their cooperation reached its peak with the
decision of the Yugoslav leaders to send a delegation, including prominent
diplomats such as Milovan Djilas and Aleš Bebler, to the Asian social-
ist conference to be held in Rangoon. The conference was convened in
January, 1953, in Burma, at the time governed by the Antifascist People’s
Freedom League in cooperation with the socialists. The spiritual father of
the conference was Nehru, who actively participated in the formation of
the “third power”, capable of opposing the eastern and western blocs.15
The presence of the Yugoslav delegation at the conference in Rangoon,
where the two representatives from Yugoslavia emphasized the importance
of the Yugoslav experience in its ight for independence and socialism,
though not suggesting theirs was the only possible model for the develop-
ment of Asian states, drew considerable international attention. The visit
of the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie to Belgrade in the summer of
1954 and the travel of Marshall Tito to India and Burma at the end of the
same year echoed even more. After his visits to the Soviet Union, various
satellite states, and Great Britain and Greece after the split with Stalin,
Tito was making his irst trip to Asia. Yugoslav propaganda announced the
visit as the realization of visions of peaceful coexistence that Kardelj had
talked about in his UN speech as early as September, 1949. The invitation
had been sparked by Tito himself when in July, 1953, in a conversation
held with the Indian vice-president Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan he expressed
the wish to meet Nehru. The invitation was brought to Belgrade by Vijaya
Lakshmi Pandit, the premier’s sister and chair of the Indian parliament,
who spent the days from 21 through 29 June, 1954, in Yugoslavia.16
Accompanied by several associates, among them the minister of for-
eign affairs, Koča Popović, the minister of internal affairs, Aleksandar
Ranković, and the coordinator of the event, Joža Vilfan, Tito departed
from Rijeka on his yacht Galeb on 1 December, 1954. He was the irst
European state leader to visit India, which is why he was received with
royal honours. Yugoslav public opinion did not express appreciation of
the trip, believing that it was far too expensive to undertake when the
country was suffering from a shortage of coal and butter and when the
prices of all essential products had generally risen. As a result, the re-
gime’s propaganda machine used all available means to emphasize the
importance of the visit, which was said to contribute to the consolidation
of peaceful coexistence.17 The contact with Indian and later Burmese
masses and their leaders further reinforced Tito’s convictions that it was
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
his destiny – because of his ight against Hitler and Stalin – to become
the teacher and inspirer of the developing nations, and that he had to
broaden the Balkan and European narrowness and lay out politics on a
global scale. In an article that was published in the central Yugoslav party
newspaper Borba on Tito’s birthday on 25 May, 1955, Vladimir Bakarić,
the most prominent Croatian politician, wrote that “Tito not only is a man
of our time but also a man of the contemporary world. This is where his
reputation originates from and this is how he won the hearts of people
all around the world”.18
A bombardment of propaganda prepared Indian public opinion for Tito’s
visit. Expecting the prominent guest the press wrote at length about Yugo-
slavia and Tito, while during his visit the event was placed in the spotlight
of media attention.19 Tito left Bombay by train on 16 December and on the
following day reached New Delhi, where Nehru was expecting him. On
18 December he planted a ‘tree of friendship’ where Mahatma Gandhi had
been cremated. Then on 21 December he delivered a resounding speech
in the Indian parliament in which he presented his vision of international
relations. “What I have in mind is not some kind of passive coexistence
but rather active cooperation and agreed upon solutions to all problems
as well as removal of all elements that can potentially hinder the broadest
cooperation among all states, large and small”.20 Not accepting Nehru’s
vision of values “Panch Shila” as the absolute path toward world peace,
Tito enriched the formula, infusing it with a dynamism it initially had not
had. However, this potential stumbling block did not prevent the two states-
men from issuing a joint statement on 22 December, after holding intense
talks that had only been attended by Krishna Menon and Joža Vilfan. In
the statement they expressed their unity and emphasized that they were
not planning to establish a “third bloc”.21 From New Delhi Tito traveled to
Madras, where he attended a conference of the Indian National Congress.
At the conference the chair of the Congress, Debar, thanked him in front
of 600,000 people for having brought the idea of international coexistence
to India. On his way back from Burma Tito made another ive-day stop in
India, from 20 to 25 January, 1955.
Tito came to India during intense preparatory activities for a conference
of Afro-Asian states that would be held in Bandung between 18 and 24
April, 1955, following an initiative of the Indonesian Prime Minister Ali
Sastroamidjojo, Nehru, and the Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai. The
historic event saw the participation of representatives of 29 states, most of
which had just recently freed their nations from colonialism, at a confer-
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 Jože Pirjevec
ence dedicated to peace and development. Nevertheless, the conference
also revealed different political orientations, particular illustrations includ-
ing the disagreements between India and Pakistan, and India and China
– to mention only the most important ones – that indicated the inability to
form a common political platform that would not just exist on paper. In this
context, related to common goals rather than a common colonial tradition,
Nehru began considering the alternative provided by Yugoslavia. On the
other hand, Tito perceived the Bandung Decalogue comprised of all the
main principles of non-alignment to be so promising that in the following
twelve months he further intensiied his contacts with the states that advo-
cated it. A vertiginous diplomatic campaign followed, involving bilateral
meetings of the most prominent advocators of the neutralist option: Tito,
Nasser, U Nu, Sukarno, and Selassie, all of whom believed that the explo-
sive situation in the contemporary world entrapped in the tentacles of the
Cold War urgently needed their initiative.22 (Within this context the visits
made to Brioni in Yugoslavia by Nehru and his daughter, Indira Gandhi, at
the end of June and beginning of July, 1955, must be highlighted, for they
resulted in a common declaration that emphasized the harmony between
Yugoslav and Indian foreign policies.23)
The result of the frantic exchange of opinions was a Brioni meeting
among Tito, Nehru, and Nasser held in mid-July, 1956. Having just re-
turned from Moscow where he had gone to return a visit paid to him in
Belgrade in May, 1955, by the new Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev,
the Yugoslav Marshall was enjoying the zenith of his diplomatic success.
These meetings, reconciliatory in nature, resolved the split between Yu-
goslavia and the Soviet Union that had been caused by Stalin yet did not
restore the vassal relationship between the Balkan sate and the mother
of communism as it had been before 28 June, 1948. Tito, who had man-
aged to preserve his independence in relations with the Soviets, could
thus adopt the authoritative stance of a free man independent from both
the west and the east. Despite the differences that distinguished Nehru,
an aristocratic Brahmin brought up in the tradition of British parliamen-
tarism, Nasser, a young colonel who had only a year before seized power
in Egypt by coup, and the charismatic Yugoslav Marshall, infatuated with
communism, the Brioni meeting resulted in harmony much more intense
than that reached in Bandung. Actually, the Yugoslav-Arab-Indian leaders
mostly only conirmed the principles announced in the Indonesian city
of Bandung – the respect of the United Nations Charter, abstention from
interference in the internal affairs of other countries, refraining from the
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
use of force in international relations, settlement of conlicts by peace-
ful means, promotion of peaceful cooperation among all nations, and
promotion of economic development and sovereignty of colonial states.
However, the meeting gave them a new momentum because it explicitly
framed them within the concept of non-alignment.24
The turbulent end of 1956 was characterized by the revolution in Hun-
gary and British-French intervention in Egypt in response to Nasser’s
decision to nationalize the Suez Canal. Both events, expressions of hegem-
onic and imperialist aspirations of the great powers, further consolidated
the idea of non-alignment as a necessary political choice for the states that
opposed the division of the world into blocs. As a result, Tito developed a
broad diplomatic campaign based on his extensive travels. He enthusiasti-
cally dedicated himself to the campaign that enabled him to shine in the
global scene and form his policy in direct contact with leaders of the third
world. In December, 1958, he set off for a three-month trip to Indonesia,
Burma, India, Ceylon, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Syria (the United Arab Re-
public), where he tried to weave a network of relations based on common
ideological and political aspirations and not overt economic and cultural
interests. Even though the “non-bloc” countries advocated “peaceful co-
existence” and emphasized that all forces and movements “striving for
active coexistence among nations regardless of their social systems” had
to be supported, their ambitions in fact did have a revolutionary charge.
The leading position taken over by Yugoslavia did not solely originate
from its idealism but rather from the wish to conirm its speciic interna-
tional role among the domestic and international public that would result
in the consolidation of the legitimacy of its regime. Its policy primarily
was an “instrumentum regni”, loating high above the heads of people as a
vaunting paper dragon. Nevertheless, the concept of national dignity, and
the right of nations to political and economic sovereignty were transmitted
to third world countries where they resulted in several positive reactions.
In the states visited by Tito the press emphasized that Yugoslavia, as the
only country from divided Europe worthy of “respect”, had to carry out
a special task in Asia and Africa. The “white man’s burden” placed on
his shoulders of course suited its bearer, encouraged him, and increased
his hopes regarding the huge beneits his country would enjoy. After his
return from the Afro-Asian tour on 7 March, 1958, he addressed a mass
gathered at the Belgrade railway station and spoke about signiicant eco-
nomic opportunities for Yugoslav industry in new markets, from where
products “which we need” could be imported.25
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 Jože Pirjevec
The Soviet press initially ignored the travel undertaken by Marshall
Tito and then joined the Chinese attacks and reproaches asserting that he
was nothing more than an imperialistic footman. On the other hand, the
western countries soon changed their originally negative judgment and
started to perceive the Marshall’s intervention into their former colonial
estates more analytically. In fact, it could not be overlooked that despite his
Marxist ideology he conveyed the need for moderation in consideration of
the backward reality of Asia and Africa, thus contributing to the weaken-
ing of Soviet and Chinese inluence. The British ambassador to Belgrade
asserted that Tito would probably harm Moscow-Beijing positions in Asia
more than the West ever could if only they permitted him to do things his
way. He added that they had to support him, yet with caution, so that they
would not give the Chinese and Russians the opportunity to stigmatize
him as the Trojan horse of imperialism. As a result, the ambassador rec-
ommended that the press should not express too much enthusiasm over
his activities.26
From the theoretical point of view, the ideology of non-alignment had
been worked on by Edvard Kardelj, in fact the actual bearer of this line
of politics in Yugoslavia. The programme of the Union of Communists of
Yugoslavia, prepared under his leadership and accepted at the 7th Congress
held in Ljubljana in 1958, was based on the inding that the transition
from capitalism to socialism was not necessarily revolution-bound but was
rather viewed as a process that involved the developing countries and their
speciic dynamics. He opposed the bloc logic of the Manichean division of
the world and proclaimed it to be the main obstacle to universal peace, and
equated the struggle for national independence of subjugated nations with
the class struggle.27 These stances provoked a harsh attack from Moscow
and Beijing against Yugoslavia, providing further encouragement for the
latter to seek support among the friendly states of Africa and Asia, and up-
grade the thesis claiming that the key problem of the contemporary world
was not the conlict between the west and the east but rather the widening
gap between the rich north and poor south.28
In 1958 Tito started entertaining the thought of organizing an inter-
national conference that would be attended by non-aligned states (India,
Burma, Egypt, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia), and the neutral European states
of Sweden, Switzerland, and Austria. The objective of the meeting would
be to exert pressure on the great powers to bridge their differences. Ac-
cording to leaks from within the Belgrade ministry of foreign affairs, Tito
and Nehru exchanged letters on this topic. Sukarno and Nasser as well,
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
who visited Yugoslavia in the irst half of the year, were familiar with
their content. At the end of the year the Marshall set off for another trip to
African and Asian countries, including India, where he was affectionately
welcomed in early January, 1958. At a banquet organized in his honour
after his arrival to New Delhi, the president of the Indian government,
Rajendra Prasad, assured in a toast that Yugoslavia and India had become
so close by then that Tito did not have to feel like a guest in India any
more. In an emotionally coloured reply Tito emphasized that the close
friendship between the two countries mitigated concern for the future of
humankind.29
In the early 1960s the tension in the relations between the east and
the west signiicantly increased as a result of the Soviet achievements
in cosmonautics, which exacerbated American feelings of vulnerability.
When the Soviets shot down an American U2 reconnaissance aircraft over
their territory on 1 May, 1960, the winds of the Cold War started blowing
between Moscow and Washington again, signiicantly intensifying the
sense of collective danger. In this tense atmosphere the 15th session of the
General Assembly of the United Nations, attended by numerous presidents
of states and governments, for instance Eisenhower, Khrushchev, Macmil-
lan, Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno, Nkrumah, and Castro, opened in New
York on 20 September, 1960. Tito believed that the conlict between the
great powers could only be resolved through collective pressure exercised
by the non-aligned. Therefore, he invited his colleagues to a meeting to
the Yugoslav mission to the UN on Fifth Avenue where a plan for over-
coming the conlict was drawn up. On 29 September, 1960 the plan was
submitted to the president of the General Assembly, saying that following
an initiative of the UN the leaders of the great powers should resume the
stalled dialogue. “The Initiative of Five”, as it was called, actually failed;
following an order of the USA the amendments to the initiative proposed
by the representatives of Argentina and Australia radically impoverished
its content. Nevertheless, it can be considered the irst coordinated action
of the non-aligned on the international scene.30
The 15th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations can
be viewed as the real beginning of the non-aligned movement. Until then
its members had only attempted to mediate in conlicts between the great
powers. Since then, on the other hand, they started the formation of in-
dependent initiatives, such as the “Declaration on Cooperation between
States” offered for discussion to the General Assembly at a moment when
as many as seventeen African colonies had reached their independence.
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 Jože Pirjevec
Thus a new chapter of the non-aligned movement began. After his return
to Yugoslavia Tito emphasized that in the international ield a new power,
representing the aspirations of almost all humankind, had emerged.31 Con-
vinced of possessing a political instrument that would allow him to play a
irst-class role on the world scene, in the spring of 1961 Tito set off on an
“historical path of peace” across African countries. The extensive tour that
took two months and the expenses of which were far too high for the Yu-
goslav purse was concluded in Egypt where he proposed the organization
of a conference of the non-aligned movement in Belgrade. On 20 April,
1961, he received Nasser’s approval and soon after Nehru’s, even though
initially the latter was not very keen on the project.32
After a series of preparatory meetings, among which the most important
was that held in Cairo between 5 and 12 June, the irst conference of “non-
bloc countries” opened at the beginning of September, 1961. The confer-
ence was attended by 25 more or less exotic state rulers, among them the
hieratic Emperor Haile Selassie from Ethiopia, Archbishop Makarios from
Cyprus, young King Hassan II from Morocco, Nehru, Nasser, and Indone-
sian President Sukarno. In addition to the full members of the movement,
representatives of numerous liberation fronts came to the Yugoslav capi-
tal from Algeria, Angola, Mozambique, and the South African Republic.
In order to conirm their wish for cooperation with Latin America the
organizers invited Cuba, where two years earlier the revolution of Fidel
Castro had won, and three more countries as observers: Brazil, Bolivia,
and Ecuador. Thus, the representatives of at least one billion people from
Jakarta to Havana, from the Himalayas to the Andes, which meant more
than one third of the world’s current population and approximately one
quarter of UN votes, gathered in Belgrade. Despite claiming they did
not want to establish a new bloc, the concluding 27 point communiqué
outlined a common policy dedicated to the questions of disarmament,
decolonization, racial discrimination, and economic development. They
introduced themselves to the international public with the pride of selected
ones who personiied “human consciousness” even though they did not
make pretences about their actual economic or military power. In that
period two events in particular, the Berlin crisis and the Soviet decision to
resume atmospheric nuclear testing, increased the threat of a nuclear war;
following a proposal put forth by Nehru, the non-aligned movement, “sad
and deeply agitated by the worsening of the international situation”, sent
an appeal to the leaders of the opposing blocs, Khrushchev and the new
president of the USA, J. F. Kennedy, inviting them to “start negotiating a
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
peaceful solution to existing discords” and clearly admitting that the “keys
to peace and war” were in the hands of the two great powers.33
The preparation and management of the conference saw the participa-
tion of Slovene diplomats as well. The irst among them, after Kardelj,
was his close associate and conidant Anton Vratuša. As the deputy of the
secretary general of the conference, Vladimir Popović, he played an active
role in the organization and successful completion of the conference that
was, nevertheless, accompanied by internal discord and discussion. His
estimate of the events then (and later) is as follows: “In the time when the
world was divided into blocs the Non-Aligned Movement represented a
signiicant factor in the struggle for peace, progress, and world security.
The intervention of Cuba and the great powers in the African continent
delivered a hard blow to the movement but it still managed to make a
contribution to the conference (for Security and Cooperation in Europe in
1975) in Helsinki, and even today its inluence in the group of 77 develop-
ing countries can be felt”.34

Notes
1 Vladimir Dedijer, Izgubljeni boj J.V.Stalina 1949-1953 (Ljubljana: Delo, 1969), pp.
19–29.
2 Edvard Kardelj, Spomini, Boj za priznanje in neodvisnost nove Jugoslavije (Državna
založba Slovenije, 1980), p.132.
3 Alvin Z.Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Non-aligned World (Princeton N.J.: Prin-
ceton University Press, 1970), p. 8.
4 Anton Bebler, Čez drn in strn, Spomini (Koper: Založba Lipa, 1981), p. 192.
5 Jože Pirjevec, Jugoslavija: [1918-1992]: nastanek, razvoj ter razpad Karadjordje-
vićeve in Titove Jugoslavije Jugoslavija (Koper: Lipa, 1995), p. 190.
6 J. Pirjevec, Il gran riiuto: guerra fredda e calda tra Tito, Stalin e l’Occidente (Tri-
este: Editoriale Stampa Triestina, 1990), pp. 377–378.
7 Anton Bebler, Knjiga o Primožu Alešu Beblerju (Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba,
2004), p. 146.
8 Ibid., p. 147; and Leo Mates, Medjunarodni odnosi socialističke Jugoslavije (Beo-
grad: Nolit, 1976), pp. 111–112.
9 Veljko Mićunović, “Personal conversation between Vilfan and the author”, in: Mo-
skovske godine 1956-1958 (Zagreb: Liber, 1977).
10 Anton Bebler, Knjiga o Primožu Alešu Beblerju, pp. 183–185.
11 Antonio Sciacca, La Jugoslavia di Tito sulla strada del non allineamento (Università
degli Studi di Messina, B.A. thesis), pp. 173–174.
12 Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Amtes, Berlin, B 12 97, Belgrad, 1.11.1951,
Friedenskongress in Zagreb.

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 Jože Pirjevec
13 Antonio Sciacca, La Jugoslavia di Tito sulla strada del non allineamento, p. 177.
14 Narodni arhiv Hrvatske, Zagreb, Arhiv Bakarić, Kutija 22, Informativni bilten, no.
8, Belgrade, 15.12.1952.
15 Antonio Sciacca, La Jugoslavia di Tito sulla strada del non allineamento, p. 202;
and Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Non-aligned World (Princeton N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 40–42.
16 Antonio Sciacca, La Jugoslavia di Tito sulla strada del non allineamento, p. 217;
and Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Non-aligned World (Princeton N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 47–48.
17 Politisches Archiv des Uswartigen Amtes, Belgrade, 17.12.1954; New Delhi,
12.1.1955.
18 Jože Pirjevec, Jugoslavija: [1918–1992]: nastanek, razvoj ter razpad Karadjordje-
vićeve in Titove Jugoslavije Jugoslavija (Koper: Lipa, 1995), p. 224.
19 Politisches Archiv des Uswartigen Amtes, New Delhi, 12.1.1955.
20 Alvin Z.Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Non-aligned World (Princeton N.J.: Prin-
ceton University Press, 1970), p. 54; and Zvonko Staubinger, Maršal miru (Zagreb:
Globus, 1980), p. 43.
21 Antonio Sciacca, La Jugoslavia di Tito sulla strada del non allineamento, p. 219.
22 Antonio Sciacca, La Jugoslavia di Tito sulla strada del non allineamento, p. 241.
23 Sava Miljaković, Gosti socialističke Jugoslavije 1944–1980 (Beograd: Privredna
štampa, 1980), p. 82.
24 Bojana Tadić, Nesvrstanost u savremenim medjunarodnim odnosima (Beograd: Ko-
munist, 1973), p. 146.
25 TNA, FO 371/145114/RY1022/12.
26 TNA, FO 371/145114/RY1022/12.
27 Jože Pirjevec, Jugoslavija: [1918-1992]: nastanek, razvoj ter razpad Karadjordje-
vićeve in Titove Jugoslavije Jugoslavija (Koper: Lipa, 1995), p. 233.
28 J. Broz Tito, Nezavisnost i savremeni svijet (Beograd: Komunist, 1982), pp. 627-
640.
29 Zvonko Staubinger, Maršal miru (Zagreb: Globus, 1980), p. 92.
30 Momir M. Stojković, Tito-Nehru-Nasser, nastanak i razvoj politike i pokreta nes-
vrstanosti (Zaječar: Zaječar, 1983), p. 124.
31 Bojana Tadić, Istorijski razvoj politike nesvrstavanja 1946-1966 (Beograd : Institut
za međunarodnu politiku i privredu, 1968), p. 55; and Momir M. Stojković, Tito-
Nehru-Nasser, nastanak i razvoj politike i pokreta nesvrstanosti (Zaječar: Zaječar,
1983), p. 125
32 Jože Pirjevec, Jugoslavija : [1918–1992]: nastanek, razvoj ter razpad Karadjord-
jevićeve in Titove Jugoslavije Jugoslavija (Koper: Lipa, 1995), p. 263; and Peter
Willetts, The Non-Aligned Movement: the origins of a third world alliance (London:
Frances Printer Ltd., 1982), p. 13.
33 Delo, 7.9.1961; and Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Amtes, Berlin, B 12 97,
Plurex, 7.9.1961.
34 Anton Vratuša, letter to the author.

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Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
 India between Memories and the Future1
Ernest Petrič

I came to India in the inal days of November 1989 as Ambassador of

a state that does not exist anymore – the Socialist Federative Republic of
Yugoslavia or SFRY. A few days later I presented my credentials to the
then Indian president Venkataraman and took up my duties. They were
those of an important ambassadorial position. At the time, Yugoslavia pre-
sided over the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries and, quite naturally,
India was its most weighty partner within this Movement – a partner and
a rival, in fact, to leadership over it. India was then undergoing internal
political change. Only a month before my arrival, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi had
had to resign as Prime Minister because of the lack of clarity about the
purchase of Bofors cannons. This indicated that at least for the time being,
the Nehrus’ rule era was coming to a close and that the Congress Party,
which had been in power in India for decades, was in crisis. And indeed,
at least for some years, the Congress Party, with its idiosyncratic variety
of socialism, had to part with power.
At that time, India was still faced with the problem of poverty, although
it had resolved many problems after becoming independent in 1948 – such
as periods of hunger that had periodically occurred under the Bristish co-
lonial rule. With its agrarian policy that, although inclined towards socia-
lism, nevertheless was suited to the needs of the peasant and was far from
land nationalisation, India as a country that in the past had been burdened
by recurrent famines had become able to secure enough food for its own
needs. However, in addition to poverty, it had other socioeconomicpro-
blems. At the time of my Ambassadorship (1989-1991) it seemed that, like
the entire socialist world, India – with its own half-socialist, half-capitalist
system with elements of the traditional mode of economy – was also in a
situation calling for reforms. Those reforms ensued in the 1990s, after I
had already left.
Another pressing issue at that time was the problem of Kashmir. Armed
conlicts took place not only in Kashmir but also in Punjab, although the
problem of Punjab was later settled – partly by reforms, partly by satis-
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
fying the special interests of this agriculturally exceptionally rich Indian
region, and partly by an effective use of security forces. However, India
also suffered unrest and guerrilla ights in the North East – the regions
of Assam, Tripura, Nagaland. The issue of language was also a cause for
strife. On one hand, there were tendencies to strengthen the dominant
position of the Hindi language, which was to replace English or do away
with it as the additional oficial language that, however, was in fact the
lingua franca of – primarily – the elite of the entire Indian subcontinent.
Those tendencies met with strong opposition, especially on the part of
Indian political elite whose mother tongue was not Hindi.
In external relations, the situation was also quite complicated. India
had only just managed to pull itself from its entanglement in ®ri Lankā,
having ended its unsuccessful military intervention there (IPKF). The
consequences of this involvement were serious. They remain to be felt
today in India’s relations with ®ri Lankā, and Rajiv Gandhi has ultimately
paid for them with his life. India’s relations with its other neighbouring
states were also unsettled. It was on the brink of war with Pakistan, the
issue of Kashmir had become critical. Its relations with China were not
good, rather hostile than friendly. The relations with the USA were also
not settled. They were poor rather than good, which inally became evi-
dent during the First Gulf War in 1991. The most settled relations India
had were those with the Soviet Union, its traditional friend. However, the
USSR was itself disintegrating. On the other hand, Indians had – and still
have – a unique relationship with Great Britain, as far as culture, language
and some traditions are concerned. At the same time, they still feel the
burden of the heritage and prejudices of their colonial past, which often
also produces reserved feelings towards Britain.
The question of religion was also complicated in India at the time. On
one hand, Hindu nationalism was on the rise, which became clearly evident
a few years later when the BJP won the elections. Islamic fundamentalism,
too, was on the rise. In the irst place, India resented interference with its
internal affairs, not only of Pakistan but also of other radical Islamic circles
and countries. The roots of this intervention, particularly in Kashmir, and
of the radicalisation of Muslims in India reached to Wahabist circles in
Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, it is quite curious that India at that time
had good relations with Saddam’s Iraq. Actually, it was precisely this that
was the big issue and my complicated diplomatic task at the time: how
to win India’s readiness to join in in the united international turn against
Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait. What many people in India saw in Iraq
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 Ernest Petrič
was a secular state, posing no danger to secular India, while they strongly
resented the spread of Wahabism and – indirectly – Islamic radicalism not
only to Kashmir but also to Islamic circles in other parts of India. Concer-
ning this, we must bear in mind that back then, the Muslim “minority” in
India already totalled more than 100 million people.
In short, at the time of my Ambassadorship, India was experiencing
a number of problems. In a particular way, the issue of castes was also
in the foreground. The leftist (even more leftist than the Congress Party)
governing coalition under the leadership of V.P. Singh tried to implement
positive measures, the so-called “positive discrimination” in favour of
those parts of Indian society that belonged to the lowest castes. They were
to acquire a privileged position – mainly access to universities and gover-
nment-paid jobs. This met with violent revolt on the part of the traditional
society of India, with numerous demonstrations and several tens of self-
burnings. All this brought about internal political dificulties in India.
The relations with Nepal – squeezed between India and China – were also
marked by a number of unresolved issues and, primarily, by Nepal’s fear
of its mighty neighbours. In concrete terms, this showed in the bilateral
disputes over the use of water and some other issues to do with customs
duties and the economy.
The relations between Yugoslavia, which I represented as its Ambas-
sador, and India had been very good, especially at the political level, for
a substantial number of years. A co-founder – together with Yugoslavia
– of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, India had been, as it were,
Yugoslavia’s main partner in international relations, although the two co-
untries not only cooperated but also often competed with each other over
which would be the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement. Nevertheless,
India and Yugoslavia shared their views concerning the key question, whi-
ch was how to position Non-Alignment internationally, representing a joint
counterbalance to those members of it that – mainly under the leadership
of Cuba – tried to bring the Non-Aligned Movement in socialist waters,
to a “strategic reserve” intended as support to Soviet Union.
Economic relations between India and the SFRY were also quite so-
und. In good years – mainly when also Yugoslav ships were sold to India
– annual trade exchange amounted to close to 500 million dollars. A con-
siderable share of it was Slovenia’s: chiely because India’s central busi-
ness partner on the part of Yugoslavia was the Ljubljana-based company
Intertrade. Back then, Intertrade had a representative ofice not only in
New Delhi but also in Calcutta (Kolkata), Madras (Chenai) and Bombay
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
(Mumbai), and in fact the majority of important business dealings between
India and the SFRY were made through it. If trade exchange igures from
those years are compared with today’s, it is impossible not to feel that
much more could be done as regards economic relations between Slovenia
and India. The situation seems to be improving after India opened an em-
bassy in Ljubljana in 2007. In areas other than the economy there was no
notable co-operation, partly on account of the costs and the long distances.
There was some cultural exchange, which, however, – at least as regards
communication with India – was mainly implemented through Belgrade
rather than Ljubljana or other Yugoslav cities. However, an interesting pro-
ject was the Ljubljana-based Centre for Public Enterprises in Developing
Countries – which is now known as ICPE. This was an interesting case
of India’s engagement on the European continent. The Centre still exists
and is partly inanced by India. Unfortunately, it has been having problems
for more than a decade. This Centre could have been the central locus of
India’s presence in Central Europe, as well as a possibility for Slovenia to
use it as a point from which to radiate its interests to India. Slovenia could
thereby draw the attention of India as well as its neighbouring countries
– particularly ®ri Lankā, Bangladesh and Nepal. The Centre could have
been an important locus of India’s presence in Europe and of Slovenia’s
contacts with that important part of the world. In view of the most recent
developments and endeavours, it seems that the ICPE is in for a brighter
future.
My diplomatic work in India was highly interesting. As Ambassador
of a friendly country that, moreover, presided over the Non-Aligned Mo-
vement, I had, as it were, an exceptional position among my colleagues.
This showed not only in the fact that India’s Foreign Minister, I. K. Guj-
ral, frequently attended dinners and events at my residence, which was a
sheer exception. A special attitude was also visible in terms of access to
information, as I, being Ambassador of the president of the Non-Aligned
Movement, was kept regularly informed of India’s views about internati-
onal matters. Naturally, such information was also interesting for others.
At that time, the situation in diplomacy was unlike today when Foreign
Ministers often directly meet each other or communicate over the phone
without involving the Embassies. Back then, diplomacy and thus the Am-
bassador still played the important role of the one who passed information
from his or her country to the host country, and vice versa – who was in
fact the medium of relations between the two countries. I remember Nelson
Mandela’s irst visit abroad – in India – after his release from prison. I was
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 Ernest Petrič
the only of the Ambassadors that was invited to the formal dinner in his
honour. This has stuck in my memory especially because of the wonder-
ful address Mandela delivered, without any hatred and with a clear look
into the future of a multi-racial South Africa. I then started to believe that
South Africa would be able to free itself of apartheid without bloodshed.
The fact that I was so well-informed by Indians also ensured me a spe-
cial position among my colleagues. Thus I passed on to them a substantial
amount of information and contacts, particularly to the Ambassador of
USA with whom I was in close touch, while I also passed his views to
Indian side, especially during the Gulf War. Later this paid off, when in
September 1991 I went – directly from India, as it were – to Washington
as Ambassador of Slovenia.
Generally, diplomatic life in New Delhi at the time was such as today
we can only recall in memories and that does not exist anymore, be it in
Europe or the States or elsewhere. Diplomats spent time together not only
at receptions, events, formal occasions, which Indians and their Proto-
col Department really knew how to organize, but also at playing tennis,
playing golf, riding horses in the presidential horseriding club. Actually,
important diplomatic talks took place there.
It was particularly interesting – and something that I still ind hard to
understand – how Indians viewed the disintegration of Yugoslavia. This
process was already going on when I came to India as Ambassador. In-
dians knew well that I was Slovene, also advocating Slovene views and
interests. And they knew that Slovenia was at the head of Yugoslav move-
ments for the state’s reconstruction on democratic bases. They knew that
Slovenia was adamant to desert this state if no deep changes took place.
At least at the beginning, Indian views of the break-up of Yugoslavia
were reserved but – I dare claim – never hostile towards Slovenia. Their
reservation resulted from the fact that Yugoslavia had been a traditionally
friendly country, the “Tito’s Yugoslavia”, which had a special meaning
for Indians in their consciousness, their political memory. In addition,
India’s view of the dissolution of Yugoslavia was notably marked by the
fact that it was itself faced with separatism, as they called it – in Kashmir,
Punjab, the North-East. Naturally, this created in India – similarly as in
some other countries, like Spain – disturbing comparisons as well as fear
that with the breakup of Yugoslavia, separatist tendencies in other parts
of the world might also strengthen. At the same time, however, most Indi-
ans involved in relations with Yugoslavia understood the explanation that
what was going on in Yugoslavia was a clash between conservative, tota-
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
litarian communist forces headed by Milošević’s Serbia, and democratic
tendencies, efforts to initiate democratic reforms that Slovenia embodied.
This was evident to many Indian politicians, many Indians, as well as a
substantial part of Indian media. This was why India did not demonstrate
any outspoken opposition to Slovenia’s “separatism” or the dissolution of
Yugoslavia. Naturally – for obvious reasons – it was also not among those
that would particularly approve of the breakup of Yugoslavia. It maintained
a reserved position.
I myself tried to invariably interpret the disintegration of Yugoslavia
as a clash between tendencies calling for reforms, state reconstruction
and democratisation, which, however, met with opposition on the part of
conservative, totalitarian forces. The latter tried to redirect and reorganize
Yugoslavia according to their own ideas that included Serbian dominati-
on and a non-democratic system. Many Indians did not ind this hard to
understand, as India with its speciic democratic tradition, its linguistic
and religious structure, and its federalism also readily embraced the idea
of equality among peoples and languages as opposed to the domination
by one of them. It is interesting that I personally, openly showing that I
was Slovene, never had any problems with Indians on this account, neither
during my service there nor after I had resigned as Ambassador when the
Indian Government already knew that I was going – as a representative
of Slovenia – to Washington. On the contrary: I enjoyed their support and
sympathy. At an exceptionally high level they organized for me not only a
parting reception but what in diplomacy is the highest level for a leaving
Ambassador, i.e. dinner with spouses for around 40 persons. On that occa-
sion, a high representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in his address
eschewed, as it were, any criticism in relation with my leave or the brea-
kup of Yugoslavia – which had already been a fact in early August 1991.
Rather, he expressed his wish for me personally to be successful in, as he
put it, “representing a new country in a new responsible position”; Indians
knew that it had already been decided that I was going to Washington.
I still remember the long faces of my deputy – a rather likeable Serbian
diplomat – and his wife at that dinner that clearly showed that India had
already come to terms with the breakup of the SFRY, or at least Slovenia’s
desertion of it. In short, India was surprisingly quick – considering its
speciic circumstances – to understand the dissolution of Yugoslavia. This
is probably due to the high quality of India’s Foreign Service and political
elite, which understood what was going on in Yugoslavia and the whole
Eastern Europe at that time.
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 Ernest Petrič
However, before we take a look at what India is today and what it might
still become, it nevertheless makes sense to add a handful of personal com-
ments. I was fascinated by India from the very irst day, as it were – more
than I have ever been by any other country in which I have had a chance
to live and work in my rather long diplomatic career. On one hand, I was
taken by India’s manifoldness, its abstruseness, all its specialty, which
showed in the way of life, in the people’s conceptions that to us, armed
with nothing but the European Hellenistic logic, are often quite incompre-
hensible. Indian contact with the supernatural, their Hindu and Buddhist
spirituality are hard to understand for the unknowing Europeans – but
even the more intriguing because of that. Indian relation towards nature,
towards life, afterlife, their own tradition, all that is something that a Eu-
ropean inds strange, dificult to grasp, but also attractive and exciting.
In the course of my work and travels across India I met highly inte-
resting people. People of strong faith and exceptional morality. People
ready to live extremely humbly and make sacriices for others. People
with a peace of mind. Indian artists, thinkers, yogis. But also corrupted
politicians and greedy local magnates and representatives of the emerging
new Indian middle class. Especially interesting were meetings and talks
with those Indians who worked either as local personnel at the Embassy or
personnel of the residence – gardeners, guards. These were mainly people
from the lowest castes, many the “untouchables”. Nevertheless, although
uneducated, they distinguished themselves by their emotional cultivation,
respect for other people. Still, these people also demonstrated pride, the
belief that life such as had been given to them – no matter how poor, how
unbearable it was – was the life that had been destined to be theirs by
“God”. And here I come to a realisation of mine that always accompanies
me in remembering India. Rarely, even though I have worked in many
countries of the world, have I found people for whom I knew or sensed
that they were satisied with what they had. I feel that the essence of the
worldview of simple people in India – especially those who have not yet
become “Westernised” – is that what had been given to them, what they
have, is precisely what is appropriate for them. In my opinion, this is why
it was in India where it was possible that Gandhi’s non-violent political and
moral movement emerged. It was precisely in India that the use of non-vi-
olent instruments, of non-violent resistance, non-violent political struggle
yielded the results it did. I believe that it was only in India where it was
possible for Gandhi and his ideas and ideals to win political recognition.
He was himself India, an image of its soul.
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
Today’s India, on the other hand, is a country increasingly taking reso-
lute steps towards modernisation of its economy, political life and institu-
tions as well as research, higher education etc. India is quickly becoming
one of the most important countries of modern world. This new, emerging
India differs from what it was when I was there, although no more than
some 16 years have passed since. At that time, India’s population totalled
about 800 million people, while today the igure is more than a billion and
100 millions. It is hard to imagine such growth over 15 years. 300 million
people – young, anxious to work, anxious for a better life. I remember that
in my grammar-school years – somewhere around 1954 – I was taught that
the size of India’s population was 360 millions. Today – only slightly more
than 50 years later – it totals a billion and a hundred millions. According
to projections, in less than three decades India will get ahead of China
to become the irst in the world according to population size. Compared
with China, whose population has been ageing, over one half of India’s
population is aged under 25. And the population growth alone has led to
opinions that India is irrepressibly becoming one of the key countries of
the future world.
Until yesterday, as it were, a part of this mass of people had largely lived
without access to suficient quantities of clean water, energy, schooling,
often without suficient food. It desires and expects a better life.
In the future, India’s energy needs will therefore be enormous. In view
of this, it is not hard to understand that no less than 8 new nuclear power
plants are currently being built in India. And even more are planned to be
built in the future. 16 years ago, New Delhi’s population totalled 5 mil-
lions, while today’s igure is twice as high, i.e. over 10 millions. Clearly,
mayorship of New Delhi is not the easiest job. Infrastructure-related chal-
lenges, including water supply, electricity, roads, parking areas, hospitals,
schools etc., are surely to be very big in India.
Even more fascinating than population growth, however, has been India’s
economic advancement in the very years since I had left. Recently, Indian
economy has grown by close to 10% annually for a number of years, and
it seems that this trend will also continue this year (9%). Some economic
analysts project that already in the year 2008 or 2009 Indian economy will
exceed a thousand billion dollars. Even now, India comes third in the world
according to the bulk of GDP. The per capita GDP – $ 3,800 in 2006 by
real purchasing power standards – is also an impressive achievement.
The release of Indian economy from the state-socialist ties that had
still restrained it at the time of my living there – release of the “tiger”,
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 Ernest Petrič
as they had already called it at back then, from the “cage” – gave a fresh
impetus not only to the economy but to India as a whole. Naturally, this
inspired India’s economy and economists with self-conidence. In the past
few years, the largest Indian companies have gained acquisitions worth
billions both in Europe and North America. Thus Tata Steel, for example,
has bought Corus, the English-Dutch steel producer. The Indian alumini-
um company Hindalco has bought Novelis, its American-Canadian rival.
India’s car manufacturing industry has expanded to the global scale. Tata
Motors has bought the South Korean Daewoo’s unit for the production of
heavy vehicles. In partnership with the Italian Fiat, it has currently been
extending to Latin America. The Indian company Mahindra and Mahindra
is one of the biggest tractor manufacturers in the United States, particularly
in Texas.
Even more exciting has been the rise of India’s pharmaceutical industry.
Ranbaxy has recently bought a number of pharmaceutical companies in
Europe and the USA, as well as in Africa. Now it is trying to buy the Ger-
man irm Merck Generics. Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories has already bought
Betapharm, the German producer of medicines. Particularly important is
especially the fact that Indian pharmaceutical companies have recently
iled more applications for the registration of patents with the American
Food and Drug Administration than any other country. Production costs
in India are considerably lower than in the West while the quality of pro-
ducts is good.
Private health institutions have recently lourished. In 2004, for exam-
ple, India managed to attract close to 200 thousand so-called “health to-
urists”, who came there for complex heart, brain and other surgeries – to
its private hospitals, naturally.
I will not go into details concerning the success of Indian companies
specialising in software, as these are widely known facts. Let me only
mention Infosys, which is undoubtedly one of the strongest software en-
terprises in the world. India has its Silicon Valley in Bangalore, which is,
as it were, a synonym for software.
Naturally, all this rise of India we have been witnessing has given it not
only bigger weight and signiicance but also high aspirations – including
as concerns the international scale. Today, India’s elite and, predominan-
tly, its media do not hide that they already see their country as one of the
future superpowers, the most important countries in the world. Reading
texts on India, one also comes across, for example, the view that it will be
precisely India – besides the USA and China – that will be one of the three
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
power centres of the future world, determining the fate of humankind.
That India and especially its economy will be very powerful in the future
is something that also projections of the famous Goldman and Sachs, for
example, conirm, anticipating that India will remain the only fast-growing
large economy – its average growth is expected to total some 8% up to
2020 so that by 2040 it would get ahead of the USA as the second strongest
economy. The strongest, of course, is supposed to be China.
If this comes true – and it seems it will – it will clearly have a strong
impact on the international situation, not only in terms of the economy,
but also politics. Similarly as, for example, the powerful growth of Ger-
man economy in the late 19th century resulted in dramatic shifts in world
distribution of power.
Naturally, India’s self-conidence is also based on the fact that it per-
formed its own nuclear explosion in 1998 and became, as it were, a de
facto nuclear power. It seems that the world has come to accept it as such.
This, of course, is an additional argument in favour of the opinions of
those who today already see in India a future superpower. In a speciic
way, another factor contributing to such a belief is the recent agreement
concluded between India and the USA with a view to co-operate in the
development and use of nuclear energy. It is hard not to see this agreement
as the beginning of a strategic co-operation between the two countries
with the objective of counter-balancing the growing inluence of China in
both Asia and the world.
In general, it seems that interests of the USA and India have been
increasingly converging or overlapping in a large number of areas. One
of the major problems and concerns of both India and the USA, for exam-
ple, remains Islamic fundamentalism. It was already a problem in India
at the time when I lived there, i.e. ten years before the “September 11th”.
We must bear in mind that around 13% of Indian population is Islamic,
Muslim. This actually means that India is the third biggest Islamic state
according to population size, totalling over 140 millions Muslims. It is of
interest to notice that India’s standpoints are also not far from those of the
current American administration on a number of other issues, including
the so-called anti-missile shield, the International Criminal Court (ICC),
problems of global warming and climate change. India supported the Ope-
ration Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and at irst even proclaimed a
readiness to co-operate in military operations. At my time there, when
India opposed the USA in everything, as it were, something like this could
not be imagined.
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 Ernest Petrič
Anyhow, it seems that India has already become a very serious player
among the big powers. In a manner of speaking, it has opted for “re-
alpolitik” as opposed to moralizations during the era of Nehru and his
irst successors. Concerning its endeavour to ensure itself a solid position
within international relations, India’s relationship with China is of parti-
cular interest. India desires to maintain good relations with China. It will,
however, cautiously monitor the growth of China’s inluence in its own,
India’s neighbourhood and interest sphere. It will cooperate but also com-
pete with Beijing, especially in the S.E. Asia. It is already strengthening
its relations, including military ones, with S.E. Asian states, as well as
developing intense relations with S. Korea and – recently – primarily with
Japan and, as already said, the USA.
Naturally, this differs completely from the time when I was in India. Up
to 1990, India was a captive of its ties with Russia, the then Soviet Union.
This was so because of its positive disposition toward socialism and the
socialist political and economic system. However, the links with the USSR
partly resulted from India’s partition after independence when Pakistan
had been established and the USA – mainly for ideological reasons – had
taken side with Pakistan. This brought India close to the Eastern Bloc
superpower, Soviet Union. Close ties with the USSR limited India in inter-
national life up to the early 1990s. With Pakistan having ties with both the
USA and China, the manoeuvring space of Indian foreign policy had been
limited. Given this “anti-Indian” alliance, India’s only possibility had been
to link itself up with the USSR. This resulted in a limiting effect for Indian
foreign policy, and the Non-Aligned Movement was the only manoeuvring
space it had apart from its ties with the USSR. At the time of my service
in India, this was evident. In Non-Alignment, India was trying to assert
itself as an important international factor. However, it was already then that
within the Indian elite – especially those working in external relations and
the economy – there were aspirations for stronger co-operation with the
USA, for opening up towards it. It was increasingly more clear in the late
1980s that the USSR’s international inluence was quickly declining.
Still, is India’s progression to the position of a really strong power, a
real superpower or even – besides China and the USA – one of the three
poles of a future triangle of power truly already quite ensured? I myself
share the opinion of those who, although projecting a big future for India,
nevertheless think that easy proclamations of it as the future superpower
are premature. I think that India will still have to overcome many problems
on its way to international stature. Firstly, there is the problem of its po-
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
pulation. It is not only that this population is still growing – which some
deem an element of India’s future power. It is that over one-quarter of this
population, i.e. some 300 million people, live under the so-called poverty
threshold, with less than one dollar a day. And approximately the same
number of Indians are not far above this margin. Naturally, it must also be
remembered – primarily by those who consider economic relations with
India, and Slovenia is one of them – that today India already has some 300
millions of citizens belonging to the middle class. This middle-class po-
pulation makes enough to buy various “Western” products. Its purchasing
power is already approximately level with the European middle class’s.
Thus – with the possible exception of China – India is a market like no
other in the world. Any underestimation of India and economic opportu-
nities in the Indian subcontinent would therefore be a big mistake. When
I, considering this, think of Slovenia’s current economic co-operation with
India and see the igures such as they are, I ind reason to believe that there
are opportunities for improvement here. Another problem of India’s future
that might be a substantial obstacle to its development – and is strongly
related to poverty – is water supply. A large portion of Indian population
does not have access to healthy water. The Indian public health system is
also far from being modern and adequate. At the same time, its private
hospitals have been treating tens of thousands of patients from around the
world. Nevertheless, according to both the number of doctors and that of
hospital beds per 1000 persons, India is substantially behind the Western
world, as well as China.
India’s educational system is also a serious and important issue. Fi-
gures on the educational structure and particularly literacy in India have
remained unfavourable. According to some Indian analysts and politici-
ans – like P. Chidambaram, the current Financial Minister, for example –,
India will not be able to do away with poverty before 2040. This sounds
believable, considering that currently only 61% of India’s adult population
is literate, out of which 73% are men and only 49% women. This means
that more than a quarter of the population has remained illiterate. With
such a proportion of unschooled, economically disadvantaged population,
India’s ascent to the position and role of a superpower will probably not
be easy to achieve.
On the other hand, there is the encouraging fact that India is third in
the world according to the size of its higher-education sector. In its elite
university institutions – primarily in the technical ield – India produces
tens of thousands of engineers per year. Naturally, this is a basis for a
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 Ernest Petrič
strong swing, a strong surge of its future economic growth and innova-
tions.
Problems that might hinder India’s progress also include the internal
political situation. The tensions between Hindu nationalism and Islamic
radicalism have not declined, and may hamper India’s development in the
future. This has actually been so ever since the split of the subcontinent
into India and Pakistan. India continues to have problems with separatist
tendencies that were already evident at the time when I was there. It is not
only the terrorism in Kashmir but also the problems in Asam, Nagaland,
Tripura and other unstable regions in the North-East of the country. I do
not know how serious a burden for India its internal terrorism, the so-
called “naxalism”, is. According to what I have been able to read about
it in recent years, it seems to be a serious problem. After all, close to
30,000 members of India’s army and its elite units have been involved in
the combat of this internal security problem in the North of the country,
particularly by its border with Nepal.
Problems may also occur due to the growing disparities in development
and welfare rates among Indian states. On one side, the areas around big
cities such as New Delhi and primarily Mumbai, the South of India, the
area around Chennai and Hyderabad and, especially, Bangalore are in the
midst of dynamic growth, being increasingly more powerful in economic
as well as political terms. On the other side, for various reasons – because
of droughts, poverty or also political problems – regions such as Bihar,
Utar Pradesh and Rajastan, for example, are lagging behind the develo-
pment of India as a whole. This might burden India’s development.
And, inally, the caste system, which – although non-formally – still
largely dominates Indian life, especially outside big urban centres. Whe-
ther modern India will manage to do away with the thousand-year-old
ties of the caste system without trouble remains a big challenge for Indian
politics and society.
In the end, let me also mention the problems India might have on ac-
count of its neighbourhood. India is cordoned off, as it were, by countries
that are experiencing serious dificulties. The future of Pakistan is unsure.
Violent changes and spread of Islamic radicalism and an establishment of
an Islamic state cannot be ruled out there. This would have a strong nega-
tive impact on India. Afghanistan needs not be speciically discussed; its
problems are common knowledge. Bangladesh is burdened with extreme
poverty, and if the projected climate change indeed leads in the direction
warned of by those on the pessimist side, a large portion of Bangladesh –
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
exposed to loods and the rise of sea level – might ind itself in deep crisis.
This would have a strong impact on India, too. There also are problems in
®ri Lankā; in Nepal; at the very moment when I am writing this, there are
serious political, social and security problems in Myanmar. In short, India’s
surrounding is unstable. India could be confronted with the challenge to
intervene more than it used to in this region, in its unstable environment.
India will have to engage its political inluence, economic and inancial
means, as well as armed forces if necessary. Else developments in its
environment will have strong negative effects on its developmental and
political aspirations and security.
Let me also mention something that I see from reading India’s media.
As their future partners or competitors, Indians see China, the USA, per-
haps also Russia. It is interesting, though, that in their strategic discussi-
ons and visions of the future world and the role of India in it, they are not
ascribing any particular role to the European Union. This is not hard to
understand, after all. Because of the EU’s lame common foreign policy,
which is rarely uniied and thus often marginalized, the Union’s global role
is weak. This is not good. It is precisely Europe that could have been – for
various reasons, including historical ones – an excellent partner to India
and its co-player in the settling of crucial international issues.
So, will India successfully realize the vision and expectations of some
and become a mighty, crucial power in the future world? Or will eve-
rything I have recounted, from poverty to its international environment,
check it in its progress and growth? This is a question that only the future
can respond to. I shall only say as India’s friend, as one who admires this
country, that I heartily wish it progresses to success, to an important role
in the world. And that its people enjoy welfare, security, equality in actual
life and respect of human rights. I wish that India manages to make use of
possibilities it has before it. And that it – a powerful player in international
life that it is becoming – follows the tradition of that political culture of
peace that Gandhi had started and embodied.

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 Ernest Petrič

Selected bibliography:

The World Factbook, India (CIA, 2007)

India: Selected Indicators 1950-1999/2000
C. Raja Mohan, “India and the Balance of Power”, Foreign Affairs, Vol.
85, 2006
S. Ganguly and M.S. Pardesi, “India Rising: What is New Delhi to do?”,
World Policy Journal, 2007
A. Virmani, A Tripolar Century: USA, China and India (www.icrier.org/pdf/
wp.160.pdf)
Gurcharan Das, “The India Model”, in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 85, 2006
T. Poddar and E. Yi, “India's Rising Growth Potential”, Global Economics
Paper, no. 152, (Goldman Suchs, 2007)

1 The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author.

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Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
 II
Literatures and Cultures

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Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
 Karol Glaser and Anton Ocvirk –
two mediators of Indian literature
to Slovenia
Vlasta Pacheiner-Klander

In this article the author presents two Slovene intellectuals whose work
covers roughly a century, from the seventies of the 19th century to the
seventies of the 20th century. Karol Glaser (1845–1913) and Anton Ocvirk
(1907–1980) worked during different times and under different conditions.
Their backgrounds, education, aims and achievements were also different,
but they had one thing in common, an interest in Indian literature and the
endeavour to make it known to the Slovene public.
When the earlier of the two, Karol Glaser, in his high school years aro-
und 1860, pondered over his vocation and had to decide about his further
studies, Indology was already an established and rapidly developing bran-
ch of learning. Soon after its modest start at the end of the 18th century,
when some European missionaries and British colonial oficers with the
help of Indian scholars started learning Sanskrit and publishing the irst
translations, some trained linguists in Europe took up this discipline and
began to compile dictionaries, write grammars, edit manuscripts and pu-
blish papers and books on various subjects related to Indian history and
culture. They soon noticed the connections between this newly discovered
civilization and the remains of their own past, and two new branches of
research, comparative philology and comparative mythology, arose. At
universities all over Europe, especially in France, England and Germany,
numerous chairs for Sanskrit were founded and later for more specialised
Indological subjects.
Though there was no Slovene university at that time, Slovenes were not
entirely left out. The Slovene contribution to comparative philology was
the inclusion of Slavonic languages into comparisons with other Indo-Eu-
ropean languages, Sanskrit included. This was done in 1844 by a young
Slovene linguist, Franc Miklošič (1813–1891), living in Vienna, in his revi-
ew Sanskrit und Slawisch (Sanskrit and Slavonic), of Bopp’s comparative
grammar. This made Sanskrit very popular among Slovene intellectuals,
and one of the teachers of young Glaser wrote articles on etymological
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
questions regarding Slovene and Sanskrit words. Under this inluence, the
boy at 16 decided not to study theology and become a priest, for which
he would have had all the necessary support, but to learn Sanskrit and
become a linguist.1
But as he had to take up a study that would enable him to earn his living
as a teacher, after his matriculation he went to Vienna to study Classical
and Slavonic languages, and after three years got a job irst as a private
tutor and then as a teacher of Latin in several provincial towns in Austria,
where the teaching medium was German. Occasionally he also taught Slo-
vene in Slovene, as was the case in Trieste, where he was posted in 1880.
Meanwhile he did not give up the plans for studying Sanskrit. He bought
Indological books and during his holidays went to German universities
to meet professors of Sanskrit and, if possible, attend their courses. But
the right opportunity for Glaser came when in 1881 Bühler got a chair for
Sanskrit at Vienna University.
Georg Bühler (1837–1898) was almost an ideal teacher of Indology.
He studied Sanskrit and other Asian languages while still undergraduate.
After taking a doctorate in classical philology in Göttingen and some years
of practice in working with manuscripts in libraries, he obtained a post
in Bombay where he taught Sanskrit and Classical languages, at the same
time acquiring a vast knowledge of Indian law, philosophy, grammar, poe-
tics and literature. In a few years he was as luent in Sanskrit as in English.
He also collected numerous manuscripts, some of them rare and precious,
and as an educational inspector helped to establish a great number of new
schools. But his health was failing and after 17 years of service he retired
and left India. When he recovered, he took up a post at the University
of Vienna, where he taught for 17 years until his death. Besides regular
intensive courses in Sanskrit for beginners he also used to read classical
Sanskrit literature with students and held courses on Indian law, history,
social and political institutions, religions, philosophy, art, epigraphy and
similar subjects, so that the students were able to get a clear idea of the
complete ield of Indological studies.
It seems that this was just the right thing for Glaser, who after twelve
years of teaching obtained a study leave and, as a mature man of 36, as
he himself said, became a student again. For the irst time in life he was
doing what he had always wanted to do. He was very happy, though he was
working very hard, as he was also attending lectures in Persian and Arabic.
Soon he was encouraged by Bühler to write a thesis and get a doctorate.
He decided to analyse the play Pārvatī’s Wedding (Pārvatīpariṇayanāṭaka)
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 Vlasta Pacheiner-Klander
and found that it was entirely based on Kālidāsa’s epic poem The Birth of
Kumāra (Kumārasaṃbhava). He was of the opinion, as were other Indolo-
gists at that time, that the author of the play was the well known Sanskrit
writer Bāṇa of the 7th century A.D.2 Nowadays it is supposed that the
author is a much later writer, Vāmana Bhaṭṭa Bāṇa of the 15th century.3
Glaser also edited the play, and on the suggestion of Bühler translated it
into German and later published it.4
In this German translation, he was faced with the same problems as in
his translations into Slovene. Indian classical plays are a demanding task
for translators. The playwrights used different languages, Sanskrit and
Prakrits, in the dialogues, which in the translations can only be indicated
by different levels of the same language, as this is usually connected with
the social status of the speakers.
The other characteristic of Indian classical plays, the combination of
prose and verse, met with different solutions in translations. At irst, the
translators used only prose. But no lesser authority in the matters of li-
terature than Goethe demanded that the verse portions be translated into
verse form. The translators then went to the other extreme and translated
the prose portions in verse form. In both cases the original form was lost,
so in Glaser’s time some translators tried to be more faithful to the original
in translating verse into verses and prose into prose.5 Glaser decided to fol-
low their lead and so translated Sanskrit verses into German verse forms,
which was a considerable task for somebody whose mother tongue was
not German but Slovene. When the play appeared in the press, it was very
well received by the reviewers in German newspapers and magazines.
When Glaser received his doctorate in Sanskrit, he hoped for a suitable
post at a university in the Slavonic regions of the Austro-Hungarian empi-
re. He tried at the universities in Zagreb, Lemberg and Prague, but without
any success. So he had to resume his post of a secondary school teacher
in Trieste, but decided to continue his Indological work in his spare time,
this time in Slovene for Slovene readers.
First he published a series of prose translations of puranic legends in
a monthly magazine. But his more ambitious project was to publish tran-
slations of the three of Kālidāsa’s dramas in book form, a plan that kept
him busy over many years before he eventually realized it. He published
Kālidāsa’s Vikramorvaśīyam under the title Urvašī in 1885,6 and the fol-
lowing year his Mālavikāgnimitram under the title Mālavikā in Agnimitra
– Mālavikā and Agnimitra.7 Kālidāsa’s Abhijñānaśākuntalam under the
title Sakuntalā ali “Prstan spoznanja” – Śakuntalā or the “Ring of Reco-
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
gnition” came out only in 19088. Unfortunately, when he had successfully
overcome the numerous obstacles that one is faced with in translating such
demanding texts, he could not ind a publisher that would take the risk of
publishing his translations, and he had to inance their printing himself.
This is not surprising, as the whole Slovene population counted only about
a million at that time and so one could not expect many potential readers
of demanding literary texts. Among the more numerous German public the
translations of Kālidāsa into German were quite popular. In fact, Indian
drama had more translators and readers in Europe than other branches
of classical Indian literature, as an Indian classical play is just different
enough from the European theatrical traditions to attract interest, and yet
just similar enough that they may be understood. However, this statement
is only valid if the play is read, because its production generates other
dificulties.
Glaser’s translations of Kālidāsa’s plays have not yet been thoroughly
analyzed. It appears that he was a conscientious translator and spared no
effort to come to a clear understanding of the original text. The editions
he was able to acquire were unfortunately without commentaries, but he
consulted other translations, especially German, and sometimes even wro-
te to other translators to get their opinion on a certain question. His inal
decisions were his own, and he appears to have been fairly independent in
his judgments. It seems that there are no serious omissions in his transla-
tions. It is curious, however, that he treated Śakuntalā’s pregnancy with a
strange vagueness, following perhaps contemporary rules of etiquette by
not being more direct, but this eliminated the element of tension between
Śakuntalā and her oblivious husband, the king. Some other minor details,
characteristic of everyday life or religious practices in India, which he did
not know out of personal experience or could not get information about
from books, was sometimes lost, though in other cases similar things were
translated and explained correctly. He was quite careful also regarding
the stylistic features of the original, especially metaphorical language and
allusions, though one cannot expect a verse translation to be absolutely
faithful. Sometimes a cliché or an unnecessary diminutive, familiar from
contemporary Slovene poetry, crept in and spoiled the elegance of the
original.9 He also translated verse into verse form, and prose into prose,
as he had in his German translation Pārvatī’s Wedding. Glaser chose only
one verse pattern, iambic pentameter, known as ‘blank verse’ from English
poetry, for the translation of various verse patterns of the original, as some
German translators also did. Some other translators tried to imitate the
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 Vlasta Pacheiner-Klander
original meters in their translations, because they thought that the variety
of the original verse patterns would be lost if they used just one verse
pattern for all of them. But this had a different effect, as one can never
imitate the original Sanskrit meters in a language that widely differs from
Sanskrit regarding its linguistic and metrical laws.10 Glaser’s decision was
wise, because in Slovene as well it was impossible to imitate Sanskrit verse
patterns; but on the other hand he was able to preserve the impression of
the composite nature of the original text, consisting of prose and verse,
as this is not just a characteristic of the outward form of Indian plays, but
is closely connected with their main feature, the aesthetic experience, in
Sanskrit called ‘rasa’. Thus the irst Slovene translations of Indian classical
plays, made by Karol Glaser, were perhaps not perfect in every respect, but
the readers and at least some reviewers appreciated that it was possible for
them to enjoy these pieces of art in their own language.
Glaser tried to arouse interest in Indian culture not only by his transla-
tions but also by publishing articles about some important Indian themes.11
Thus he appears to be a true Indologist, and not just a Sanskritist like some
other Slovenes at that time, who used their knowledge of Sanskrit only
for solving linguistic questions. His articles appeared in monthly cultural
magazines, sometimes in several installments, and were meant to be re-
garded as information for educated people. He also wrote some scholarly
papers for readers with an Indological background. As there was no Slo-
vene scholarly review at that time, he had to write them in German for the
suitable publications in the German language, end even so it was not easy
for him to get them published. Besides his doctoral thesis, among them
there was a lengthy report on the seventh congress of the Orientalists12,
an analysis of a Vedic hymn,13 and a paper on the rules regarding the life
of a brahmacārin14. As he was not attached to a university, he could not
do as much research as he would have liked, but even his popular papers
were based on broad and profound reading of scholarly literature, for which
he used to spend a great part of his salary. By his articles, based on sober
facts, where there was no place for any dilettantism, he raised the standard
of writing about such topics. The most outstanding of Glaser’s articles are
about ancient Indian linguistics15, Indian mythology16, Buddhism17, and
of course his favourite author Kālidāsa18. One should particularly stress
the second of his two articles on Vedic literature, where he also included
translations of ten Rigvedic hymns and several isolated mantras.19 It seems
that he was very much attracted by this earliest Indian religious poetry.
Even before his Indological studies in Vienna he went to the famous Ger-
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
man Vedic scholar Rudolf Roth to attend his lectures, and his copy of
Delbrück’s Vedic Anthology, covered with notes in his handwriting and
preserved to this day, is an indication of his assiduous study.
Unfortunately, Indology was not the only branch of study to consume
Glaser’s energies. As a teacher of Slovene he also had to teach literature,
and there was not a single history of the Slovene literature in his day for
him to use. So he decided to write it himself and it took him ifteen years
to gather material for it and another six years to get it published. When it
was inished, it was an impressive work of more than thirteen hundred pa-
ges. But as it was the irst attempt of its kind, it was more of a biographical
and bibliographical compendium than a proper history, and the users also
complained that there were too many misprints, as the people who read
proofs for the author did not do their work properly. This was a severe
blow to him and he was not a happy man in his old age, especially as he
had to earn money for the education of his two children through an extra
job, though he had already retired, because his health was failing. In spite
of all, he actively pursued his studies, including refreshing his Sanskrit,
until his death in 1913.
On the whole, he ought to have been satisied at least with his work
if not with his life. He achieved his aim of becoming the irst Slovene
doctor of Indology and successfully introducing the knowledge of Indian
culture, especially of Indian classical literature, to this part of the world.
He paid for being the pioneer of a branch of learning by not being able to
get a suitable position. And, worst of all, he did not have any immediate
followers. Further efforts in spreading the knowledge of ancient Indian
literature among Slovenes had to be made entirely anew.
Karol Glaser died in 1913, the very year when the Nobel Prize was
allotted to Rabindranath Tagore. This opened for his books the way to Eu-
ropean readers through translations into a number of European languages,
Slovene included. The author’s broad but irm outlook and his spirituali-
ty, transgressing the traditions of the country, of his origin met with the
sensibility of an outstanding contemporary Slovene poet, Alojz Gradnik
(1882–1967), who translated several books of Tagore’s poetry during the
period from 1917–1922. These and some of his other books were very po-
pular in Slovenia in the early 20th century. On the one hand they aroused
interest in India, on the other hand they would have overshadowed other
writings on Indian themes had there been any. But after Glaser there was
nobody for a long time to inform Slovene readers about India as extensi-
vely as he did. Many Slovene intellectuals, especially those of the younger
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 Vlasta Pacheiner-Klander
generation, read even Tagore in German translations.
Among them was a young student, Anton Ocvirk (1907–1980), who
after his matriculation went to Vienna, the traditional seat of learning for
young Slovenes eager to study. There he read some of Tagore’s books and
wrote about them in the articles he sent to Slovene literary magazines.20
But Tagore’s reception in Slovenia is a different story, deserving of a se-
parate article, and many decades after his stay in Vienna Ocvirk again
took part in it.
After one year he decided to leave Vienna and pursue his studies in
Ljubljana at the recently founded Slovene university. Slovenes could only
establish their own university in 1919, one year after the end of the World
War I, when the multinational Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrated into
a number of sovereign states, one of them being the Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes, which soon changed its name to Yugoslavia. Of cour-
se the beginnings of this new highest Slovene educational institution were
modest, and it was not possible to establish faculties or departments for all
branches of study. Its strength perhaps was in the humanities. Ocvirk star-
ted to study Slovene and comparative literature. At that time the leading
authorities in both ields were two professors who had studied and spent
their formative years in Vienna and had extensive learning in relation to
both domestic and broader themes. Ocvirk soon showed an inclination
towards a theoretical approach to the ield of his studies, as in his thesis for
his inal examination he already dealt with the theoretical background of
comparative literature. After inishing his studies in Ljubljana, he received
a French scholarship and went to Paris for two years, from 1931 to 1933,
studying under the guidance of the greatest scholars in the ield of compa-
rative literature at that time (Hazard, Van Tieghem, Baldensperger). These
years were very fruitful for him, as he gathered enough material to publish
a book of interviews with some outstanding writers and scholars in Paris.
Some years after getting his doctorate at Ljubljana University with a thesis
on a Slovene writer of the 19th century, he published a book on the theory
of comparative literary history – Teorija primerjalne literarne zgodovine21.
This book was very important for further comparative literary studies in
Slovenia, and it was also in this book that the foundations of Ocvirk’s later
activity as a mediator of Indian literature were laid.
The comparative history of literature, or, ‘comparative literature’, was a
relatively new branch of literary research and Ocvirk’s presentation of its
development, its theoretical basis and its methodology was the third of its
kind in the world. Comparative literary research developed out of some old
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
and vague notions of the interconnectedness of separate literatures into a
modern approach to literature on a irm epistemological basis towards the
end of the 19th century. According to this new position a national literature
cannot exist as an entirely separate unit, but only in connection with other
national literatures. This is a two-way process, where each unit gives to
and takes from its surroundings and vice versa. Research into literary
inluences and borrowings is not conducted in order to diminish the value
of a certain national literature, as some nationalistic literary historians
feared. There was a danger, however, that the importance of the so called
great European literatures would be overstressed in those processes, and
that the ‘smaller’ literatures like the Slovene, would not receive enough
attention. Ocvirk pleaded for a more balanced approach.
Another big problem was the danger that the comparative research
would remain limited to the place of its origin; that is, to the western
part of the world. Ocvirk deals with this question quite extensively in his
book. He presents the dilemma over whether Europe or the whole world
is the proper framework for studying literary phenomena and decides in
favour of the more demanding option, a global perspective. His endeavo-
urs to take into account global happenings – or, in other words, including
the literatures outside Europe – are apparent on many pages. In contrast
to some other comparative literary historians he also included Oriental
themes in his coverage of mythology and religion. The impetus for such
a perspective could have come from Paul Hazard, whose lectures Ocvirk
attended during his irst stay in Paris. Hazard in his book La Crise de
la conscience européenne – The Crisis of the European Consciousness,
published in Paris,22 deals extensively with the impact of Oriental literary
ideas on some European writers around 1700. He personally gave Ocvirk
his book, when they again met in Paris in 1935.
For Ocvirk European literatures were just a part of world literature. The
notion of a world literature gradually developed in Europe from the 16th
century till reaching its peak in 1829, when it was expressed by Goethe’s
deinition as “the art which is of general signiicance to humanity”. Nowa-
days Goethe’s views are also undergoing skeptical scrutiny in the sense that
he was not so very broad in his views as he seemed, but it is well known
that he welcomed the German translation of Kālidāsa’s drama Śakuntalā23
with enthusiasm and that he liked Persian poetry. In Goethe, Ocvirk rece-
ived the conirmation that the literatures outside Europe deserved attention
for their artistic value regardless of their inluences, though as a scholar he
was particularly interested in the connections between these and European

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 Vlasta Pacheiner-Klander
literatures. He was also bitterly aware of the shortcomings of the existing
treatises on the ancient Asian literatures. All the existing attempts at a
synthetical approach according to his standards (which were very high)
missed the target, and it was only possible to study Asian literatures se-
parately regardless of their interconnectedness or their connections with
European literatures.
Ocvirk had been posted as an associate professor for the Slovene and
Comparative Literature Department at the Faculty of Arts some years
before World War II. During the Italian and German occupation of Slove-
nia as a supporter of the liberation army he was taken prisoner and sent
to a German concentration camp. After the war he resumed his post and
succeeded in establishing the Department of Comparative or World Lite-
rature, as it was then called, an independent unit, and as the head of the
new department he also developed its study programme. He decided to
include Oriental literatures in it, as can be seen from its printed version,24
though he was far from being a specialist in any of them. He was not able
to lecture as much as the programme required, as for years he was the
sole person qualiied to do so. Upon the demand of students he twice, in
1948/49 and 1955/56, gave a brief introduction to this ield of study in a
few lectures without a previous announcement. But even such condensed
information at that time was precious, as there were no other scholars in
Slovenia working in this ield. There have, however, always been regular
courses of Sanskrit for beginners at the Faculty of Arts, but they were me-
ant only for students of linguistics. In the papers from Ocvirk’s estate his
handwritten lecture notes under the title Orientalske literature – Oriental
literatures have been preserved25 and from them it is possible to get an
idea to what extent and in what manner he treated this subject.
But irst a note on the title Oriental literatures is necessary. Ocvirk also
used other terms, among them the term ‘old literatures outside Europe’.
Nowadays the critical stance of Edward Said toward the use of the term
‘Orientalism’ is well known; the author criticizes ‘Orientalists’ because
they adopt a superior attitude towards the literatures outside Europe, which
they hold to be less important than the European literatures. But Said’s
criticism does not apply to Ocvirk, whose view of the literatures outside
Europe was not in the least demeaning. In fact, Ocvirk had already made
great efforts to include coverage of such themes in his book The Theory
of Comparative Literary History in 1936, as we have seen.
In the introductory lecture to the course on Oriental literatures he
expressed his view that the students of world literature should know at
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
least the main works of these literatures because of their artistic value.
But as a comparatist he also declared that he would primarily emphasize
those parts of Oriental literatures that had indirectly or directly inluenced
the development of European, and especially of Slovene, literature and
thought. Thus he presented nine of the most important ancient literatures
outside Europe, due to their unconnected development, as he said, each
of them a separate unit. For the same reason he did not adhere to a chro-
nological principle, but roughly followed a geographical perspective. His
survey began with ancient Chinese literature and continued with more
recent Japanese literature. He dealt quite extensively with Indian litera-
ture, followed by Persian, then Arabic, and a more cursory overview of
Turkish literature. He concluded by returning to ancient literatures: Ba-
bylonian-Assyrian, Egyptian, and Hebrew. He mentioned minor and less
independent literatures only in connection with major ones as areas under
their inluence.
His treatment of ancient Indian literature comprises nearly half of his
lecture notes on Oriental literatures, the reason for this being the great
amount of important Indian literary works and their great impact on Eu-
ropean literatures, as he says at the beginning of this chapter. One may
also add that Ocvirk was personally intrigued by Indian literature and its
theoretical treatises, perhaps because he felt that India noticed the same
problems as Europe, but treated them differently, as a scholar investigating
European contacts with Indian culture once said. Though Ocvirk was awa-
re of the importance of such huge works as the Vedas, the Mahābhārata
and the Rāmāyaṇa, he could only give a brief sketch of them. On the other
hand he dealt extensively with a short passage, The Man in the Well, from
the Mahābhārata, and a similar theme in one of the poems (the sonnet
Popotnik pride – A Traveller Comes) by our greatest poet, France Preše-
ren (1800–1849). He also mentioned the great interest of another Slovene
poet Anton Aškerc (1856–1912) in Buddhist themes. But Ocvirk’s detailed
discussion on Indian poetics and dramaturgy and an exhaustive analysis
of Kālidāsa’s play Śakuntalā could be ascribed to the fact that here his
professional and personal interests met, as he was not only a literary histo-
rian, but also a critic, especially of dramatic performances, and a writer on
literary theory. He frequently quoted Glaser’s translations and articles.
The impact of Ocvirk’s lectures, sketchy as they were, was considerable.
One of his students, Milan Štante (1930–1999), was among the irst Yugo-
slav students to get an Indian scholarship. After his return from India he
wrote extensively on different Indian themes. One of his books was a very
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 Vlasta Pacheiner-Klander
well received anthology of translations of Indian contemporary poetry Ko-
šara človekovega srca – The Basket of Man’s Heart in 1978. On Ocvirk’s
recommendation the author of the present article, Vlasta Pacheiner-Klan-
der (1932–), received a scholarship to study in India, where she spent two
years. She passed a postgraduate diploma course in Indian philosophy
and culture and learned enough Sanskrit to be able to read texts. After
her return she published several books of translations from Sanskrit with
explanations and introductory essays, gave radio talks and wrote several
articles on Indian themes. She was also for some years engaged as a part
time lecturer in Sanskrit at the Ljubljana University. Ocvirk also gave her
the opportunity to contribute to two of the serial publications under his
editorship.
Ocvirk was also engaged in several demanding editorial projects. Some
were connected with Slovene literature, but two of them were on a larger
scale. The irst one was a collection of Slovene translations of one hundred
novels selected out of the best specimens of its kind from literatures all
over the world. Each one had an extensive introductory essay written by a
literary historian – for the most part they were former students of Ocvirk.
Indian literature was represented by Tagore’s novel Dom in svet – The
Home and the World (Ghare baire), and Ocvirk engaged the author of this
article to write the introductory essay.26 The book was very well received
by the general public and thus Ocvirk contributed to a new wave of interest
in Tagore in Slovenia. The other project, which Ocvirk started, but had
to appear under an editorial committee after Ocvirk’s death soon after its
beginning, was a series of studies on different literary phenomena all over
the world. Ocvirk entrusted the author of this article with the writing of
a study on a theme that he had dealt with already in his lectures, namely
ancient Indian poetics,27 and the editorial committee later on gave her the
opportunity to write a study on ancient Indian verse forms.28
The course on Oriental or ancient literatures outside Europe has re-
mained a part of the study programme of comparative literature at the
university level to the present day. When other professors came to conduct
the courses in the Department of Comparative Literature and Literary
Theory, they gradually replaced Ocvirk in the teaching of Oriental lite-
ratures. Though now there are many other means to learn about ancient
Asian literatures, many future teachers, editors, journalists and workers
in other branches learn about them from Ocvirk’s successors in the ield
of comparative literature. It is to their credit – and indirectly also to their
professor Anton Ocvirk – that after 1960 they introduced the teaching
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
about these literatures into Slovene high schools, too, which earlier had
ignored them altogether.
Thus the horizon of the Slovene public was considerably widened by
the efforts of these two outstanding intellectuals, Karol Glaser and Anton
Ocvirk. Neither of them, unfortunately, was in a position to help to esta-
blish a chair for Indology. But they and their successors made Slovene
readers acquainted with at least some aspects of the cultural heritage of
India, especially its literary treasures.

Notes

1 Anton Dolar, Prof. dr. Karol Glaser. Oris življenja in dela (Maribor, 1934).
2 Glaser, Karol, 1883: Über Bāna’s Pārvatīparinayanātaka. Sitzungsberichte der phil.
hist. Klasse der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Bd 104. pp. 575-664.
3 M. Krishnamachariar, History of Classical Sanskrit Literature, 3rd ed (Delhi,
1974).
4 /Bāṇa 1886:/ Pārvatī’s Hochzeit. Zum ersten Male ins Deutsche übersetzt von Dr.
Karol Glaser. Triest
5 Dorothy Matilda Figueira, Translating the Orient: The Reception of Śākuntala in
Nineteenth-Century Europe (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991).
6 Kālidāsa, Urvašī. Na slovenski jezik preložil Dr. Karol Glaser. (Trst, 1885).
7 Kālidāsa, Mālavikā in Agnimitra. Na slovenski jezik preložil Dr. Karol Glaser (Trst,
1886). /On the front page and at the end of the preface the year of publication is given
as 1886, but on the cover wrongly as 1885./
8 Kālidāsa, Mālavikā in Agnimitra. Na slovenski jezik preložil Dr. Karol Glaser (Trst,
1886).
9 Vlasta Pacheiner, Glaserjev prevod Kālidāsove Šakuntale v slovenščino, in Kolokvij o
kulturnim dodirima jugoslavenskih naroda s Indijom. Rad Jugoslavenske akademije
znanosti i umjetnosti 350 (Zagreb, 1968), pp. 607-618.
10 Vlasta Pacheiner-Klander, Verzna podoba Kalidasovih dram v Glaserjevih prevodih,
in Zbornik ob sedemdesetletnici Franceta Bernika (Ljubljana, 1997), pp. 405-435.
11 Milan Štante, Glaserjeva indološka publicistika, in Kolokvij o kulturnim dodirima
jugoslavenskih naroda s Indijom. Rad Jugoslavenske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti
350 (Zagreb, 1968), pp. 599-606.
12 Karol Glaser, Der siebente Orientalistenkongress und die österreichischen Slaven.
(Prag., 1884).
13 Karol Glaser, Rgveda I.143. Text, Übersetzung und Commentar (Trst, 1885).
14 Karol Glaser, Der indische Student (Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen
Gesellschaft, 1912), pp. 1-37.
15 Karol Glaser, Početki slovničarskega delovanja v Indih (Ljubljanski zvon, 1884), pp.
286–290.
16 Karol Glaser, Nekoliko iz indijskega bajeslovja (Dom in svet, 1891), pp. 80–83,
133–138.
— 60 —
 Vlasta Pacheiner-Klander
17 Karol Glaser, Buddhizem (Dom in svet, 1901), pp. 344–350.
18 Karol Glaser, Kālidāsa (Ljubljanski zvon, 1902), pp. 617–623, 683–689, 734–739.
19 Karol Glaser, O rgvedskih slavospevih (Letopis Slovenske matice, 1896), pp. 168-
183.
20 Tone Smolej and Majda Stanovnik, Anton Ocvirk: ob stoletnici rojstva (Ljubljana:
Nova revija, 2007).
21 Anton Ocvirk, Teorija primerjalne literarne zgodovine (Ljubljana: Znanstveno
društvo, 1936).
22 Paul Hazard, La Crise de la conscience Européenne (1680–1715) (Paris: Boivin,
1934).
23 Kālidāsa 1791: Sakontala; oder der entscheindende Ring, ein indisches Schauspiel
von Kalidas. Aus den Ursprachen sanskrit und prakrit ins englische und aus diesem
ins deutsche übersetzt, mit erläuterung. Mainz und Leipzig: J. P. Fischer
24 Seznam predavanj, Seznam predavanj Univerze v Ljubljani za leto 1950/51 (Lju-
bljana: Univerza, 1950), p. 45.
25 Anton Ocvirk, Orientalske literature. File 73.1 (Manuscript in the estate of Anton
Ocvirk at the Inštitut za slovensko literaturo in literarne vede: Znanstvenorazisk-
ovalni center Slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti – Institute for Slovene
Literature and Literary Sciences of the Slovene Acadamy of Sciences and Arts).
26 Vlasta Pacheiner, Rabindranath Tagore in njegov roman Dom in svet, in Rabin-
dranath Tagore: Dom in svet (Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 1970), pp. 5–42.
27 Vlasta Pacheiner-Klander, Staroindijska poetika, Literarni leksikon, Vol. 19 (Lju-
bljana: SAZU and DZS, 1982).
28 Vlasta Pacheiner-Klander, Staroindijske verzne oblike, Literarni leksikon, Vol. 46
(Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, 2001).

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Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
 Rabindranath Tagore and Srečko Kosovel:
At Home in the World
Ana Jelnikar

To make a poem, you need to know the world. Read Tagore…!

Kosovel, in a letter to Maksa Samsa, 1925

When Tagore received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 he was not
only the irst non-Westerner to be accorded the honour, but also became
“the irst global superstar or celebrity in literature”.1 Almost overnight the
Bengali poet was turned into a bishwakabi – a world poet. In the follow-
ing decades, he travelled more than any other literary igure before him,
creating a sensation wherever he went, which at times bordered on the
“loss of mental equilibrium.”2 His popularity in the West, complicated by
false expectations, orientalist readings, literary trends, weak translations,
as well as personal failings could not always be sustained. In England, for
example, the tremendous enthusiasm for the “mystic from the East” would
suddenly plummet, and Tagore would be practically forgotten. Many inter-
related factors came into play as various countries, groups and individuals
responded to the Indian poet, each in their own way, even as they drew
on the common stock of perceptions that informed the Western world’s
response to the East in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Slovenians too participated in this “Tagoreana” from the early days

of the poet’s international reputation, and their response, as elsewhere in
Europe, was shaped by their speciic concerns. But perhaps unlike eve-
rywhere else in Europe, in Slovenia Tagore became an author who was
included in the school curricula and is to this day a household name in
any moderately educated family. There are not many other places in the
world where the tribute to him has also been expressed by having one of
his aphoristic poems carved into a signpost in the mountains – an unusual,
but not an entirely surprising gesture for a country commonly dubbed as
a nation of poets and athletes.

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
Going for a hike above the town of Polhov Gradec, you will come across
a sign bearing the following line: “Travna bilka je vredna velikega sveta,
na katerem raste”. In Tagore’s own English translation it would read: “The
grass blade is worthy of the great world where it grows.”3 Given its location,
tucked away amid the lush green trees lanking the white dolomite path,
one cannot help wondering about the intentions of whoever put it there. Was
it meant to alert the passers-by to the beauty of “the great world” above
Polhov Gradec? Or was it there to raise our awareness of the natural envi-
ronment, urging us to respect, not destroy what has a right to exist in this
great world, even if small and seemingly insigniicant? Was it an expression
of small-minded patriotism or an invitation to rise above it?

Whatever the case may be, the two interpretations of the above quote
seem paradigmatic for a small nation, living on the crossroads of many
competing cultures, Slavic, Romanic, Germanic, and others. They signpost
the characteristic tension Slovenes have always felt towards home and the
world, where, particularly in matters of culture and literature, ethnocentric
and cosmopolitan directions have vied for supremacy since the irst stir-
rings of national consciousness in the sixteenth century. I will irst look
at how the Indian champion of world humanity was received in general,
drawing on journalistic writings of the day. Then I will move to an ex-
amination of Tagore’s more speciic inluence on the young but important
poet Srečko Kosovel (1904 – 1926). This way the above mentioned dyad
can be assessed in a more meaningful way.

Claiming the Indian Laureate

When Tagore’s English Gitanjali (The Song Offerings) irst came out
in 1912, edited and famously introduced by W. B. Yeats, the Irish poet’s
eulogy to Tagore travelled far beyond the English-speaking world. In the
irst article to be written on Tagore in Slovenia, Oton Župančič, the then
leading modernist poet, based his piece largely on Yeats’s laudatory pref-
ace. If Tagore’s fame in England was launched through the efforts of the
Anglo-American-Irish literary elite, also in Slovenia, it was the enthusiasm
(backed by translation) of some of the country’s foremost writers that intro-
duced Tagore to the general reading public and generated what to this day
remains an unprecedented response of its readership to any literary igure
of international stature. Following some of the early translations done by
Miran Jarc and France Bevk, it was the talented poet Alojz Gradnik who
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 Ana Jelnikar
devoted himself wholeheartedly to translating Tagore’s works. During the
war, he came across a copy of The Crescent Moon in a bookshop in Tri-
este. He was so taken by what he had read that in the course of the next
ten years, he translated all of Tagore’s poetry books then available in the
poet’s own English translation.
One after another, the following titles came out: Rastoči mesec / The
Crescent Moon (1917; sold out within months and republished in 1921),
Ptice Selivke / Stray Birds (1921), Vrtnar / The Gardener (1922), Žetev /
Fruit Gathering (1922) and Gitandžali ali žrtveni spevi / The Gitanjali:
Song Offerings (1924). These collections, repeatedly edited and released
in various compilations, are read and enjoyed to this day. Alongside count-
less newspaper and journal articles about the poet, as well as translations
of his novels (The Home and the World, The Wreck, Gora), other writings
(Sādhana, excerpts from Nationalism, and The Religion of Man) and the
staging of two of his plays, The Post Ofice and Chitra at the Ljubljana
City Theatre, Tagore can be said to have found a permanent place in the
Slovenian letters.4
Understandably, Tagore’s fame in Slovenia reached its most important
peak around the time of these publications, which had laid the ground for a
more serious assessment of the poet’s artistic credo. Kosovel’s response to
Tagore’s poetry and philosophy also belongs to this particular wave of his
popularity, in which the creative writer is beginning to take precedence over
the earlier more politically motivated appraisal. Slovenia’s initial response
to Tagore, even if largely dominated by extra-literary factors rather than
any authentic appreciation of the poet’s sensibility, nevertheless marks an
important stage in the building of his reputation, and is not entirely off the
mark. Moreover, it bespeaks a sense of shared concerns, for which Slovenes
have been sympathetically drawn to Tagore and what he stood for.
In a substantial article entitled “Last year’s rivals for the Nobel Prize”
(1914), Tagore’s winning of the Nobel Prize is juxtaposed to the defeat
of the Austrian poet Peter Rossegger. This rival nominee was not only a
poet whose name the Austrians proposed to the Swedish Academy in the
same year as Thomas Sturge Moore put Tagore’s name up for considera-
tion, but also a name associated with the aggressive Germanization policy
pursued against Slovenes in Southern Carinthia and Southern Styria. For a
time Rossegger was closely linked with the nationalist organisation called
Südmark Schulverein, which aided German-language schools in ethnically
Slovenian or mixed territories.5
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
Against this background, the author sets “a spiritual giant of enormous
horizons” in opposition to a parochial writer who “fans the lames of na-
tionalist hatred”. Tagore, perceived as one who “bleeds from the love of
his fettered country” and yet “irmly acknowledges the rights of the op-
ponents, even stresses them”, is celebrated for his love of humanity as op-
posed to love of nation. His patriotic songs are seen as perfect expressions
of “his universalism”. They are not “boisterous ighting hymns”, the author
stresses, but “soft idealisations of his country, fuelled by unselishness and
irm belief in the day when his enslaved country will rise”.6
In spite of the narrow framework in which the discussion of Tagore is
positioned by this article, the poet’s vision of India’s anti-colonial strug-
gle is nevertheless portrayed with a fair deal of insight. Here is “a patriot”
whose voice is tuned to the deepest harmonies of humanity, refusing to
surrender the task of his country’s liberation from under foreign rule to
a nationalist agenda. Indeed, through a critique of both imperialism and
its anti-colonial nationalist derivation, Tagore gave his anti-colonialism a
signiicantly broader base, envisioning it as “a larger search for liberation”.7
It was precisely this high ideal underscored by the article that was to reso-
nate so strongly with Kosovel, who strove for a like-minded resolve with
respect to Slovenes and their struggle for political and cultural autonomy.
In fact, from its very beginnings, Tagore’s popularity in Slovenia was
connected less with the romantic side of Orientalism that looked towards
India for a redemptive spiritual injection and saw in Tagore above all “the
exotic and bearded Oriental prophet,”8 than with a sense of identiication
with the poet and his people, derived from a perceived common goal of
striving after political and cultural independence. So strongly did Slovenes
identify with Tagore and his historical predicament of colonisation that
they imagined themselves to have played a vital part in his international
fortunes – another instance of self-conscious patriotism perhaps?
In an interview in the 1960s, Alojz Gradnik said that Slovenes were
directly responsible for Tagore’s wining the Nobel Prize, something, he
regretted, not many people were aware off. The interviewer, Vladimir Bar-
tol, somewhat surprised by this stupendous claim, asked him to elaborate.
Presenting the already familiar details of Rosegger’s nomination for the
Nobel Prize in the same year as Tagore’s, Gradnik provides the additional
connection between Slovenia’s staunch undermining of the Austrian poet’s
credentials as a Nobel Prize candidate (formidably voiced in the daily
press), and the Swedish Nobel Prize Committee’s coming to know of the
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 Ana Jelnikar
protest of a people who were then not even on the map as a nation. As to
the question of how the Swedish Academy came to know that Rosseg-
ger was an unsuitable candidate, denying the Slovenes the right to their
identity, we are told it was the priest-poet Anton Aškerc (1856 – 1912),
himself a lover or India, who made the vital intervention. With the help of
his friend, an inluential Swedish man of letters and member of the Nobel
Committee, Alfred Jensen (1859-1921), the Swedish Academy came to
learn of Rosegger’s dubious character. The Austrian poet was subsequently
dropped from candidacy.9 Hence Tagore had no rival – or so the logic of
the article runs. 10
It seems hard to believe that Rossegger would have seriously stood a
chance against Tagore, as indeed against Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)
or Anatole France (1844 - 1924) two other contenders for the distinction
of the highest literary award in 1913, and who, unlike Rossegger, are not
given a word of mention in any of the Slovenian articles. Considering
also that Aškerc died in June 1912, there is further reason to question the
above inferences – but possibly he still had time to convey his grievance
to Jensen?
Whatever the case may have been, Gradnik’s point had an altogether
deeper meaning, to suggest, in his own words, “that between Indians,
Tagore and ourselves, Slovenes, there is a certain afinity – for the soft
and romantic lyric”.11 Tagore’s lyrics have indeed been read and cherished,
both in and outside the school curriculum, by poets, writers and lay readers
alike. Srecko Kosovel, however, did more than just enjoy Tagore’s writing.
As Gradnik before him through the act of translation, Kosovel, through the
act of writing, integrated Tagore’s verses and ideas into his own poetic and
intellectual horizon, thereby making it an indelible part of his own tradi-
tion. It is as much Tagore the soft lyricist that can be sensed behind some
of Kosovel’s memorable lines, in poems such as Krik po samoti / A Scream
for Solitude, as is Tagore the ierce critic of nationalism that transpires
through so much of Kosovel’s – to this day relevant and vital – thought.
Kosovel’s central concern in his short life was the problematic of “na-
tion” and “nationhood”. Obviously this question was galvanised by the
political circumstances of the early decades of the twentieth century, as
Slovenes were caught in the cross-ire of a number of coercive national-
isms (external and internal). Although perhaps not without irresolvable
tensions, but certainly with the creative input of a poet, Kosovel strove
for a deinition of Slovenianness that – even as it remained sensitive to the
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
particular needs of the Slovenian people and espoused their right to self-
determination – refused to yield to an inward-looking or separatist stance.
His quest for “slovenstvo” – at times feverish, especially towards the end
of a prematurely cut-off life – did not succumb to narratives of cultural
identity that harp on ideas of origin, race or some other allegedly natural
essence. Instead he projected a new type of human being – “new man” –
who would resist assimilation into narrow identity politics and institute a
future world of harmony and solidarity.

Srečko Kosovel: His Life and Background

Srečko Kosovel was born in 1904, in a small town of Sežana, some

twenty miles away from the city of Trieste. Both Trieste and his hometown
region of the Karst, the limestone hinterland to the east of the city, were
then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, as was the territory that later
became Slovenia. The youngest of ive children, he was brought up in a
well-established and respected family. With a father who was a schooltea-
cher, a choirmaster, an organ player, and had an interest in farming to boot,
the children were given a broad education, spanning a diversity of cultural
as well as economic matters. Theirs was a vibrant home, lovingly tended
by their mother Katarina, herself an independent and spirited woman. In
what were historically trying times, it became an important gathering place
for artists and intellectuals of the region and beyond.
No doubt some of the father’s passionate commitment to matters Slov-
enian passed onto the young boy, even if Kosovel did not follow his wishes
to become a forester and help rebuild the Karst. From his mother, on the
other hand, with whom Kosovel had a strong and loving relationship, he
may have inherited a streak of deiance as well as curiosity about the
world. As a young girl, namely, Katarina Stres rebelled against her par-
ents, who wanted her to marry a man she did not care for. She ran away
from her home village of Sužid to the cosmopolitan hub of the old Austria,
the multiethnic, multilingual and multireligious city of Trieste, where she
took up with a Greek noble family Scaramanga as a nanny for their two
daughters.
Kosovel’s happy childhood years were interrupted by the outbreak of
the First World War. Soon after a new battlefront opened up along the ri-
ver Isonzo (Soča), not even twenty miles to the west of Tomaj, and where
some of the iercest ighting between the Austrians and Italians took place,
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 Ana Jelnikar
his parents sent the twelve-year old boy, together with his sister Anica, to
Ljubljana (the present-day Slovenian capital, but then a provincial town of
some ifty thousand inhabitants near the southern extremity of the Empire,
known as Laibach.) The remaining ten years of his short life Kosovel was
to live in there, coming home for the summer and during term breaks.
After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, Slovenes
joined the newly founded nation state of South Slavic peoples: the King-
dom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (in 1927 oficially renamed Yugoslavia,
“yug” meaning “south”). The spell of optimism they felt for having achie-
ved a measure of political autonomy was soon tainted by the way post-war
territorial issues were resolved. The Treaty of Rapallo (1920), fulilling
some of Italy’s territorial claims conceded by the secret Treaty of London
in 1915 (when Italy joined the Allies), meant a border adjustment allocating
a large chunk of Slovene-populated territory, including Kosovel’s native
region, to Italy. Coupled with the losses incurred on the north border with
Austria, a third of the Slovenian population remained outside the boun-
daries of the newly formed state. For Kosovel, going home for holidays
meant crossing the Italo-Yugoslav border.
The policies of assimilation adopted by Italians towards the Slovenes
now living within Italy made the reality of post-First World War years
particularly harsh for many people, including Kosovel and his family. After
the defeat of the Empire, the city of Trieste – which is today predominantly
Italian, but which at turn of the century had a Slovenian population larger
than Ljubljana – became infected by the virulent ideology of italianitá,
whereby “a straightjacket of Italian oficialdom was imposed on the city’s
multi-ethnic and multi-cultural identity, notably through acts of violence
and persecution directed towards the Slovene community”.12 In 1920, fa-
scists torched the Narodni Dom (the National Home) there, which was the
Slav cultural headquarters, housing a number of organizations, including
the oldest Slovene bank, Slovene theatre, library, and recreational clubs.
This signalled the beginning of a systematic persecution of Slavs, which
gained broad legitimacy as the fascists came into power in 1922.
Policies adopted between 1924 and 1927 “transformed ive hundred Slo-
vene and Croatian primary schools into Italian-language schools, deported
one thousand ‘Slavic’ teachers (personiied as ‘the resistance to foreign
race’) to other parts of Italy, and closed around ive hundred Slav societies
and a slightly smaller number of libraries”.13 Kosovel’s father, for example,
was forced into retirement for refusing to abide by the “Italian language
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
only” policy, and was replaced by the more pliant Slovene Ivan Kosmina.14
This brought the family into serious dificulties, as they had nowhere to
live. Their accommodation came namely with Anton Kosovel’s teaching
post. Furthermore, by 1926 non-Italian names had to be Italianised (Sreč-
ko, meaning “lucky”, for example, became Felice), and in 1927 – soon after
Kosovel’s death – it was forbidden to speak Slovenian in public.
If Italian irredentism was one major source of concern for the young
poet, the other was Yugoslav unitarism, as the centralising tendencies of
Belgrade were becoming more evident. Then there were also the Ger-
manization pressures along the northernmost border: all in all this was
quite a desperate time for Slovenes.15 Kosovel’s particular treatment of
the Slovenian national question is therefore all the more remarkable, when
considered against this climate in which it seemed vital to keep a separate
Slovenian identity in order to hold out against assimilation.
For a country that achieved its full-ledged political sovereignty only
ifteen years ago, language and literature can be expected to be the main-
stay of its identity, often imbued with a strong national sentiment. It has
been argued that smaller Slavic cultures have forged an exceptionally close
link between language, literature and politics. Literature was often seen
as the sacred shrine of national values, and language “a national value”
itself. Some Slavic theorists of the avant-garde have even dubbed them
“philological nations […] constituted through their national language”.
Given this role attached to literature and language, any violation of tradi-
tionally sanctioned forms was seen as a direct attack on the national body
itself.16
In line with the European avant-gardes of the 1920s, Kosovel, however,
was interested precisely in pushing out the boundaries of language and
broadening the scope of acceptable “national” expression. But real and
imagined threats to Slovenian existence in the inter-war period created
a climate in which traditionalism and domesticity were the prescribed
modes. Cosmopolitanism, as noted by Denis Poniž, “automatically meant
apostasy or at least deviation from ‘true’ Slovenianness”.17 It took forty
years for Kosovel’s avant-garde poems to be recognized as poetry and for
the poet to be acknowledged as a central igure in the Slovenian historical
avant-garde.18
But Kosovel was no simple avant-gardist. Like Tagore, he could never
turn his back on tradition, and proclaim a death-sentence on “high” cul-
ture. He would insist on challenging it, criticising it, reinterpreting it, but
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 Ana Jelnikar
he would never disown it. His conviction favoured the twin dynamics of
drawing simultaneously on one’s own tradition and enriching it through
interaction with “foreign” traditions. Convinced of the value of bringing
contemporary literary currents and thought to bear critically on the Slov-
enian reality, he himself engaged with all the major “–isms” of the day,
from impressionism and symbolism to (German) expressionism, (Italian)
futurism, (Russian) constructivism, (French) dadaism and surrealism, suc-
ceeding in his writings to integrate a variety of styles into a truly “modern”
poetics.19 This meant – drawing on the poet’s own deinition – learning
from European artists, rather than following them in blind imitation.20
Kosovel became a champion of an on-going aesthetic revolution. He
shared in the conviction of the post-war generation that art was as powerful
in directing life as politics and economy were. “Artistic form”, he would
insist, “is but the artist’s personal relationship with life (my emphasis)”, so
that the revolution Kosovel defended meant above all an on-going revolu-
tion of artistic expression in direct response to life. 21 The courage to live
out life’s contradictions and give it shape in art was for him a mark of true
existence.
Kosovel’s raison de etre of human beings is unambiguous: “I live,
therefore I can create”. The model of authenticity is dropped in favour of
a model of creativity. “History does not repeat itself, but it creates itself,”
Kosovel writes, “so our model should not be in the past, but in the living
present that we can feel inside us”. Non-elitist in sensibility, he explains:
“Whatever that life may be, the main thing is that I live it; that for me is
enough”. It is on this afirmative stance towards – and respect for – lived
life that Kosovel takes inspiration from Tagore: “Every person’s life is
important, and Tagore is right in saying that human existence is justiied
by the mere fact that we live”.22
Such afirmative philosophy was the driving force behind Kosovel’s
numerous projects, most of which were cut short by his untimely death.
As with Tagore, there was a strong public side to his personality, and he
pursued the needs of both his private and public selves with equal zest
and determination. Poetry for Kosovel was a vital creative force in social
transformation; a powerful vehicle for ideas to be translated into social
reality. In this respect too, his outlook bore close afinities with the Indian
poet-educator.23 Kosovel invested a lot of energy into setting up an alter-
native cultural space within Slovenia, in which Slovenes would engage in
an open dialogue with the world, undertaking a critical self-analysis to
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
position themselves as equal “players”. His clarion call was high-sounding
indeed:
We need to raise our country to the heights of the countries of the
world, to the breadth of human rights, to the depths of ethical pro-
blems. That for us is the cultural mission of Slovenianness.24
Driven by this mission, Kosovel came to participate fully in the literary
life of the metropolis. A student of Romance and Slavic languages and
literatures at the university there (auditing lectures also in philosophy,
pedagogy, and history of art), he soon became active as a writer, editor,
founder of journals and associations, public speaker, and an initiator of
many original and progressive ideas, of which, his world-aspiring and
world-absorbing notion of Slovenianness was one.
Tagore’s vision for India followed a similar trajectory. His whole life
was lived under colonial rule, and yet throughout, he would reiterate with
undiminished conviction that there was one “great fact” about his age, and
that was the meeting of human races. This meant, he argued, that “we”,
Indians, had “to harmonize our growth with world tendencies […] to prove
our worth to the whole world […] to justify our own existence”. It also
meant that problem, which had previously been of local make, were now
affecting much larger areas. Solutions were no longer to be found “in the
seclusion of our own national workshops”, but had to be sought in coopera-
tion with different cultures, through trans-cultural negotiations.25 With this
aim in view, Tagore set up a world university, Visva-Bharati, to promote
such exchange of knowledge and ideas between cultures, East and West.
As for Kosovel: in the last four years of his brief life, he wrote over one
thousand poems. His prose works run into hundreds of pages and consist
of short lyrical pieces, vignettes, polemical essays, literary criticism, and
over two hundred letters. Four large volumes of his collected works now
exist, edited and annotated by Anton Ocvirk, and scholars are to this day
plumbing his legacy for as yet unpublished materials. Srečko Kosovel died
of meningitis on 27 May 1926, not even twenty-three years of age. This
was just as he was about to publish his irst collection of poetry, for which
he chose the title “The Golden Boat”, in direct allusion to – his spiritual
mentor and kin – Rabindranath Tagore.

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 Ana Jelnikar

Wrestling with Nationhood

Tagore’s place among artists and intellectuals Kosovel respected – artists

he felt were conscientious in their creative ambitions, striving to broaden
existential and imaginative possibilities of art – is secured not from some
robust act of appropriation, but through a strong sense of shared concerns
grounded in an anti-imperialist, universalist ethos.26 Tagore was perceived
to be a kindred spirit, not because Kosovel was suffering from some kind
of a fantasy – what after all could a young, still anonymous poet, barely
out of his teens, have in common with a mature, world-renowned igure
of Tagore’s stature? – but because he was able to identify with him and his
historical predicament of colonial subjugation.
He developed this sense of intimacy and shared concerns with the In-
dian poet particularly as he thought of the troubles of Primorska (the Slov-
enian Littoral) under Italian rule, and aligned them with the “unnatural
act” he saw in the “colonisation of the non-European countries”.27 Indeed,
Kosovel understood the plight of his own people in the larger context of
the plight of all who are – in his own vocabulary – “beaten”, “downtrod-
den”, “exhausted”.
Himself positioned on the cusp of Europe where the European “East”
and “West” were facing each other, burdened with notions of barbaric,
irrational, backward (Slavic) East vis-à-vis the modern, rational and en-
lightened (Germanic and Latinate) West, Kosovel could understand the
violence of the colonial encounter, based on the racialized binaries of im-
perial imagination.28 Seeing Trieste regress from a tolerant cosmopolitan
city to a place rife with crude nationalism and race hatred, and his native
region subjected to aggressive de-nationalisation, he did not uncritically
defend “his own” in a nativist backlash but pronounced an indictment on
both Italian irredentism and Slavic nationalism. Kosovel’s quest for libera-
tion – like Tagore’s or Gandhi’s – had to be larger:
Slovene Narodni dom in Trieste 1920.
Worker’s home in Trieste 1920.
Wheat fields burning in Istria.
The Fascists issuing threats at election time.
Hearts growing resilient like stone.
Will Slovene workers’ homes
go on burning?

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
An old lady dying in prayer.
Slovenianness is a progressive factor.
Humaneness is a progressive factor.
Humane Slovenianness: a synthesis in evolution.
Gandhi, Gandhi, Gandhi.
Edinost29 is in flames, in flames,
our people are suffocating, suffocating.
(“Italijanska kultura / Italian Culture”)

This little known, ironically titled piece encapsulates Kosovel’s sensibil-

ity to the core, as it shifts from despair to hope and belief in the evolution
of human spirit symbolised in the igure of Gandhi, to fall back again on
brutal facts, this time leshed out in evocative language. The break between
the two stanzas moves the crisis into an opportunity for a deeper self-
questioning, in which violence and retaliation as a means of asserting one’s
identity (evocation of Gandhi is appropriate indeed30), are superseded by a
humanist perspective. Slovenianness, if it is to progress in evolution, needs
to be refracted through the prism of humanity, itself subject to evolution.
Kosovel, like Tagore, believed in the perfectibility of man.
It will not do, as Tagore wrote in his essay “Purba o Paschim” (East and
West), thinking of the relationship between the British and the Indians, “to
blame them alone”.31 We have to be prepared to “take the blame on our-
selves.” Both Tagore and Kosovel, for all their affection for their respective
countries – indeed precisely from that affection – became their respective
countries’ harshest critics. Moreover, in consonance with a number of the
so-called “third world” intellectuals and poets who articulated some of
these concerns much later than they did, they felt the need to deine “a new
humanism” and institute the possibility for a new world.32 Tagore – with
distinct echoes of Gandhi – wrote: “We must awaken their humanity by
our own – that is the only way”.33
It is important, however, to remember that Tagore and Kosovel were
primarily poets. In the same way that Tagore would celebrate the meet-
ing of cultures in the world across the colonial divide, Kosovel’s artistic
temperament enthused over the possibilities of his age:
We happen to be living at the crossroads of Western and Eastern Eu-
rope, on the battlefront of Eastern culture with Western, in an age which is
the most exciting and the most interesting in its multiplicity of idioms and
movements in politics, economy and art, because our age carries within
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 Ana Jelnikar
itself all the idioms of the cultural and political past of Europe and possibly
the future of Asia …34
No doubt, Kosovel is here imaginatively reaching out to Tagore, whose
projection of Asia’s future relationship with the world he was familiar with
from reading his book Nationalism (1917). At the same time, however,
seeing his own position deined in terms of an “East - West” juncture –
at once a point of division and contact – he is able to partake of Tagore’s
own project of exploiting the divide for a creative encounter: the forging
of a new emancipated individual who will be somehow free of these divi-
sions.
The historical task Kosovel was facing was therefore twofold: to show,
as he put it, that “nationalism was a lie” and, to salvage the salient notion
of narod (a people) – convinced as he was of the importance of national-
cultural identities – from nationalism. “A narod for us”, he wrote, “can
only ever mean a people who have freed themselves of nationalism”.35 And
elsewhere: “If you ask me, a nation only becomes a nation when it becomes
aware of its humanity”.36 Vital ingredients for thinking through this task
he found in Tagore’s book mentioned above. In response to Nationalism,
Kosovel wrote an essay entitled “Nationhood and Education” (1923), which
I will briely discuss to bring my discussion to conclusion.
Based on Tagore’s deinition of the Nation (capitalised) as “the aspect
of a whole people as an organised power”, Kosovel sets this negative “ma-
terialist” notion against what is a positive spiritual category of narodnost
(nationhood), “a sum total of all the elements of a people’s spirituality”.37
Narodnost seems to correspond most closely with Tagore’s deinition of
“society” as “the expression of those moral and spiritual aspirations of
man which belong to his higher nature”.38 Kosovel is fully in consonance
with Tagore on the idea of having “to ind a basis of unity, which is not
political”,39 and his notion of “nationhood” as a spiritual principle, while
it can bind a particular people in unity, rests on the assumption that cannot
be delimited by geopolitical boundaries:
‘Nationhood’ is a part of the soul, and it is the basis from which culture
emerges. But culture does not encompass the soul life of only one people;
it extends towards ininity […] it is the outcome of man’s striving to attain
as closely as he can that spiritual beauty, goodness, that perfection which
he intuits and knows exists. That goal is something that deines human
culture in general […].40

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
Because this goal is generic of human culture as such, all peoples and
individuals are “on their way towards perfection”. Impossible to deine
what perfection is – it can only be intuited – our contemplating it, in
whatever shape or form, will however serve the purpose of safeguarding
us against egoism. “Perhaps the whole point of eternity”, Kosovel ponders,
“is in that it is there for us to tend toward”.41
The acknowledgement of spiritual or soul reality, on which Kosovel’s
conceptions of culture and nationhood rest, is for him a pre-requisite,
a kind of a regulative mechanism for both individuals and collectives.
“Altruism stems from a higher recognition”, he claims, “that our physi-
cal existence needs to be in harmony with our spiritual one”.42 This, for
Kosovel, could simply mean to “think” with your heart, for the soul, like
the heart, is the centre of emotions, and thus a much-needed antidote to
“the heartless, hyper-intellectual civilization” of the West as the young
poet perceived it.43
Driving a wedge between nationhood and nationalism meant demar-
cating the (important) sense of national selfhood from a self-indulgent
celebration of one’s own identity. The two, Kosovel realised, can easily
converge. Nationhood thus requires a measure of sellessness, lest it should
lead down “the wide road of national egoism”. In that respect, it remains
vital to cultivate the perspective of “the soul” and recognize the underly-
ing unity of man. It is in acknowledging differences between cultures and
peoples (Kosovel compares these to differences between different faces),
while recognizing their underlying sameness – their shared human iden-
tity – that Kosovel comes closest to articulating Tagore’s concept of unity
in diversity.44
Both Kosovel and Tagore understood that differences never operate
simply between various individuals and cultures, but are constitutive of
one and the same individual (as also culture). For Kosovel, a human being
was inherently “cosmopolitan”45, and Tagore expressed his own creed in
“the larger ‘We’” in quite remarkable terms:
Who are we to say that this country is ours alone? In fact, who is this
“We”? Bengali, Marathi, or Punjabi, Hindu or Muslim? Only the larger
“We” in whom all these – Hindu and Muslim and British and whoever else
there be – must eventually unite, shall have the right to determine what is
India and what is of the outside.46

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 Ana Jelnikar
The unity Tagore here speaks of is not uniformity, a projection of a
homogeneous oneness, but rather a irm acknowledgment of cultural het-
erogeneity. The diverse heritage that is India’s true foundation is the junc-
ture at which national boundaries give way to a trans-national perspective
(“whoever else there be”), suggested by Tagore’s “larger ‘We’”.
What clearly binds these two poets across the vast geographic and cul-
tural space dividing Slovenia and India is that they were able to imagine
alternatives to a bipolar, racial view of the world. Their vision was driven
by an integrative view of human society and culture, and by an important
recognition of multiple identities within one and the same individual. Per-
haps more urgently today than ever, Tagore and Kosovel can challenge us
to think about ourselves along more inclusive and dynamic lines, whereby
our local and speciic allegiances become a non-conlictual base for reach-
ing out to the world, surrendering neither, while enriching both.

Notes

1 Amit Chaudhuri, “Introduction,” in The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature

(London: Picador, 2001), p. xviii.
2 For further discussion of Tagore’s reception in the West, see Alex Aronson, Rabind-
ranath through Western Eyes (Calcutta: Rrddhi-India, 1978), p. ix.
3 Rabindranath Tagore, in Sisir Kumar Das (ed.), The English Writings of Rabind-
ranath Tagore, Volume 1: Poems (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1996), p. 410.
4 His welcoming in Slovenia is part of Tagore’s larger reception in Yugoslavia. The
poet made several visits to Europe in the 1920s, and his 1926 tour brought him,
among other Central and Eastern European countries, also to Yugoslavia. Between
13 and 17 November, he visited Zagreb and Belgrade, where he delivered a set of
lectures and charmed the audience by reading from one of his most popular poetry
collections The Gardener in the original Bengali. For further detail see Svetozar
Petrović “Tagore in Yugoslavia,” Indian Literature XIII: 2 (1970): 5-29, and “Jugo-
slaveni i Indija,” [Yugoslavs and India] Republika XI: 1 (1955): 383-399.
5 This formidable force in the Germanization of the Slav population in the region was
similar to the role of the Italian Lega Nazionale in the Slovenian Littoral, Kosovel’s
native region. For further details as regards the latter, see Bogdan C. Novak, Trieste,
1941-1954; The Ethnic, Political, and Ideological Struggle (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 3-22.
6 Janko Lokar, “Lanska tekmeca za Nobelovo književno nagrado” [Last Year’s rivals
for the Nobel Prize], Slovan, 12: 6 (1914): 242-247, at 246. Translation mine.
7 Edward, Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Vintage, 1984), p. 265.
8 Petrović, “Tagore in Yugoslavia,” p. 13.

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
9 According to Lokar, Germans, resenting this turn of events, saw in the Swedish
Academy’s policy a clear bias for the Slavs. The old Slavic-Germanic animosity
came to play a signiicant part in the shaping of perceptions of Tagore’s winning the
Nobel Prize on both sides, “Lanska tekmeca za Noblovo književno nagrado” [Last
Year’s rivals for the Nobel Prize], p. 246.
10 Vladimir Bartol “Rabindranath Tagore: pesnik, mislec, skladatelj, slikar in pa vzgo-
jitelj” [Rabindranath Tagore: poet, thinker, composer, painter and educator], in Pri-
morski dnevnik, 16th April (1961): 3. Translation mine.
11 Ibid.
12 Katia Pizzi, A City in Search of an Author; The Literary Identity of Trieste (London:
Shefield Academic Press, 2001), p. 243.
13 Glenda Sluga, The Problem of Trieste and the Italo-Yugoslav Border: Difference,
Identity, and Sovereignty in Twentieth-Century Europe (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 2001), p. 48.
14 In many instances, criteria other than ethnic – such as class or economic – came
powerfully into play in people’s allegiances, complicating issues of national identity.
Many upwardly-mobile ethnic Slovenes, for instance, adopted Italian as their irst
language, setting their class allegiance above their ethnic belonging. See Maura
Hametz, Making Trieste Italian: 1918 – 1954 (Woodbridge: The Boydell & Brewer
Press, 2005), p. 6.
15 Peter Scherber, “Regionalism versus Europeanism in Kosove” Slovene Studies: Jour-
nal of the Society for Slovene Studies 13:2 (1991): 155-165, at 157.
16 Dubravka Djurić, “Radical Poetic Practices: Concrete and Visual Poetry in the Avant-
garde and Neo-avant-garde,” in Djurić and Šuvaković (eds.) Impossible Histories;
Historical Avant-gardes, Neo-avant-gardes, and Post-avant-gardes in Yugoslavia,
1918-1991 (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2003), p. 80; p. 66.
17 Denis Poniž, “Kosovelovo in Kocbekovo pesniško svetovljanstvo” [Kosovel’s and
Kocbek’s Poetic Cosmopolitanism], Nova Revija 23:269 (2004): 330-343, at 322.
Translation mine.
18 It was only against the emergence of concrete and visual poetry in the 1960s that
the most experimental body of Kosovel’s work (something over a 170 poems) was
turned over by his editor Anton Ocvirk and published in the now famous collection
called Integrali ’26, which has since been translated into many languages, includ-
ing English. See Srečko Kosovel, Integrals, tr. by Nike Kocijančič Pokorn, Katarina
Jerin, Philip Burt (Ljubljana: Slovene Writer’s Association, 1998).
19 For an insightful discussion of the modern(ist) aspect of Kosovel’s poetics, see Marko
Juvan, “Srečko Kosovel and the Hybridity of Modernism”, tr. by Katarina Jerin,
in J. Vrečko, B. A. Novak, D. Pavlič (eds.), Kosovelova Poetika/Kosovel’s Poetics,
Posebna številka/Special Issue (Ljubljana: Primerjalna Književnost, 2005), pp. 189-
199.
20 Kosovel: “Our art has become local and not Slovenian in an absolute sense. Our art
has become imitative and not modern in the global sense of the term. Our artists did
not learn from the European artists, but they imitated them blindly.” “Razpad družbe
in propad umetnosti” [The Desintegration of Society and Demise of Art], in Zbrano
Delo [Collected Works], III., prvi del [part one] (henceforth referred to as CW III.
i.), p. 41. Unless stated otherwise, all translations of Kosovel’s Slovene originals are
mine.
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 Ana Jelnikar
21 Kosovel, notes VII, CW III.i, p. 657.
22 Kosovel, “Umetnik in publikum,” [Artist and his Public] in CW III. i., p. 100; “Pis-
mo” [Letter], Ibid., p. 87.
23 For an excellent study of this aspect to Tagore’s many-sided achievements, see Kath-
leen M. O’Connel, Rabindranath Tagore: The Poet as Educator (Kolkata: Visva-
Bharati, 2002).
24 Kosovel, “Napake slovenstva” [Errors of Slovenianhood], in CW III.i., p. 60.
25 Tagore, “Thougths from Tagore”, 171., in Sisir Kumar Das (ed.), The English Writings
of Rabindranath Tagore, Volume 3: Poems (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1996), p.
76.
26 Some of these would include: “Rabindranath Tagore, Henri Barbusse, Romain Rol-
land, Selma Lagerlöf, Ernst Toller”, who, Kosovel writes have all “declared a relent-
less ight against injustice and violence,” in “Umetnost in proletarec” [Art and the
Proletariat], CW III.i., p. 27, as well as many other writers the poet read, including
the foremost Slovenian modernist writer Ivan Cankar, and the Russian Leo Tolstoy.
He translated Romain Rolland’s manifesto entitled “Déclaration d’independence de
l’esprit” (1919), which Tagore had signed, from French into Slovenian in 1926.
27 Kosovel, “Narodnost in izobrazba” [Nationhood and Education], CW III.i., pp. 65-
66.
28 For further insight into the role of stereotyping and representation in the troubled
history of the Adriatic boundary region, see Sluga, Difference, Identity, and Sover-
eignity in Twentieth-Century Europe: The Problem of Trieste and the Italo-Yugoslav
Border, particularly chapter 1, pp, 12-38.
29 Edinost was a Slovene printing press in Trieste, a publishing house with its own
daily newspaper of the same name, and a Slovene political party, established as early
as 1874. It was a backbone of national sentiment, as its name, which can literally
translates as “unity”, but carries overtones of a united front, suggests. It came under
attack many times in the 1920s.
30 Kosovel would most probably have read an article on Gandhi that came out in
Slovenec, 275 (1921): 2, possibly even Romain Rolland’s book, Mahatma Gandhi,
published in 1924. He certainly knew that as Slovenian cultural institutions were
under attack in Trieste, Gandhi was launching his Non-cooperation movement on
the Subcontinent to oust the British.
31 Tagore, “East and West,” in Rabindarnath Tagore: Towards Universal Man (London:
Asia Publishing House, 1961), p. 138.
32 See Said “Resistance and Opposition” in Imperialism and Culture, pp. 230-340,
particularly 257-300; Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, tr. by Constance
Farrington (New York: Grove Press, 1963), p. 246; and his Black Skin, White Masks,
tr. by Charles Lam Markmann (London: Pluto Press, 1986), p. 197. Kosovel would
deserve to be read alongside some of these poets of “resistance”, Yeats, Senghor, Ner-
uda and others. He can also be seen as an intellectual precursor of the Non-Aligned
Movement, which was founded by Tito of Yugoslavia, the Indian Prime Minister
Jawaharlar Nehru, and the Egyptian President Nasser (supported by Sukarno of
Indonesia and Nkrumah of Ghana). The irst NAM summit was held in Belgrade in
1961.
33 Tagore, “East and West,” p. 138.
34 Kosovel, “Igo Gruden,” CW III.i., p. 178.
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
35 Kosovel, CW III.i., p. 624.
36 Kosovel, in a letter to Dragan anda, 15. September 1925, in CW. III.i., pp. 323-
324.
37 Tagore, Nationalism (New Delhi: Rupa & Co, 2002), p. 120; Kosovel “Narodnost in
izobrazba,” [Nationhood and Education] CW III.i., p. 66.
38 Tagore, Nationalism, p. 131.
39 Ibid., p. 107.
40 Kosovel, “Narodnost in izobrazba,” p. 67.
41 Ibid., p. 68.
42 Ibid.
43 See, in particular, his essay “Umetnost in proletarec,” pp. 21-30, at p. 27.
44 Kosovel, “Narodnost in izobrazba,” pp. 67-69.
45 Kosovel, notes IV, CW III. i., p. 627.
46 Tagore, Towards Universal Man, p. 133.

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 Indian Religious Ideas And Practices
In Slovenia
Aleš Črnič

Introduction

The exchange of ideas between the East and the West has been taking
place at least since Antiquity. The intensity of the low of ideas conside-
rably grew in the second half of the 20th century after upgraded transport
and communication means had enabled the true globalisation of the world.
As a result, the systemic organisation of present Asian societies follows
the principles of contemporary corporate capitalism ‘imported’ from the
West. In return, Asian societies have offered a plethora of religious-philo-
sophical ideas and concepts that are helping Western man to mitigate the
consequences of his consumption-oriented life, sometimes successfully
bridging the metaphysical void and catering to his spiritual needs.
The rapid spread of Indian religions in the second half of the 20th cen-
tury, irst in the USA and then in Europe, was conditioned by intense
emigration from Asia. In addition, Indian religious-philosophical ideas had
fallen on fertile soil that had been prepared by the hippie counter-culture
in the 1960s and 1970s. Today no traces of any living counter-culture can
be found and yet the attraction of Indian religions has not faded. In major
American and European cities a number of Buddhist temples, meditation
centres, oriental institutes, and similar institutions can be found. Numerous
new religious groups are offering Hindu meditation and yoga techniques.
Relatively large numbers of Westerners still make pilgrimages to Indian
ashrams where creative gurus lead them toward an exit from a crisis into
which they had been pushed by the contemporary way of life. Related in-
stitutions have also emerged in the West, where numerous tired individuals
stopped scrambling for wealth and are trying to ind their own path toward
redemption, including some as Buddhist monks and nuns.
Viewed from an historical perspective, today’s disintegration of religi-
ous monoliths and the mixing, transfer, and reinterpretation of individual
ideas, the emergence of new syncretisms, etc., are not revolutionary (let
us consider Hellenism, for instance). Yet, an important aspect is the extent
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
of these processes, which has never been experienced before. As a result,
today the classical deinitions of religion and the churches are not suficient
for the understanding of man’s existence. Or in the words of the sociologist
Thomas Luckmann: “the norms of traditional religious institutions rooted
in the ‘oficial’ or previously ‘oficial’ model cannot any longer be used as
a measure for the evaluation of religion in the modern setting. To correctly
understand the role of religion, the correct questions have to be set irst.”1
Therefore, if an accurate deinition of the proile of our cultural identity
is to be found, the study of Catholicism alone is not enough. In fact, in
addition to the Judeo-Christian tradition our identity is signiicantly inlu-
enced by encounters with other spiritual traditions. Among these radically
different traditions, the Asian,2 in particular Hinduism and Buddhism, are
probably the most inluential.
This paper irst provides an outline of the history of contacts between
Indian ideas and the West, and brief overview of Indian religious groups
that are present in modern Western societies. Then it concentrates on me-
chanisms for the transfer of Indian ideas into the Western world, while
the central section provides an analysis of Slovene contacts with Indian
tradition.

Contacts between Indian Religions

and the Western World

The origins of the contacts of the Western world with Indian culture can
be traced back as far as the 5th century BC and the rich cultural exchange
between the Greeks and Indians. The intensity of these contacts grew with
the arrival of Alexander the Great to the Indian subcontinent (in 327-325
BC). Indian ideas were taken to Greece in particular by three philosophers
who followed Alexander’s conquests: Onesicritus – Diogenes’ disciple,
Anaxarchus – a follower of Democritus’ doctrine, and Pyrrho from Ellis.
The best preserved portrayal of Indian ideas from the Hellenist period is
considered to be found in Megasthenes’ work “Indica” from 311 BC, whi-
ch describes numerous teachings of Indian sages and compares them to
Hellenistic conceptions of the world and life. Contacts between Indian and
Greek cultures are also described in some writings of Pāli literature.3 The
best known among these probably is, at least in Slovenia, a Greek-Indian
dialogue between Milinda, Greek king of Bactria (Menander, inluential
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 Aleš Črnič
ruler in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent approximately
in 140-110 BC), and the Indian Buddhist monk Nāgasena, entitled “The
Questions of King Milinda” (Milindapañha).4
In the late 13th century information on Indian religions (mostly Budd-
hism) was brought to Europe by Marco Polo. The next encounters of the
Western world with Indian religions – which, however, have not left sub-
stantial traces in European culture – can be dated into the colonization
period. A truly genuine interest in Indian religions (in particular Budd-
hism) began at the end of the 18th and primarily in the 19th century when
the irst translations of the sacred texts of the East were made (e.g., the
Upaniṣads translated from Persian into Latin by Anquetil-Duperon in 1802,
or Humboldt’s translation of the Bhagavad-Gītā into German from 1827,
etc.). With the emergence of scientiic studies of Buddhism (the pioneers
in this ield were Thomas William, T. W. Rhys Davids, and Hermann Ol-
denberg), the general interest in Buddhism increased and the irst Buddhist
associations were founded. Buddhist ideas exerted a signiicant inluence
on Schopenhauer’s philosophy while the Indian philosophical-religious
ideas were also discovered and largely adopted by Romanticism. The im-
portant role of Oxford professor Max Müller in starting the collection and
classiication of original materials of Indian literature of the Vedic and
post-Vedic periods should also be noted.
The spread of Indian ideas in the Western world was signiicantly favo-
ured by the Theosophical Society founded in New York in 1875 by Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott. With eclecticism and sync-
retism, the Society promoted the ideas of Hinduism, Buddhism, and We-
stern occultism, strove for a synthesis of esoteric teachings of the Western
world and Southern Asia, and emphasized the core importance of karma
and reincarnation. Another important milestone that favoured the spread
of Indian ideas in the West was laid by the irst Parliament of the World’s
Religions held in Chicago in 1893 where representatives of Western and
Eastern religions met face to face for the irst time. Among numerous
representatives of Asian spirituality, the one who drew the most attention
was the Hindu master Vivekānanda. Later, in 1897, he established the
Vedanta Society in New York. A couple of decades later (in 1925) and in
a similar fashion the Self-realization Fellowship was established in Los
Angeles by Paramahamsa Yogānanda.
The true popularity of the Indian philosophical-religious ideas in the
West blossomed in the second half of the 1960s. Within mass emigrati-
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
on of Asians mostly to the USA (greatly favoured by the change of US
immigration legislation that signiicantly liberalized the US immigration
policy) many spiritual teachers came. Their ideas soon fell on extremely
fertile soil that had been prepared by the New Age movement5 and the
hippie counter-culture, which cannot be simplistically understood solely
as a political and (secular) cultural rebellion of youth against the existing
culture. Along with the ight for citizen rights and equal opportunities for
women, and the emergence of the ecological movement, the interest in
spirituality that was different from that advocated by the existing religious
institutions signiicantly increased (among others, one alternative consisted
of occult and mystical traditions of ancient India).

Indian Religious Groups

in Contemporary Western Societies

The most popular Eastern religion in today’s Western societies is

Buddhism in all its diverse forms, among which Tibetan Buddhism and
Zen prevail.6 Of course, Indian religious ideas have also been spreading
through the rich Hindu tradition and in particular numerous gurus teach-
ing the Indian tradition of yoga. These were, among others, Yogi Bhajan
and his Happy Holy Organization, Swami Satchidananda who became
famous after opening the Woodstock festival, Swami Vishnudevananda
and his International Sivananda Yoga, and Meher Baba, who came to the
USA in 1952.
Great popularity in the West was achieved by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
with his Transcendental Meditation program that attracted many famous
people of the 1970s (The Beatles, for instance), which gave its popularity
an additional boost. Maharishi’s transcendental meditation can be viewed
as a typical example of adapting Hindu spiritual techniques and methods
to the Western public. It is based on the repetition of a meaningless mantra
that is not the subject of attention but simply a means toward a higher level
of spiritual consciousness (and the inal altered state of consciousness and
feeling of oneness with all living beings). Such meditation is rather simple
and not too demanding and as such appropriate for everybody, in particular
consumption-oriented Westerners striving for immediate satisfaction of
all their (even spiritual) needs. In addition, this is a technique that leads
to results without being related to any broader “ideological” context or
“belief”.
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 Aleš Črnič
One of the most rapidly growing groups with Hindu origins in the West
is the group established in India by the charismatic Sathya Sai Baba. His
adherents have recognized him as an avatar7 of Śiva, Viṣṇu, and Kṛṣṇa,
while more than by his teachings masses of Westerners are attracted by
his power to perform various “wonders or miracles” (siddhis), for instance
miraculous recovery, mind reading, materialization of jewellery, and the
production of holy ash (vibhūti) with attributed healing power. Even though
Sai Baba differs from the majority of other modern Indian gurus that have
often visited the Western countries or have actually moved there in that
he never left India, his popularity is growing incessantly in the West as
well. At the end of the 20th century his movement counted approximately
six million followers in India, in addition to almost 50 million devotees
in 64 other countries.8
The group founded by Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh – Osho can certainly be
classiied among the most controversial ones. First, in the 1970s, he es-
tablished a commune in Poona. After being exiled from India he bought
land in Oregon and established a new commune with 5,000 followers. The
commune had its own electrical power plant, school, health services, TV
station, press, hotel, airport, university, etc., while Rajneesh himself be-
came famous for his collection of gold Rolexes and 95 Rolls-Royces. The
process culminated with Rajneesh’s expulsion from the USA, payment of a
heavy ine, disintegration of the commune in Oregon, and a huge decline in
the number of believers. Rajneesh returned to the ashram in Poona where
he died in 1990 while his movement has remained present in numerous
Western states up to the present day.
Not all Indian groups that are popular in the West draw their ideas
and practices from Buddhism or Hinduism. A movement established in
the 1920s in India under the name of Divya Sandesh Parishad by Shri
Hans Ji Maharaj originates from Sikhism, for instance. In the 1970s his
son, Satguru Maharaj Ji, moved to London and transmitted the movement
founded by his father to the West under the name of Divine Light Mission.
The movement is based on four “divine” meditation techniques that enable
an individual to enter his or her inner world and experience the “divine
light”, “divine harmony”, “divine nectar”, and “divine words”. Discord
within Maharaj Ji’s family in the 1990s weakened the movement that today
continues its activities under the name of Elan Vital and is supposed to
have approximately ive million followers.

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

Ways Of Transmission Of Indian Religious-Philosophical

Ideas Into Contemporary Western Societies

The transmission of Indian religious ideas into the West takes place
along two channels:
the Indian religious ideas are transmitted to the West through move-
ments and groups that are trying to remain as loyal as possible to the le-
gacy of origin. These are primarily groups of Asian emigrants in the USA
and Europe as well as some new religious movements.9 A good example of
the “transplantation” of concepts and practices is the International Society
for Krishna Consciousness;
separate ideas, concepts, or practices, are detached from their contexts
and are selectively appropriated, reinterpreted, and included into a new
cultural system. An example of “cultural reinterpretation” is Western yoga
practices and the Western use of the idea of reincarnation.

“Transplantation” of Indian Religions

Among Asian emigrants (e.g., the large community of Indian emigrants

in Great Britain) the religious ideas remain largely similar to original ideas
although after transmission to a radically different cultural environment
some minor alterations mostly concerning the social organization of re-
ligious groups and the performance of rituals cannot be avoided. During
his study of Hindu groups of Indian emigrants in Great Britain, Thomas10
noticed some changes concerning intercaste relations and rituals marking
important moments in the life cycle (saṃskāra), especially those accom-
panying birth and death. Nevertheless, these changes are mostly social-
organizational in nature and as such do not exert a signiicant inluence
on the core of the religious doctrine.
Original traditions are not only preserved by groups of Asian emi-
grants but also some new religious movements whose activities primarily
focus on Westerners. A good example of the “transplantation” of Indian
religious-philosophical ideas into the West is the International Society for
Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), generally known under the name the
Hare Krishna movement.11 It has been, after four decades of activity in the
West, one of the most noticeable and controversial yet certainly also one of

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 Aleš Črnič
the most speciic new religious movements. Even within the multitude of
movements with Indian origin, it belongs to those rare groups that strictly
respect ancient Indian tradition not only in their doctrine and rituals but
often in entirely quotidian issues, such as food and clothing. The lifestyle
of its adherents therefore radically differs from the prevailing culture and
society, which consequently triggers various, often rather controversial
reactions to its members and their activities.12
The origins of the movement date back to the Middle Ages, to the re-
formational spiritual movement of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu (1486–1533).
He has been accepted by his devotees to be the inal avatar of Kṛṣṇa – the
omnipresent and omnipotent Supreme God who is also a human at the
same time. Caitanya’s reformed branch of Vaiṣṇavism – one of the three
main religious streams of classical India with worship of the God Viṣṇu
at its centre – emphasizes devoted and loving worship (bhakti) which is
believed to be the easiest way to reach God. The main attention is given
to Kṛṣṇa and his faithful companion Rādha, worshipped by the believers
through individual or group chanting of holy names – the Hare Kṛṣṇa
Mahā-mantra.13 In fact, God is supposed to bear a multitude of different
names that contain all his spiritual energies while singing these names is
said to have the power to awaken an individual’s dormant love for God.
The contemporary Hare Krishna movement, as it is known in the West,
was founded by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977),14
undoubtedly one of the most successful promoters of Hindu religion and
culture in the world. In 1966 he founded the International Society for
Krishna Consciousness in New York, which rapidly spread irst across the
USA, then in Great Britain and continental Europe, and inally across the
whole world. At the end of the 20th century the Hare Krishna movement
had approximately 350 temples, 40 rural communities, 50 schools, and
95 restaurants in more than one hundred states. There are estimated to be
approximately 30,000 initiated members of the movement in the world,
while the entire congregation is believed to have approximately one milli-
on adherents.15 ISKCON is also one of the most active world’s publishers:
in three decades it has published more than 395 million books on Indian
philosophy and religion in more than 70 languages.
Despite the fact that in its three decades of existence ISKCON has
considerably adjusted its orthodox living style and has transformed from
a typical “temple” movement where all its members lived monastic lives
into a “congregation” movement in close contact with its environment, it
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
is still the object of negative and sometimes hostile reactions of society,
most evidently so in former socialist states.16

Cultural Reinterpretation
The impact of Indian religious-philosophical ideas and concepts on
the culture of contemporary Western societies should not be studied only
through the analysis of religious groups of Asian emigrants or those new
religious movements that are directly related to Indian tradition. In addi-
tion to these groups, there is a series of other new religious movements
and groups that have transferred only separate Indian concepts into the
Western cultural environment, detaching them from their original religio-
us-cultural environment and using them in ways most appropriate to their
needs and wishes.
There are even more ideas and concepts that have been entirely “fre-
ed” from their bonds to the Indian religious-cultural tradition, and have
become autonomous elements in the colourful mosaic of the contempora-
ry Western society. These ideas are transmitted to the West through the
process of cultural reinterpretation. Typical examples of ideas that have
been detached from their environment of origin to be revived in Western
culture where they have acquired some new meanings and where their
content may have signiicantly parted from their original context are the
concepts of reincarnation and yoga.

A. Reincarnation
Needless to say, the idea of reincarnation17 developed within the fra-
mework of Indian tradition. Early Vedas describe a trans-material person
that goes to eternal heaven or hell (depending on the individual’s life) after
physical death. However, the text Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa from the second
period of Vedic literature (850–500 BC) introduces the idea of innumerable
earthly existences in different life forms. According to Indian tradition,
each living being is subject to saṃsāra or a perpetual cycle of births and
deaths. Each concrete reincarnation depends on an individual’s karma,
which is a result of his/her acts in his/her previous lives. The ultimate
objective both in Buddhism and Hinduism is to break free from the cycle
of reincarnations:18 for Hindus this takes place when an individual’s soul
(ātman) merges with brahman (the universal, cosmic soul) whereas the
Buddhists escape saṃsāra by achieving nirvana or the extinction of all
wishes and the related extinction of consciousness.
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 Aleš Črnič
In the West the idea of man’s rebirth appeared in the 7th and 6th centuries
BC among the followers of the ancient Greek Orphic religious-philosophi-
cal sect and was later adopted by Pythagoras. The Jewish Kabala describes
transmigration as a punishment for the sins committed in previous lives
while some Christian Gnostic sects in the 1st century and the Manicheans
in the 4th century also believed in the idea of reincarnation. Later, the idea
of reincarnation inluenced the medieval thought through Plato (who de-
veloped the idea of the immortal soul) while the idea of reincarnation is,
of course, determinedly rejected by contemporary Christianity.
The idea of reincarnation permeated the West in the second half of the
20th century together with the New Age movement: at the end of the 20th
century, as many as 40% of the population of Iceland, 36% of Switzerland,
34% of Finland, 33% of Northern Ireland, 31% of Canada, 29% of Great
Britain, Austria, and Portugal, 28% of Spain and France, 27% of Italy, 26%
of Poland, the USA, and West Germany, etc., as well as 17% of Slovenia
believed in reincarnation.19
However, the Western conception of reincarnation is signiicantly dif-
ferent from the Indian concept. Both for Buddhists and Hindus reincarna-
tion represents a burden, entrapment in the perpetual cycle of births and
deaths from which only the enlightened can be set free. Within the “great
tradition” of canonical Buddhism and “nibbanic”20 Buddhism reincarna-
tion is not viewed as a positive but as a negative concept that needs to be
overcome. On the other hand, Westerners do not perceive reincarnation
as a problem but as a redeeming opportunity for new beginnings. While
a Hindu’s and in particular a Buddhist’s life is primarily characterized by
dissatisfaction and suffering caused by his or her wishes and attachment to
material existence, a Westerner usually does not strive for the extinction of
wishes and the end of earthly life. On the contrary, reincarnation is seen as
an opportunity for the satisfaction of these wishes in the lives to come.

B. Yoga
Another example of cultural reinterpretation is provided by the Western
ways of practicing yoga. Together with the laws of karma, maya (cosmic
illusion, a consequence of human ignorance), and nirvana, yoga constitutes
the core of Indian spirituality. In the 2nd century BC in his famous Yoga
Sūtra Patañjali collected the existing Hindu yogic ideas and systems and
merged them with the Sāṃkhya philosophy used as the metaphysical basis.
Thus he developed yoga as a “philosophical system” or “classical yoga”.
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

The purpose of yoga is liberation (mokṣa) achieved through the isolation or

separation (kaivalya) of the self (ātman) from the physical world (prakṛti).
In addition to “classical” yoga, a series of non-systematized forms of “po-
pular” yoga exist, for instance Buddhist yoga, “magic” and “mystical”
forms of yoga, etc.21 Each form of yoga reaches the spiritual objective by
means of different methods. Some lay more emphasis on the human intel-
lect ( jñāna-yoga), others on the heart and emotions (bhakti-yoga), some
methods rely on the human will (rāja-yoga), others on the human body
(haṭha-yoga).22 Some forms of yoga use a combination of the above (e.g.,
Sri Aurobindo’s integrated or holistic yoga).23
These forms of yoga need to be separated from the overly simpliied
and sometimes distorted supply that inundated the West in the second half
of the 20th century. Most commonly the latter refer to separate segments
of one of the forms presented above, which are detached from a broader
context and adapted to the consumer mentality of the contemporary po-
pulation of our (post)modern world. Variations of haṭha-yoga are most
widespread. However, in the West it is usually not practised with spiritual
objectives in mind but rather to mitigate the negative consequences of the
contemporary ways of life, to improve physical abilities or health, and to
prolong youth and life. This, however, is not yoga in the strictest meaning
of the word but would most often be best described as nothing more than
(usually beneicial) plain physical activity.
Westerners are usually attracted by the sensational effects of practicing
yoga methods; on the path toward the objective – i.e., liberation from the
deceptive material world and union with the absolute, with the cosmos,
with the divine – these have only supericial importance.24 In addition,
Westerners frequently fall victim to enterprising Indian gurus, as has been
shown is the critical yet also humorous book of essays written by the Indi-
an writer Gita Mehta.25 Fashionable physical exercising that has spread in
the Western world under the name of yoga is far from mystical aspirations
toward breaking free from entrapment in the material world that can be
found at the very core of original yoga. Therefore, we can conclude that
it has very little in common with the word yoga used as a synonym for
absolute liberation.

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 Aleš Črnič

Indian Religions In The Slovene Environment

First Slovene Contacts with Indian Religions

Similarly to other Western European countries, in Slovenia the interest

in Indian religions, in particular Buddhism and Hinduism, started as early
as the irst half of the 19th century and grew in particular in the irst de-
cades of the 20th century.26 Up to the end of the 19th century information
on Indian religions was limited to modest news in daily newspapers and
magazines, and was often highly unreliable or simply incorrect. The irst
Slovene to have provided a thorough and extensive description of Indian
religions was the writer and politician Ivan Tavčar. In 1873 he adapted
information from foreign literature and then published a comprehensive
article entitled Nature and Civilization (Narava in civilizacija) in Zora,
the science supplement of the Vestnik newspaper. His text represents the
irst thorough description of Buddhism in Slovenia. However, it contains
supericial and sometimes erroneous interpretations of the majority of
Buddhist concepts, thus relecting the general low level of information
among the Slovene intelligentsia of that time. In his text Tavčar displayed
an explicitly repudiative attitude toward India, its religions, and cultures.
The efforts made in the same period by Dr. Karl Glaser (1845–1913), who
translated parts of the Ṛgveda27 and Mahābhārata28 have to be mentio-
ned. Glaser also published texts on the religious life of Indians and Indian
mythology.
After the increasing popularity of Buddhism in Western and Central
Europe, in Slovenia the critics mostly coming from the circles of the Catho-
lic Church started warning the public that the spreading of Buddhism me-
ant the spreading of “anti-Christian freethinking”. Buddhism entered the
Slovene environment from German-speaking countries, primarily through
the ideas and work of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Among those
acquainted with his work we should mention the writers and poets Josip
Stritar, Simon Jenko, and Simon Gregorčič, while Schopenhauer’s strong
inluence in the irst decade of the 20th century can be found in the poems
of Alojz Gradnik. Nevertheless, with the exception of individual poems
written by Anton Aškerc that reveal the author’s favourable attitude toward
Buddhist ideas and mostly a correct understanding of Buddhism, up to the
end of World War I Slovenes could not rely on almost anything that would
soften the Catholic unilateral evaluation of Buddhism.
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
After World War I the number of positive and thorough depictions of
Buddhism increased. An author that deserves to be mentioned certainly
is Josip Suchy (born in Kamnik in 1869). During his diplomatic activities
he came in contact with Buddhism and as a result three of his books were
published in the 1920s: Introduction to Buddhism (Uvod v buddhizem), Old
Indian Fables, Myths, and Tales (Staroindijske basni, bajke in pravljice),
and Fugitive Images of India (Bežne slike iz Indije), in which he thorou-
ghly presented the life of the Buddha, his doctrine, the development of
Buddhism after his death, its expansion beyond the borders of India, and
Pali writings on the Buddha’s lives. Suchy’s work received considerable
attention among the Slovene public, in particular within cultural and reli-
gious circles, but also caused a lot of agitation.
An important step toward a better understanding of Indian spiritual
tradition was made in 1924 when in the booklet of Dr. A. Koralnik entitled
Closed Doors (Zaprta vrata) the translation of the lecture God and Man
(Bog in človek) delivered by Swami Vivekānanda was published. It was
then that the Slovene reader had the irst opportunity ever to directly learn
about Vedānta philosophy. In the 1930s two entirely different books dedi-
cated exclusively to Indian religions and philosophies were published. The
irst, a translation of the book of Ramacharaka (William Walker Atkinson)
Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism published
by the publishing house Nove miselnosti in Ljubljana in 1931 under the
Slovene title of Filozoija jogijev in orientalski okultizem, is close to theo-
sophy; it includes explanations of basic terms and ideas, accompanied by
practical advice for practicing yoga. The second, the book Bengali Gods
(Bengalčevi bogovi) published by Indijska knjižnica in Ljubljana in 1936,
was written by the Catholic missionary Stanko Podržaj. The book descri-
bes the main Hindu gods and festivities, and includes some stories from
Indian mythology. The second book is an example of indignant rejection
of Hinduism.
In the same period interest in Tibetan Buddhism was enhanced by the
death of the 13th Dalai Lama. The most comprehensive Slovene description
of Tibetan Buddhism (a text entitled Lamaism and Catholicism [Lamaizem
in katolicizem]) was published in the newspaper Čas by Dr. Vilko Fajdiga
in 1933. Based on writings of several foreign authors, the text examines the
geographical extension of Tibetan Buddhism, its founders, reformers of its
branches, external signs of religiousness, and the importance of Tibetan
monkhood. Among Slovene authors Dr. Fajdiga was the one to have most

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 Aleš Črnič
thoroughly studied also Hinduism and Brahmanism. In 1944 he published
an extensive treatise entitled Brahmanism and Christianity (Brahmanizem
in krščanstvo) in the journal Bogoslovni vestnik.
Most knowledge on Indian religions came to Slovenia from foreign
literature. Personal experience was only reported on by some missionaries
and a few travellers, among which a special role should be attributed to
Alma Karlin (1889-1950) from Celje, who wrote in German. She is on-
ly recently being discovered and her popularity is constantly increasing
among the Slovene public.. In her comprehensive work entitled Faiths and
Superstitions of the Far East (Glaube und Aberglaube im fernen Osten),
written after 1928 when she returned home from eight years of long tra-
vel, she provides a detailed examination of the religions (along with the
mythology, superstitions, customs, habits, etc.) of Japan, Korea, Formosa
(Taiwan), Indonesia, the Malayan peninsula, Siam (Thailand), Cambodia,
Burma (Myanmar), and of course India. The text is illustrated with the
author’s drawings and sketches.
The attitude toward Indian religions can partly be deduced from the
emergence and spreading of theosophy in Slovenia, encountered by some
Slovene intellectuals during their studies in Vienna, Graz, and Prague.
Thus, the irst traces of theosophy among Slovenes probably reach back
as far as the last decade of the 19th century while it was formally insti-
tutionalized in 1923 with the establishment of the Theosophical Society
in Ljubljana. The Yugoslav Theosophical Society was established later,
in 1925. The Society organized lectures (including some in Slovenia). In
1927 it launched the journal Theosophy (Teozoija) published in Zagreb.
The Slovene poet Oton Župančič irst encountered theosophy in Germany
in 1908 and often intertwined theosophical elements into his poems while
another famous theosophist was Alma Karlin.
Slovene theosophists mostly drew their knowledge from German li-
terature they received from Germany and Austria, but also used Serbo-
Croatian texts and translations that they received from Zagreb or Belgrade.
Approximately in 1936 the members of the Ljubljana circle started syste-
matic translation of ancient and recent philosophical and religious texts
of the East. Taken from Indian tradition, some of Krishnamurti’s texts,
the eight fundamental lessons given by the Buddha, the Bhagavad-Gita,
and Vivekananda’s texts were translated. Soon after World War II the
Theosophical Society, which is still active today, was registered again. In
addition to theosophists, before World War II there were other people in
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
Slovenia with an interest in the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, among
them the poet Alojz Gradnik. According to his words, a supporter of the
ideas of reincarnation and karma, advocated by theosophists and anthropo-
sophists, would be also the most important Slovene writer and playwright
Ivan Cankar.

Indian Philosophical and Religious Ideas

in Contemporary Slovene Society
Several texts of original Indian literature have been translated into Slo-
vene. In addition to as many as two translations of the Bhagavad-Gītā
and some texts of the Pāli Canon, there are translations of texts written
by Krishnamurti, Sri Aurobindo, Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekānanda, etc.
Nevertheless, as a result of lack of relevant literature, it seems that the
public is relatively unaware of the phenomenon of new religious move-
ments (including the majority of the groups based on the Indian spiritual
legacy). Compared to the USA and Western Europe, these movements
entered Slovenia with a temporal delay – mostly in the 1980s and in par-
ticular in the 1990s – and now we are also witnessing a parallel delay in
their theoretical relection. Despite the shortage of professional literature,
scientiic research studies, and relatively scarce attention of the media, the
presence of Indian religious ideas and practices among Slovenes cannot go
unnoticed. First, there are quite many organized religious groups that are
based on the Indian legacy. The Slovene Government Ofice for Religious
Communities lists 43 registered communities,29 among which ive can be
classiied as Indian.

A. Registered religious communities

The irst registered community was the Society for Krishna Consciou-
sness or ISKCON30 in 1983. Despite the relative low number of its mem-
bers (up to 150 very devoted followers and approximately 300 less active
adherents),31 the Society for Krishna Consciousness has probably been
the most recognized among all new religious movements in Slovenia. It
would be hard to say that the rest of society has any detailed information
concerning their activities, though. Their activities can be divided into
two clearly distinguished phases: in the irst, pioneer period, ISKCON
was characterized by intense activities of its members who were mainly

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 Aleš Črnič
young and who devoted their entire lives to the community. Consequently,
the community was highly recognizable in public, evoking mixed feelings
and often controversial reactions. The irst period was marked by a rapid
growth of the community, the intense public activity of its members, and
relatively unselective acceptance of new members who were formally initi-
ated after a very short introductory time. Approximately in 1997 and 1998
the community entered the second phase of activity, when the majority of
old members gradually moved away from the temple and started lay lives.
Many of them got married and created families, which signiicantly affec-
ted their relations toward ISKCON and religion in general. The Society for
Krishna Consciousness in Slovenia, similarly to ISKCON’s communities
in the majority of Western countries a decade or more previously, there-
fore experienced a transition from the “temple” to the “congregational” or
“residential” phase, accompanied by complex consequences for the orga-
nization of the community itself as well as for its relations with the public.
The community has decidedly opened up, contacts with the society have
intensiied, and today the majority of its adherents live within the circles
of their families and visit the temple only to perform religious rituals and
other activities.32
An obscure Sri Radhakunda – Society for Sri Gouranga Consciousness
( ri Radhakunda – Skupnost za zavest ri Gourange), registered in 1994,
detached from ISKCON. Its activities, however, are limited to an extremely
low number of members, certainly fewer than 10, and are not noticeable
in public life.
In 1995 the irst Buddhist religious group was formally registered: the
Buddha Dharma – The Union of Buddhists in the Republic of Slovenia
(Buddha Dharma – Zveza budistov v Republiki Sloveniji). After initial
relatively lively activities it has practically vanished from Slovene public
life in the recent years.
A true blossoming of Buddhism in Slovenia can be attributed to the
Buddhist Congregation Dharmaling,33 based on Tibetan, Vajrayana Budd-
hist tradition. Its activities in Slovenia started in 2001 while it was formally
registered in 2003. According to the words of its leader, a Tibetan lama
of French origin Shenphen Rinpoche, as many as 300 Slovenes have been
initiated into Buddhism since then, while since 2006 we have acquired our
irst Slovene Buddhist monk and nun. In January, 2007, the community
bought a house in Ljubljana where the irst Slovene Buddhist temple was
opened.
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
In 2003 the Hindu Religious Community (Hinduistična verska sku-
pnost) was registered at the Government Ofice for Religious Commu-
nities. The community originated from the core of practitioners of Yoga
in Daily Life of Swami Maheshvarananda and in part from the Associ-
ation of Indian-Slovene Friendship, established in 1999. The community
is currently active in Ljubljana, Maribor, Novo mesto, Škofja Loka, and
Kranj. It counts approximately 70 full members, while according to the
community’s estimates it also has a few hundred followers.

B. Other religious communities of Indian origin

In addition to the groups mentioned in the previous section, there are
some other groups in Slovenia that draw their doctrines and practices from
Indian legacy but have not been formally registered at the Government
Ofice for Religious Communities.
Some Buddhist associations, for example, are very active. The Slovene
Buddhist Association Madhyamika (Slovensko budistično društvo Mad-
hyamika) started its activities in 1996. It was established with the purpose
of concentrating on the study of Buddhism at the academic and practical
levels, and the transmission of learned knowledge and practices into the
Slovene area. The group is organizing regular meditation sessions, lectu-
res, and discussions on Buddhism, as well as visits of Buddhist masters
from abroad. The association, organized in different sections according
to different Buddhist traditions, has approximately 40 members and about
the same number of non-member followers. An Independent Association
of Theravadic Buddhists Bhavana (Društvo theravadskih budistov Bhava-
na), Buddhism of the Thai forest tradition, developed from the Theravadic
section of the Association in 2003; it has approximately 20 members.
In addition to the already mentioned Buddhist Congregation Dharma-
ling and the Association for Support of Tibet (Društvo za podporo Tibetu)
that has been engaging in intense activities since the late 1990s, Tibetan
Buddhism is represented by some small self-organized groups, for instance
Diamond Way Buddhism34 and Palpung,35 which follow the Kagyu school
of Tibetan Buddhism under the leadership of charismatic Karma-pa.
Since the late 1980s the group Soka Gakkai International has been
active in Ljubljana. It unites approximately 20 regular members of this
Japanese Buddhist new religious movement.
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 Aleš Črnič
There are even more groups that draw their doctrines and practices
more or less directly from Hinduism (and frequently syncretically combine
them with other doctrines). In the mid-1990s an informal group practicing
Osho meditations emerged in Slovenia. In 2003 it developed into the Osho
Information Center36 that organizes meditations in Ljubljana (regularly
attended by approximately 30 members).
Seven-day courses in transcendental meditation (TM) as developed
by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi are provided by the Union of Associations
for Transcendental Meditation of Slovenia37 that unites autonomous as-
sociations from Ljubljana, Maribor, Kranj, and Novo mesto. There are
11 instructors holding an international licence in Slovenia yet only three
of them are active today. Since the 1970s when TM courses started to be
organized, approximately 5,000 individuals are said to have attended them
(thus “learning the TM technique”).
The Slovene followers of the Indian charismatic guru Sai Baba are
united in the Sri Sathya Sai Centre – Association for the Development of
Human Values.38 It has oficially existed since June, 2003, when it was
acknowledged by the world Sai organization. It counts approximately 30
full members and approximately a hundred followers and other individu-
als that have been captured by Sai Baba’s teachings (many of them have
visited his temple in Puttaparthy in the south of India).
The Institute for the Development of Human Values39 is based on Hindu
yoga and meditation. The Institute started its activities in 1994 (within the
Association for the Art of Living that developed into an Institute in 1998).
The Institute is a member of the international organization Art of Living
Foundation,40 established in 1982 by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. The objectives
of the Institute include developing and raising the quality of human life in
the physical, intellectual, and spiritual senses. In practice, the core of their
activities is represented by 24-30 hour anti-stress seminars (held in four or
six consecutive days). Today there are 6 teachers holding an international
licence in Slovenia.
An association organizing meditations, meditation music concerts, and
sports events following the method developed by the new-Indian guru Sri
Chinmoy started its activities in Ljubljana in the mid-1990s. In 2005 the
association organized his visit to Slovenia and a meditation music concert
in the sports hall in Tivoli in Ljubljana. The activities of the association
are regularly attended by approximately 20 individuals.

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
Some individuals that have detached from the Slovene ISKCON have
established a new Hare Krishna group called Gokul,41 a member of the
international movement Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya Math led by Tirtha Go-
swami Maharaj.
Since the mid-1990s Elan Vital, spiritually leaning on Sikhism, has
been present in Ljubljana, Celje, Litija, Piran, and Borovnica. Their main
activity is public projections of videos of Maharaji’s speeches, regularly
attended by 50-70 people.
In similar ways Indian spiritual ideas are promoted by numerous other
formal and informal groups. As has been presented in the previous secti-
ons, theosophists have had a long tradition in Slovenia while some Indian
ideas are also promoted by anthroposophists that have – in addition to
other spiritual elements – introduced alternative pedagogical practices into
the Slovene environment.42 An important role in promoting Indian religi-
ous-philosophical ideas is also held by the Spiritual University (Duhovna
univerza), established in 1989 by the Centre for Spiritual Culture.43 The
Spiritual University, which is based on spiritual syncretism and is close
to theosophy in some aspects, provides a four-year study that in addition
to fundamentals of Indian (primarily Vedic and Buddhist) traditions also
examines fundamentals of esoteric psychology, meditation, astrology, and
New Age spirituality in general. In the last 15 years regular weekly lectu-
res have been organized in Ljubljana and more recently also in Maribor,
Nova Gorica, Celje, Velenje, and some other Slovene towns.
Among the most widespread Indian practices in today’s Slovenia is
undoubtedly yoga.

C. Yoga
In Slovenia there are numerous associations and individuals that are
teaching different forms of yoga. As can be expected, the majority of
them are located in the capital city of Ljubljana and its surroundings. The
website found at www.sloyoga.net presents 25 associations and individu-
als in Slovenia that teach different forms of yoga. Given that yoga is also
taught by some unregistered groups or individuals, their actual number
is undoubtedly higher. Among the major or best known providers of yoga
training the following should be mentioned:
The largest organized group for practicing and teaching yoga is Yoga in
Daily Life (Joga v vsakdanjem življenju), developed by Paramhans Swami
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 Aleš Črnič
Maheswarananda,44 whose beginnings reach back to 1988. Eleven asso-
ciations are currently active in Slovenia (in Ljubljana, Domžale, Maribor,
Novo mesto, Koper, Celje, Kranj, Škofja Loka, Nova Gorica, Popetre, and
Ribnica). They are members of the Union of Slovene Yoga Associations,45
established in 1997. The Union acts as the national coordinator and link
between the Slovene associations and the international organization The
Sri Deep Madhavananda Ashram Fellowship. Since its establishment it has
been cooperating with the Faculty of Sports of the University of Ljubljana,
and is a member of the section of therapists of natural medicine at the Slo-
vene Chamber of Commerce. Estimates of the Union say that in addition
to 10,000-15,000 practitioners of other types of yoga, Yoga in Daily Life
is practiced by 25,000–30,000 Slovenes.
Sahaya yoga, established in 1970 by the Indian Shri Mataji Nirmala
Devi, is said to be practiced in 75 states. The group has been active in Slo-
venia since 198546 even though it has not been formally registered. Regular
sessions are held in Ljubljana, Kranj, Piran, and Lucija; an approximate
estimate of practitioners is 70.
The Tara Yoga Center47 is a branch of the Bihar School of Yoga (Satya-
nanda Yoga), a member of the International Yoga Fellowship Movement,
and a co-founder of the European Yoga Fellowship Association with its
seat in Italy. In 2001 the Slovene Centre was established by two disci-
ples of Swami Satyananda Saraswati and Swami Niranjananda Saraswati.
According to estimates of the Centre, this type of yoga is practiced by
approximately 300 Slovenes.
The esoteric school Tantra Vama Marga48 relects the tradition of the
kriya tantra yoga. This is the irst tantric yoga group in Slovenia, active
since 1992. The number or regular practitioners is estimated to be 60 while
their seminars have been attended by up to 100 individuals.
The Yoga Centre Namaste49 has been active since 2001. It is based on
the tradition of yoga as developed by Paramanhansa Jogananda. Within
their framework yoga is estimated to be practiced by approximately 200
Slovenes.
The Satya Association50 is based on the school developed by Swa-
mi Sivananda of Rishikesh and is related to The International Sivananda
School Yoga Vedanta Centre. Since 2001 they have been teaching ha˜ha
yoga in Ljubljana, Maribor, Kranj, and Krško. In addition, they also orga-
nize vipasana meditation courses. Up to the present day yoga within this
Association has been practiced by approximately 500 practitioners.

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
In addition to these groups, a series of smaller groups is active in Slo-
venia. As a rule, they have a single teacher and understand yoga primarily
as physical exercise. As a result, they usually practice different forms of
hatha yoga and among its effects lay emphasis on a healthy, good-looking,
and lexible body.
Since 2003, Suryashakti Yoga51 has been offering a form of ha˜ha yoga
– power yoga – based on aṣ˜āṇga-vinyasa yoga. Regular practice sessions
are attended by approximately 150 practitioners. Due to the dificulty of
the exercises their age ranges from 20 to a maximum of 40 years. The gro-
up of Samadhi Yoga52 detached from its mother group in 2004. Within this
group, demanding physical exercise sessions, called free yoga low by the
group itself, are attended by approximately 50, mostly younger adults.
Since 2003 the Yoga Studio Ramayana53 has been active in Ljubljana,
joining approximately 70 yoga practitioners. In the same year the Yoga
Association Sun Salutation54 was established. It teaches ānanda yoga and
is related to Ananda Yoga groups in Italy and California.
In 2004 the Holistic Centre Pilates55 was established in Ljubljana. Here
approximately 60 people regularly practice pilates and aṣṭāṇga-vinyasa yo-
ga (traditional yoga elements are combined with modern pilates principles
as developed by Moira Stott from Canada). In the same year ha˜ha yoga
started to be offered also by the association called The World Is Beautiful56
from Ljubljana, where a combination of śivānanda, iyengar, and aṣ˜āṇga
yoga is regularly practiced by approximately 50 individuals.
In addition to these providers of yoga practice Slovene websites reveal
a colourful and unclear inventory of different types of (ha˜ha) yoga sup-
plied by different institutions and individuals. Obviously, yoga is beco-
ming a more or less established part of the services provided by different
sports centres, wellness studios, associations, etc., while it is also entering
health institutions, health centres, and educational institutions (also as
part of regular physical education courses at some secondary schools
and faculties).

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 Aleš Črnič

Conclusion

In terms of the entire Slovene population, the number of members of

the groups related in this way or another to Indian tradition is very low.
In the 2002 population census only 1,026 Slovenes (0.1% of the entire
population)57 declared that they belong to an oriental religion. In this re-
spect, the situation in Slovenia is very similar to that in other Western
countries. The international ISSP (International Social Survey Programme)
research conducted in 1993 in Western countries only detected Buddhists
in Australia (0.3%), Great Britain (0.2%), New Zealand (0,2%), Canada
(0.4%), and Hindus in Great Britain (0.6%), Northern Ireland (0.1%), and
New Zealand (0.5%), where – as we can see – the shares are very low. Ne-
vertheless, the inluence of Indian religious ideas on Western societies is
undoubtedly much greater than the number of members of Asian religious
communities might suggest.
On one hand it should be mentioned that the groups leaning toward In-
dian tradition, being culturally different, are highly noticeable in Western
societies. In Slovenia, too, despite a low number of members some groups
display a clearly recognizable identity and are therefore visibly present in
Slovene society, as data collected during the 1997 Slovene public opinion
poll reveal. 29% of the respondents mentioned the movement Hare Krishna
and 13% the Buddhist community when asked: “Which churches or church
communities that are present in today’s Slovenia do you know of?” We can
therefore conclude that the visibility of Indian religious groups is clearly
disproportionate to the number of their members.
On the other hand, Indian religious-philosophical ideas are brought to
Slovenia also through channels that go beyond organized religious groups,
which is conirmed by the popularity of yoga, for instance. This fact is
further conirmed by the indings provided by the international research
study on values mentioned earlier, according to which at the end of the
20th century as many as almost one ifth of the population of Slovenia
believed in reincarnation. Thus, the analysis of the impact of Indian religi-
ous-philosophical ideas on Slovene society (similarly to all other Western
societies) also has to consider separate ideas and concepts that are entering
the Western culture beyond the frameworks of organized Asian religious
groups.58 Actually, a high proportion of Westerners does accept some
Indian concepts (e.g., reincarnation) or even actively practice some skills
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
(e.g., yoga, meditation, etc.) without declaring themselves to be Buddhists
or Hindus, for instance.
The mass presence of individual ideas deriving from Indian tradition
in Slovene society is also conirmed by the following quotation, which has
been taken from a book with growing popularity:
Cosmic energy as well as cosmic consciousness exists. Energy is
transformed into substance and substance is transformed into ener-
gy. Energy is transformed into life, and life in turn is transformed
back into energy. Life is followed by death, death is followed by
life. In-between time does not exist. Time only exists in life. Only on
Earth. There is eternity where there is no time. There is no time in
death but there are energy and consciousness. Consciousness can
be higher or lower, and so can energy. Lower energy means life
with lower consciousness, it means misfortune. Higher or positive
energy means life with higher consciousness, it means satisfaction.
Cosmic consciousness means high energy, immortality, and eter-
nity. It means a new life at a higher level of consciousness. This is
the goal of physical life in this world. Physical life is repeated until
it reaches cosmic consciousness. The human mind is repeated until
it merges with cosmic consciousness.59
The quotation is an example of typical Western New Age thought with
clear origins in Indian tradition: through the reincarnation cycle an indivi-
dual is trapped in the material world until, through raised consciousness,
he makes a step from the material level onto a higher level of existence,
merges with cosmic consciousness, and thus reaches the objective of his
or her existence. Similar ideas are plentiful in the modern Slovene and
generally Western cultural space. The above thoughts have been quoted
primarily because of the prominence of their author, Dr. Janez Drnovšek,
former President of Slovenia (until December 2007, he died on February
23rd, 2008). When in 1999 he was diagnosed with cancer, he gradually
started changing his public discourse, which became even more evident at
the end of 2005 and in particular through 2006. Dr. Drnov ek established
the Movement for Justice and Development60 and started to publicly dis-
play enthusiasm for New Age spiritual ideas. He began to actively promote
vegetarianism, turned to alternative medicine for treatment (thus clearly
expressing his distrust of traditional Western medicine), and publicly ad-
vocated the advantages of traditional Indian healing or Āyurveda. In early
2006 he travelled to the south Indian city of Bangalore to a world meditati-
on for peace organized by the international foundation Art of Living, and
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 Aleš Črnič
spoke to a mass of three million people. Within the time span of approxi-
mately one year he published three books with typical New Age content,
which have become bestsellers not only in Slovenia but also neighbouring
Croatia. Despite such sudden transformation his popularity, as revealed by
political opinion polls, has remained exceptionally high, which somehow
conirms that the Indian ideas in the Slovene space are not unacceptable
but are, on the contrary, becoming a legitimate part of the contemporary
Slovene (and entire Western) culture.61
The presence of widespread Indian religious-philosophical ideas pro-
bably reveals that in the recent decades the population of the Western
countries and therefore also Slovenia is experiencing dissatisfaction with
the hollowness of the “disenchanted world” (using a syntagm of the soci-
ologist Max Weber). These masses are not leaving the privilege of direct
experience with transcendence in the hands of a few selected individu-
als (mystics, hermits, and artists). On the contrary, without any prejudice
they are resorting to Indian techniques to try to express and experience
what their own tradition does not enable them to. It should not be for-
gotten, though, that on one hand they are trying to mitigate the negative
consequences of the consumer way of life in modern corporate-capitalist
societies. Yet, on the other hand theirs is also an expression of a genuine
need for answers to the ultimate questions of man’s existence and his role
in the cosmos – a genuine quest for meaning that the Western churches
and institutions have been unable to answer for a long time (if they ever
have been). Therefore, almost half a century of intense enthusiasm for
Indian spiritual ideas probably tells us something about the increasing
dissatisfaction with the existing cultural paradigm and the modern way
of life in “the global village”.

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

Notes

1 Thomas Luckmann, Nevidna religija (Ljubljana: Krtina, 1997), p. 84.

2 It should be emphasized that, geographically speaking, Judaism, Christianity, and Is-
lam have Asian origins, too; in the present paper, however, the term “Asian religions”
is used to refer exclusively to the non-Abraham tradition of the East (in particular
Indian religions).
3 Pāli is the language that is said to have been used by the historical character of Sid-
dhartha Gautama, the Buddha, to spread his doctrine. The voluminous collection of
Buddhist sacred texts Tipi˜aka (Three Baskets) is written in Pāli, which is why it is
also referred to as the Pāli Canon.
4 Also available in excellent Slovene translation by Primož Pečenko: Vprašanja kralja
Milinde: O Buddhovem nauku (Ljubljana: Založba Mladinska knjiga, 1990).
5 The New Age movement is an eclectic and syncretic movement embracing a variety
of sometimes radically different ideas and practices. This umbrella term is used to
refer to highly diverse groups, such as ecological, feminist, and psychotherapeutic
groups, groups that draw their doctrine from the ancient esoteric-occult teachings
of the west and East, as well as astrology, numerology, alternative medicine, activi-
ties such as crystal healing, communication with nature, forms of positive thinking,
etc. Among these, an important role can be attributed to groups inluenced by Asian
religious traditions. The term “new age” was coined within the framework of theoso-
phy and was then popularized in the broader environment by the theosophist Alice
Bailey (1880-1949). The term started to be widely used in the USA in the late 1970s
and less than a decade later also in Europe. Today the term is used with familiarity
in Slovenia as well, where both terms – the Slovene and English ones – are equally
used.
6 Zen (Japanese) or Chan (Chinese) Buddhism originates from the Indian Mahāyāna
tradition. When in the 6th century its legendary founder Bodhidharma transmitted it
to China, it adopted numerous Daoist elements. It was inally developed and formed
in Japan where it was brought in the 12th century by the monks on the way from
China back to India. Zen emphasizes the direct experience of enlightenment and is
based on simple life in symbiosis with nature and on sitting meditation, avoiding
complex rituals and abstract mental speculations.
7 According to Hindu mythology, when the world is threatened by forces of evil the
gods (in particular Viṣnu) can incarnate in human or animal form and descend on
Earth as avatars.
8 Terence Thomas, “Hindu Dharma in Dispersion”, in Gerald Parsons (Ed.): The
Growth of Religious Diversity: Britain from 1945 (London: Routledge, Volume I:
Traditions, 1993), p. 192.
9 The term “new religious movements” denotes groups with extremely diverse inven-
tories of beliefs and practices that appeared in Western societies in an organized
form in the 20th century, and became mass movements after World War II. In general
use the terms cult or sect are frequently used with the same referent. However, both
usually have a pejorative connotation, which is why in social sciences the term “new
religious movements” is used.
10 Terence Thomas, “Hindu Dharma in Dispersion”, in Gerald Parsons (Ed.): The
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 Aleš Črnič
Growth of Religious Diversity: Britain from 1945 (London: Routledge, Volume I:
Traditions, 1993).
11 To equate the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and the
Hare Krishna movement is not entirely correct; to be accurate, ISKCON is only a
branch of the Hare Krishna movement, but being by far the most populated in the
West, it is often simply equated with the movement in general.
12 The Hare Krishna movement has been examined in many monographs; see e.g.,
Burke E. Rochford, Hare Krishna in America (New Brunswick: Rutgers University,
1985) and Kim Knott, My Sweet Lord: The Hare Krishna Movement (Wellingbor-
ough, Northamptonshire: The Aquarian Press, 1986). For a more thorough under-
standing of the social and doctrinal development of the movement, useful informa-
tion can be found in a book of interviews with scholars who systematically studied
the movement: Harvey Cox, Larry D. Shinn, Thomas J. Hopkins, A. L. Basham and
Srivatsa Goswami: S. J. Gelberg (ed.), Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna. Five Distin-
guished Scholars on the Krishna Movement in the West (New York: Grove Press,
1983). An insider’s view of the Movement has been presented most comprehensively
by G. Mukunda, Inside Hare Krishna Movement: An Ancient Eastern Religious Tra-
dition Comes of Age in the Western World (Badger: Torchlight Publishing, 2001). The
Slovene monograph, written by the author of this text, V imenu Krišne: družboslovna
študija gibanja Hare Krišna [In the Name of Krishna: Sociological Study of the Hare
Krishna Movement] (Ljubljana: Faculty of Social Sciences (Book Series Kult), 2005)
should also be mentioned.
13 Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna,/Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare./Hare Rama, Hare Rama,/
Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Krishna devotees should chant the Hare Krishna Mahā-
mantra at least 1,728 times a day, which represents 16 cycles on japamālā, a rosary
of 108 beads. Chanting lasts about 2 hours on average.
14 For a more detailed description of Prabhupada’s life and work see his biography (D.
G. Satsvarupa, Prabhupada (The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, 1983)).
15 Przemyslaw S. Jazwinski, “The Development of ISKCON in Poland since the Mid-
70s”, in Irena Borowik, Grzegorz Babiñski (Eds.): New Religious Phenomena in
Central and Eastern Europe (Kraków: “Nomos” Publishing House, 1997), p. 316.
16 See e.g., Eileen Barker, “But Who’s Going to Win? National and Minority Religions
in Post-Communist Society”, in Irena Borowik, Grzegorz Babiñski (Eds.): New Re-
ligious Phenomena in Central and Eastern Europe (Kraków: “Nomos” Publishing
House, 1997), pp. 25-62.
17 Reincarnation means re-embodiment (re-in-carne – to be made lesh again) and is
used to denote the process during which the soul, spirit, or another bearer of person-
ality leaves a physical body to be reborn in another. The process can also be referred
to as transmigration or rebirth.
18 At this point the difference between folk, popular beliefs (referred to as “little tra-
dition” by Redield) and the oficial, canonical belief deined by the elites (“great
tradition”) should be mentioned (see Lester Kurtz, Gods in the Global Village: The
World’s Religions in Sociological Perspective (California: Pine Forge Press, Thou-
sand Oaks, 1995), p. 22). Based on his research made in Burmese villages, Spiro di-
vided Buddhism into nibbanic (oficial, canonical Buddhism) and kammatic (popular,
folk adaptation of the former). He believed that the simple villagers were not able to
understand the ideas of nibbanic Buddhism, which is why their ultimate objective
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
was a good reincarnation and not breaking free from the reincarnation cycle (see
Malcom B. Hamilton, Sociology and the World’s Religions (Hampshire and London:
MacMillan Press, Houndmills, Basingstoke, 1998), pp. 92-93).
19 See M. Basanez et al., Human Values and Beliefs - A Cross-Cultural Sourceboo (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998).
20 Ibid.
21 See Mircea Eliade, Joga: Besmrtnost i sloboda (Beograd: Beogradski izdavačko-
graički zavod, 1984), p. 28.
22 This is by no means an exhaustive list. Other forms of yoga that have not been men-
tioned here exist while the boundaries among different types of yoga are anything
but clear.
23 See e.g. Janez Svetina, “Zahodna psihologija, tradicionalna joga in ri Aurobindova
integralna joga”, in Aurobindo, ri: Integralna joga: Psihologija duhovne rasti k
polnosti bitja (Ljubljana: Slovenska matica, 1990), 43-52.
24 A typical example of poorly understood and frequently consciously abused methods
of yoga is tantric yoga. In its original form the path toward spiritual liberation also
emphasizes worldly pleasure and fulilment of nature in man, also through the prac-
ticing of sexual rituals (for a more detailed description of tantric yoga see Mircea
Eliade, Joga: Besmrtnost i sloboda (Beograd: Beogradski izdavačko-graički zavod,
1984), pp. 207-268). In India these tantras were developed in secret, their doctrines
were (and still are) inaccessible to the uninitiated, and were transferred exclusively
from teacher to disciple. The purpose of these methods was not sexual pleasure as
it is perceived today in the West but rather victory against sexuality viewed as an
obstacle, and the use of these human energies in the search of spiritual liberation.
Given that numerous Westerners resort to quasi-tantric methods primarily with the
purpose to increase sexual pleasure and to – hidden behind a mask of spirituality
– satisfy primary, lower-level instincts, most obviously the original motif of tantric
methods was not transmitted to the West together with tantric yoga exercises.
25 Gita Mehta, Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East (New Delhi: Penguin India,
1993, 1979).
26 The historical overview of Slovene contacts with Asian religious-philosophical ideas
has been adapted from Zmago Šmitek, Klic daljnih svetov: Slovenci in neevropske
kulture (Ljubljana: Založba Borec, 1986), pp. 153-196.
27 In the annals Letopis Matice Slovenske, 1896.
28 In the newspaper Slovenski narod, 1877.
29 However, 42 among these do not account for more than about 5 percent of the total
population. Roman Catholicism is by far the major religion, accounting for from
60 % (57.8 % according to the 2002 population census, 71.6% in 1991) to 80 % of
Slovene citizens (if baptism is taken as the formal criterion). More than 30 of these
communities could be regarded as new religious movements. But there are also
numerous new religious movements that are not formally registered as religious
communities but are active as legal entities of a different type (e.g., associations) or
operate as formally unorganized interest groups because they see no advantage in
acquiring a legal status. Based on the results of the irst systematic study of the ield
of alternative religions in Slovenia (see www.religije.info, also Aleš Črnič and Gregor
Lesjak, “A Systematic Study of New Religious Movements – the Slovenian Case”,
in Irena Borowik (Ed.). Religions, Churches and Religiosity in Post-Communist
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 Aleš Črnič
Europe (Krakow: Zaklad Wydawniczy NOMOS, 2006), pp. 142-157.) we presume
that the number of NRMs is in fact considerably higher than oficially registered
and/or otherwise perceived in public – it can be estimated that in Slovenia there are
approximately up to 100 new religious movements.
30 Skupnost za zvest Krišne, see: www.harekrishna.net.
31 The answer to the question concerning the number of adherents of the Slovene Hare
Krishna movement is far from easy. The community itself does not keep any accurate
records of their membership, and does not have any clear criteria for the deinition of
the movement’s membership. Nevertheless, the Society for Krishna Consciousness
is undoubtedly among the largest new religious movements in Slovenia.
32 For a more detailed description of the Slovene Hare Krishna community see: Aleš
Črnič, V imenu Krišne: družboslovna študija gibanja Hare Krišna [In the Name of
Krishna: Sociological Study of the Hare Krishna Movement] (Ljubljana: Faculty of
Social Sciences (Book Series Kult), 2005), also Aleš Črnič, “Devotees of Krishna
in Slovenia” (ISKCON Communications Journal, Vol. 10 (1), 2002), pp. 35-50.
33 Budistična kongregacija Dharmaling, see: www.dharmaling.org.
34 Budizen diamantne poti, see: http://budizem_diamantne_poti.si.
35 See: www.palpung.si.
36 See: www.oshoinformationcenter.com.
37 Zveza društev za transcendentalno meditacijo Slovenije, see: www.tm-drustvo.si.
38 Sri sathya sai center – društvo za razvoj človeških vrednot, see: http://www.sathya-
sai-drustvo.si/sai/baba.html.
39 Zavod za razvoj človekovih vrednot, see: www.artoliving.si.
40 See: www.artoliving.org.
41 See: http://www.linis.si/gokul.
42 E.g., a Waldorf grammar school, primary school, and kindergarten in Ljubljana, see:
www.waldorf.si.
43 Center za duhovno kulturo, see: www.cdk.du.si.
44 When on tour Swami Maheswarananda relatively often visits Slovenia. Here for
several years the Union has been regularly organizing inter-religious meditation
for world peace. Swami Maheswarananda visited Slovenia for the irst time in 1988
while his latest visit was made in March, 2007, when his lecture delivered in the
central Slovene cultural institution – “Cankarjev dom” – was attended by more than
1,000 listeners.
45 Zveza joga društev Slovenije, see: www.joga-v-vsakdanjem-zivljenju.org.
46 See: www.jogaslovenija.org.
47 See: http://www.satyanadayoga.tara.si.
48 See: www.kriyatantra.com.
49 Joga center Namaste, see: http://www.jogacenter-namaste.com.
50 Društvo Satya, see: www.cityoga.org.
51 See: http://suryasakti.org.
52 Samadhi joga, see: http://yoga.auch.org.
53 Joga studio Ramayana, see: http://ramayana.si.
54 Društvo za jogo Pozdrav soncu, see: www.vigres.si/yoga.htm.
55 Holistični center Pilates, see: http://www.pilates.si.
56 Svet je lep, see: http://www.svet-je-lep.com.
57 However, believers in Indian religious tradition may be hidden at least in one of the
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following categories: “Believer but belongs to no religion” (68,714 Slovenes or 3.5%
of the total population), “Did not want to reply” (307,973 – 15.7%) and “Unknown”
(139,097 – 7.1%). Source: Statistical Ofice of the Republic of Slovenia, Population
Census, Households and Housing, 2002.
58 We can see that also in Slovenia, similarly to other countries of the Western world,
Indian ideas are spreading through the process of transplantation of ideas on one
hand and cultural reinterpretation on the other. Nevertheless, these ideas are not
entering the Slovene cultural space directly from Asia but mostly through the USA
and Western Europe, which is also typical of other former socialist countries of
Central and Eastern Europe.
59 J. Drnovšek, Misli o življenju in zavedanju (Ljubljana: Mladinska Knjiga, 2006), p.
115.
60 Gibanje za pravičnost in razvoj, see: www.gibanje.org.
61 For a more detailed analysis of Drnovšek’s New Age transformation see Aleš Črnič,
“Predsednik za novo dobo: religiološka analiza Drnovškovega obrata” (Družboslovne
razprave, Vol. 23 (56), 2007) and Aleš Črnič, “The Changing Concept of New Age:
A Case Study of Spiritual Transformation of the Slovenian President” (Journal of
Alternative Spiritualities and New Age Studies, 2008), forthcoming.

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 Walking with them:
My years with Dungri Garasiya
Tribals in Gujarat
Marija Sreš

Being a missionary is not so much the expression of an idea, a

theology, as it is the telling of a story. Our lives are composed of
different stories, and the missionary story is one of these: -- a story
of ideals, of heroism, of hardship; a story of encounter with strange
peoples, a story of meeting the unknown face of Jesus Christ.

My presentation takes the form of a narrative. As a missionary sister

for 35 years in India, there are many things which I wish to speak about:
about the people and the Church in that vast country, about the women I
have worked with and with whom I have close bonds of friendship, and
most of all, about myself—how I came to change India and found myself
changed in the process.
Some of my relections can be found in three long pieces I wrote some
years ago.1 In these writings I attempted to address two questions which
I am sure all missionaries have to answer at various times: What is the
difference between the old and the new in the Church? And, why I - a
foreign missionary – am still in India?
These are not questions which only I pose. Others, Christians as well
as people of other faiths in this vast country of India, have pondered upon
the motivation which sustains the Christian missionary today. After the
gruesome murder of the Australian missionary Rev. Graham Staines and
his two young children in 1999, a Bombay journalist, Shernaaz Engineer,
Parsi by faith, mused aloud upon what could possibly keep his widow
Gladys Staines and other women missionaries like her, still committed to
the poor of this country. I quote her in detail:
We have often wondered at how the women left their countries and
came to India to serve the poor, sick, orphaned, and aged, literally
to the back of beyond.

What personal circumstances and spiritual stirrings have compelled

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so many expatriate women working in the Christian missions in this
country to forsake all that was familiar in their lands, and come to
a foreign one to live and work in for the rest of their lives? And look
at the work they do. Far from glamorous, with no monetary gain.
Their living conditions are frugal, the contact with other people
limited. Their personal time is largely spent in prayer. They have
neither the opportunity nor any apparent inclination for recreation.
Their work is their only reward, and it must be. How is it possible
for them to be able to sustain themselves like this day in and day
out? Once in about five years they briefly go back to the families
and countries they left as young girls, only to return to their duties
on our shores.2
What follows therefore are relections on my vocation as a missionary,
interspersed with stories of the men and women with whom I have lived
for many years.

Why become a Missionary?

The mission of the Church is to bring creation to its fulillment. I was

struck by this deinition of `mission’ I heard years ago in a Scripture course
I attended. But it rings more true every day. Creation is not a-once-and-for
all event. It is a process, a story elaborated in the Bible. Its very irst page
in the book of Genesis opens with God creating the universe and human-
kind; and the last page of the Bible (Rev 21.5) concludes with the words:
‘Look, I make all things new!’ (I renew everything.).
This is the heritage of Vatican Council II (1962-65) which sent us mis-
sionaries into the ield to enter the culture of peoples, to express ourselves
in it and through it, and to proclaim the `good news of Jesus’ to all men
and woman today. We realized then more than ever that every culture
must experience the Gospel message in its own place and time, otherwise
the New Testament becomes a mere reminiscence of the past, or a foreign
product imported from afar. Vatican II gave us the task of realizing our
faith in its social and personal dimensions. And just as the faith experien-
ce of parents and children differs even within the same family, so too the
faith experiences of a European culture will differ from those of Africa,
India or China. One of the implications of this realization was that mission
became the ministry of every Christian, not just of priests and sisters, and
it opened the eyes of the laity to their own vocation in the Church.

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 Marija Sreš

My Own Missionary Journey

So in 1971 I went to India with the documents of Vatican II in my

traveling bag. I was then a young professional in my mid twenties, with a
college degree behind me, and assured future in Tito’s Yugoslavia. Soci-
alism had given me a respect for work, for the status of women, and my
own Catholic faith (under pressure at home) urged me (by widening my
horizons) to share it beyond the conines of our small country. So I can
say that I came to India with lots of love and generosity, and with a irm
desire to better the people and their circumstances. No one forced me to
do so, and I knew too that no fame or public recognition awaited me. None
of that prompted me then, none of that keeps me here now.
What was it then?, you ask. It was love. Love which changes and trans-
forms everything and makes you love people you live with. I know that for
days and months and years my only recurring thought was how to make
their world better and more beautiful for the people I had come to love - my
adivasi women and their men and children from Sabarkantha, Gujarat. By
living with them in their situation, I slowly came to understand their hopes
and fears, their desires and efforts, their struggles and joys…
Oh, it’s true that in the beginning it was not easy to understand them
at all. First of all I needed to unlearn so many things from my own past.
I was a modern European woman from socialist country, and they were
tribal women with a feudal mentality who spoke a completely different
language. And yet today, after all these years, I feel more at home here than
I do in my own homeland of Slovenia. I am no longer a foreign woman
-- not for myself nor for them. No wonder almost everywhere I go I am
called Mariyaben, the common form by which most Gujarati women are
addressed.
Sometimes city folk who know me less put the question to me: “Where
are you coming from, ben?’’ “From Gujarat”, I reply spontaneously. “No”,
they persist, “where were you born?” Only then do I get the point of this
strange question, asking me something about which I don’t feel the same.
Home is where one’s heart is. And I have spent all my energy, all my
emotions and feelings and all my talents here in India, in Gujarat. There
is no question in my mind that here is where my home is where I wish to
be. As the Little Prince would say in that classic story, “It is only with the
heart that one can truly see.”3

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The First Years

How well do I remember those irst days! One evening I went with
another sister to visit her patient in a distant village. We did not know the
way and wanted to ask directions from some children, but they ran away
on seeing us. The older women too closed themselves in their huts to esca-
pe our questions. How frightened they are! I thought to myself. Really,
the tribal women were a frightened lot. They belong to Dungri Garasiya
Adivasi tribe
It was at our irst meeting as ‘stri-sanghatan’ (women’s organization)
when one of them, Daliben, suggested that we women meet and organize
ourselves separately from men. Why? They would not open their mouths
in front of their men and covered their faces with their sari borders, laaj,
to show men respect. And Kantaben, a teacher from Sarki Limdi revealed
to me that they could not decide anything at all by themselves, not even to
buy their own sari or bangles. And one day at our returning from Shamlaji
melo (fair) resting under the banyan tree, Katri asked innocently: ‘Is there
any pill to give my husband so that he sleeps the whole night?’ For they
slogged hard during the day and had to be available to their men every
night. They were without rights, ‘blind’ as they called themselves. I never
saw any woman walking alone. Laliben explained to me that they could
not go anywhere alone, but only in the company of a male, even of a small
boy. And when we went to the taluka (municipality) ofice I had to ind
out which bus went to Bhiloda because they could not read the signboards
on buses as they were completely illiterate. And even to go with me to the
Bhiloda taluka ofice or to Shamlaji melo, wherever, they had to ask for
permission from their menfolk. They were completely dependent, comple-
tely under men’s control. These were the kind of women I lived with for
thirtyive years, in Lusadiya, a small village in Sabarkantha, which nestles
in the Aravalli foothills, on the state border of Gujarat and Rajasthan..
These were aboriginal villages, and the people were small farmers, and
lived in houses of mud, wattles and timber. Let me illustrate my situation
with the story of Kamlaben and Jivaji Bhagora, a typical adivasi couple
with ive children.
This family was newly converted to Christianity, and Jivaji, the man,
was the supervisor of the Father’s village projects.
Like many of his fellows farmers, Jivaji had received substantial help
from the ‘mission fathers’. As he is a Christian, to him the priest was not
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 Marija Sreš
just `a man of God’ but also a man of inluence and means, and though he
might not know the iner points of what ‘father’ means, it was a nice word
for him, and it gave him a sense of power and protection.
For the many non-Christians farmers who live in the village however,
the priest was not ‘father’ but ‘saheb’ (boss). And because Jivaji worked
in close collaboration with the saheb, his stature in the village grew and
he was now looked upon as a man of inluence and of inancial power.
Because of this, Jivaji and his family seemed to their envious friends to
have changed their loyalties—from the village community to the rich and
foreign establishment represented by the Church. This is a delicate point,
because it is dificult to see whether Jivaji and people like him are drawn
to the fathers because of their own need for security, or out of a personal
bond of loyalty, or out of spiritual faith.
This is the typical situation of ambiguity that the presence of the Church
(the fathers, the mission house, the sisters…) created in our area.
Looking back on 35 years, I really wonder whether the new Christians
saw behind the material help offered (the various development projects,
the loans, the ‘food for work’ programs) the presence of Christ who cares
for the poorest and the oppressed—or whether in fact, they saw in the
Church just the road to greater riches, more inluence and power. And so,
the Church, sadly enough, became a symbol of division—breaking up the
old village community (by making some Christians), and even continuing
the same jealousies and rivalry among those converted, as these fought for
greater beneits for themselves from the fathers.

Different World View

What I have just narrated reminds me that we, Western missionaries,
have often failed to grasp the local mentality, in my case, the Indian men-
tality. The world view of the East, of India and of Indian religions is so
different from ours, often completely opposite. Our mind—meaning the
Western, European mind -- is often ‘one-track’, determined, aggressive.
It is only we who know the truth. It is our religion which is true, and the
other ways are false and corrupt. We must keep the faith pure and undei-
led. We must teach, and they must learn from us, and so on. We have often
used words out of context, that is, we don’t really understand the context
of the lives of the poor, of the women, of the groups we work with.
One of my irst decisions on coming to India was to study Gujarati,
the language of the state I would be working in, which meant mastering a
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new script as well. I studied hard and even took a degree in Gujarati. And
yet, I remember, several years later, Dhirabhai, one of my old friends, an
adivasi farmer from rural Sabarkantha telling me: “When you irst came
here, you only spoke ‘college Gujarati’, and we could not understand you.
Only now, after all these years, can we understand what you say.” I was
really astonished at hearing this because I prided myself in speaking pro-
per Gujarati. It took me time to speak to them at their level.
That is why I say, that for many missionaries ‘baptism’ meant really
‘coming on to our side’, and these words were accompanied by ‘charity’,
actually well meaning gifts to improve the economic situation of those
baptised, but which were also quite beyond the life-situation of most of
the Indian people. So the newly baptised also found new wealth and in-
luence, and in some measure disturbed the traditional order of society.
This might not have been altogether bad, if it meant that the oppressed
sub-groups who converted were now able to challenge the former masters
who had oppressed them for centuries. But it might not be all that good
either, if the new Christians took on the arrogant habits of their masters,
or became manipulative and demanding in their own way. I learned the
hard way that faith cannot be transplanted easily. It takes generations to
become acclimatized. To use an example, can a lime-tree (lipa) from tem-
perate Slovenia grow in tropical Sabarkantha? Or can we grow coconut
trees on alpine slopes? I truly know now that one can change only herself,
not the others.
The place I worked in was Sabarkantha, North Gujarat, and it was hilly
country, once densely forested. Today the hills are bald, as all the forest
have been cut down, mostly illegally, and the wood sold for industrial and
commercial use in the big cities. With the tree cover gone, water scarcity
has become constant. The rains have been poor and crops have dried up.
The adivasi women (that is, the tribals) with whom I worked know very
few skills other than farming.

The Challenges and Ambiguities of Mission

When I started working with the adivasis I recalled how Pope Paul VI
urged us to evangelise (that is, to proclaim the Gospel) in different ways,
one of which, he insisted was development. And to work for social justice.
He encouraged the Church towards making the ‘option for the poor’ that
is, to commit ourselves to making the poor aware of their dignity, and
removing from them the curse of being deprived.
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 Marija Sreš
So we built up schemes of self-suficiency, through local work, through
government projects, and from the help of people in the more established
Churches of the West. Yes, our work with the adivasis had this aim: Make
them aware of their dignity, and train them for authority and leadership. It
was another way of building the faith, of proclaiming the ‘good news’, the
attempt to build a community of sharing and nurturing. We didn’t baptise
because we didn’t want to create differences among the people through
baptising with water and creating a new class, which would look askance
at the older community. That would really be unchristian! Rather we bap-
tised them with the spirit of the Gospel, and led them to a conversion of
values—self-reliance, sharing, and working for the community. Not easy
by any means, but there lay the challenge.
And I realized that the hardest thing was to train them in authority,
authority which is at the service of others, which makes others grow – and
not merely to get power which proits only oneself and one’s family. We
emphasized collaborative work where everyone pitched in – like planting
tree nurseries, forming a milk cooperative, like other kind of employment
schemes for the whole village. We did not want them to be `crabs in a ba-
sket’, each one pulling the other down, so that all died together of hunger.
Because of the poor rains these last ten years, we realised that farming
was not sustainable, and worked to get other skills taught them, like em-
broidery and the preparation of small items for home use (like soap, and
scents, etc).
As I said, our main objective is wholesome growth, with special atten-
tion paid to the sense of women’s dignity.
Our experience was that of living in a situation of survival, and so
women needed irst some economic projects to bring them sense of dignity
and self-worth. It was money, their income from planting trees or from
working at the relief-worksite that empowered them.
At the same time education is important to keep them at the pace of
mainstream society in India.
I can’t forget one February month when Sanuben, as if out of the blue,
said in one meeting: ‘I would like to learn how to read and write’. Other
women joined her, and 300 of us drew up a proposal to be presented to
Chief Minister Amarsingh Chaudhary. The women asked that literacy
classes be counted as relief work. Next month a delegation of women re-
presenting Bhiloda and Meghraj talukas went to meet him in Gandhinagar.
They explained to him that its beneits would be permanent. Chaudhary
listened condescendingly, and politely answered ‘no’. The women returned
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crestfallen because he too was an adivasi that’s why they approached him
with lots of hope.
Another friendly woman Martiben, whose son inished his teacher’s
degree came to me and said: ‘Mariyaben, how to solve this problem? Ra-
mesh has the degree for a school teacher and yet—unless we give half
lakh (50000) of rupees in cash, he will not get a job. They say because he
is an adivasi, that is why. Yes, education is important especially because
the Government discriminates against the poor and the tribal. They need
to understand this social reality, to stand together and be empowered to
face the cruelty of modern society. When we wanted to register the Stree
Sanghatan milk cooperative, we went with our application every week for
six months to the taluka ofice; and every time we sat there for four-ive
hours, we saw the oficer going out with an applicant for any other scheme
for adivasis for a cup of tea. This is how we got to know that if we wanted
to get the Milk Cooperative registered, we had to be prepared to bribe. But
we did not pay and so got it registered after almost a year, but succeeded
in this only because we always went in a big group.
Yes, our people needed to come together in unity and to know their
own roots. In November 2004 we organized a cultural festival which really
brought together many villages, men, women and children, their whole
community in fact, and opened their appetite for more such cultural cele-
brations and renewal.
The other day a friend told me that the title my recent book should have
been rather, `Woman to Man’.4 I want to say that adivasi men join us in our
movement for a better life of their adivasi community, though the main
actors in it are still women. But till men’s attitude in the whole society
shifts in favour of women, in companionship or partnership in equality,
our work is uninished.

A Missionary’s Choices
So why am I still here in India – a foreign missionary? Once again, let
me begin with a story from my years in rural Gujarat.
One day, one of my adivasi friends, an old farmer Martabhai, with
whom I used to speak frankly, told me during conversation: ‘You know,
ben, you missionaries have done many good things for us, for which we
are very grateful. But one thing you have done, for which even I ind it
hard to forgive you…!’ I was surprised, and asked him: ‘What is that?’
‘You took away our dignity, our self-respect. And you know how you did
this? You gave us more than we could ever repay you.’
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Over the years I have often thought about these words, and therefore
in all my dealings with the people, I am careful to see that they never
get more than they can receive with self-respect. In giving it is always
important to respect the other’s dignity. We missionaries have not always
done this, and this is why today we are surprised that our own people turn
against us.
They turn against us with resentment because they do not feel respec-
ted, even while we help them. One of our oldest missionaries, from Spain,
showered his people indiscriminately with gifts and favours, and this cre-
ated such a battle for money and power around him that he was forced to
leave the place. He was threatened and abused because he had favoured
one over another, and this was resented. Out of the goodness of his heart,
he had been totally blind to the inequities of the Indian village. I remem-
ber those words of the Gospel – the disciple is asked to be as innocent as
a dove, but also as wise as a serpent! That is why my work was built on
the principle of `working with’, and `working for’ and never to give more
than they could be responsible for.
Not that this is easy either! There is such grinding poverty and depri-
vation in so many parts of India, that even today, 35 years later, I am not
used to it, and my heart melts with compassion whenever I see someone
in need. It’s then that I must remind myself that benevolence means both
my overwhelming need to give, as well as a respect for the poor woman’s
ability to receive.
Let me say that the poor have enriched me too. They have given me a
sense of simplicity and of the richness of life. They have taught me how
to accept life as a gift, instead of always wanting to change and improve
it. To be happy with myself and keep a sense of humor, for I am not a
superwoman. That was the best gift to them, besides trusting them and
trusting God.
I’ve learnt from my adivasi women to give irst place to relationship
with persons, and not to work projects. I’d visit them often, on festive
occasions and in times of grief. I’d get to know their lives. I was honest
with them and truthful with myself and not afraid of saying unpleasant
things. I’d allow them to do what they want; for this was the only way for
them to take responsibility, and let their minds grow. We would collaborate
with other groups and but didn’t depend upon any.
In turn, they let me remember that I was a woman and a person in
my own right; as such I required respect and appreciation. In a word, I
listened, listened, listened. Perhaps this is ultimately the only thing I ga-
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ve them. I gave them my heart through perceptive listening, and this is
always more important than giving them advice. How these tribal women
could smile and survive in their situations is something for which I have
no words to express. Thus, I could take up the challenge to build up not
only economic suficiency but their sense of dignity as well, and do this
with their help and support.
A Missionary’s Situation
I say the missionary vocation is very dificult, because to carry the Go-
spel into any situation is always to bear a challenge – in one’s words and
in one’s life. This was the situation of Jesus, St. Paul, St. Francis Xavier
and Blessed Mother Teresa.
Certainly one must prepare oneself intellectually in a world in which
more and more people are educated and opinionated. One has to be in-
telligent and perceptive, dynamic and forward-looking, for today’s world
is a world of change, not of traditional untested views. One must un-
derstand economy, sociology, politics, literature, human psychology. The
missionary’s vocation isn’t for those who miss the comforts and security
of home.
Most of all, one has to be ready to change and to learn how to live in
the ever changing world .
I remember how sometimes I played with the idea of becoming a sad-
hvi, that is, an Indian hermit living in the forests, just praying for people
and giving them spiritual counsel, not an activist involved in their lives. At
this, a friendly local catechist Yonathanbhai told me seriously: “Ben, you
must do something for us, not just sit and pray. We like you, Christian pri-
ests and sisters, for you are down to earth, knowledgeable about the world,
and yet detached from it. Our Hindu priests can only recite the scriptures,
but they know nothing else.” The words of this ordinary teacher burned
in my mind: to do something that none of them can do, to lead them to a
place they cannot go by themselves – that became my challenge.
And then two things happened in the last few years which began to
change my perception of how things were.
Missionaries, as I described earlier, are often patronizing, dealing with
people from a position of power. I could not be like that. I wanted to live
on the same level -- economic as well as social -- as the people I worked
with. To me Christ has always been my brother, and so I saw myself as a
brother or sister to the local people -- not as their boss, with lots of money
and inluence. This was the irst thing.
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 Marija Sreš
To prepare for this, I lived for two years with an adivasi family, and
learned not just their language but how to accept life as a gift, be it ever
so hard. I lived as one of them, working in the ields for a time, gathering
irewood, cooking and eating their own kind of food, living as they did. In
the words of Martiben, at whose house I stayed:’ I understand you com-
pletely, except the fact that you left your family, and did not marry. You
are such a beautiful and charming woman. You know everything. And yet
you left a better country to come and live with us…’ And another time:’
You eat everything we bring. You never complain. Why?’
Those two years were a tremendous revelation to me, a blessing beyond
compare. For as the fox says to the Little Prince in the story, “It is only
with the heart that one can see truly”, and again, “it is the time you have
wasted on your rose which makes her so important”.5
Naturally, this attitude of mine wasn’t appreciated by other missionaries
who wondered when I would come round to acting as they did. I didn’t,
and this different attitude has always kept me apart, alone – even among
my sisters. I felt sometimes that they just tolerated me, but criticized me
behind my back for my singular approach.
As a newcomer to India I had been encouraged to join women’s orga-
nizations. The experience of most women is: once you experience certain
realities, there is no going back. In Gujarat, I came to live with the tribal
poor so closely that I only could walk with them ahead, and never return to
the structured convent. It was as if the horizons of my life had broadened
and enlarged, and my outlook had been enriched. The Indian Jesuit theo-
logian George Soares put it in a metaphor I can never forget, ‘The oficial
Church is the small round space within a much larger circle. At the core of
this space, right in the middle, the air is pure and iltered – it is ‘ecclesial’
– for no (polluted) air from outside comes in to make it (impure) different.
This is where the hierarchy live. But the missionary is located away from
the center, away from the round space, on the borders of the wider circle.
She has to be there, in touch with many different kinds of ‘non baptized’
people. The missionary must be there to evangelize, but the danger is that
thus she may get infected or inluenced by the bad air which is outside.
Those in the round space in the middle are safe – but they are also sterile.
Those on the border run risks of catching infection, but from these very
risks of cross fertilization, something beautiful can grow.’

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

The Missionary and the Political Worlds

It was dificult to get a visa for a missionary after India’s Independen-
ce. I got it because I was a Yugoslav national and Marshal Tito founded
the Non-Alignment Movement with Pandit Nehru. Still, every year for
renewing the visa, I needed to prove that I was still needed in India. Twice
I got a Government order to leave India, and so inally my visa is just for
Mumbai, no longer for Gujarat among the tribals.
The situation worsened during the rule of BJP (1998-2003). The BJP
with its allies, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the RSS, did not espouse the
secular, socialist and democratic values of the Constitution. Basically feu-
dal in outlook, they always felt that the Constitution of 1950 cheated them
of having a Hindu rashtra, a Hindu nation, in which all other communities
would be second-class and subservient to the Hindu majority.
The year 1998 started an open persecution of Christians and Muslims
in Gujarat. There was an unending list of incidents of attacks and terror (in
Naroda, near Ahmedabad; in Dangs, South Gujarat; and also in Lusadiya,
Sabarkantha where I lived, churches were attacked and desecrated; in
Rajkot, copies of the Bible were burnt and homes of our adivasi Christians
were attacked) making some of them lee their native villages.

Why was this taking place?

Within the last 60 years, several signiicant socio-political changes have
taken place, among those the empowerment of the lower castes and (in
the democratic context) their edging out the traditional ruling classes, the
Brahmins and the landed classes. Christians, by their schools, hospitals
and village development projects, have been in the forefront of the uplift
of the dalit (outcaste, the poorest of the poor, the downtrodden) and the
adivasi, tribal. Hence the hatred of Christians – under the pretext that
Christian missionaries only want to convert the poor by fraud or force
and westernize them.
In Gujarat the Government led by BJP issued an Anti-Conversion Act
(Law) by which anyone accused of forced conversion could be put in jail
or sent out of the country without any proof or judgment. The Government
has also started a campaign demanding that adivasis (original residents)
should be henceforth termed vanvasis (forest dwellers). This to subsume
the adivasi identity under the Hindu label. The adivasi community gives
a certain degree of freedom and rights to women, both within the family
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 Marija Sreš
and the wider social sphere, and this new designation would be a degra-
dation to women’s status. And the tribal, men and women, would have
not been given place in any caste.
This persecution of Christians and Muslims therefore was a public
signal that the government did not accept an egalitarian pluralistic soci-
ety. It rather wanted a majoritarian and monolithic society, and claimed
that it spoke on behalf of all Hindus. This is patently false, as the secular,
democratic Constitution was in fact promulgated by the Hindu majority,
and most Hindus were shocked and dismayed by the vandalism and vio-
lence of the Hindu Right. For example, my friends forming the ‘Garden
Group’association in Matunga, Mumbai wrote and sent protest letters to
the Government of India.
Well, in every age, and in every nation there will be people who seek
only their selish ends and who oppress those who stand in their way. Mis-
sionaries stand in their way because they respect each person and help the
poor and downtrodden to recover their sense of dignity and self-worth.
I remember how one day on a lonely bus road our bus was stopped by a
group of men and all people had to get out. I was not even aware what
was going on while my tribal women encircled me and said: ‘You remain
here seated while we manage those rufians’. Two of them remained with
me and the rest went out and negotiated with the mob till they allowed
us to proceed.
Tribals in the meantime suffer in many ways. They hardly get high-pa-
id jobs in Government even though properly qualiied. And if Christians as
well, discrimination is two-fold. In fact Christian tribals don’t get admis-
sion to jobs because they are not considered ethnically adivasis anymore
to avail themselves of the quota. The neo-liberal policies pursued by the
Indian government have ensured that the poor, both rural and urban, and
dalits, as well as tribals, are deprived of employment, and (where they are
farming communities) of their rightful share of the fruits of agriculture.
In recent years, (poorer farmers have been increasingly driven to suicide
because of this.) Tribal forests have been cut down and devastated, and
the tribals themselves have forced into urban slums as cheap labour in the
construction of roads and buildings. The fact that over 50 million tribals
in India live under the poverty line is for me the greatest proof for the
political and social discrimination.
The leader of our group, Induben Katara told me with tears in her eyes,
how in the spring of 2002 she and other leaders were attacked in their own
adivasi Hanuman temple in Kantalu (where all Dungri Garasiya adivasi
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meet for amli melo—on the full moon before the spring Holi utsav their
greatest festival). Tribal shrines have been “hinduised”, and tribals them-
selves have been evicted from their premises, as was Induben’s complaint.
The tribal women I work with in rural Gujarat share in this desperate situ-
ation. Northern Gujarat has been drought affected for the last few years,
and the water table has declined so badly that most wells are permanently
dry. This is why in our work, we have looked for alternatives, for forms
of supplementary income, for these women who have hitherto only based
their lives on agriculture. In the statement of the trust deed of our orga-
nization, we stated:
“We are a group of women who really want to help ourselves by hel-
ping each other. That is, we want to be in charge of our own lives and our
village development with the support of our own families. This is the way
for women to move forward, by becoming economically self-suficient and
self-conident in public”.
Education is one way to do this, so we have spent on training, both for
skills, as well as for understanding the world around. And from education
comes self-conidence and courage. The message of Jesus to his disciples
was: `Courage! I have overcome the world’. More than discussions and
scholarship, research and information, what is needed today is courage.

My Vocations as a Writer

Even more fortunately, I am blessed with a gift from God for observing
and writing. This was the second thing.
Well in the busy day of a missionary, there is usually no time to write
stories. And so in the beginning, for many years I did not take any time
to write. Why? For one thing, the life of a religious woman is controlled
in many subtle ways, and writing is not encouraged. For another, at the
beginning of my stay in India I felt it was more important to do something
for the poor and the illiterate and for those in need that I saw around me,
rather than sit and write about them.
And then I met someone who opened a door in my life to untold pos-
sibilities. He was a Jesuit, who told me: Why just write reports, which no
one will read? Why not write stories, which everyone will want to read?
And that’s how it all started. That’s how the stories in ‘Tam, kjer kesude
cveto’ (in Gujarati ‘Girasma Ek Dungri’ and in English: ‘To Survive and
to Prevail’), came to be written.
Let me say more about this. At this time I was teaching literacy to my
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 Marija Sreš
tribal women. They needed simple stories to read, and they did not like the
school books which were prescribed. ‘We don’t like those Hindu stories’,
they said. (Our Dungri Garasiya tribals are not Hindu by origin but ani-
mists and their mother tongue is not Gujarati but a dialect of their own),
and they asked me: ‘Why don’t you write some stories for us?’
But it was not easy to write that irst book of mine because my religious
sisters grudged my writing. I used to write at night but even then that was
not always possible, because irst we had no electricity and later on, there
were so many power cuts that the kerosene lamp was all we could manage
with. I was often distracted by other tasks and the thread of a story would
be broken.
Yes, writers walk on the edge, and I have done this. I know that I was
made this way. Only physical service for others is not enough for my
spirit. One must have a holistic vision for their growth and development.
An integral vision. This is why I note down details, day after day. I’m not
the kind of writer who lifts characters and events out of the imagination.
I write factually. I need to be living among people seeing what is actually
happening to them. I feel for them, very sensitively. Sometimes my fee-
lings overwhelm me, when I realise the depth of their pain and suffering
and writing is one way to survive for me – it brings some distance, some
objectivity into my relationship.
And of course, it also gives me great pleasure to know that people read
what I have written, and appreciate me.

A Missionary and Relationships

The mission ield is too complex a place for one to face the challenges
alone or even just with her religious community. Today I would say, a
woman missionary needs a male friend who accepts her unconditionally
and thus supports her growth in self-conidence. A small community of
religious women living separately across the road from a community of
male priests is just not enough to be a successful missionary. Today the
challenges call for different skills (like teamwork, for instance) and dif-
ferent temperaments (like sexual maturity). These have not always been
given their place in the Church. The time has come to search for alterna-
tives realistically.
I often think that in the Church a priest or a religious person is hardly
ever shown as a person in struggle, but rather he is expected to portray an
unrealistic ideal. This often leads to hypocrisy and from there to deviant
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habits. And I say, Give him or her the chance to be himself or herself,
don’t try to suppress all their human feelings and urges.
I know that I have been singularly blessed with a few friends, men and
women, of different backgrounds, who take me seriously, whose support I
can count on, and on whose guidance I can rely. Some of them are religious
and priests, others are married, and some are not Christian. But we do have
a common ground of understanding when we speak, and when we plan
what we like to do. If I may say, there is a companionship in mission, or a
partnership of equality, and I like to think this is one of the most beautiful
and challenging aspects of my life today.
Being white and foreigner as I was, created its own complications. Most
Indians assume naturally that white people are superior and rich, and they
will fawn upon white strangers, whether missionaries or visitors, to get
some money out of them. They would feel the same about me. Why was I
not generous with them? they’d ask. Why could I not use my inluence to
get them money or jobs or some favour?
Being white and unmarried created other tensions. White women are
supposed to be more promiscuous and available than Indian women, but
being a religious sister was also different from the experience of most. So
while I was respected, I know that many men and women would secretly
wonder: But how does she manage her sexual urges? With which fathers
does she sleep, and which type does she prefer?
Let me say a word about my relationships with the tribal women I work
with. Really, it is our sharing as women that has nourished me – yes, my
tribal women nourished me through the poverty and oppression of their
lives. I am amazed at their endurance and their resilience. They inspire
me when I am discouraged at my own failures.
But there is another side too. Poverty is not only material deprivation:
it demeans the human spirit. It has made tribal women crooked and calcu-
lating, and clever at playing on our feelings of guilt. They always consider
me as a benevolent mother who will do everything for them – they have
only to cry and appear helpless. They never want to learn, so long as so-
meone like me is around to carry them along. I resent this attitude, and it
has often provoked me to anger and exasperation. Perhaps being brought
up in a culture of socialism, of implicit equality between the sexes and
between classes, I ind the feudal attitude in Indian society so stiling. How
often have I not challenged my women in words like these: `Get up! Learn
to manage! You are no less than I! Be aware of your dignity!’
Over the years I have noticed that with increased income comes a self-
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 Marija Sreš
conidence and dignity. Now the women want to go ahead by all means,
and on their own. By creating their own economic independence they have
slowly opened other alternatives. For example, Lalitaben started another
NGO in her village, Indiraben joined another group, Daliben retired and
started taking care of her grand-children, Shantaben stood for the post of
’sarpanch’, that is, president of the village panchayat. All these instances
show a gradual acceptance of responsibility. Yes, once women start inding
alternatives, they have moved out of the situation of survival. I feel that
their growth in dignity and conidence is the most important part of their
development. It brings about a more egalitarian society, in which women
are respected for themselves as well as their work. Some men were natu-
rally apprehensive about this change of relationships, but in the long term
they join their women-folk in creating more harmonious community.
More and more it is relationships, not achievements, which have shaped
me. For I have been blessed with strong and supportive friendships. It was
friendship that helped me to grow in self-conidence which is the most
important thing in human life. Sadly this did not happen within sisters’
community where a woman is kept to her immaturity. It took me decades
to realise where my strength and support came from and to accept it. My
missionary life only became productive when I freed myself from all the
fears of the convent, with the unconditional love of a friend.

Relating to God

My understanding of God’s presence too has changed over the years.

In India I was in touch with the believing poor of the gospels (ana’wim),
and every day through my work and personal exchanges, I would sustain
them, raise them to fresh ideals, animate them with care for each other
– in other words, I was forming a church, but without the formal ritual
authority to do so. I could bring about reconciliation among my women
and men, but I could not absolve them like a priest. I could instruct them
and inspire them, but I could not offer the Eucharist to them. For this they
had to go to a distant man who invariably had no time for them, and who
gave quite the wrong appearance: instead being the servant of the people,
he lived in a large solid house, with many servants and many vehicles!
Obviously there was something wrong somewhere.
So am I critical of certain Christian traditions? Yes, I am, if these
traditions make us self-righteous, so that we think we know everything
and no one can teach us. Yes, I am, if these traditions make us lose our
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compassion and sense of mercy towards those in need. That is why I have
gradually come around to believing that God dwells in his people, in the
hearts of those who fear him and listen to his spirit. Most of all God dwells
in the poor and the fragile – the sick, the poor, women, children. In this,
I have to thank India and its people, for they have given me this sense of
God’s presence everywhere, not just in nature but very much in society.
The glaring injustices of Indian society call to me to become a sister to all
those in dire need. There – in the ields, in the slums, in the tribal huts – is
where I meet God face to face.
In my relationship with God, I turn to Her – I often use the femini-
ne pronoun, because sometimes only a woman can understand another
woman as I am – to share the intense joy I feel, and to unburden myself of
the struggles and sorrows I experience.
Many of these feelings cannot be shared within my community, or even
with the women I work with. I want to be loved unconditionally. I need to
be loved unconditionally. And it is only in prayer that I get this realization
which keeps me where I am.

Why do I stay on in India?

Most of my years have been spent in Western India, in Gujarat, on the

fringes of the desert. Today I am a woman who has accomplished some-
thing and has experienced the satisfaction of achieving. But I have not just
given, I have also received. As I have put it, India shaped me as a river
shapes its stones, as the sea shapes its shoreline, its sands, its shells. This is
why I liken my stay in this country to a gift. All gifts imply a relationship
of giving and receiving. All my years here have been a series of deliberate
choices and decisions imposed, conscious designs and unconscious move-
ments, big issues and petty triles, all of it implying something given and
received. India has helped me return to nature, to the core of myself. Every
night I count the silent stars, which ill the black sky, and when morning
comes with its cheerful birdsong, I greet the sun with joy. And during the
day I shield my face from the ierce sun, and from the harsh wind which
dries my skin just like my women in Sabarkantha, Gujarat. Yes, I have
spent much time alone with nature.
It is not easy to live in India. I don’t want to pretend it is. I don’t want
to romanticise the life here. And now as I grow older, my body and my
mind rebel against things which twenty years ago I would probably smile
at and joke about.
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 Marija Sreš
Then why do I continue to live here still? Because, very simply, here
is where I have become myself. Here is where I have found my heart.
Here I discovered myself to be a good person, a person who knows and
understands and loves herself, a person who is constantly enriched and
challenged by being European and Indian at the same time. Darkened by
the Indian sun, and worn out by the Indian wind and rain: but also loved
very deeply by Indian men and women and children. Love, jealousy, re-
jection, hospitality, freedom, constraint, joy, anguish, fear, conidence—I
have known them all. I am hard yet smooth to touch; a pebble in the stream
perhaps, but still with my own weight and texture.
And it is here where my heart is, and my home is where my heart is.
Where I am cared for and secure beyond my deepest longings.
And what of there in Slovenia, my birthplace?
Every woman, they say, has two homes, the one in which she was born,
and the one where she gives birth to her own family. Who will say to whi-
ch she belongs more truly? Every missionary is a builder of bridges. Today
in the age of `nine-eleven’ we see fear and suspicion among the peoples
of the world. But even as the gates clang down in Fortress Europe, the
missionary remains a lonely symbol – of dialogue, of understanding and
of peace among warring cultures.
To my friends in Slovenia I ask, Will you accept me as I am, transfor-
med and enriched by another culture? Or do you still live in the past and
long for a simpler more predictable Church?
In your answer lies not just my future, but your own.

Notes

1 The irst of these was `A Woman observed’ (1991), published in Vidyajyoti Journal
(Delhi), and reprinted in the Sedos newsletter (Rome). In 1999, the periodical, Zvon
(Ljubljana) conducted an extensive interview with me, published in Slovenian, and
translated a year later into English in the booklet, Woman of Sabarkantha (2000).
And inally, in 2002, I brought out Thirty Years Later, to celebrate my thirty years
as a missionary in India.
2 Shernaaz Engineer in The Afternoon Dispatch and Courier, 19 February, 1999.
3 A. de St. Exupery, The Little Prince (Piccolo Books), p. 70.
4 My book Ženska Ženski (“Woman to Woman”) recently published in Slovene (Lju-
bljana: Gyros, 2004) is a translation of my earlier book in Gujarati, Kavita Sathe
Samvaad (engl. tr: Talking with Young Women), in which I speak to young women
about the challenges they face. The point my friend made is that it’s not only women
but men too who need to know this.
5 A. de St. Exupery, ibid., p. 71.

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Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
 III
Contemporary Slovenian Indian Studies

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Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
 Sāriputta, the Author of the Pāli Ṭīkās1
Primož Pečenko

Revised and edited by Tamara Ditrich

Sāriputta was one of the most prominent Buddhist scholars of the Po-
lonnaruva period in ®ri Lankā, the period beginning in the twelfth century
after the Coḷa forces were driven from the island and a new capital at Po-
lonnaruva was established. This was the period of a great revival of Budd-
hism in ®ri Lankā – in that time, many Buddhist and other Palī literary
texts were composed, particularly under the reign of kings Parakkamabāhu
I and II. Sāriputta was one of the most prolific authors of this period, he
composed many texts in Pāli, Sanskrit and Sinhala. He was a disciple
of Dimbulāgala Mahākassapa, the first known saṅgharāja of ®ri Lankā
(Kassapaṃ taṃ mahātheraṃ saṅghassa parināyakaṃ ... yaṃ nissāya
vasanto ’haṃ vuddhipatto ’smi sāsane),2 and one of the most important
members of Parakkamabāhu’s great council of theras, the date of which
is “tentatively fixed at 1165 A.D.”3 Dimbulāgala Mahākassapa, who was
in charge of the reformation of the Buddhist order under the patronage
of king Parākramabāhu I (1153–86 CE), was appointed by the king him-
self to organise and preside over the great council of theras to reform
the Buddhist order and establish the Vinaya rules.4 After the council held
under the presidency of Mahākassapa thera many ṭīkās were written,5
and one of the most important authors was Sāriputta, “perhaps brightest
among the constellations that adorned Ceylon’s literary firmament du-
ring Parākramabāhu’s reign.”6 On account of his erudition he was called
Sāgaramati,7 “like the ocean in wisdom”, and was “like all the other le-
arned men of his period, a clever Sanskrit scholar as well.”8 It seems that
he was the immediate successor of Mahākassapa as saṅgharāja of Ceylon
and was very influential with a large circle of disciples such as Vācissara,
Sumaṅgala and Dhammakitti, who were famous Pāli authors and religious
leaders.9 Sāriputta resided in the Jetavana Vihāra (sītalūdaka-sampanne
vasaṃ Jetavane imaṃ)10 at Polonnaruva in a “vast and glorious pāsāda with
rooms, terraces and chambers” (thirasīlassa therassa Sāri-puttavhayassa
pi, hammiyatthalagabbhehi mahāpāsādam ujjalaṃ)11 which the king had
specially built for him.
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

It seems that the writing of the ṭīkās on the canonical texts started
very soon after the convocation, because according to Saddhamma-s,
it was completed in one year (ayaṃ piṭakaṭṭhakathāya atthavaṇṇanā
ekasaṃvaccharen’ eva niṭṭhitā).12 The ṭīkās were sub-commentaries on
the commentarial Theravāda Pali texts, i.e. the Aṭṭhakathās, comprising
further interpretations of various points raised in the commentaries, or
adding additional information to the discussions, such as giving illustra-
tive stories.13 In the chapter where the writing of the ṭīkās is described,
Saddhamma-s does not mention Sāriputta’s name and does not assign
any special works to him.14 However, in the following chapter Saddham-
ma-s gives a list of many authors, and among them Sāriputta is menti-
oned, under the name Sāgaramati, as the author of the Vinayasaṅgaha
(Sāgaramatināmena therena racitaṃ idaṃ, Vinayasaṃgahaṃ nāma
vinayatthappakāsanaṃ).15 Malalasekera believes that “the ṭīkās may be
regarded as the work of a school, rather than of single individuals” and
Sāriputta “may possibly have been appointed to supervise certain sections
of the work – the Vinaya, the Aṅguttara and the Majjhima portions.”16
According to the Saddhammasaṅgaha, the four ṭīkās with a common na-
me Sāratthamañjūsā (Sv-ṭ, Ps-ṭ, Spk-ṭ, Mp-ṭ) were written by the “elders”
(therā bhikkhū) during the reign of Parākramabāhu I (1153–86). However,
Sāriputta is mentioned in the bibliographical texts and in the colophons of
the works of his disciples as the author of the following works:
1. Sāratthadīpanī Vinayaṭīkā (Sp-ṭ)
2. Aṅguttaranikāyaṭīkā, Catutthā Sāratthamañjūsā (Mp-ṭ)
3. Pālimuttakavinayavinicchayasaṅgaha (Pālim)
4. Pālimuttakavinayavinicchayasaṅgahaṭīkā (Pālim-vn-ṭ)
5. Pañcikālaṅkāra
6. Abhidharmārthasaṅgrahaya Sanna (Abhidh-s-sn)
7. Visuddhipathasaṅgaha
8. Kammaṭṭhānasaṅgaha
9. Maṅgalasuttaṭīkā
10. Sampasādanī
11. Padāvatāra.

1. Sāratthadīpanī Vinaya˜īkā (Sp-ṭ)17 This is the second ṭīkā on

Buddhaghosa’s commentary the Samantapāsādikā on the Vinayapiṭaka,
written at the request of king Parakkamabãhu I (ajjhesito narindena, so
’haṃ Parakkamabāhunā).18 The first ṭīkā was written by Vajirabuddhi,
who probably lived in the late Anurādhapura period,19 and is called the
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 Primož Pečenko

Vajirabuddhiṭīkā. In the colophon of the Abhidhammatthavibhāvinīṭīkā

(Abhidh-s-mhṭ) written by Sumaṅgala, one of Sāriputta’s disciples, the
author praises his teacher and mentions the Sāratthadīpanī (Sp-ṭ) as
Sāriputta’s most important work:
having been supported by the compassion of Sāriputta thera, who po-
ssesses many virtues most excellent and firm, and whose commentaries
on the Vinayaṭṭhakathā and so on - the foremost among which is the
Sāratthadīpanī – show here the greatness of his knowledge and glad-
den good people with explanations of the essence of sweet meaning…
(ñāṇānubhāvam iha yassa ca sūcayantī saṃvaṇṇanā ca vinayaṭṭha-
kathādikānaṃ Sāratthadīpanīmukhā madhuratthasārasandīpanena
sujanaṃ paritosayantī. tass’ ānukampam avalambiya Sāriputta-
therassa thāmagatasāraguṇākarassa...)20
A Pagan inscription dated 1442 CE mentions two Vinayaṭīkās: (1)
ṭīgā pārājikan, identified by G.H. Luce and Tin Htway as “Pārājika
[kaṇḍa] sub-commentary Sāratthadīpanī,” and (2) ṭīgā terasakan as
“[Saṃghādisesakaṇḍa] Rules sub-commentary”21 which seems also to be
a part of the Sāratthadīpanī.22

2. A‰guttaranikāya˜īkā, Catutthā Sāratthamañj™sā (Mp-ṭ).23 In this

ṭīkā six verses of the prologue are nearly identical with six verses in the
prologue of the Sāratthadīpanī (i.e., verses 2–7 in the prologue of Mp-ṭ,
and verses 4–9 in the prologue of Sp-,),24 the colophons are also very si-
milar (they differ only in the first two verses)25 and the first few pages of
both texts likewise show very few differences.26 These similarities could
be evidence of common authorship.
It is also interesting to note that although the first few pages of Mp-ṭ
(and Sp-ṭ) are quite different from the introductory pages of the purāṇa-
˜īkās on the Dīghanikāya, the Majjhimanikāya and the Saṃyuttanikāya
(i.e., the Sumaṅgalavilāsinīpurānaṭīkā, the Papañcasūdanīpurāṇaṭīkā,
the Sāratthapakāsinīpurāṇaṭīkā, written by Dhammapāla, all the four
nikāyaṭīkās (Sv-pṭ, Ps-pṭ, Spk-pṭ, Mp-ṭ) have many parallel passages.
The introductory portions in these four ṭīkās are similar because they
comment on the introductory verses in the Sumaṅgalavilāsinī 1, 1–2, 9;
the Papañcasūdanī I 1, 1–2, 13; the Sāratthapakāsinī I 1, 1–2, 21 and
the Manorathapūraṇī I 1, 1–3, 3, which are identical in most cases. The
Aṅguttaranikāyaṭīkā is nevertheless quite different from the other three
ṭīkās because: 1) it has the introductory verses which the other three ṭīkās
do not have (six verses are the same as in Sp-ṭ); 2) the prose passage follo-
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wing the verses is much more similar to Sp-ṭ (and Sv-nṭ) than to the other
three ṭīkās; 3) the Netti method applied to the first sutta in each of the four
nikāyaṭīkās (Sv-pṭ, Ps-pṭ, Spk-pṭ, Mp-ṭ) is much longer in Mp-ṭ.27

3. Pālimuttakavinayavinicchayasa‰gaha (Pālim).28 According to Ma-

lalasekera this is purely the work of Sāriputta himself and not the work
of an assembly of ṭīkā compilers under the supervision of Sāriputta as
is the case with Mp-ṭ and Sp-ṭ.29 The colophon of Pālim is very similar
to the colophons of Sp-ṭ and Mp-ṭ;30 all three works were written at the
request of king Parãkramabāhu I in the Jetavana Vihāra in Polonnaru-
va. The work has been known under several different titles: Pālimuttaka-
vinayavinicchayasaṅgaha, Vinayasaṅgahaṭṭhakathā, Vinayasaṅgaha,
Vinayasaṅgaha-pakaraṇa.31 In Laṅkavē puskoḷa pot nāmāvaliya (LPP)
several names for Pālim are also given: Pāḷimuttakavinayavinicchayasaṅ-
gaha, Pāḷimuttakaya, Pāḷimuttakavinaya, Pāḷimuttakavinayavinicchaya,
Mahāvinayasaṅgaha, Vinayasaṅgaha.32 Piṭakatsamuiṅḥ (Piṭ-sm) lists this
text under the name the Vinayasaṅgahaṭṭhakathā, which seems to be the
correct title, since it was “a summary of the Vinaya Piṭaka, divided in-
to various sections, giving the explanations of Vinaya rules.”33 On the
first page of Pālim Be 1960 the following title is given: “Pāḷimuttakavin
ayavincchayasaṅgaho” ti pi voharitā Vinayasaṅgahaṭṭhakathā”. In the
Pagan inscription two Mss. are mentioned: vineñ saṅgruiw krī, which is
identified as the Vinayamahāsaṅgaha, and vineñ saṅgruiw ṅay, identified
as the Vinayasaṅgaha.34 Similarly, Piṭ-sm lists first the Vinayasaṅgaha-
aṭṭhakathā, written by Sāriputta, which obviously corresponds to the
“greater” (krī) Vinayamahāsaṅgaha mentioned in the inscription as vineñ
saṅgruiw krī.35 Then it lists two Mss. of the Vinayasaṅgahaṇay aṭṭhakathā,
which correspond to the “lesser” (ṅay) Vinayasaṅgaha mentioned in the
inscription as vineñ saṅgruiw ṅay.36 Among the titles of Pālim given in
LPP are the Mahāvinayasaṅgaha and the Vinayasaṅgaha, which seem to
correspond to the “greater” (krī) and the “lesser” (ṅay) Vinayasaṅgaha
listed in the Pagan inscription and in Piṭ-sm.37 It is unclear whether these
are two different texts or just two names for the same text. In the Burmese
sources they are mentioned as different texts but in LPP they are considered
to be just two names of Pālim. Malalasekera explains this “variety of the
titles” as follows:
It has been suggested in view of the variety of the titles under which
the book is known that Vinayasaṅgaha, or, to give its full name,
Pālimuttaka-Vinayavinicchayasaṅgaha, was only part of a much
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 Primož Pečenko
larger Mahā-Vinayasaṅgahapakaraṇa, but I see no reason to accept
this suggestion. It is only too well known that the work of ancient
authors often bore more than one title — sometimes confusedly
so — and it is quite likely that Sāriputta’s work was no exception to
this custom and that whatever its full and original name was, it was
generally called the Vinayasaṅgaha.38

4. Pālimuttakavinayavinicchayasa‰gaha˜…kā (Pālim-vn-ṭ), also the

Vinayasaṅgahapurāṇaṭīkā, is a ṭīkā on the Vinayasaṅgaha (Pālim) whi-
ch some sources also ascribe to Sāriputta.39 There seems to have been
another ṭīkā on Pālim witten by Tipiṭakālaṅkāra (1578–1651), called the
Vinayālaṅkāraṭīkā.40 According to Malalasekera “the twoṭīkās are extant
in Ceylon, one old (purāṇa) and the other one new (nava), the author and
the date of neither is known”.41 These two ṭīkās on Pālim are most probably
Pālim-vn-ṭ, ascribed to Sāriputta, and the Vinayālaṅkāraṭīkā, written by
Tipiṭakālaṅkāra. In the colophon of the Abhidharmārthasaṅgrahaya Sanna
(Abhidh-s-sn) it is also mentioned that Sāriputta is the author of both the
Vinayasaṅgaha and its ṭīkā:
... virtuous guru, monk Sāriputta, wrote the Vinayasaṅgaha to help
those who practice contemplation, and he also composed its com-
mentary on the words which have hidden meanings ... (... Sārīsutena
yatinā gurunā guṇena yogīnam upakārāya kato Vinayasaṅgaho
ten’ eva racitā c’ assa līnatthapadavaṇṇanā ...)42

5. Pañcikāla‰kāra. This is a Sanskrit text, a ṭīkā on the Ratnamati’s

Cāndravyākaraṇaṭīkā, also called the Cāndrapañcikā. The text is
mentioned in the Gandhavaṃsa as one of the five works of Sāriputta
(sakaṭasaddasatthassa Pañcikā nāma ṭīkāgandho attano matiyā
Sāriputtācariyena kato),43 and also in the Sāsanavaṃsadīpa (Pañcikāya
tu ṭīkāpi dhīmatā kaviketunā, therena Sāriputtena katā parahitatthinā).44
This work seems to be lost.45 Ratnamati’s Cāndravyākaraṅaṭīkā is also
mentioned in the Pagan inscription as the Candrapañcikā: “Word-for-word
commentary on Candra’s grammar”.46 Dhammakitti, one of Sāriputta’s im-
mediate disciples, gives in the colophon of his Dāṭhāvaṃsa (Dāṭh) a poem
composed in the beginning of the thirteenth century,47 which includes the
Pañcikālaṅkāra and other works of Sāriputta:
he who wrote the praised ṭīkā on the pañjikā to the excellent
grammar composed by Candragomin, and aṭīkā on the Vinaya
commentary the Samantapāsādikā, which produces the power
of wisdom, wrote a ṭīkā on the excellent commentary on the
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Aṅguttaranikāya, which destroys the restlessness of delusion, and
a book called the Vinayasaṅgaha for the multitude of those who
are self-controlled and are exerting themselves in meditation. (yo
Candragomiracite varasaddasatthe ṭīkaṃ pasattham akarittha ca
Pañcikāya buddhi-ppabhāvajananiñ ca akā Samantapāsādikāya
vinayaṭṭhakathāya ṭīkaṃ Aṅguttarāgamavaraṭṭhakathāya ṭīkaṃ
sammohavibbhamavighātakariṃ akāsi atthāya saṃyamigaṇassa
padhānikassa ganthaṃ akā Vinayasaṅgahanāmadheyyaṃ.)48
6. Abhidharmārthasa‰grahaya Sanne (Abhidh-s-sn). This is a Sinhalese
paraphrase of the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha which is ascribed to Sāriputta,49
who according to Nevill “calls his own work the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha
Sīhalattha-vaṇṇanā”.50 There exist several manuscripts and at least four
printed editions of this work.51
In the colophon of Abhidh-s-sn Sāriputta is also mentioned as the author
of the following four works:

7. Visuddhipathasa‰gaha. This work seems to be lost; no further re-

ference has been found to date.

8. Kamma˜˜hānasa‰gaha.52 Piṭ-sm assigns the Kammaṭṭhānadīpanī

to Sāriputta, and lists a manuscript of this work to be held in the Nati-
onal Library, Rangoon.53 It is not clear if this is the same work as the
Kammaṭṭhānasaṃgaha which is listed in the colophon of Abhidh-s-sn.

9. Ma‰galasutta˜īkā. Nevill wrongly identifies this work as the

Maṅgalasuttavaṇṇanā (Maṅgalatthadīpanī),54 and Saddhatissa mistakenly
calls it the Maṅgalasuttasaṅgaha.55 LPP56 identifies the entire Ms. as the
Maṅgalasuttaṭīkā; however, this Ms. actually contains two texts, i.e. the
Maṅgalasuttaṭīkā (first 6 foll. only) and the first half of the Maṅgalattha-
dīpanī. The Abhidharmārthasaṅgrahaya mentions this text in verse 9:
Maṅgalassa ca suttassa vaṇṇanāya suvaṇṇanā, viññūnaṃ likhitā ṭīkā
bhikkhūnaṃ rativaḍḍhanī. If the colophon of Abhidh-s-sn is correct this
could be a work of Sāriputta.

10. Sampasādanī. It seems that this work is related to the Samapa-

sādanīya Suttanta of Dīghanikāya.57 The Gandhavaṃsa of Nandapaññā
mentions among the works of unknown authors also the Pasādanī and the
Pasāda-jananī.58 From the colophon of Abhidh-s-sn it is not clear in which
language the Sampasādanī was written.

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 Primož Pečenko

Buddhadatta and Saddhatissa do not mention the Sampasādanī at all and

they believe that the Visuddhipathasaṅgaha, the Kammaṭṭhānasaṅgaha
and the Maṅgalasuttaṭīkā are not known in the Theravāda monastic tradi-
tions any longer.59 The four works listed above (Visuddhipathasaṅgaha,
Kammaṭṭhānasaṅgaha, Maṅgalasutta, Sampasādanī) are mentioned in
the colophon of Abhid-s-sn as follows: 
The Visuddhipathasaṅgaha [was written] for the forest-dwel-
ling bhikkhus, a collection of the objects of meditation [the
Kammaṭṭhānasaṅgaha] for the bhikkhus, who contemplate the
objects of meditation ... the precious Sampasādanī was composed
to produce joy for the hearers and for the benefit of the wise ... and
a delight-increasing ṭīkā, which is a thorough exposition of the com-
mentary on the Maṅgalasutta, was written for wise bhikkhus.60

11. Padāvatāra. This is the only text which is in many secondary so-
urces ascribed to Sāriputta,61 but it is not mentioned in the colophon of
Abhidh-s-sn. It seems that this text is lost.62 In the Pagan inscription a
work called (padāvasāra) mahācat is mentioned and it is identified by G.
H. Luce and Tin Htway as: “Padāvaha mahacakka? Query Padāvatāra, a
Sanskrit work on grammar by Sāriputta (PLC 190), or Sadāvatāra?”63 Bode
also mentions the same work but reads it differently: “Padāvahāmahācakka
[Padāvatāra?]”.64 Sās-dip ascribes the authorship of the Padāvatāra to
Coḷiyācariya Sāriputtatthera (Coḷiyācariyo Sārīputtatthero mahāmatī,
Padāvatāraṃ dhammāvataraṇattham akā subhaṃ),65 who according to
Dhammaratana “lived at Bodhimangai in Chola country”.66 This seems
correct, since the Padāvatāra is the only work which is not mentioned in
the colophon of Abhidh-s-sn, where the most detailed list of Sāriputta’s
works is given.67
According to Nevill and Somadasa the colophon of Abhidh-s-sn was
written by Sāriputta himself.68 Since the list of works given in the colophon
is very detailed this suggestion could be correct. In the colophon of the
Dāṭhavaṃsa, written in the beginning of the 13th century by Dhamma-
kitti, one of Sariputta’s immediate disciples, only four works ascribed to
Sāriputta are listed: the Sāratthadīpanīṭīkā, the Manorathapūraṇīṭīkā,
the Pāḷimuttakavinayavinicchayasaṅgaha and the Pañcikālaṅkāra. The
colophon of Abhidh-s-mh written by Sumaṅgala, who was also one
of Sāriputta’s disciples, mentions only the Sāratthadīpanī (Sp-ṭ) as the
first work of Sāriputta’s “exposition on the Vinayaṭṭhakathā and so on”
(saṃvaṇṇanā ca vinayaṭṭhakathādikānaṃ Sāratthadīpanīmukhā).69 It se-

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

ems that the Sāratthadīpanīṭīkā, which is mentioned in all three colophons,

was considered Sāriputta’s “first and foremost work”.70 All three colophons
were most probably written not later than the thirteenth century.
The Saddhammasaṅgaha (Saddhamma-s), which was written about
1400 CE in Siam,71 ascribes to Sāriputta only one work, i.e. the Pāḷimutta-
kavinayavinicchayasaṅgaha (Sāgaramatināmena therena racitaṃ idaṃ,
Vinayasaṃgahaṃ nāma vinayatthappakāsanam).72 All the ṭīkās, including
the Sāratthadīpanīṭīkā and the Manorathapūraṇīṭīkā, which are clearly
mentioned in the colophons of earlier works (Abhidh-s-sn, Abhidh-s-mhṭ,
Dāṭh) are in Saddhamma-s ascribed to the “elders” (therā bhikkhū) or the
“great elders” (mahātherā), who are also mentioned as “the teachers of the
ṭīkās” (ṭīkācariyā).73 Although “it is significant that Sāriputta’s name is not
mentioned in this connection, and that no special works are assigned to him
by the author of the Saddhammasaṅgaha”, there is, according to Malalase-
kera, “no doubt that the account of the ṭīkā compilation, as given here [i.e.
in Saddhamma-s], contains more than a germ of truth”.74 The main aim of
the council held during the reign of Parākramabāhu I and presided over
by Dimbulāgala Mahākassapa was to reconcile different communities of
saṅgha torn by various schisms. Although “they accepted the authority of
the common canon and of Buddhaghosa’s commentaries” they “interpreted
various points of teaching in their own way” and “these interpretations
were written and handed down in [different] ṭīkās”.75 This is confirmed in
the Saddhammasaṅgaha (58, 31–59, 2): kattha ci anekesu gaṇṭhipadesu
Sīhala-bhāsāya niruttiyā likhitañ ca kattha ci mūlabhāsāya Māgadhikāya
bhāsantarena sammissaṃ ākulañ ca katvā likhitañ ca. The council pre-
sided over by Mahākassapa realised the need to bring these ṭīkās together
and create a synthesis of them all. Saddhatissa believes that the Līnattha-
ppakāsinī on Buddhaghosa’s commentaries to the four Nikāyas, which was
written earlier by Dhammapāla, might have been consulted in this recom-
pilation of ṭīkās.76 Therefore, as pointed out by Malalasekera,77 these ṭīkās
seem to be the work of a school, rather than of single individuals, which is
further indicated by the parallel passages found in many other ṭīkās.
To conclude, I reproduce below the colophon of Abhidh-s-sn,78 where
all the works of Sāruputta except the Padāvatāra are mentioned:
ramme Pulatthinagare nagarādhirāje
raññā Parakkamabhujena mahābhujena
kārāpite vasati Jetavane vihāre
yo rammahammiyavarūpavanābhirāme [1]
sabbattha patthaṭayasena visāradena
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 Primož Pečenko

suddhāsayena parisuddhakulodayena
takkāgamādikusalena yatissarena
Sārīsutena yatinā gurunā guṇena [2]
yogīnam upakārāya kato Vinayasaṅgaho
ten’ eva racitā c’ assa līnatthapadavaṇṇanā [3]
bhikkhūnaṃ ’raññavāsīnaṃ Visuddhipathasaṅgaho
kammaṭṭhānikabhikkhūnaṃ kammaṭṭhānassa saṅgaho [4]
Candagomābhidhānena racitā sādhusammatā
pañcikā ramaṇīyenā ’laṅkārena ca bhūsitā [5]
pasādajananatthāya sotūnañ ca mahārahā
viññūnañ ca hitatthāya racitā Sampasādanī [6]
Vinayaṭṭhakathāyāpi suvisuddhapadakkamā
ṭīkā viracitā rammā vinayaññupasaṃsitā [7]
Aṅguttaranikāyaṭṭhakathāya ca anākulā
bhikkhūnaṃ pa˜ubhāvāya ṭīkā pi ca susaṅkhatā [8]
Maṅgalassa ca suttassa vaṇṇanāya suvaṇṇanā
viññūnaṃ likhitā ṭīkā bhikkhūnaṃ rativaḍḍhanī 79 [9]
kaṅkhāvinayanatthāya Abhiddhammatthasaṅgahe
bhikkhūnam likhitaṃ ganthaṃ Sīhaḷāya niruttiyā [10]
Parakkamanarindassa narindakulaketuno80
nāmena tilakaṃ vuttaṃ nakkhattapathanissitaṃ [11]
yaṃ cande81 Candabhūtaṃ nisitataramatiṃ Pāṇiniṃ pāṇinīye
sabbasmiṃ takkasatthe paṭutaramatayo kattubhūtaṃ va tan taṃ
maññante Kālidāsaṃ kavijanahadayānandahetuṃ kavitte
sāyaṃ lokatthasiddhiṃ vitaratu racanā tassa Sārīsutassa. [12]82

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

Abbreviations

Abbreviations and the quotation system of Pāli sources follow the Cri-
tical Pāli Dictionary (Epilegomena to vol. 1, 1948, pp. 5*-36*, and vol. 3,
1992, pp. II-VI) and H. Bechert, Abkürzungsverzeichnis zur buddhistischen
Literatur in Indien und Südostasien (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1990). However, to make this article more accessible all the abbreviations
used are listed below.

Abhidh-s Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha of Anuruddha, ed. by

H. Saddhātissa (Oxford: PTS, 1989)
Abhidh-s-mh˜ Abhidhammatthavibhāvinīṭīkā of Sumaṅgalasāmi, ed.
by H. Saddhātissa (Oxford: PTS, 1989)
Abhidh-s-sn Abhidharmārthasaṅgrahaya of Anuruddha, with Sanna
of Sāriputta of Poḷonnaruva, ed. by T. Paññāmoli Tissa
(Ambalamgoḍa: Vijaya Printing Press, 1926)
AN Aṅguttaranikāya, ed. by R. Morris and E. Hardy, 5 vols.
([London: PTS, 1885–1900]; reprinted, London: PTS,
1955–1961)
CPD A Critical Pāli Dictionary, ed. by V. Trenckner et al.
(Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and
Letters, 1924–)
Geiger W. Geiger, Pāli Literature and Language, trans. by B.
Ghosh (Calcutta: Calcutta University Press, 1956)
Dā˜h Dāṭhavaṃsa of Dhammakitti, ed. by T.W. Rhys Davids
and R. Morris (JPTS 1884: pp. 109–151)
Gv Gandhavaṃsa of Nandapañña, ed. by I.P. Minayeff,
JPTS 1886, pp. 54–80
JPTS Journal of the Pali Text Society
LPP K. D. Sōmadāsa, Laṅkāvē puskoḷa pot nāmāvaliya,
3 vols. (Colombo: Department of Cultural Affairs,
1959–1964)
Mhv Mahāvaṃsa of Mahānāma, ed. by W. Geiger ([London:
PTS, 1908]; reprinted, London: PTS, 1958), and C™ḷa-
vamsa of Dhammakitti, ed. by W. Geiger ([London: PTS,
1925–1927]; reprinted, London: PTS, 1980)
Mp Ee Manorathapūraṇī, Aṅguttaranikāya-aṭṭhakathā of
Buddhaghosa, ed. by M. Walleser, and H. Kopp, 5 vols.
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 Primož Pečenko

([London: PTS, 1924–1956]; reprinted, London: PTS,

1966–1979)
Mp-p˜ Manorathapūraṇīpurāṇaṭīkā, Līnatthapakāsinī IV
Mp-˜ Aṅguttaranikāyaṭīkā, Catutthā Sāratthamañjūsā
Mp-˜ Be Manorathapūraṇīṭīkā, Sāratthamañjūsā IV of Sāri-
putta of Poḷonnaruva, 3 vols., Chaṭṭhasaṅgāyana edition
(Rangoon: Buddhasāsanasamiti Press, 1961)
Ms(s). manuscript(s)
PLB M. H. Bode, The Pāli Literature of Burma, vol. 2
([London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1909]; reprinted,
London: Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and
Ireland, 1966)
Pālim Pāḷimuttakavinayavinicchayasaṅgaha
Pālim-vn-˜ Pāḷimuttakavinayavinicchayasaṅgahaṭīkā
Pālim Be Pāḷimuttakavinayavinicchayasaṅgaha, Vinayasaṅga-
ha pakaraṇa of Sāriputta of Poḷonnaruva, Chaṭṭha-
saṅgāyana edition (Rangoon: Buddhasāsanasamiti Press,
1960)
Pi˜-sm Piṭakat samuiṅḥ, ed. by u Khan Cuih (Rangoon:
Haṃsãvati, 1959)
PLC G. P. Malalasekera, The Pāli Literature of Ceylon
([London: 1928]; reprinted, Colombo: M. D. Gunasena,
1958)
PPN G. P. Malalasekera, Dictionary of Pāli Proper Names,
2 vols. ([London: 1938]; reprinted, London: Pali Text
Society, 1960)
Ps Papañcasūdanī, Majjhimanikāya-aṭṭhakathā of Budd-
haghosa, 5 vols., ed. by J. H. Woods et al. ([London:
Pali Text Society, 1922–1938]; reprinted, London: Pali
Text Society, 1976–1979)
Ps-p˜ Papañcasūdanīpurāṇaṭīkā, Līnatthapakāsinī II of
Dhammapāla
Ps-˜ Papañcasūdanīṭīkā, Sāratthamañjūsā II
Saddhamma-s Ee Saddhammasaṅgaha of Dhammakitti, ed. by Nedimāle
Saddhānanda (JPTS 1890, pp. 21–90)
Sās Ne Sāsanavaṃsa of Paññāsāmi, ed. by C. S. Upasak
(Nālandā: Nava Nālandā Mahāvihāra, 1961)
Sās-dip Ce Sāsanavaṃsadīpa of Vimalasārathera (Colombo:
Satthāloka Press, 1880)
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

Somadasa, Cat K. D. Somadasa, Catalogue of the Hugh Nevill Collection

of Sinhalese Manuscripts in the British Library, 4 vols.
(London: Pali Text Society and British Library, 1987 –
1990)
Spk Sāratthapakāsinī, Saṃyuttanikāya-aṭṭhakathā of Budd-
haghosa, ed. by F. L. Woodward, 3 vols. ([London: Pali
Text Society, 1929–1937]; reprinted, London: Pali Text
Society, 1977)
Spk-˜ Sāratthapakāsinīṭīkā, Sāratthamañjūsā II
Sp-˜ Sāratthadīpanī Vinayaṭīkā
Sp-˜ Be Sāratthadīpanīṭīkā of Sāriputta of Poḷonnaruva, 3 vols.,
Chaṭṭhasaṅgāyana edition (Rangoon: Buddhasāsana-
samiti Press, 1960)
Sv-n˜ Be Sumaṅgalavilāsinīnavaṭīkā, Sīlakkhandhavagga-
abhinavaṭīkā, Sādhuvilāsinī of Ñāṇābhivaṃsa, 2 vols.,
Chaṭṭhasaṅgāyana edition (Rangoon: Buddhasāsana-
samiti Press, 1961)
Sv-p˜ Sumaṅgalavilāsinīpurāṇaṭīkā, Līnatthapakāsinī I
of Dhammapāla
Sv-p˜ Ee Sumaṅgalavilāsinīpurāṇaṭīkā, Līnatthapakāsinī I
of Dhammapāla, 3 vols., ed. by Lily de Silva (London:
Pali Text Society, 1970)
Sv Sumaṅgalavilāsinī, Dīghanikāya-aṭṭhakathā of Buddha-
ghosa, ed. by T. W. Rhys Davids et al., 3 vols. ([London:
Pali Text Society, 1886–1932], 2nd ed. London: Pali Text
Society, 1968–1971)
Sv-˜ Sumaṅgalavilāsinīṭīkā, Sāratthamañj™sā I
Upās Upāsakajanālaṅkāra, ed. by H. Saddhatissa (London:
Pali Text Society, 1965)
Vin Vinayapiṭaka, ed. by H. Oldenberg, 5 vols. ([London:
Pali Text Society, 1879–1883]; reprinted, London:
Pali Text Society, 1969–1982)
Vin-vn Vinayavinicchaya of Buddhadatta, in Buddhadatta’s
Manuals, part 2: Vinayavinicchaya and Uttara-vini-
cchaya, ed. by A. P. Buddhadatta ([London: Oxford
University Press, 1927]; reprinted, London: Pali Text
Society, 1980)

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 Primož Pečenko

A Short Biography of Primož Pečenko

Primož Pečenko died suddenly on the first of August 2007. He was a

major figure in Buddhist Studies in Australia and internationally. After
completing a Masters degree at the University of Pune in India and a PhD
at the Australian National University, he worked at the Australian National
University and at the University of Queensland. At the time of his death
he was Director of the Centre for Buddhist Studies and Senior Lecturer in
Eastern Religions at the University of Queensland where he taught Pali and
Sanskrit, as well as courses on Buddhism and Hinduism, and supervised
numerous postgraduate students from Australia and other countries. He
worked tirelessly to maintain Buddhist Studies at the University of Que-
ensland and to promote Buddhist Studies in Australia and abroad. Primož
was an Executive committee member of the Australasian Association of
Buddhist Studies and a member of many other academic organisations.
In the last fifteen years Primož’s main focus of research was Theravãda
commentarial literature, particularly the sub-commentaries (ṭīkās), an area
that had received scarce scholarly attention. One of his major contributions
to this field is his edition of the sub-commentary on the Aṅguttaranikāya
– he published three volumes up to date (Aṅguttaranikāyaṭīkā, 3 vols.,
Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1996, 1997, 1999), and a fourth volume was in
progress. He published several important articles on Pãli commentarial lite-
rature, including “Līnatthapakāsinī and Sāratthamañjūsā—the purāṇaṭīkās
and the ṭīkās on the four nikāyas” (Journal of the Pali Text Society, Vol.
XXVII (2002), pp. 61-113). Primož also presented many papers at confe-
rences, symposia, and seminars in Australia and other countries.
At the time of his death, Primož was engaged in several important resear-
ch projects. He was editing a Pãli sub-commentary on the Aṅguttaranikāya
that was previously thought to have been lost, but was discovered by him in
Burma. This text, which he intended to publish in the form of a critical edi-
tion, promised to throw new light on the history of Pãli sub-commentaries,
on the methods employed in the commentarial literature, and other hitherto
little understood aspects of this research field. The critical edition of this
text, i.e. the Aṅguttaranikāyapurāṇaṭīkā, Catuttha–Līnatthapakāsinī, will
be completed by T. Ditrich and is to be published in 2008 by the Pali Text
Society. He was also engaged in a large research project, the study of the
inscriptions of the Pãli Canon at Kuthodaw Pagoda, Mandalay, Burma,
aiming to investigate and document, for the first time in the history of
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

modern Pãli studies, the Theravãda Buddhist Canon of the Fifth Council,
inscribed on 729 large marble slabs. This research would have helped to
establish the relationship between the latest “edition” of the Pãli canon
and the earlier versions, and to contribute towards our understanding of
textual authority and transmission in Buddhist communities. Primož was
also recording commentaries on the Satipaṭṭhānasutta by Venerable Pre-
masiri of Kanduboda, Sri Lanka, in preparation of a monograph on con-
temporary interpretations of Vipassanã meditation practices in the South
and Southeast Asia. Much of Primož’s research was funded by grants from
such prestigious bodies as the Pali Text Society, the Australian Research
Council, and the Australian National University and University of Queen-
sland research fellowships.
Many of Primož’s publications are in Slovenian. He published first
Slovenian translations of several Pãli texts, such as the Dhammapada
(1987), the Milindapañhā (Vprašanja kralja Milinde, 1990); and transla-
tions of individual suttas, including the Anattalakkhaṇasutta (2001), the
Mahāsatipaṭṭhānasutta (1990). He also wrote a book on the theory and
practice of Buddhist meditation (Pot Pozornosti, 1990). Primož’s earlier
publications in Slovenian reflect diverse areas of his interests such as his
translation from Russian of Eisenstein’s essays on film (Eisenstein, S. M.
Montaža ekstaza, 1981), his articles on film, on religions, literature and
travel. Primož also wrote poetry and numerous stories for children which
are often presented on Slovenian radio.

Selected Publications of Primož Pečenko

Books
Aṅguttaranikāyapurāṅaṭīkā, Catuttha–Līnatthapakāsinī. Oxford: The Pali Text Society,
2008 [forthcoming].
The Way Things Really Are: Book IV of the Sutta Nipāta. Trans. by L. Fowler Lebkovicz,
T. Ditrich and P. Pečenko. Buddhanet’s e-Book Library. Buddha Dhamma Education
Association Inc., 2006 (www.buddhanet.net).
Aṅguttaranikāyaṭīkā, Catuttha-Sāratthamañjūsā – Ekanipāta XV–XX, Dukanipāta.
Vol. 3. Oxford: The Pali Text Society, 1999.
Aṅguttaranikāyaṭīkā, Catuttha-Sāratthamañjūsā – Ekanipāta II–XIV: Nīvaraṇappahāna-
vaggavaṇṇanā – Etadaggavaggavaṇṇanā. Vol. 2. Oxford: The Pali Text Society,
1997. Reprinted, Oxford: The Pali Text Society, 1998.
Aṅguttaranikāyaṭīkā, Catuttha–Sāratthamañjūsā – Ekanipāta I: Ganthārambhakathā,
Ganthārambhakathāvaṇṇanā, Rūpādivaggavaṇṇanā. Vol. 1. Oxford: The Pali Text
Society, 1996.
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 Primož Pečenko
Pot pozornosti: Osnove budistične meditacije. Ljubljana: Domus, 1990.
Vprašanja kralja Milinde: O Buddhovem nauku (Milindapañhā). Zbirka Misel stare
Indije. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1990.
Dhammapada: Besede modrosti. Knjižnica Kondor 240. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga,
1987. Reprinted: (1) Zbirka Misel stare Indije, Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1990;
(2) Slovenska theravadska budistična stran, Društvo theravadskih budistov Bhavana,
SloTHERA, 2003 (http://users.volja.net/slo-thera); (3) Budistična knjižnica. Ljublja-
na: Slovensko budistično drustvo, 2001, (www2.arnes.si/~ljsekolg3/buda/Dhammp.
html).
Eisenstein, S. M. Montaža ekstaza. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 1981.

Book chapters
“The Influence of Theravāda Orthodoxy on Western Scholarship”. In the Commemora-
tive Volume of the Golden Jubilee of the Myanmar Historical Commission, Yangoon
(forthcoming in 2008).
“The ṭīkās on the Four Nikāyas—Līnatthapakāsinī and Sāratthamañjūsā”. In Proceedings
of the XIth World Sanskrit Conference (Turin, April 2000), Indologica Taurinensia,
Volume XXX (2004), pp. 201-227.
“O značilnostih nesebstva—the Anattalakkhaṇasutta”. In Sebstvo in Meditacija. Zbirka
Poligrafi. Ljubljana: Nova revija, 2001, pp. 79–89. Reprinted: Društvo theravadskih
budistov Bhavana, SloTHERA, 2005 (www.slo-theravada.org); Slovenski budistični
forum, 2006 (www.furumsvibe.com/slothera/portal.php).
“The ṭīkās on the Four Nikāyas and their Myanmar and Sinhala Sources”. In Proceedings
of the Myanmar Two Millennia Conference, Part 4. Yangon: Universities Historical
Research Centre, 2000, pp. 122-150.

Selected Articles
“The Theravāda Tradition and Modern Pāli Scholarship: A Case of “Lost” Manuscripts
Mentioned in Old Pāli Bibliographical Sources”. Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal, no.
20 (2007), pp. 349–378.
“History of the Nikāya-subcommentaries (ṭīkās) in Pāli Bibliographic Sources”, Journal
of the Pali Text Society (forthcoming in 2008).
“Discovery of a Rare Pāli text Mentioned in Some Pāli Bibliographic Sources”, Solidarity
and Interculturality, ed. Lenart Škof (Poligrafi – International Edition), no. 41/42,
vol. 11. Ljubljana: Nova revija, 2006, pp. 107–122.
“The Fifth and the Sixth Buddhist Councils in Theravada Tradition—Is There a Need for
the Seventh Council?” First World Buddhist Forum, Hangzhou, China, 2006.
“Veliki govor o štirih načinih pravilne pozornosti” (Mahāsatipaṭṭhānasutta,
Dīghanikāya) [from Pot pozornosti: Osnove budistične meditacije. Ljubljana: Do-
mus, 1990, pp. 193–211]. Društvo theravadskih budistov Bhavana, SloTHERA, 2003
(http://users.volja.net/slo-thera).
“Reading the Pāli Bibliographic Sources – a New Perspective”. Myanmar Historical
Research Journal, Vol. XII (2003), pp. 1–15.
“Līnatthapakāsinī and Sāratthamañjūsā – the Purāṇaṭīkās and the Ṭīkās on the Four
Nikāyas.” Journal of the Pali Text Society, Vol. XXVII (2002), pp. 61–113. Translated

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
into Chinese by Tzung-Kuen Wen, forthcoming in the Buddhist Journal Samaya,
Taiwan.
“Early Buddhist Poetry”. Queensland Poetry Festival, Brisbane, 2002.
“Sāriputta and his Works”. Journal of the Pali Text Society XXIII (1997), pp. 159–179.
“Vprašanja kralja Milinde”. Mentor X/3–4 (1989), pp. 93–111.
“Budizem in palijska literatura”. Mentor X/3–4 (1989), pp. 111–116.
“Pozornost kot osnova buddhistične prakse”. Nova revija VII/75–76 (1988), pp. 1193–
1200.
“Veliki govor o štirih načinih pravilne pozornosti”. Nova revija VII/75–76 (1988), pp.
1201–1211.
“Eksperiment, ki ga razumejo milijoni”. Ekran XVII (1980), vol. 5, p. 15.
“Naš oktober: onstran igranega in neigranega filma”. Ekran XVII (1980), vol. 5, p. 16.
“Kako posneti Kapital”. Ekran XVII (1980), vol. 5, pp. 17–22.
“O materialističnemu pristopu k formi”. Tribuna XXIX (1980), no. 7–8, pp. 8–9.
“Metoda postavitve delavskega filma”. Tribuna XXIX (1980), no. 7–8, pp. 8–9.

Book Reviews
Review of Catalogue of Palm Leaf Manuscripts Kept in the Otani University Library
(Ed. by Otani University Library. Kyoto: Otani University Library, 1995). Indo-Ira-
nian Journal 41(1998): 301–304.
“O življenju brez sledov”. Svet v knjigah. Ljubljanski dnevnik, January 1986.
“Od besed k bistvu”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, January 1986. [A review of Izreke svetovnjaka
Phenga, Beograd: Grafos, 1985.]
“Pot, ki vodi do vseh ciljev”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, January 1986. [A review of Lao Ce,
Knjiga o putu i njegovoj vrlini, Beograd: Grafos, 1985.]
“Izkušnja, absurd, božanska ljubezen”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, January 1986. [A review of
Kabir, Reć i oblik, Beograd: Grafos, 1985.]
“Odgovor nad odgovori”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, February 1986. [A review of Mumonkan,
Beograd: Grafos, 1985.]
“Preproščina družinskega življenja”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, February 1986. [A review of
Vanthyka & Michel Cahour, Reka je življenje, Murska Sobota: Pomurska založba,
1985.]
“Pet stopenj obvladljivosti”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, February 1986. [A review of Mijamoto
Musasi, Knjiga pet prstenova, Beograd: Grafos, 1985.]
“Meje azijske filozofije: tok človeške misli”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, August 1980. [A review
of “Frontiers of Asian Philosophy: a river of human ideas”.]
“Meje azijske filozofije: Vede—začetek indijske misli”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, August
1980. [A review of “Frontiers of Asian Philosophy: the Vedas, beginning of Indian
Philosophy”.]
“Meje azijske filozofije: Budizem—onkraj dobrega in zla”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, August
1980. [A review of “Frontiers of Asian Philosophy: Buddhism, beyond good and
evil”.]
“Meje azijske filozofije: Bistvo kitajske misli”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, August 1980. [A
review of “Frontiers of Asian Philosophy: the essence of Chinese thought”.]
“Meje azijske filozofije: Joga in razsvetljenje”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, September 1980. [A
review of “Frontiers of Asian Philosophy: Yoga and Enlightenment”.]
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 Primož Pečenko
“Meje azijske filozofije: Zen—cvet azijske kulture”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, September
1980. [A review of “Frontiers of Asian Philosophy: Zen—a blossom of Asian cul-
ture”.]
“Meje azijske filozofije: Absurdni humor sufizma in zena”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, Sep-
tember 1980. [A review of “Frontiers of Asian Philosophy: absurd humour of Sufism
and Zen”.]
“Meje azijske filozofije: kaj nas Azija lahko nauči”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, September 1980.
[A review of “Frontiers of Asian Philosophy: what can Asia teach us?”]
“Rojstvo fizike”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, November 1980. [A review of Werner Heisenberg,
Del in celota, Celje: Znanstvena knjiznica, 1977, part I.]
“Razvoj mehanicističnega mišljenja”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, November 1980. [A review of
Werner Heisenberg, Del in celota, Celje: Znanstvena knjiznica, 1977, part II.]
“Kaj je svetloba”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, November 1980. [A review of Werner Heisenberg,
Del in celota, Celje: Znanstvena knjiznica, 1977, part III.]
“Obrnjena stran smrti”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, May 1979. [A review of Tibetanska knjiga
mrtvih, Vrnjačka banja: Zamak kulture, 1979.]
“Zlitje dveh svetov”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, June 1979. [A review of Hiljadu lotosa, Be-
ograd: Nolit, 1979.]
“Osnovni besedi”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, July 1979. [A review of Martin Buber, Ja i ti,
Beograd: Vuk Karadzic, 1979.]
“Joga—videnje in izkušnja življenja”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, August 1979. [A review of
Patanjdžali, Izreke o jogi, Beograd: BIGZ, 1977.]
“Zgodovina matematike”. Ljubljanski dnevnik, August 1979. [A review of Dirk J. Struik,
Kratka zgodovina matematike, Ljubljana: Knjižnica Sigma, DZS, 1978.]

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

Notes
1 Primož Pečenko died suddenly on the first of August 2007. He intended to contribute
a study on Sãriputta for the present volume. I reviewed all the materials he left, and
revised and edited his work to the best of my knowledge. This article is a revised
edition of his past research, i.e., “Sāriputta and his Works”, Journal of the Pali Text
Society XXIII (1997), pp. 159–179. At the end, I added a short biography of Primož
Pečenko and a list of his publications.
2 Cf. Mp-ṭ Be 1961 I, 11–16 = Sp-ṭ Be 1960 I 1, 7–12. In Mp-ṭ Be 1961 I 1, 17–20 = Sp-ṭ
Be 1960 I 1, 13–16, another teacher of Sāriputta called Sumedha is also mentioned.
Mahākassapa and Sumedha were “the principal and the vice-principal of the Ālāhana
Pariveṇa in Jetavana Vihāra” (S. Jayawardhana, Handbook of Pali Literature (Colom-
bo: Karunaratne, 1994), pp. 79–80). See also Mhv LXXVIII 6, 16, 57; Saddhamma-s
59, 7; PLC, pp. 176–77.
3 V. Panditha, “Buddhism During the Polonnaruva Period” in The Polonnaruva Period
(Dehiwala: Tisara Prakasakayo, 1973), p. 137; see also Geiger, § 31, n. 4.
4 Saddhamma s 58, 13–14; Mhv LXXVIII 6; LXXIII 11–22; LXXVIII 1–30; PLC, pp.
176–77; W. Geiger, Culture of Ceylon in Mediaeval Times (Wiesbaden: Otto Har-
rassowitz, 1960), p. 209; H. Bechert, “The Nikāyas of Mediaeval Srī Lankā and the
Unification of the Saṃgha by Parākramabāhu I” in Studies on Buddhism in Honour
of A. K. Warder (Toronto: 1993), pp. 11–21.
5 Saddhamma-s 58, 27–60, 24; PLC, pp. 192–194.
6 PLC, p. 190.
7 Saddhamma-s 63, 15.
8 PLC, p. 190.
9 H. Bechert, Buddhismus, Staat und Gesellschaft (Frankfurt: Alfred Metzner Verlag,
1966), vol. 1, p. 265; PLC, pp. 198–219; Geiger, §§ 32–34.
10 Mp-ṭ Be 1961 III 370, 24 = Sp-ṭ Be 1960 III 496, 11 = Pālim Be 1960 468, 12.
11 Mhv LXXVIII 34.
12 Saddhamma-s 60, 26–28.
13 PLC, p. 192. On the etymology of the word ṭďkā and on the evolution of ṭďkā lite-
rature see Lily de Silva, “General Introduction” in Sv-pṭ Ee, pp. XXVIII–XLI; on the
methods of exegesis in the sub-commentaries see S. Na Bangchang, “Introduction”
in A Critical Edition of the Mūlapariyāyavagga of Majjhimanikāya-aţţhakathāţďkā
(unpublished Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Peradeniya, 1981), pp. CXXVIII– CXLIV.
14 Saddhamma-s 58, 27–60, 24; PLC, p. 193.
15 Saddhamma-s 63, 15–16.
16 PLC, p. 194; cf. also Geiger § 31.
17 Gv 61, 30–31; 71, 10–14; Sās Ne 1961 31, 13; Sās-dip Ce 1880, v. 1201; Piṭakat-
samuiṅḥ (Piṭ-sm) 239; M. de Zilva Wickremasinghe, “Catalogue of the Sinhalese
Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: The British Museum, 1900), p. xv; PLC,
p. 192; A. P. Buddhadatta, Pālisāhityaya (Ambalamgoḍa: Ananda Potsamāgama,
1956), vol. 1, pp. 249–252; Theravādī Bauddhācāryayō (Ambalamgoḍa: S.K. Candra-
tilaka, 1960), p. 78; Oskar von Hinüber, A Handbook of Pāli Literature (Berlin/New
York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996), pp. 172–173. Besides the Chaṭṭhasaṅgāyana edition
(Sp-ṭ Be 1960) there are four earlier printed editions of Sp-ṭ listed in L. D. Barnett,

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 Primož Pečenko
A Supplementary Catalogue of the Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit Books in the Library
of the British Museum, vol. 2 (London: British Museum, 1906–1928), column 946.
CPD, Epilegomena to vol. 1, p. 38*, 1.2,12 mentions a Burmese edition from 1902–24
and a Ceylonese from 1914. In LPP, vol. 1, p. 101, vol. 2, p. 76, many Mss. of Sp-ṭ are
listed. See also V. Fausböll, “Catalogue of the Mandalay MSS. in the India Office
Library”, JPTS (1894-96), pp. 12–13, Mss. 14-16; A. Cabaton, Catalogue sommaire
des manuscrits sanscrits et pālis (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1908), fasc. 2, p. 9,
Ms. 45; W.A. de Silva, Catalogue of Palm Leaf Manuscripts in the Library of the
Colombo Museum (Colombo: Ceylon Government Press, 1938), p. 5, Mss. 14–15.
18 Sp-ṭ Be 1960 III 496, 6.
19 H. Saddhatissa, “Introduction” in Upās, p. 54; W. B. Bollée, “Die Stellung der
Vinayaṭīkās in der Pāli-Literatur”, ZDMG, Suppl. 1, 17 (1969), pp. 824–835.
20 Abhidh-s-mhṭ 212, 9–14. Cf. the colophon of the Abhidharmārtha-saṅgrahaya Sanna
at the end of this article. See also Somadasa, Cat, vol. 1, p. 235.
21 G. H. Luce and Tin Htway, “A 15th Century Inscription and Library at Pagan, Burma”
in Malalasekera Commemoration Volume (Colombo: The Malalasekera Commemo-
ration Volume Editorial Committee, 1976), p. 218–219, Ms. 9, 10; cf. PLB, p. 102,
where the title of the Ms. 9 is mentioned as the Pārājikakaṇḍaṭīkā, and the title of
the Ms. 10 is mentioned as the Terasakaṇḍa-ṭīkā. Piṭ-sm 240 lists terasakaṇ ṭīkā,
and the preceding ṭīkā—which corresponds to ṭīgā pārājikan in the inscription—as
the Sāratthadīpanī (Piṭ-sm 239).
22 Cf. the Ms. in the India Office Library with the title Terasakan ṭīkā pāṭh which ends
with: ettāvatā ca, Vinaye pāṭavattāya ... Vinayaṭhakathāya sā, Sāratthadīpanī nāma
sabbaso pariniṭṭhitā ... Terasakaṇḍavaṇṇanā niṭhitā (see V. Fausböll, “Catalogue
of the Mandalay MSS. in the India Office Library”, JPTS (1894-96), pp. 12-13, Ms.
16).
23 Gv 61, 32–33; 71, 11–14; Sās Ne 1961 31, 13; Sās-dip Ce 1880, v. 1201; Piṭ-sm 202-212
(cf. 239); PLC, pp. 192, 194–195; A. P. Buddhadatta, Pālisāhityaya (Ambalamgoḍa:
Ananda Pot-samāgama, 1956), vol. 1, pp. 260–262; Theravādī Bauddhācāryayō
(Ambalamgoḍa: S.K. Candratilaka, 1960), p. 78; Oskar von Hinüber, A Han-
dbook of Pāli Literature (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996), p. 173 (§§
375–376). Besides the Chaṭṭhasaṅgāyana edition (Mp-ṭ Be 1961 I-III) there exist
three earlier editions of Mp-ṭ and several manuscripts; for a detailed description
see P. Pečenko, Aṅguttaranikāyaṭīkā, Catuttha–Sāratthamañjūsā–Ekanipāta I:
Ganthārambhakathā, Ganthārambhakathāvaṇṇanā, Rūpādivaggavaṇṇanā, vol. 1
(Oxford: The Pali Text Society, 1996), pp. XXV–LVIII.
24 Mp-ṭ Be 1961 I 1, 11–2, 2 and Sp-ṭ Be 1960 I 1, 7–2, 2.
25 Mp-ṭ Be 1961 III 370, 15–371, 8 and Sp-ṭ Be 1960 III 496, 2–23.
26 Cf. Mp-ṭ Be 1961 I 3, 7–5, 14 and Sp-ṭ Be 1960 I 2, 18–5, 7.
27 For details see also “Table of Parallel Passages” in P. Pečenko, Aṅguttaranikāyaṭīkā,
Catuttha–Sāratthamañjūsā—Ekanipāta I: Ganthārambhakathā, Ganthārambha-
kathāvaṇṇanā, Rūpādivaggavaṇṇanāl, vol. 1 (Oxford: The Pali Text Society, 1996),
pp. 213–222.
28 Saddhamma-s 63, 15–16; Gv 61, 31; 71, 10-14; Sās Ne 1961, 31, 22; Sās-dip Ce 1880,
v. 1201; Piṭ-sm 260 (cf. 239); Geiger, § 31; PLC, pp. 190-192; A. P. Buddhadatta,
Pā†isāhityaya (Ambalamgoḍa: Ananda Potsamāgama, 1956), vol. 2, pp. 297-298;
Theravādī Bauddhācāryayō (Ambalamgoḍa: S.K. Candratilaka, 1960), p. 78; Oskar
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
von Hinüber, A Handbook of Pāli Literature (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter,
1996), p. 158. Besides the Chaṭṭhasaṅgāyana edition (Pālim Be 1960) there are three
earlier printed editions of Pālim listed in L. D. Barnett, A Supplementary Catalogue
of the Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit Books in the Library of the British Museum, vol. 2
(London: British Museum, 1906–28), columns 945–946. The Mss. of Pālim are listed
in: V. Fausböll, “Catalogue of the Mandalay MSS. in the India Office Library”, JPTS
(1894–96), pp. 117-118; A. Cabaton, Catalogue sommaire des manuscrits sanscrits et
pālis (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1908), pp. 52, 80, 152; W. A. de Silva, Catalogue
of Palm Leaf Manuscripts in the Library of the Colombo Museum (Colombo: Ceylon
Government Press, 1938), pp. 8–9; C. E. Godakumbura, Catalogue of Ceylonese
Manuscripts (Copenhagen: The Royal Library, 1980), pp. 52–54; H. Braun et al.,
Burmese Manuscripts, (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1985), p. 159; Somadasa,
Cat, vol. 1, pp. 319-320.
29 PLC, pp. 194–195.
30 Cf. Pālim Be 1960 468, 8–21; Mp-ṭ Be 1961 III 370, 15–371, 8; Sp-ṭ Be 1960 III 496,
2–23.
31 PLC, p. 191. In Somadasa, Cat (vol. 1, p. 233) it is also mentioned as the Vinaya-
vinicchaya (Vin-vn) which seems to be a mistake because Vin-vn was written by
Buddhadatta.
32 LPP, vol. 1, p. 58; vol. 2, p. 44 (lists many Mss. of Pālim in the temple libraries in ®ri
Lankā).
33 PLC, p. 190.
34 G. H. Luce and Tin Htway, “A 15th Century Inscription and Library at Pagan, Burma”
in Malalasekera Commemoration Volume (Colombo: The Malalasekera Comme-
moration Volume Editorial Committee, 1976), p. 219, Mss. 11, 12. Cf. PLB, p. 102,
where these two texts are called “Vinayasaṅgaha-aṭṭhakathā (the greater)” (Ms. 11)
and “Vinayasaṅgaha-aṭṭhakathā (the less)” (Ms. 12).
35 Piṭ-sm 260.
36 Piṭ-sm 261–262. According to Piṭ-sm there are no Mss. of this text available in Burma.
Piṭ-sm 262 ascribes it to Cañ Kū of Ratanapura (Ava); cf. PLC, p. 191.
37 LPP, vol. 1, p. 58; vol. 2, p. 44.
38 PLC, p. 191.
39 Gv 61, 32; 71, 11; Pi-sm 291 (cf. 239); PPN, vol. 2, p. 884; Oskar von Hinüber, A
Handbook of Pāli Literature (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996), p. 158
(§§ 336). A Sinhalese printed edition of Pālim-vn-ṭ (1908) is listed in L. D. Barnett,
A Supplementary Catalogue of the Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit Books in the Library
of the British Museum, vol. 2 (London: British Museum, 1906–28), column 946; see
also CPD, Epilegomena to vol. 1, p. 39*, 1.3.5,1. A Ms. of the Pālimuttaka Tīkā is
given in W. A. de Silva, Catalogue of Palm Leaf Manuscripts in the Library of the
Colombo Museum (Colombo: Ceylon Government Press, 1938), p. 9, Ms. 26; see also
LPP, vol. 1, p. 58, and vol. 2, p. 44.
40 PLB, p. 54; Geiger § 43; A. P. Buddhadatta, Pā†isāhityaya, vol. 2 (Ambalamgoḍa: Anan-
da Potsamāgama, 1956), pp. 298–300; Oskar von Hinüber, Op. cit., p. 158 (§ 337).
41 PLC, p. 191.
42 According to Somadasa, Cat, vol. 1, p. 233, the colophon was written by Sāriputta
himself; līnatthapadavaṇṇanā in the colophon is read Līnatthapadavaṇṇanā (ibid, p.
235) and taken as “Līnatthapadavaṇṇanā (on Papañcasūdanī)” (ibid, p. 233) which
— 150 —
 Primož Pečenko
seems to be incorrect. Cf. Dāṭh VI 2 quoted below.
43 Gv 61, 33; 71, 15–16.
44 Sās-dip Ce 1880, v. 120. Cf. Piṭ-sm 1124 which ascribes the Candrikāpañcikāṭīkā to
Sāritanuja, the author of the Sāratthadīpanīṭīkā; PLC, p. 190 mentions the Ratna-
matipañjikāṭīkā or Pañjikālaṅkāra; A. P. Buddhadatta, Theravādī Bauddhācāryayō
(Ambalamgoḍa: S.K. Candratilaka, 1960), p. 78, Pā†isāhityaya (Ambalamgoḍa:
Ananda Potsamāgama, 1956), vol. 1, p. 251; Somadasa, Cat, vol. 1, p. 233; H.
Bechert, “Sanskrit-Grammatiken in singhalesischer Überlieferung”, Studien
zur Indologie und Iranistik 13/14 (1987), pp. 8–10 believes that Ratnaśrījñana or
Ratnamatipāda, also known as Ratnaśrīpāda, is the author of the Cāndrapañcikā. On
the Cāndravyākaraṇaṭīkā see Th. Oberlies, “Verschiedene neu-entdeckte Texte des
Cāndravyākaraṇa und ihre Verfasser”, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 16 (1992),
pp. 164–168, and “Das zeitliche und ideengeschichtliche Verhältnis der Cāndra-Vṛtti
zu anderen V(ai)yākaraṇas”, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 20 (1996), pp. 265–
275.
45 A. P. Buddhadatta, Pā†isāhityaya (Ambalamgoḍa: Ananda Potsamāgama, 1956), vol.
1, p. 251; H. Saddhatissa, “Introduction” in Upās, p. 46. No Mss. are mentioned in
Piṭ-sm 1124 and in LPP.
46 G. H. Luce and Tin Htway, “A 15th Century Inscription and Library at Pagan, Burma”
in Malalasekera Commemoration Volume (Colombo: The Malalasekera Comme-
moration Volume Editorial Committee, 1976), p. 239, Ms. no. 203. Cf. PLB, p. 107,
where Ms. 201 is given as Candrapañcikara [-pañjikã].
47 Dāṭh VI 4–6; PLC, p. 195; Geiger, § 34, 1.
48 Dāṭh VI 1–2.
49 Sās-dip Ce 1880, v. 1202; M. de Zilva Wickremasinghe, “Introduction” in Catalogue
of the Sinhalese Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: The British Museum,
1900), p. xv; PLC, p. 192; CPD, Epilegomena to vol. 1, p. 50*, 3.8.1, (6); H. Saddha-
tissa, Abhidh-s and Abhidh-s-mhṭ, p. XVIII; Upās, p. 46. Cf. also Piṭ-sm 239.
50 Descriptive catalogue of the Hugh Nevill collection, p. 21, quoted in Somadasa, Cat,
vol. 1, p. 233.
51 W. A. de Silva, Catalogue of Palm Leaf Manuscripts in the Library of the Colombo
Museum (Colombo: Ceylon Government Press, 1938), p. 266, Ms. 1743; Somadasa,
Cat, vol. 1, pp. 233–36, Mss. 6601 (1, 2); LPP, vol. 1, p. 6; vol. 2, p. 5.
52 LPP, vol. 2, p. 14.
53 Piṭ-sm 364.
54 Quoted in Somadasa, Cat, vol. 1, p. 233.
55 “Introduction” in Upās, p. 46.
56 LPP, vol. 3, p. 163, s.v. Maṅgalasuttaṭīkā.
57 DN III 99, 1–116, 10.
58 Gv 62, 34 (Pasādanī), 72, 19 (Pasādajananī). Cf. text at the end of this article, v. 6:
pasāda-jananatthāya ... racitā Sampasādanī.
59 A. P. Buddhadatta, Pā†isāhityaya (Ambalamgoḍa: Ananda Potsamāgama, 1956), vol.
1, p. 251; Theravādī Bauddhācāryayō (Ambalamgoḍa: S.K. Candratilaka, 1960), p.
78; H. Saddhatissa, “Introduction” in Upās, p. 46.
60 See text at the end of this article and cf. Somadasa, Cat, vol. 1, p. 235: Maṅgalassa
[ca] suttassa vaṇṇanāya suvaṇṇanā, viññūnaṃ likhitā ṭīkā bhikkhūnaṃ rati
vaḍḍhati.
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
61 M. de Zilva Wickremasinghe, “Introduction” in Catalogue of the Sinhalese Manu-
scripts in the British Museum (London: The British Museum, 1900), p. xv; PLC,
p. 190; CPD, Epilegomena to vol. 1, p. 56*; C. E. Godakumbura, “Introduction” in
Catalogue of Ceylonese Manuscripts (Copenhagen: The Royal Library, 1980), p.
xxvii. See also H. Bechert, “Sanskrit-Grammatiken in singhalesischer Überlieferung”,
Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 13/14 (1987), p. 10, note 26.
62 PLC, p. 190; H. Bechert, ibid., p. 10.
63 G. H. Luce and Tin Htway, “A 15th Century Inscription and Library at Pagan, Burma”
in Malalasekera Commemoration Volume (Colombo: The Malalasekera Commemo-
ration Volume Editorial Committee, 1976), p. 236, Ms. no. 169.
64 PLB, p. 106, Ms. 169.
65 Sās-dip Ce 1880, v. 1244. So also H. Bechert, “Sanskrit-Grammatiken in singhale-
sischer Überlieferung”, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 13/14 (1987), p. 10, note
68 and p. 236, note 26.
66 H. Dhammaratana, Buddhism in South India, Wheel Publication No. 124/125 (Kandy:
Buddhist Publication Society, 1968), p. 41. See also PPN, vol. 2, p. 1118.
67 See text at the end of this article and also Somadasa, Cat, vol. 1, p. 235.
68 Somadasa, Cat, vol. 1, pp. 233, 235.
69 Abhidh-s-mhṭ 212, 13–14.
70 H. Saddhatissa, “Introduction” in Upās, p. 47. Cf. PLC, p. 192.
71 H. Penth, “Reflections on the Saddhammasagaha”, JSS 65, I (1977), pp. 259–280.
72 Saddhamma-s 63, 15–16.
73 Saddhamma-s 59, 14–61, 30; 62, 13.
74 PLC, p. 193. Cf. H. Saddhatissa, “Introduction” in Upās, p. 47.
75 PLC, pp. 193–194.
76 H. Saddhatissa,“Introduction” in Upās, p. 47, n. 154.
77 PLC, p. 194.
78 Abhidharmãrthasaṅgrahaya Sanna, ed. by Paññãmoli Tissa, 3rd ed. (Amba­
lamgoḍa: Vijaya Printing Press, 1926), p. 257; cf. Somadasa, Cat, vol. 1, p.
235.
79 Somadasa, Cat, vol. 1, p. 235 reads rati vaḍḍhati.
80 Ibid., reads –ketunã.
81 Ibid., reads cãnde.
82 According to A. P. Buddhadatta this verse was written by one of Sãriputta’s
disciples, see Theravãdď Bauddhãcãryayő (Ambalamgoḍa: S.K. Candratilaka,
1960), p. 79.

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 Ṛgvedic Goddesses:
Their Roles and Significance
in the Vedic Pantheon
Tamara Ditrich

Goddesses occupy a very significant place in the Hindu pantheon –

their outstanding number and diversity are unparalleled to any other re-
ligious tradition. It seems that goddesses have been always present in the
multi-faceted Hindu pantheon, sometimes in the centre. at others times
only on the margins, with their roles and attributes ever-changing, with
their stories fluid, freely borrowing from each other. Goddess worship has
very ancient roots in the Indian subcontinent, with archeological records
of goddess-like images dating back several millennia. Numerous female
figurines have been found associated with the Indus Valley civilization,
a highly organized culture, which flourished in the third and second mil-
lennium BCE in the area of the river Indus.1 These figurines, mostly made
of terra-cotta, indicate the popular and well-spread worship of a goddess
or goddesses, connected with nature, trees, animals and fertility.2 Since
there is no textual evidence available from that period – the Indus script
has not yet been satisfactory deciphered – many questions about the role,
function and mythology of these goddesses remain unknown. However,
some themes common to the Indus Valley goddesses and goddess worship
in the Hindu tradition suggest a continuous presence of goddesses from the
prehistoric period till the present day.

The Ṛgveda: the earliest literary record of goddess worship

The earliest textual evidence of goddess worship is recorded in the
Vedas, particularly in the Ṛgveda, the oldest recorded sacred text of the
Hindus. This collection of over one thousand hymns celebrating various
gods and goddesses is usually dated to the middle or end of the second
millennium BCE and is believed to have originated in the northwest of
the Indian subcontinent.4 The Ṛgvedic pantheon is strongly dominated
by male deities – if the number of hymns addressing them indicates their
significance. Most scholars, especially those from the late nineteenth and
early twentieth century. have given a great attention to these male deities.
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

particularly to the chief gods such as Indra, Agni and Soma. whereas Ve-
dic goddesses, due to their less frequent occurrences, have been ascribed
very minor roles. One of the prominent early Vedic scholars, Oldenberg,
dedicates to goddesses a very small part of his Die religion des Veda,
saying that “divine women and maidens have a very negligible part in
guiding the course of the world in the Vedic belief.”5 A similar attitude is
expressed by Macdonell6 and Hillebrandt7 who, in their respective studies
on Vedic mythology, assign to the goddesses a very subordinate position.
For the past century, scholars have mainly continued to reiterate the view
that female deities play very insignificant roles in the Vedas.8 While the
dominance of male deities in the Vedic pantheon cannot be disputed, the
number of hymns dedicated to a deity and frequency of its attestation ca-
nnot be the main criterion of the deity's importance, especially since this
criterion has not been applied by scholars when discussing the significance
of male deities, e.g. Varuṇa is not as frequently addressed as the Aśvins
(twelve hymns are dedicated to Varuṇa, more than fifty to the Aśvins),
yet the important role of Varuṇa has never been disputed—he has been
considered one of the greatest gods of the Ṛgveda. We still have very
scarce knowledge of the actual beliefs and religious practices of Vedic
India: the literary records were composed, edited and transmitted by an
educated male élite of that and subsequent periods, and thus embody their
vision of the divine. Furthermore, although the oldest text, the Ṛgveda,
was probably composed in the second millennium BCE, the only recension
available today was edited much later, probably in the middle of the first
millennium BCE or, as some scholars argue, even later.9 In recent decades
several attempts have been made by scholars to assign a greater role and
influence to goddesses in the Vedic pantheon, for example by Lal in his
monograph on female divinities in Hinduism. describing those goddesses
who continued to be present in the Hindu pantheon from Vedic times till
the present day.10 Joshi, in his study of Vedic minor deities, also describes
several Vedic goddesses and argues that they had significant roles in Vedic
mythology and ritual.11 These works have drawn together a substantial
amounts of valuable primary material on Vedic goddesses, however, they
are mainly descriptive and there still remains the need for a reappraisal of
goddess worship in the Ṛgveda – particularly the need to investigate their
significance in Vedic rituals, the relationship between their attributes and
functions, and their role in Vedic mythical narratives.

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 Tamara Ditrich

The most prominent Ṛgvedic goddesses

When goddesses are addressed in the Ṛgveda, they are often portrayed
in cosmogonic roles as the creatrices of the universe or an aspect of it, and
simultaneously they are also associated or identified with that creation.
They play significant roles in many cosmogonic myths that are alluded to
in the Ṛgveda. Goddesses are usually celebrated on their own or within a
group of deities and, rarely, in a pair formed with another female or male
deity. One of the most ancient Vedic goddesses is Aditi, her name deno-
tes the concept of “boundlessness”, “freedom”, or according to Brereton,
“innocence”.12 Aditi is a great cosmogonic goddess (mahī mãtã), a mother
par excellence, who created the universe and is identified with it. Her
cosmic significance is well articulated in RV 1.89.10: “Aditi is the heaven,
Aditi is the middle region, Aditi is the mother, the father, and the son; all
the gods are Aditi, and the five clans; Aditi is what has been born and what
will be born”.I3 She represents two principles, i.e. motherhood and infinity,
and is associated with lawfulness, freedom from bondage, and immortality.
Motherhood is an essential part of her personality; she is the mother of the
entire creation and almost all important Vedic gods are born to her. She
is frequently called the mother of the Ādityas, a group of seven or eight
prominent Vedic gods (aṣṭaú putrso áditeḥ, RV 10.72.8), who were each
born from a separate womb of hers (she is called aṣṭayoniḥ, Atharvaveda
8.9.21). Aditi is often addressed as the guardian or the personification of the
cosmic law (ṛta); her sons Mitra, Varuṇa, and Aryaman, three prominent
Vedic gods, are regarded as destroyers of untruth and supporters of lawful-
ness (RV 7.60.5). She is asked for forgiveness and freedom from sins (RV
1.162.22) and invoked for long life and fulfillment of all desires. Aditi is
often identified with the wish-fulfilling cosmic cow, whose milk is soma,
the elixir of gods (RV 9.96.15). Although no single hymn in the Ṛgveda is
dedicated to Aditi, her mythological role as a great cosmogonic goddess
cannot be disputed. In later Vedic literature her attributes merge with those
of another great mother-goddess of the Vedic pantheon, Pṛthivī (“Earth”),
a benign mother, who supports, protects and nourishes the universe.
Pṛthivī (“the broad one”) is identified with the physical earth that susta-
ins living creatures and upon which we live; she is often addressed as the
universal mother of physical creation. She holds, supports and nourishes
all beings, and is addressed as great, firm and wide, encompassing all
things. Unlike other goddesses, Pṛthivī is nearly always associated with the
male god Dyaus (“Sky”); the pair (Dyãvã-pṛthivī) is usually invoked as the
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

universal parents, the mother Earth and father Sky, who created the world
and gods (RV 1.159; 1.185). Six hymns are dedicated to these universal
parents,14 while just one hymn celebrates Pṛthivī alone,15 and none is de-
dicated to Dyaus. Although Pṛthivī occurs very frequently in the Ṛgveda,
she has received very little scholarly attention; no substantial scholarly
contribution has elucidated her personality or her role in Vedic ritual and
mythology. In later Vedic literature Pṛthivī is more often addressed as an
independent goddess, described as a nursing mother with breasts full of
nectar, as a giver of life and a great mother of all living beings (Atharva-
veda 12.1).16 She remains in the Hindu pantheon under the name Bhūdevī
(“the goddess of the Earth”), associated with the god Viṣṇu.
The Waters (paḥ) are celebrated in a few Ṛgvedic hymns17 as maternal
goddesses who are purifying, healing, fertile, nourishing and life-giving.
They are called eternal mothers, the primordial source of all the gods and
the universe, and often addressed as the mothers of Agni (“Fire”), one
of the most prominent Vedic gods (po agníṃ janayanta mãtáraḥ, RV
10.91.6). They bear away defilements and guilt, and bring health, wealth
and immortality. The waters are the maternal medium in which the gods
and the manifested universe are said to gestate until ready to be born: “That
which is beyond the sky and beyond this earth, beyond the gods and the
asuras – what was that first embryo that the waters received, where all the
gods together saw it? He was the one whom the waters received as the first
embryo, when all the gods came together; on the navel of the unborn was
set the one on whom all creatures rest” (RV 10.82.5–6).18 The Waters are
celestial deities, they abide where the gods are, and create all creatures;
they are mothers of all that moves and moves not (víśvasya sthãtúr jágato
jánitrīḥ, RV 6.50.7). The primordial state of the undifferentiated cosmos
is often represented as the Waters – they existed before the creation: “In
the beginning darkness was hidden by darkness; all this was water, indi-
stinguishable” (RV 10.129.1–3).19
Similarly, rivers occupy an important position in Vedic religion. Among
the rivers, the most celebrated is Sarasvatī, identified with the Sarasvatī
river – a very important river from the Vedic period in the northwest India
which has since disappeared. Sarasvatī is both a goddess and a river which
flows from the celestial ocean and distributes all the blessings on earth:
fertility, wealth, offspring and immortality. In the Ṛgvedic hymns,20 she is
celebrated as supreme among mothers, supreme among rivers and supreme
among goddesses (ámbitame nádītame dévitame sárasvati, RV 2.41.16).
She is one of the seven rivers of great sanctity and a prototype of river god-
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 Tamara Ditrich

desses in later Hindu tradition, such as the goddess Gaṅgā. Besides being a
river goddess she is also connected with Vedic sacrifice and often invoked,
together with other goddesses (i.e., I†ā and Bhāratī), in rituals, performed
on the banks of the river. She is often requested for inspired thought or
poetic vision (dhī) which, when recited in a ritual context, associates her
with speech. In later Vedic literature she becomes increasingly identified
with Vāc, the goddess of speech, and in that role she emerges in the later
Hindu pantheon – as the goddess of learning, poetry, music and culture.
Sarasvatī has received considerable scholarly attention influenced by her
persisting to the modern day although many studies focus on her later role
rather than the Vedic.21
The goddess Vāc is another cosmogonic Vedic goddess, who creates
speech as well as all creatures, the sky, the earth and beyond. Vāc is portra-
yed on two levels: as manifest in the faculty of speech, expressed in human
language; and as a goddess with universal creative powers. In the Ṛgveda
she is celebrated as the goddess, and identified with poetic language, eve-
ryday human speech, and natural sounds. She brings gifts of language and
poetic vision and is called the mother who gives birth by naming things;
she entered into the seers (ṛṣi) who understood and articulated the words.
However, only one quarter of her is revealed to humans, as said in RV
1.164.45: “Vāc is divided in four parts which the priests with insight know.
Three parts, which are hidden, humans do not activate, they speak [only]
the fourth part.”22 In later Hindu traditions these verses initiated various
philosophical and linguistic discussions on the nature of human speech. As
the source of creation she is often associated with the cosmic waters and li-
kened to the heavenly cow who provides sustenance to the gods and human
beings and fulfills all desires. Vāc has received some scholarly attention,
mainly due to her merging with the goddess Sarasvatī who has remained in
the Hindu pantheon till the present day.23 Apart from the valuable contribu-
tion by Pingle,24 a monograph which draws together substantial amount of
primary material about Vāc, no major scholarly contribution has discussed
her roles and functions as the Vedic goddess. In later Vedic literature Vāc
becomes increasingly associated with Vedic rituals and viewed as the cre-
atrix of the Vedas (Śatapathabrāhmaṇa 5.5.5.12); gradually she becomes
identified with the river goddess Sarasvatī.
The most frequently addressed goddess in the Ṛgveda is Uṣas, the god-
dess of Dawn.25 The hymns devoted to Uṣas abound in beautiful poetic
imagery, describing her as a young maiden, likened to a dancing girl in
bright attire, who appears each morning in the east, dispersing darkness
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

with her light, who reveals and protects cosmic order, and sets all things in
motion (RV 1.48; 5.80). She is young, being reborn each day, and yet she is
ancient and immortal (púnaḥ- punaḥ jyamānā purāṇ, RV 1.92.10). The
beauty of this erotic maiden inspires the poets who call upon her to bring
light and inspiration, and to bestow progeny and wealth. She is the goddess
of light, wealth and abundance, likened to a cow and often called mother.
While Uṣas is known primarily as a singular deity, she also appears in dual
and plural forms in the Ṛgveda. She appears in the plural form to signify
the successive daily manifestations of a single dawn or a group of dawn
goddesses occurring simultaneously.26 She is often addressed together with
her sister, the goddess of the night, Nakta (“Night”), the pair occurs in the
Ṛgveda in a variety of stylistic expressions.27 Uṣas is also associated with
Rātrī, the bright, starlit goddess of night; they are called sisters or divine
maidens, who together represent the cosmic rhythm in which light and dark
follow each other in timely succession. Although Uṣas has received, due to
the frequency of her occurrences in the Ṛgveda, more scholarly attention
that other goddesses have, only one major work on her has been written,
by Oguibénine, which addresses many aspects about her, such as the inter-
relation of Uṣas, speech, dakṣiṇā (benefactor's payment to the poet), and
the ritual offerings made to her in the form of poetic speech.28 Later Vedic
literature speaks of Uṣas only seldomly and she gradually fades away from
the Hindu pantheon.
Goddesses of the Vedic pantheon are usually portrayed as benign, pro-
tective and nourishing. Rarely does a goddess display malevolent attributes,
like Nirṛti (“Destruction”), a rather insignificant goddess, who is associated
with disorder and destruction (RV 10.59). In the Ṛgveda her occurrence is
very infrequent but she becomes more prominent in later Vedic literature
where she appears as the dark, evil goddess, sometimes identified with
Pṛthivī, thus representing the dark aspects of mother Earth, such as pain
and death.
Rather few Vedic goddesses survived and continued in the later Hin-
du tradition. Pṛthivī emerged in later mythological texts under the name
Bh™devī (“the goddess of the earth”), often in association with the great
god of post-Vedic period, Viṣṇu. Sarasvatī became very popular in the later
tradition as the goddess of learning, poetry, music and culture, expressing
several attributes of the Vedic goddess Vāc. Many Vedic goddesses simply
disappeared from the Hindu pantheon whereas most of the great goddesses
of later Hinduism—Durgā, Kālī, Pārvatī, Lakṣmī, Rādhā – emerged only
in the post-Vedic period.
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 Tamara Ditrich

One and many goddesses:

mothers, independent goddesses and consorts

Most Vedic goddesses are independent, usually addressed and worshi-

pped on their own. The Vedic literature gives very little indication of the
later idea of divine couples of male gods with their female consorts. A
considerable number of Ṛgvedic deities are celebrated in pairs, expressed
in a variety of linguistic constructions.29 Some Vedic deities occur very
frequently in pairs (e.g., Mitra and Varuṇa), others only occasionally (e.g.,
Indra and Viṣṇu) or never (e.g., Savitar, Aryaman, Bhaga). Some deities are
prone to enter into a considerable variety of associations (e.g. Indra occurs
in pairs with numerous Vedic deities), others have only one or two asso-
ciations. These divine pairs usually consist of two male deities, with very
few exceptions, e.g. Dyāvā-Pṛthivī “Heaven and Earth” – a male-female
pair. and Naktā-Uṣasā “Night and Dawn” – a group of two females. In this
respect the Vedic dual deities are clearly distinguished from the well-kno-
wn divine couples in other Indo-European cultures (e.g. Zeus and Hera) as
well as from the post-Vedic pairs comprising a male god with his female
śakti. The dual deities play an important part in the Vedic pantheon and,
apart from their mythological connections, their association is also litur-
gical: from the ritual point of view the dual deities were often considered
equivalent to a single deity and the ritual texts use special terms for them
(i.e. dvidevata “relating to two deities”).
Among dual deities pairs of male gods prevail; the only prominent pair
of two females is Uṣas and Nakta, “Dawn and Night”, invoked, together
with other deities, in several Ṛgvedic hymns dedicated to a group of dei-
ties (i.e., āprī hymns). Uṣas and Nakta, like other dual deities, occur most
frequently in dvandva compounds (uṣsanáktā and náktoṣsā), and only
rarely in other coordinative constructions.30 The hymns address them as
daughters of heaven, divine maidens or two sisters who have one mind but
different colours, one is dark and the other light. The pair has also mater-
nal attributes: they are identified with two cows and called mothers of the
cosmic order (ṛtásya mātárā, RV 1.142.7), they abound in milk (sudúghe
páyasvatī, RV 2.3.6) and suckle a child (probably Agni) who shines betwe-
en heaven and earth (dhāpáyete śíśum ékam samīc, dyvākṣmā rukmó
antár ví bhāti, RV 1.96.5). Uṣas and Nakta are very briefly mentioned in
scholarly works on Vedic deities; to date only Gonda devoted some atten-
tion to this pair, focusing particularly on their role in Vedic rituals.31
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

Many earlier scholars, interested mainly in historical development of

religions, believed that the pair Dyāvā-pṛthivī “Heaven and Earth”, the only
prominent male-female pair, was the prototype, representing the primeval
parents, and following that analogy many other deities were joined toge-
ther.32 However, they did not try to explore why almost all dual deities are
pairs of male gods. Male dual deities, who are strongly represented in the
religion of the Vedas, are a unique phenomenon, not found, at least not as
diversely and extensively, in any other recorded Indian religious tradition or
in any other religion outside India. Numerous questions about Vedic dual
deities have remained, more or less, unanswered. The generally accepted
view that the pair Dyāvā-pṛthivī “Heaven and Earth” is the prototype for
dual deities in the Ṛgveda needs to be re-examined. In my past research I
have shown that the only prominent male-female pair, Dyāvā-pṛthivī, often
occurs in coordinative constructions which are of feminine grammatical
gender.33 Although they represent a parental unit, already in the Ṛgveda
and increasingly in later Vedic texts, Pṛthivī dominates the pair: they are
often spoken of as two female deities, called two mothers or two maidens.
The pair is also called pitarā (»two fathers”), mātarā (»two mothers”) and
rodasī “the two worlds”, which are presented as two sisters. Furthermore,
in the Naighantuka, the pair Dyāvā-pṛthivī “Heaven and Earth” is identi-
fied with the goddess Aditi who occurs in the dual, indicating them to be
identified with two mother-goddesses.34 Even the male god Dyaus alone
is often attested in feminine grammatical gender: in the Ṛgveda he occurs
more than 20 times in feminine grammatical gender and is sometimes
called a mother. Already in the Ṛgveda he merges with the mother god-
dess Pṛthivī and gradually fades away from the Vedic pantheon. I have
argued that the remarkable rareness of male-female pairs indicates that
goddesses were perceived in the Vedic pantheon primarily as mothers,
reflecting the importance of the maternal role of women in Vedic soci-
eties, as opposed to their increasingly emphasized role as wives in the
post-Vedic period.35
It has been often reiterated that Dyaus and Pṛthivī present the origin of
Vedic dual deities, however, male-female pairs are very rare in the Ṛgveda.
Goddesses only seldom occur in wifely roles although some scholars of
today believe that the primary function of Vedic goddesses was the role of
consorts to male gods; e.g., Witzel comments in his discussion on Indra's
consort, that “usually a wife does not carry a name of her own but is called,
like most other Vedic goddesses, after the husband.”36 In the Ṛgveda, there
is no evidence for such views: only a small minority of female deities is
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 Tamara Ditrich

presented as wives.37 Vedic gods are rarely associated with their consorts,
and when they are, their wives play a very insignificant role: they have no
independent character of their own, they have very small roles in mythical
narratives or Vedic rituals, and even their names are usually grammatical
derivations from the husband's name, e.g. Agni's wife is called Agnāyī.
In the Ṛgveda, only minor goddesses appear as consorts, and in that role
they do not display any motherly attributes as opposed to independent
Vedic goddesses who are viewed primarily as mothers. This dichotomy
between the goddesses as mothers and wives in the Ṛgveda continues in
later Hindu pantheon where the powerful goddesses, who are worshipped
as mothers, are usually independent (e.g., Kālī, the great divine Mother),
whereas married goddesses, who are less powerful, are rarely approached
by their devotees as divine mothers but are rather perceived as models of
a good wife (e.g., Sītā, the perfect Hindu wife).38
It has been often suggested that the goddess Indrāṇī, the wife of the
great Vedic god Indra, indicates the beginnings of the later concept of śakti,
i.e. a god's female creative energy.39 There have been attempts to trace the
origins of the concept of śakti – a central concept in later Hinduism – in
the Vedas. The only possible link that could be found in the Ṛgveda is
the term śacī, used a few times in the text, denoting divine power, used in
association with Indra. Later this term is used as another name of Indra's
wife, Indrāṇī, however, there is no further evidence for this hypothesis in
the Ṛgveda. Although Indrāṇī is mentioned in the Ṛgveda more frequently
than other consort-goddesses, she is a minor goddess in Vedic pantheon
and it is only much later, particularly in the Tantric tradition, that she gets
more prominent role as one of the seven śaktis or seven Mothers.
Many scholars, Western and Indian, believe that all Hindu goddesses
are different manifestations of one great Goddess or one underlying fe-
minine principle.40 This assumption is also based on several Hindu texts,
mostly belonging to later Hinduism.41 Kinsley rightly challenges the view
that all goddesses are one, arguing that the male Hindu gods have long
been recognized and presented by most scholars as individual deities and
there is no reason why the female deities should not be viewed similarly.42
The earliest literary sources give very little indication of the concept of a
single feminine principle in the Ṛgveda. Although the Vedic goddesses di-
splay some common attributes, share several cosmogonic and cosmological
aspects, and are sometimes closely associated or even identified with each
other, as in the case of Aditi-Pṛthivī, or Vāc-Sarasvatī, these identifications
are limited to particular goddesses and are more common in late Vedic
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

literature. Each goddess has a personal identity and the Vedic texts never
directly suggest them to be manifestations of one Great Goddess.
All prominent Ṛgvedic goddesses are independent, they play important
cosmogonic roles and, above all, they are celebrated as great mothers of
the entire creation. Even Pṛthivī who is usually addressed together with
Dyaus, is dominant, and the pair is, as discussed above, often perceived as
two female deities. In Vedic mythological narratives goddesses are most
often portrayed as creatrices of the universe, as great nourishing mothers,
fertile and life-giving. The great mother par excellence, Aditi, is often
called the primordial cow and the mother of all gods. Not only Aditi but
also other Vedic mother-goddesses are often identified with the cow – the
great symbol of the motherhood, in her capacity as birth-giving and milk-
bestowing. There are several allusions to the cosmic cow, whose milk is
the cosmic order; she is celebrated as the mythical wish-fulfilling cow,
pouring a stream of milk to feed her devotees, and is said to have created
the mortals by her mind-power. The earliest textual source, the Ṛgveda,
already clearly outlines that it is the maternal role that is the most promi-
nent theme of goddess worship in India – the theme that continues from
prehistoric times throughout the Vedic period and beyond.

Notes
1 Research about the Indus civilization started in the mid-1920s; the pioneering work
about this period was written by John Marshall, Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civili-
sation, 3 vols. (London: Arthur Probsthain, 1931); it was followed by other publica-
tions such as those by M. Wheeler, Stuart Piggott, Gregory L. Possehl, Asko Parpola
and many others. For more recent views on archeology and the early history of South
Asia see also G. Erdosy (ed.), The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language,
Material Culture and Ethnicity (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995).
2 An overview of religion in Indus civilization is given in John Marshall, Mohenjo-daro
and the Indus Civitisation, vol. 1 (London: Arthur Probsthain, 1931), pp. 48-78; Gre-
gory L. Possehl, The Indus Civitisation: A Contemporary Perspective (New Delhi:
Vistaar Publications, 2003), pp. 141–155; Jonathan M. Kenoyer, Ancient Cities of the
Indus Civilisation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 105–125.
3 Asko Parpola, Deciphering the Indus Script (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994).
4 There is no general agreement concerning the question of the absolute chronology
of the Ṛgveda or the length of the Ṛgvedic period. Archeological evidence suggests
the composition of the Ṛgveda to have been later than 1700 BCE: horses have a very
important place in the Vedas but only after that date is archeological evidence of
horses found in this area. The language of the Vedic Āryans also shows close relation

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 Tamara Ditrich
with Mitanni Indo-Āryans who emerged in the Near East in the fourteenth century
BCE. For the early history of the Vedas see M. Witzel, 1997, “The Development of
the Vedic Canon and its Schools: The Social and Political Milieu,” in Inside the Texts,
Beyond the Texts, ed. by M. Witzel, Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora, vol. 2
(Cambridge, MA: Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University),
p. 263.
5 Hermann Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, 2nd ed. (Berlin: J. G. Cotta'sche Buch-
handlung Nachfolger, 1917); trans. into English by S. B. Shrotri, The Religion of the
Veda (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1988), p. 120.
6 Arthur Anthony Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, Grundriss der indo-arischen Philolo-
gie and Altertumskunde, Bd. 3, Hft. IA (Strassburg: K. J. Trubner, 1897; reprinted,
Varanasi: Indological Book House, 1971), p. 124.
7 Alfred Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythotogie, 3 vols. (Breslau: 1891); rev. ed., Breslau:
M. and H. Marcus, 1927–1929); he conceives Uṣas to be the only goddess of impor-
tance and dedicates to her the first chapter, whereas other goddesses are only briefly
addressed in the chapter on minor deities.
8 For example, Arthur Berriedale Keith, The Religion and the Philosophy of the Veda
and Upanishads, vol. 1, Harvard Oriental Series 31 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1925; reprinted, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1970), p. 245; Louis
Renou and Jean Filliozat, L'Inde classique: manuel des études indiennes, vol. 1,
Bibliothéque scientiique (Paris: Payot, 1947), p. 328.
9 Johannes Bronkhorst, 1981, “The Orthoepic Diaskeuasis of the Ṛgveda and the Date
of Pāṇini,” Indo-Iranian Journal 23, pp. 83–95; 1982, “Some Observations on the
Padapāṭha of the Ṛgveda,” Indo-Iranian Journal 24, pp. 181–189.
10 Shyam Kishore Lal, Female Divinities in Hindu Mythology and Ritual (Publications
of the CASS, class B, no. 7 (Pune: University of Pune, 1980); see also David. R.
Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious
Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
11 J. R. Joshi, Some Minor Divinities in Vedic Mythology and Ritual (Pune: Deccan
College Postgraduate and Research Institute, 1977), p. 12.
12 Joel Peter Brereton, The Ṛgvedic Ādityas, American oriental series, vol. 63 (New
Haven: American Oriental Society, 1981), pp. 196-198.
13 Translation by the author.
14 The hymns dedicated to Dyaus and Pṛthivī are: RV 1.159; 1.160; 1.185; 4.56; 6.70;
7.53.
15 The hymn dedicated to Pṛthivī alone is RV 5.84.
16 In the Atharvaveda one long hymn (12.1) addresses Pṛthivī alone.
17 RV 7.47; 7.49; 10.9; 10.30.
18 Trans. by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, in The Rig Veda: An Anthology (Harmonds-
worth: Penguin, 1981), p. 36.
19 Translation by the author.
20 The hymns dedicated to Sarasvatī are: RV 6.61; 7.95; 7.96.
21 Among more recent works, Catherine Ludvik (“Sarasvatī-Vāc: The Identification of
the River with Speech,” Asiatische Studien; Etudes Asiatiques LIV, no. 1 (2000),
pp. 119–130) uses Ṛgvedic evidence to trace the evolution of Sarasvatī from a river
goddess to a goddess of knowledge via her identification with Vāc; Adela Sandness
(“La Voix de la rivière de l'être: Études sur la mythologie de Sarasvati en Inde anci-
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
enne” (École Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, 2004) studies Sarasvatī in Vedic
myth and ritual to uncover the similarities and differences between her riverine form
and her association with speech. Much interest in the goddess has been aroused in
recent decades with the investigation of possible links between the Vedic literature
and Harappan Civilisation owing to the disappearance of the river Sarasvatī from the
texts and the archaeological cluster of Harappan sites on a dried-up riverbed.
22 Translation by the author.
23 E.g., C. Ludvik, “Sarasvatī-Vāc: The Identification of the River with Speech,” Asia-
tische Studien; Études Asiatiques LIV, no. 1 (2000), pp. 119–130.
24 Pratibha M. Pingle, The Concept of Vāc in the Vedic Literature (Delhi: Sri Satguru
Publications, 2005).
25 Twenty-one hymns are dedicated to her: RV 1.48–49; 1.92; 1.1 13; 1.123–124; 3.61;
4.51–52; 5.80–81; 6.64– 65; 7.75–81; 10.172.
26 Victoria Yareham, “The Plurality of Uṣas in the Ṛgveda”, in The Fourth International
Vedic Workshop, The Vedas in Culture and History, University of Texas, forthco-
ming.
27 Uṣas and Nakta appear in the following coordinative constructions: in the dvan-
dva compounds uṣsānáktā (10 attestations), náktoṣsā (5 attestations) or in tmesi
(twice), in the elliptic dual uṣásā (4 attestations), and in syntagms constructed with
the coordinative conjunction ca (once); see Tamara Ditrich, “Chronology of the Ten
Maṇḍalas of the Ṛgveda”, Crossroads 1, no.1, (2006), p. 33.
28 Boris Oguibénine, La Déese Uṣas: Recherches sur le sacrifice de la parole dans le
Ṛgveda, Bibliothèque de l'école des hautes études; 89 (Louvain: Peelers, 1988). See
also B. L. Ogibenin, “Baltic Evidence and the Indo-Iranian Prayer,” Journal of Indo-
European Studies 2 (1974): 23–45; Essais sur la culture védique et indoeuropéenne,
Testi linguistici; 6. (Pisa: Giardini, 1985); F. B. J. Kuiper, “The Ancient Indian Verbal
Contest,” Indo-Iranian Journal 4 (1960): 217–281; Michael Witzel, “Vala and Iwato:
The Myth of the Hidden Sun in India, Japan, and beyond,” Electronic Journal of
Vedic Studies (EJVS) 12, no. 1 (2005): 1-69.
29 Namely, dvandva compounds, asyndeta, elliptic duals and syntagms constructed
with coordinative particles; for details see T. Ditrich, “Dvandva Compounds in the
Rgveda: The Chronology of the Ten Maṇḍalas Revisited”, Poligrafi 41/42, vol. 11
(2006), pp. 123-148; “Dvandva Compounds and the Chronology of the Ṛgveda”.
Crossroads 1 (Autumn 2006), pp. 26–35. (website: http://uq.edu.au/crossroads/).
30 For a detailed discussion on various linguistic expressions for dual deities and on
the stylistic analysis of the hymns in which the pair occurs see T. Ditrich, “Stylistic
Analysis of Coordinative Nominal Constructions for Dual Deities in the Ṛgveda”,
in Proceedings of the 13th World Sanskrit Conference, Edinburgh, July 2006 (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, forthcoming in 2008).
31 J. Gonda, 1974, The Dual Deities in the Religion of the Veda, Verhandelingen der
koninklijke nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, nieuwe
Reeks, Deel 81 (Amsterdam, London: North-Holland Publishing Company), pp. 124-
144.
32 A. A. Macdonell, The Vedic Mythology (Strassburg: K. J. Trubner, 1879), p. 126; H.
Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda (Stuttgart-Berlin: J. G. Cotta, 1923), p. 95; etc.
33 T. Ditrich. “Early Goddesses,” in Goddess: Divine Energy,, edited by J. Menzies
(Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2006), pp. 18–21; Dvandva Compounds
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 Tamara Ditrich
in the Ṛgveda: A Stylistic and Typological Analysis of Coordinative Nominal Con-
structions in Ṛgveda 1.1–1.50, PhD Thesis (Brisbane: University of Queensland),
pp. 465–493.
34 A. A. Macdonell. The Vedic Mythology (Strassburg: K. J. Trubner, 1879), p. 121.
35 T. Ditrich. “Human and Divine Mothers in Hinduism,” in Motherhood: Power and
Oppression, ed. by M. Porter, P. Short, and A. O'Reilly (Toronto: Women's Press,
2005), pp. 137-151.
36 Michael Witzel, “Vala and lwato: The Myth of the Hidden Sun in India, Japan, and
Beyond,” Electonic Journal of Vedic Studies, issue 12, no. 1, 2005, p. 12. Similarly,
Lynn Foulston, At the Feet of the Goddess: the Divine Feminine in Local Hindu
Religion (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2002), p. 6, says that the majority of
Vedic goddesses are wives of the gods, without giving evidence for this claim.
37 Lexemes used for goddesses as mothers (mātṛ́, ambā) in the Ṛgveda have about 250
attestations; whereas lexemes used for goddesses as wives (jáni, jāy, nrī, pátnī,
str, vadh™´) have only about 20–30 attestations.
38 T. Ditrich, “Human and Divine Mothers in Hinduism,” in Motherhood: Power and
Oppression, ed. by M. Porter, P. Short, and A. O'Reilly (Toronto: Women's Press,
2005), pp. 137–151.
39 E.g. Stella Kramrisch, “The Indian Great Goddess”, History of Religions, Vol. 14, No.
4 (1975), p. 262; David R. Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in
the Hindu Religious Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), p. 17.
40 E.g., John Stratton Hawley & Donna Marie Wulff, Devi: Goddesses of India (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1998), pp. 3–9; Stella Kramrisch, “The Indian Great Goddess”,
History of Religions, Vol. 14, No. 4 (1975), p. 235.
41 The earliest text expressing this idea is probably the Devī-māhātmya, from about the
sixth century CE, followed by several other texts.
42 David R. Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu
Religious Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 4–5.

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Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
 Bhakti Movements Across India –
Their Relevance
in a Global Religious Experience
Eva Cesar

1. Defining the Bhakti Movement(s)

Bhakti is a Sanskrit term for religious affection or devotion directed at a
single divinity. It is a stream of thought and practice, a group of monotheis-
tic traditions and revivals within Hinduism. The collective entity called the
‘bhakti movement’, consisting of more or less separate but related bhakti
movements, is not completely uniform. Its many-stranded nature is a result
of the possible multiple interpretations of its philosophical basis, and its
varied social history in different parts of the Indian subcontinent. A short
overview of its rough historical phases and developments will serve to
make the field more familiar.1 Since the major bhakti revivals began as
early as the 11th century A.D. and have continued up to the 17th century,
it is difficult to think of an adequate historical demarcation to encompass
them all.2
The other way which makes the term ‘bhakti movements’ inadequate is
their astounding philosophical loyalty to age-old, ancient scriptural tradi-
tions of India, and their ability to trace back the roots of their ‘movements’
rather far into Indian history. There have been revivals in devotionalism
happening very early in Indian history and are often closely connected to
the later revivals or revivalists. Some would argue that devotionalism can-
not surge up as a ‘revival’ unless it was alive and vibrant in the past as well.
That is exactly the collective memory of many of the revivals who relate
closely to their so-called mythical past. While it is hard to know the full
details of the history long gone, it is by now clear that there are numerous
historical facts that have remained covered or neglected due to western bias
in the treatment of Indian history.3
In terms of consequences for the Indian society, the bhakti movements
are similar to the protestant movement in Europe. They gave rise to ver-
nacular religious poetry which was previously kept within the confines of
Sanskrit. The vernaculars – Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Hindi, Brajbhasha,
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

Avadhi, Marathi, Gujarati – became systematized and gained new respect-

ability associated with the noble themes they conveyed. New literary genres
and forms of prosody came into being, it was an Indian renaissance of
self-assertion in the face of foreign rule, and a moment of renewed confi-
dence in the redeeming strength of the Hindu dharma, its ideals, heroes
and philosophy.
Since the resurgence of bhakti seemed to coincide with the arrival of
Sufi mystics to India, there was an early period of conviction that the Sufi
influence has been instrumental in the shaping of the philosophy of bhakti.
However, the relations between the two faiths were rather limited, and such
arguments are now dismissed on the basis of the undeniable antiquity of
the Sanskrit scriptures which form the basis of the Hindu philosophy of
bhakti. The western indological scholars have been impressed with the level
of correlations in the devotional theology and practice that exist between
the bhakti movements and Christianity, and have often proposed the influ-
ence of early Christian preachers in India on the formation of devotional
Hinduism. Some have studied the similarities in the lives of Lord Jesus
and Lord Kṛṣṇa, concluding that the myth of Lord Kṛṣṇa was a borrowing
of Christian ideas. Such guesses were clarified when the cross-textual ex-
amination moved the chronology of the Bhagavad-g…tā and other Sanskrit
scriptures into pre-Christian times.4
Among the bhakti movements, we come across different variations of
the level of traditionalism, and a broad distinction is usually made be-
tween the stream of the Vaiṣṇava ācāryas and that of the so-called sants.
These two branches of the bhakti revival can be studied from the point of
their philosophical basis, and their social stances. While the four Vaiṣṇava
sampradāyas or lineages of devotion to Viṣṇu tend to be orthodox and
traditional in their acceptance of the Vedic social reality, the sants – bhakti
poets less easily classified – tend to be satirists and social reformers, bring-
ing basic religious education to the masses. Since the philosophy of bhakti
does afford place to all strata of the Indian society (and arguably even those
from without) to take part in the practice of bhakti, there have been varying
degrees of application of such permissive scriptural statements, and various
interpretations of how the practitioners from the lower strata of society and
those from the higher can interrelate.
Strictly speaking, bhakti most often used to refer to Viṣṇu bhakti, de-
votion to Viṣṇu or any of His incarnations (most often Kṛṣṇa and Rāma).
It was also the first to be noticed and studied by the British indologists.
Since the first British outpost was Calcutta, they soon became familiar
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 Eva Cesar

with Bengal Vaiṣṇavism, a bhakti movement started by the saint ®rī Kṛṣṇa
Caitanya. The second great movement they came to notice was Ācārya
Rāmānuja’s branch of Vaiṣṇavism in the Tamil land. As the studies of Hin-
duism progressed, it became obvious that practically speaking every Hindu
denomination possessed its own canon of scriptures and a full philosophy
of bhakti revolving around that particular divinity. This can be confusing
to those who are not familiar with the broadness of Hinduism.
Another influence that shaped the state of affairs was that of ®a‰kara’s
advaita philosophy (monism), at the core of which is the belief that ul-
timately the Supreme is formless (nirguṇa in Sanskrit), but that it can
be perceived as having form (saguṇa) on the lower level of worship and
meditation. Bhakti thus became a concept and a practice quite freely
used by anyone who felt it was expedient enough, and was connected to
almost any divinity of the Hindu pantheon. In the broadening of its ap-
peal some of its otherworldliness, exclusivity and transcendent fervour
may have been compromised. We will consider the scriptural basis for
this situation later on in the article. By the influence of Islam, the move-
ment of the sants turned away from the definite positive imagery of God
and moved the concept of bhakti into a more mystical, abstract direction.
Kabīr is the most outstanding representative of the stream of so-called
nirguṇa-bhakti, a concept often misunderstood since it defies traditional
categorization and set standards of thinking within the Hindu philosophi-
cal framework.5
An often repeated, and just as often unsuccessful, attempt was to clas-
sify Indian bhakti traditions into neat drawers of theological concepts –
concepts which arose in the theologies of faiths which were, true, often
surprisingly similar in many respects to the bhakti movement, but which
nevertheless do not seem fully equipped for handling the realities of Hin-
duism. Thus, while Christian and Islamic theology would pride itself on
its insistence on strict monotheism, Hinduism had always been that Big,
indefinable Brother, the permissiveness of which regarding the worship of
its many divinities were often understood to go against the core belief in the
One Almighty Lord. Scholars argue that the term monotheism is a western
concept that has grown out of the Christian and Islamic worldview, and
have proposed a term monolatry (worship of one God as Supreme among
many other lesser divinities), or monotheistic polymorphism (the worship
of one God in His many incarnations) as more fitting to the situation within
Hinduism.6 The fact remains, however, that many Hindu bhakti movements
are often just as adamantly opposed to admitting any second divinity into
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

the picture as the Christians and the Muslims could be, while nevertheless
leaving other people at rest with their other choices.
Another point often misunderstood is the relation between the imma-
nence and transcendence of God. Early western scholars of the Hindu
scriptures, especially the Bhagavad-g…tā and the mystical Upaniṣads, came
across expressions of God’s presence in every part of His creation. Be-
ing familiar with western ideas of pantheism, they have considered these
passages inconsistent with the theism expressed in these same works, and
have gone even as far as considering them interpolations. The simultane-
ous immanence and transcendence of God is often reiterated in the Hindu
scriptures, and is strictly speaking not pantheism, since God forever retains
His transcendent existence above the creation, untouched by it. Such mis-
understandings are cleared when we study the Vedic texts without precon-
ceived notions.

2. Bhakti in the Sanskrit Sources

The Bhagavad-g…tā
The basic text dealing with the doctrine of bhakti is, by both scholarly
and popular consensus, the Bhagavad-g…tā or the “Song of God”, the Bible
of the Hindus as it were. It is a relatively short, but most significant part of
the great Hindu epic Mahābhārata, where Lord Kṛṣṇa, the eighth incarna-
tion of Lord Viṣṇu, himself synthesises the many strands of spirituality la-
tent within early Hindu scriptures. The G…tā is also named the G…topaniṣad,
or the conclusion of all the mystical texts called the Upaniṣads.
The Bhagavad-g…tā is narrated in eighteen chapters. Most of the later
theological commentaries on the G…tā agree that, for the sake of conven-
ience, it can broadly be divided into three consequent parts, six chapters
in each part. The middle six chapters deal with bhakti-yoga, the yoga of
devotion, in a most direct way, although the concept is present through-
out the text. The first six chapters mostly describe the preliminary path
of karma-yoga, or the yoga of action, and the last six chapters deal with
jñāna-yoga, the yoga of spiritual knowledge, discrimination, philosophical
inquiry. Both karma and jñāna are considered helpful, preliminary and
auxiliary to bhakti, but have little independent importance without it. In
fact, exactly the addition of bhakti elevates the paths of karma and jñāna
to the level of yoga, or the path of linking oneself with the Supreme Lord.
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 Eva Cesar

The Sanskrit word yoga, meaning a link, is in that sense similar to the Latin
verb re-ligāre, to reunite, from which the current term religion is derived.
Let us begin with an overview of the specific verses that define the no-
tion of bhakti, in ®rī Kṛṣṇa’s own words. In the last, eighteenth chapter of
the Bhagavad-g…tā, Lord Kṛṣṇa makes one of the most direct statements:
“One can understand Me as I am, as the Supreme Lord, only by
bhakti (by serving Me with devotion). And when one is in full con-
sciousness of Me by such devotion, he can enter into the kingdom
of God.” (Bhagavad-g…tā 18.55)7
The final and the most important verses of the Bhagavad-g…tā, describ-
ing the process of devotional surrender to God, conclude the eighteenth
chapter:
“Because you are My very dear friend, I am speaking to you My
supreme instruction, the most confidential knowledge of all. Hear
this from Me, for it is for your benefit. Always think of Me, become
My devotee, worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you
will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are
very dear to Me. Abandon all varieties of dharma and just surrender
unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sin. Do not fear.”
(Bhagavad-g…tā 18.64–66)8
It should be noted here that in the absence of an exactly corresponding
English word, the famous Sanskrit term dharma is often left untranslated.
If it is translated, then words that come nearest to the original meaning
would be religion or duty. In the particular verse quoted above, dharma can
mean both – i.e. either the inferior kind of religious practice which does
not have a clear spiritual purpose, or the varieties of worldly duties related
to family, society, nation and so on. Both of these are here declared to be
inferior to the spirit of bhakti, direct focus on God and worship of Him in
surrender. Such explanations of this particular verse seem to put the path
of bhakti above ordinary traditional religious denominations, and curiously,
even above Hinduism itself. The term Hinduism deserves an article of its
own, and will be dealt with briefly in the later part of the article.
The fifteenth chapter, entitled “Puruṣottama-yoga”, or the yoga of link-
ing oneself with the Supreme Person, summarizes bhakti in the following
verse:
“Those who are free of pride, illusion and faulty association, who
understand the eternal, who are done with material lust, who are
freed from the dualities of happiness and distress, and who, unbe-
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wildered, know how to surrender unto the Supreme Person attain to
that eternal kingdom.” (Bhagavad-g…tā 15.5)9

Karma, Jñāna and Bhakti

The Bhagavad-g…tā has often been interpreted in a number of ways
and by persons of numerous spiritual persuasions – after all it does give
an overview of most of the Hindu spiritual practices. Nevertheless, its em-
phasis on bhakti is hard to miss. In a traditional allegory, goddess Bhakti
Dev… is the female personification of devotion. Jñāna (spiritual intuition,
discrimination) and Vairāgya (detachment from material possessions or
achievements) are her two sons, indicating how the two depend on her.
The same hierarchy is noticeable also in the Bhagavad-g…tā itself, where
the other less potent social, religious or spiritual practices are held to be
inferior and only auxiliary to bhakti.
It is interesting to note how useful the trilogy karma-jñāna-bhakti can
be in assessing the predominant mode or streams of thought and practice
within any religious system.10 In its strictly Hindu sense, karma denotes
traditional piety and moral propriety, following God’s laws with a view of
attaining the reward, in the case of a pious Hindu, the heaven.11 Specifi-
cally, it is related to the Vedic system of yajña or sacrifice, described in the
Vedas, directed at pleasing the various demi-gods, controllers of various
functions of the universe (Indra, Mitra, Varuṇa, etc.). In this sense, bhakti
is an antithesis to karma, much the way the strict monotheism of Chris-
tianity or Islam denigrates the various kinds of idolatry of the spiritually
uneducated masses. But in Hinduism, the level of karma is included in the
whole picture of approved religious practice, recognizing the various levels
of people’s understanding, and acknowledging the purifying effect of even
the lowest level of religious practice for the sake of the gradual progress of
mankind. But even if such a permissive attitude is agreeable to the majority
of Hindus, the bhakti movements at least are very clear in considering it
a lower stage, in accordance with the words of the Bhagavad-g…tā12. The
relation between karma and bhakti can also be seen in the desire of either
Christian, Islamic, Buddhist or Hindu mystics, monks or recluses to delve
deeper and more exclusively into their spiritual practice, and into a tangible
relationship with God or the previous saints of their tradition – a desire
which is often less strong among the less committed laity.
The level of jñāna is declared to be higher than karma, and is again
in a sense its antithesis. It moves away from the world of enjoyment and
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seeks to attain a glimpse of the Absolute by the process of philosophical

negation. The path of jñāna is attractive to the temper of intellectuals and
renunciants, and its Hindu variety is mostly known to the world through
the works of the ninth-century philosopher ®a‰karācārya (788–820).
His explanations of the classical mystical texts, the Upaniṣads, and the
Vedānta-s™tra, have sought to subordinate the personality of God to its
abstract power, to the mere “Absoluteness” of the Absolute Person. His is
an interesting twist in thought with many consequences pertinent to our
theme. We will return to the details of his philosophy later.
The spirit of jñāna can be noticed in other religious systems as well,
though perhaps its relation to other elements is not so pronounced and clear-
cut. For example, Lord Buddha was opposed to the theism of the Vedic
tradition, and many Buddhist traditions of later times are extremely philo-
sophical, entering a dialogue not so much with their theistic opponents but
moving the argument into the sphere of logic and ontology. At least as far
as the Vedic path of karma goes, the Buddhist philosopher and the Hindu
jñān… both agree about its weaknesses. The mystics in Christianity and the
Sufis of Islam also have a noticeable admixture of jñāna in their other-
wise largely devotional practice. Offhand examples would be the so-called
via negativa, or the mystic unity with God in the philosophy of Meister
Eckhart (1260–1329) or John of Ruysbroeck (1293–1381)13. The Sufi poet
Mans™r Al-Hallāj (858–922) took the path of jñāna up to its most extreme
expression, the deification of the self. While that proclamation did not gain
theological approval within Islam, it does have a place within Hinduism,
although such philosophical presumptions of complete unity with God usu-
ally do not get along well with the spirit of pure devotion to God.14
In Christian mysticism, Sufism, and later on in Kabīr, we meet with a
concept that one can love God and surrender to Him even while not enter-
ing a fully personalized relationship with Him, at least not the kind that the
medieval Hindu bhakti movements usually advocate. Before the appearance
of nirguṇa-bhakti, the thinking of Indian theologians was limited to the
two possible lines of theory and practice: either jñāna, or bhakti. Both are
mentioned as valid in the Bhagavad-g…tā, and they are juxtaposed in its
twelfth chapter. Kabīr, not busying himself with precise theological discus-
sions but following his own heart, seems to have been trying to get the best
out of both paths. We will return to his ideas later, let us now consider the
two traditional options.
In the twelfth chapter of the Bhagavad-g…tā, Lord Kṛṣṇa compares the
two opposing ways of approaching transcendence. First is the imperson-
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al, negative path of jñāna, of forcefully renouncing matter, searching for

the spirit in oneself and attempting to merge, as it were, in the Supreme
Spirit. The second is the personal devotional path of bhakti, of seeking
to understand both matter and spirit in relation to the Supreme Lord, and
establishing a relation to Him in devotion. Of the two, the second is con-
sidered easier, and superior. The often-heard over-simplification is that
bhakti is more suitable only to the sentimental, exceedingly emotional
characters who do not have a predilection or even the ability for cultivat-
ing abstract philosophy. What the Bhagavad-g…tā says is deeper, it argues
that an emotional response to the personality of the Lord and a devotional
bond with Him is a more mature and a more stable spiritual position, and
that success in bhakti is achieved more easily since every soul longs for an
eternal reciprocation with the Divine Person. In the first practice, jñāna,
one depends on one’s own endeavour, while in the second, bhakti, one can
rely on the Divine Grace of God.
Arjuna inquired: “Which are considered to be more perfect, those
who are always properly engaged in Your worship with devotion,
or those who worship the impersonal Brahman, the unmanifested?”
The Supreme Lord said: “Those who focus their minds on My per-
sonal form and are always engaged in worshiping Me with great
faith are considered by Me to be the most perfect. For those whose
minds are attached to the unmanifested, impersonal feature of the
Supreme, advancement is very troublesome. To make progress in
that discipline is always difficult for those who are embodied. But
those who worship Me, giving up all their activities unto Me and be-
ing devoted to Me without deviation, engaged in devotional service
and always meditating on Me, having focused their minds upon Me,
o Arjuna, for them I am the swift deliverer from the ocean of birth
and death.” (Bhagavad-g…tā 12.1, 2, 5-7)15

Moving up on the ladder karma-jñāna-bhakti, we conclude with bhakti

as a category which includes the previous two and adds a devotional aspect
to them. If karma had been declared to be this-worldly, not aiming at the
Supreme, in conjunction with bhakti it becomes “karma-yoga”, or a way of
approaching the Supreme through one’s actions in this world. And dry jñāna,
mere abstract philosophy and negation of this world, becomes useful to a
transcendentalist when he employs it to disentangle himself from this world
and tries to attach himself to the Lord. In conjunction with bhakti, jñāna be-
comes “jñāna-yoga”, and it stabilizes the devotional endeavour with mature
detachment and an analytical understanding of the relation of this world to
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the Lord. The three concepts of karma, jñāna and bhakti ultimately assist
one another in an integrated progress towards devotional perfection.
Sometimes, the advocates of the highest form of bhakti demand from
their students a complete turning away from both karma and jñāna, or at
least their lower, selfishly motivated kind. Bhakti can be seen as both a
synthesis and a sublimation of karma and jñāna, and on a higher level a
complete antithesis to them, since real, pure bhakti means to renounce one’s
own self-centred will and to subordinate it to the will of the Lord.

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa

The points of the Bhagavad-g…tā are echoed further in the most famous
among the eighteen Purāṇas, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. This long composi-
tion on the glory of devotion records a conversation between ®rī Kṛṣṇa and
his minister and cousin Uddhava, who is known to have been extremely
receptive and spiritually evolved. They discuss many issues left open in
the Bhagavad-g…tā and the message of the superiority of bhakti is again
clearly pronounced.
“Dear Uddhava, only strong loving devotion can make Me subordi-
nate to a devotee engaged in My worship. I cannot be controlled by
persons engaged in aṣ˜ā‰ga-yoga, metaphysical philosophy, pious
work, study of the sacred scriptures, asceticism or renunciation.”
(Bhāgavata Purāṇa 11.14.20) 16
A vast majority of the bhakti movements builds their philosophy
and practice on these two scriptures, namely the Bhagavad-g…tā and the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa is important in terms of how
the bhakti movements understand the relation of their preferred scriptures
to the other parts of the Vedic corpus. The Purāṇa begins with an introduc-
tion of how it came into being. Vyāsa, its author, is portrayed as despairing
over his role as the spiritual educator of the Hindu masses. After compiling
the four Vedas and the Mahābhārata, and elaborating on the four Vedic
goals of life17, he is pictured as sitting despondently in his āśrama, lost in
thought. His guru, Nārada, arrives and urges him to give the world what
it really needs – a description of the glories of the Supreme Lord, and the
path of loving devotion to Him. Having been propelled by Nārada, Vyāsa
composes the Bhāgavata Purāṇa which indeed abounds in descriptions of
bhakti to Lord Viṣṇu in His many incarnations, examples being too numer-
ous to mention here. The Purāṇa begins with a definition of para dharma,
highest duty or religion:
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“The supreme occupation (para dharma) for all humanity is that

by which men can attain loving devotion to the transcendent Lord.
Serving God in such devotional spirit must be unmotivated and
uninterrupted to completely satisfy the self.”
(Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1.2.6)18
The contemporary influence of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa seems to be
on the rise, especially through a pious practice of its seven-day recitation
in a religious gathering. Religious television channels in India like Astha
and Samskar seem to never tire of broadcasting live transmissions of the
Bhāgavata recitations, and the effect of seeing the pious masses gather to
hear it in all corners of India is indeed impressive.

Definitions of Bhakti

Two separate compendiums of s™tras or short aphorisms about bhakti

are available to us today. One is the work of the sage Nārada, the other of
®āṇḍilya. The two sages are often mentioned in the Vedic literature, espe-
cially in the Purāṇas. Of the two especially Nārada is well known to the
Hindu mind as an ideal of a devotional mystic. The ®aṇḍilya-bhakti-s™tra
opens with a definition of bhakti:
“Bhakti is an absolute attachment to God.” (SBS, s™tra 2)19
The Nārada-bhakti-s™tra also begins with a definition of bhakti:
“Bhakti is the highest form of love towards God.” (NBS, s™tra 2)20
In the second chapter of the Nārada-bhakti-s™tras, their author cites a few
other definitions by respected ancient sages, and adds his own at the end:
“Sage Vyāsa is of the opinion that bhakti is an attraction for wor-
shipping the Lord. Sage Garga considers bhakti to be a fondness
for hearing about the Lord’s glories. The wise ®āṇḍilya opines that
bhakti results when one removes all obstacles from taking pleasure
in the Supreme Self. And Nãrada defines bhakti as an inclination for
offering all of one’s activities to the Lord, and experiencing extreme
distress in not being connected to Him.” (NBS, s™tras 16–19) 21
A sixteenth-century thinker Madhus™dana Sarasvatī (1490–1540), au-
thor of a theological treatise Bhagavad-bhakti-rasāyana (The Elixir of
Devotion to the Lord), defines bhakti in the following way:

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“Bhakti is a steady recollection of God’s form imprinted into one’s
melted heart.” (Bhagavad-bhakti-rasāyana, 2.1)22
The mystic saint ®rī Caitanya (1486–1533) who started a wildfire of
bhakti revivalism in the sixteenth-century Bengal left behind him only
eight verses on the glory of devotion. He handed the responsibility of writ-
ing a theological basis of his path of bhakti to his talented disciples, of
whom ®rīla R™pa Gosvāmī (1489–1564) is most well-known. The venerable
Gosvāmī resided in Vṛndāvana, Lord Kṛṣṇa’s home village on the bank
of the river Yamunā, and was contemporary to many of the well-known
bhakti poets of the sixteenth century – Vallabhācārya (1479–1531), Mīrā
Bāī (1498–1547), S™radāsa (1483–1563), to name a few – who collectively
effected the full-swing revival of the places of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s early life. R™pa
Gosvāmī’s work, the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (The Ocean of the Nectar of
Devotion), remains unrivalled among textbooks of devotional philosophy
and practice. It starts with a definition of bhakti:
“The highest form of bhakti is devoid of selfishness, and is never
covered by speculative jñāna or ritualistic karma. Bhakti means to
favourably serve and worship the Lord. Such bhakti wipes away all
suffering, bestows all auspiciousness, it surpasses mere salvation,
and it is extremely rare. It consists of concentrated bliss and it at-
tracts the Lord.” (Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, 1.1.16–17)23
R™pa Gosvāmī describes the progress on the path of bhakti in three
consecutive stages. The first practicing stage is called sādhana-bhakti,
the second stage where the bud of love of God begins to grow is called
bhāva-bhakti, and the last, perfected stage of devotion in full bloom is
called prema-bhakti. All of them are termed bhakti since R™pa Gosvāmī’s
point is that devotion to the Lord, even in its immature stage, is nevertheless
extraordinary and not of this world, and some more practice will make it
perfect. R™pa Gosvāmī commenced the tradition of manuals on devotional
practice which attempt to describe advancement on the path of bhakti in
minute details. Such literature often resembles the works of Christian or
Islamic mystics who made notes of their inner progress. Some have found
correlations between Christian mysticism and the stress of the bhakti school
on a loving relationship with God, beyond awe and reverence. St. Bernard
(1090–1153) wrote:
Love receives its name from loving, not from honouring. Let one
who is struck with dread, with astonishment, with fear, with admira-
tion, rest satisfied with honouring, but all these feelings are absent

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in him who loves. Love is filled with itself, and where love has come
it overcomes and transforms all other feelings. Wherefore the soul
that loves, loves, and knows nought else. He who justly deserves to
be honoured, justly deserves to be admitted and wondered at, yet
He loves rather to be loved.24
For a proper assessment of the bhakti movement, we need to digress for
a moment and clear the confusion around the term Hinduism. Its meaning
is related to the complicated history of indological studies in the West.

3. Hinduism and the History of Indology

Any encyclopaedic entry on the term Hinduism usually begins with its
etymology. The word is never used in the native Sanskrit works, it is a much
later derivative from the word Sindhu, which is a Sanskrit word for the river
Indus. The Arabic invaders, we are told, have coined the word as meaning
“that land which is beyond the river Sindhu”, while Sindhu was incorrectly
pronounced as Hindu. In the Arabic world, it came to designate the people
of India, and a later addition of the suffix -ism was an effective move to
cram together the Indian religious and social customs all in one term.
The Hindus themselves prefer the term sanātana-dharma (eternal duty,
eternal religion) as an expression to cover their religious persuasion and
social duties, and argue that dharma as a term is not limited by religious
denomination but is an all-encompassing universal term to describe the
duties of man in relation to the Divine. It is however true that the Hindu
philosophies revolving around the details of what exactly, or rather who,
that Divine is, are varied and even diametrically opposed to each other.
After two hundred years of indological studies, it is imperative that the
whole spectrum of Hindu philosophies and practices receives a fair share
of scholarly attention.

The Hindu Canon

A matter closely related to the whole field of indological studies is:
which scriptures in the vast treasury of Sanskrit literature are taken to be
normative, as representing the “true” spirit of Hinduism. Indology as a
branch of the western academic pursuit was shaped in the era of British
supremacy in India, and was often an expression of social and religious
prejudice and superiority. The foreign scholars were the ones dictating the
direction of research and evaluation of the Indian literary legacy.
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Early Orientalist scholars working within India, such as William
Jones or Henry Colebrooke, constructed a golden age of Hinduism
located deep in the past and fashioned a portrayal of the Vedic age
that is still widely accepted in the West today. Colebrook published
an extremely influential article titled “On the Vedas, or sacred Writ-
ings of the Hindus”, in which he advanced his far-reaching notion
that the Vedas – by which he primarily means the Upaniṣads – are
the authentic, genuine Hindu scriptures and that the goal of libera-
tion from the world, or mokṣa, is the “real doctrine of the whole
Indian scripture”. He was also one of the first to identify ®a‰kara
as the great and authentic commentator on the Vedas. In this same
article, Colebrooke condemns the theistic cults of Hinduism – as
well as their scriptural sources, the Purāṇas – as inauthentic and
deserving of being “rejected, as liable to much suspicion”.25

Another issue is the chronological sequence of the ancient Sanskrit texts.

The usual way in which the western scholars enumerate them is in an order
of chronological succession, despite the traditional claims that the Vedic
literature is a set corpus of interrelated texts that did not grow to become
“refined” through time.26
Only lately did the native Indian scholars stand up to the challenge and
have listed the textual proofs of how the whole range of the Vedic texts –
the Vedas, Upaniṣads, the two epics, Purāṇas, Vedānta, and so on – forms
a cohesive whole, and has been forming it ever since its origins.27 The
western academic world in its beaten track rarely assents to the demands of
such lonely paṇḍits to be heard long after all has been said and done. But it
is interesting to trace out the influences that have shaped the chronological
ordering of the Vedic texts in the first place: the new-found fascination with
the darwinian explanation of the human past, and the nineteenth-century
boom of anthropological work on the indigenous primitive tribes around
the world must have had their share in the shaping of the idea. Another
influence was that of the missionary zeal of the British Christians.
Traditionally, all parts of the Vedic canon are put into place by the
Vedānta philosophy – which is not necessarily meta-theistic, as ®a‰kara’s
interpretation makes it. Another point is that traditionally, the religious
histories or Purāṇas are designated as the “fifth Veda” since they elaborate
on the doctrines presented briefly in the Vedic saṁhitās. The Purāṇas are
divided according to the three guṇas, an extremely useful concept for as-
sessing the predominant mode of either persons or texts. The pious, sattvic
Purāṇas meant for sattvic people recommend the worship of Viṣṇu and
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His incarnations, extolling the efficacy of the path of bhakti. The rajasic and
tamasic Purāṇas recommend the worship of Brahmā, ®iva, Durgā or any
of the other divinities of the Hindu pantheon. The worship of these lesser
gods may also be termed bhakti, and in fact, many ®aiva bhakti movements
are known across India, much akin to their Vaiṣṇava counterparts.28 Nev-
ertheless, the Bhagavad-g…tā and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa recommend Viṣṇu
worship as the highest, and both of the great epics, the Rāmāyaṇa and the
Mahābhārata, are Vaiṣṇava in character. To this day, two thirds of Hin-
dus profess being of a Vaiṣṇava persuasion, and the ®ivaites follow as the
second largest group, while the worship of other Hindu divinities is usually
occasion-oriented, and not a lifetime fidelity as in the bhakti movements.
The different parts of the Vedic canon are traditionally understood as
progressive, not in a chronological sense but along the lines of human ad-
vancement through the phases of life; the principle of Vedic yajña useful
in one’s domestic life, and the Upaniṣads, Āraṇyakas, and Vedānta as the
studying material of renunciants at the last stages of their life. The Vedic
canon consists of different literary genres, and therefore, the Vedas are not
an example of the “primitive beginnings of Hindu philosophical thought”,
but books of litany that accompanied the Vedic sacrifices. The chrono-
logical sequencing of the Vedic texts has led to a fallacious search for the
“concept of bhakti” in the Vedic hymns, a curious attempt which is bound
to be misleading to say the least, if not a failure right from the outset.29
Traditionally, the path of bhakti had always been a separate option with
its own justification. Bhakti cuts across caste, gender and age, and offers
anyone a privilege of a direct bond with a personal Divinity. The major
bhakti movements may have been happening in medieval times, but they
all share the pan-Indian memory of the so-called mythical past, of the pres-
ence of their Deities on the Indian soil, and the cults of worship that have
grown around them since those days long ago. If that memory is dismissed
as a myth, and another myth – that made up by Darwin – is superimposed
on the Vedic canon, we lose all that we might have been gaining by being
interested in the Vedic texts.30 By such mutilations of the traditional under-
standing, the Vedic path becomes religiously impotent, much like any other
religious path when it is treated by an unsympathetic atheistic mind.
Indological studies to this day are full of examples of such unfair treat-
ment. For example, A. A. Macdonell, an early English Sanskritist not very
congenially disposed to traditional beliefs within Hinduism, has been a part
of a scholarly tradition full of doubts about the authenticity and integrity
of Sanskrit texts.
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We are told in the Rāmāyaṇa itself that the poem was either recited
by professional minstrels or sung to the accompaniment of a stringed
instrument, being handed down orally, in the first place by Rāma’s
two sons Kuśa and Lava. These names are nothing more than the
inventions of popular etymology meant to explain the Sanskrit word
kuś…lava ‘bard’ or ‘actor’. (...) Considerable time must have elapsed
between the composition of the original poem and that of the addi-
tions. For the tribal hero of the former has in the latter been trans-
formed into a national hero, the moral ideal of the people; and the
human hero, (like Kṛṣṇa in the Mahābhārata) of the five genuine
books (excepting a few interpolations) has in the first and last be-
come deified and identified with the god Viṣṇu, his divine nature in
these additions being always present to the minds of their authors.
Here, too, Vālmīki, the composer of the Rāmāyaṇa, appears as a
contemporary of Rāma, and is already regarded as a seer. A long
interval of time must have been necessary for such transformations
as these.31
It is interesting to note that these same persons, the early Sanskrit schol-
ars, who could not relate to the divinity of Rāma, were not at all staunch
atheists but often convinced practicing Christians, who could well detect
the same kind of negligence and lack of respect in a speech if it was related
to Lord Jesus, or if it questioned the integrity of the Bible. The same is true
of Muslims who also do not tolerate embarrassing or offensive comments
about their prophet, and about the Quran. Such double standards then, of
being allowed to speak in a derogatory way about the Hindu religious per-
sonalities and scriptures, were enforced in an age when these two religious
communities (Christian and Islamic) invested with political power ruled
over India. This unfair pattern of harshness and lack of sympathy towards
the indigenous religious works by the very persons who profess to study
them and teach about them persists to this very day, although it is now
clothed in the garb of academic objectivity.32
This historical thread of partiality needs to be highlighted precisely
when we talk about bhakti. Any religion creates and maintains an aura of
faith in the transcendent existence of God primarily through its scriptures.
If the sacred scriptures of a dominated nation are dismissed as faulty and
not worthy of the air of sacredness around them, by scholars of a dominant
religion (who would not allow the same unfair trial to happen to their own
religious belief), then the ground is not yet even enough for a fair interfaith
dialogue. In the field of indology, the fairness did not come about so much
by openly redressing the injustice, but by a fresh overflow of sympathetic
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phenomenological studies of Hinduism33. Let us now proceed to a short

introduction of the bhakti movements across India.

4. The Bhakti Movements – An Overview

Although the bhakti movements are usually associated with the me-
dieval period, there is no conclusive evidence about the state of affairs
before these well-known and documented movements. For example, Indian
historian Suvira Jaiswal notices in her archeological survey of Indian icono-
graphic and epigraphic material that Vaiṣṇavism has had a long presence
practically all over the Indian subcontinent even much before the move-
ments we speak about.34
The bhakti movements form a wide spectrum with the orthodox Vai-
ṣṇava ācāryas on the one end, and the so-called sants on the other end.
Many bhakti poets have synthesized both of these extremes in different
degrees, and traditionally even the Hindi word sant may be used rather
broadly, much the way it is used in its English equivalent, i.e. a saint. The
ācāryas were also sants, and an early hagiography of numerous bhakti
saints and poets made no distinction whatsoever about their philosophical
stances or level of social conventionalism35. Nevertheless, for the purpose
of easier classification, let us first deal with the Vaiṣṇava ācāryas as the
most easily definable.
Contemporary Indian scholars, especially those personally affiliated
with any of the bhakti movements, are sometimes visibly exasperated – and
with a reason – at the sheer prevalence of the advaita doctrine in the field
of classical Indian philosophical studies. Along with the historical reasons
mentioned above, this is so because the western term philosophy has come
to be so markedly separated from religion. This again is a consequence of
European history, and does not suit well the Indian situation where both of
these fields are often inseparable. To this day, many Indian theistic schools
of interpreting Vedānta are minimized, and only advaita (monism) is taken
to be applicable to the term philosophy.
Some may feel that the “meta-theism” of advaita, a philosophy which
subsumes any definite image of God in the absolute Form-less-ness, and
Attribute-less-ness, is a much-needed common ground for interreligious
harmony. Ever since the speech of Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) in
the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, the philosophy
of advaita is seen as a common denominator in the confusion of religious
diversity. When all differences are diffused in the ultimate abstraction of
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the idea of God, and when religious dialogue, according to some, is finally
possible, alas, at that point, no dialogue is needed any longer. Advaita, if
taken at its face value and driven to its logical conclusion, may be perceived
as accommodating all religious variety, but it dismisses all that variety
just as easily in the ultimate, pāramārthika stage, leaving the worshippers
either “stuck” forever in the lower, vyāvahārika level of saguṇa worship,
or taking away from them that which should have been dearest to them.
Perhaps we could nevertheless build interreligious harmony not on the basis
of negation, but allow the positive spiritual variety to exist and enrich us.
Alongside the Advaita-vedānta of ®a‰karācārya (788–820), many
Vaiṣṇava ācāryas have also tried to give meaning to the terse aphorisms
of the Vedānta-s™tra. Their theistic interpretations may seem closer to the
original meaning of the s™tras than the interpretations of ®a‰karācārya,
but raising such an issue may be like throwing stones into a peaceful lake.
For example, an innocent and impartial translator of the commentaries
to Vedānta-s™tras, the French philologist George Thibaut found him-
self enveloped in controversy. In his introduction to the commentary of
®a‰kara,36 he openly wrote in favour of the commentary of the Vaiṣṇava
ācārya Rāmānuja. Native scholarly opposition to his rather balanced view
was so fierce that in the next volume, a translation of the commentary of
Rāmānuja, Thibaut dismissed the issue of comparison altogether, saying
that it is beyond his scope and time.37
Due to the hard labour of a few enthusiasts, library shelves by now
boast with minute studies of the theistic commentaries of Vedānta, and we
may quickly peruse them.38 Historically, there exist four distinct Vaiṣṇava
lineages, each with their own founder, and with later ācāryas who may
have revived the lineage or may have given it the flavour of their own in-
tuition. The ®r…-sampradāya found its able protagonist in Rāmānujācārya
(1017–1137), and the ®rī Vaiṣṇavas are up to the present day very wide-
spread in Tamil Nadu. Their teachings have reached the North of India
as well, especially through Rāmānanda (1400–1470), who was a distant
disciple of Rāmānuja. Rāmānuja’s system of interpreting Vedānta has come
to be known as viśiṣ˜ādvaita, or “qualified monism”, and it postulates Lord
Viṣṇu as the highest reality. As a personal God beyond matter, endowed
with innumerable auspicious attributes, kalyāṇa-guṇas, He is easily at-
tainable (sulabha) by devotion (bhakti) and surrender (prapatti).39 The
sampradāya of Rāmānuja was divided into two communities on the basis
of a theological issue, the way of understanding God’s Grace. One group
uses the analogy of a cat holding her puppies in her mouth to carry them to
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safety, while the other group advances the analogy of the monkey mother,
to whom the monkey cub needs to hold on with its own strength. It is an
interesting variety of seeking a balance between faith and work, much
more so since it is undoubtedly indigenous.40 The Tamil land has its own
rich history of bhakti poetry enframed in the memory of the ancient bhakti
saints, the Ālvārs. Their chronology is an extremely tangled issue,41 while
their poems, the Tamil Veda, or Divya-prabandham, have been an inspi-
ration to generations of South Indian Vaiṣṇavas. One of the Ālvārs was a
lady, Āṇḍāl, a poetess of bhakti lyrics in old Tamil, and the fervour of her
love towards Lord Ra‰ganātha was often described by scholars as “bridal
mysticism”, a desire to attain the Lord as her spouse.
If we, pure in our hearts, meditate on,
Offer flowers to, and sing praises of
The mysterious One, born in Mathura,
Residing on the bank of Yamuna,
The river with pure waters, the light of the Gokula clan,
Damodara, Who has made his mother’s womb radiant –
All sins, past, and future, will disappear like dust in fire.
Let us, therefore, recite His names.42
The main teacher of the Kumāra-sampradāya was Nimbārkācārya (c.
12th century A.D.). Nimbārka’s philosophy is called dvaitādvaita, appre-
hending the relation of God to the world as a simultaneous unity (advaita)
as well as difference (dvaita). An even starker dichotomy between God and
the world was pronounced by Madhvācārya (1238–1317) in his philosophy
of dvaita, or pure dualism. He is the ācārya of the Brahma-sampradāya,
and the seat of the lineage is still very vibrant (in Udupi, Karnataka). With-
in the scholastic tradition of Madhva’s successors, a lively movement of
bhakti poets sprang up in the sixteenth century, called the Haridāsa or the
Dāsak™˜a movement. Singers of devotional songs went from door to door,
encouraging piety and surrender to God among the masses. Purandara Dāsa
(1484–1564) and Kanaka Dāsa (1509–1607) are among the most famous of
these Kannada bhakti poets. Purandara Dāsa was a prosperous jeweller,
who suddenly, by a traumatic experience which made him see the fault of
his miserliness, opted for an ascetic life of devotion.
Are you yet to get kindly disposed towards me?
This servant of yours?
Are you yet to get kindly disposed?
O Lord sleeping on the serpent, o Supreme Person, Hari!
In various countries, at various times,
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in various wombs I have been born,
Into this hell of “I and mine” I have fallen,
This servant of yours believes that You are the only refuge,
Are you yet to get kindly disposed?43
Kanaka Dāsa was a son of a shepherd and according to current custom
of those days he was not allowed to enter temples. He is famous in Udupi
for having obtained a vision of Lord Kṛṣṇa through a hole in the temple
wall. In the corpus of his poems of which many are humble and unpre-
tentious, one may nevertheless find a remark or two about the relation of
bhakti to caste:
They talk of caste times without number.
Pray, tell me, what is the caste of men who have felt real bliss?
When a lotus is born in mud, do they not offer it to the Almighty?
Do not the Brahmins drink the milk
Which comes from the flesh of cows?
Do they not besmear their bodies with deer musk?
What is the caste of Lord Nārāyaṇa? And Śiva?
What is the caste of the soul? Of the living being?
Why talk of caste when God has blessed you? 44
An offshoot of the Mādhva lineage was Bengal Vaiṣṇavism, started
by the saint ®rī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya (1486–1533).45 A vast theological legacy
was the work of his disciples, while ®rī Caitanya himself only wrote eight
verses on the glory of the Lord’s holy name. His precepts and his personal
charisma inspired thousands of his followers in the direction of establish-
ing an ecstatic devotional relationship with the Lord, mainly through the
practice of singing or reciting God’s name. His movement has woken up
the society of Bengal in a social, literary, artistic and religious sense. His
disciples have revived Vṛndāvana, the cowherd village of Lord Kṛṣṇa, as
a vibrant pilgrimage centre.
O my Lord, Your holy name alone can render all benediction to
living beings, and thus You have hundreds and millions of names,
like Kṛṣṇa and Govinda. In these transcendental names You have
invested all Your transcendental energies. There are not even hard
and fast rules for chanting these names. O my Lord, out of kindness
You enable us to easily approach You by Your holy names, but I am
so unfortunate that I have no attraction for them.46
The main teacher of the Rudra-sampradāya was Viṣṇusvāmī, about
whom not much is known, but one of his later influential followers

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was Vallabhācārya (1479–1532). His interpretation of Vedānta is called

suddhādvaita or pure monism, in contrast to ®a‰kara’s monism which,
as Vallabha argues, allows māyā (or avidyā) to contaminate the ever pure
Brahman. Vallabhācārya himself was a prolific writer and a poet, and had
many musically gifted disciples. Four of them, and four disciples of his
son Vi˜˜halanātha, are known conjointly as “the Aṣ˜achāp”, or the “eight
seals of poetry”. Coming from diverse backgrounds and different parts
of India, they settled in Braj, the place of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s early life, a rural
area between Delhi and Agra. They were often summoned to the Mughal
court in the vicinity and implored to become court singers, but one of the
poets, Kumbhan Dāsa, replied with the proverbial ‘santo‰ ko sikr… so kyā
kām?’
What business do ascetics have in the capital?
Coming and going the shoe gets destroyed –
And so does our contemplation of the Lord’s name.47
The most famous among the eight is S™radāsa (1483–1563), the blind
poet48. The collection of his poems numbering in thousands, rightly named
S™ra-sāgara (The Ocean of S™ra’s Poetry) is full of vivid images of Lord
Kṛṣṇa’s youth and the varying moods of devotion expressed towards Him,
in the local dialect called Brajbhāṣā.
My eyes are thirsty to have a look at Hari
I want to see the Lotus-eyed one, I remain sad day and night.
His forehead is painted with sandal paste,
He wears a pearl necklace, and is a resident of Vṛndāvana.
I have developed affection for You,
neglected my body, and put my neck into a noose.
Who knows my mind? People laugh at me.
O Lord, S™radsa, without seeing You, wants to die.49
Even outside the circle of the philosophically perfected four sampradyas,
there have been many illustrious personalities who made the object of their
devotion closer to the masses. Many of them were devout Vaiṣṇavas, wor-
shippers of Viṣṇu, much along the lines of the sampradāyas. The most
outstanding among them are the bhakti poets Mīrā Bāi of Rājasthān,
T™kārāma of Mahārāṣ˜ra, Tulasīdāsa of Vārāṇasī, Narsī Mehtā of Gujarāt
and Vidyāpati of Mithilā.
Their works – and this is true for many of the bhakti poets – are often
preserved in anthologies in different localities and even fully grown into
the local culture and language different from their own original dialect. We
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nevertheless have to be cautious to not be too demanding of the historical

documents preserved for so many generations. What they sang about was
always closely understood and almost anticipated by the public. After pick-
ing up the style of these poets, their followers might have been adding to
the corpus in that innocent manner of a devout interpreter, basking in the
brilliance of their established charisma.50
Mīrā Bāī (1498–1547) needs almost no introduction, and the lines of her
famous poems ring in the ears of many Indians: mere to girdhar gopāl,
d™sro na koi. “My Lord is the cowherd Kṛṣṇa, the upholder of the Govar-
dhana Hill, no one else.” She was a Rajput princess, wife of King Bhojarāja,
who died early, leaving Mīrā exposed to unfavourable relatives. In the
enthusiasm of her devotion, and absorption in the worship of the Deity of
Kṛṣṇa she possessed since childhood, she was often accused of neglecting
her domestic and social responsibilities.
My family members repeatedly try to restrain me,
But attachment to the Dancer with a peacock feather in His hair
Has sunk deep.
My mind is drowned in the beauty of ®yāma,
And the world says I have gone astray.51
T™kārāma (1608–1650), the revered Vaiṣṇava poet of Mahārāṣ˜ra, was in
a similar predicament of failing to uphold the expectations of his family. As
a simple grocer, he was often on the verge of poverty, frequently because of
his extreme generosity and an amazing level of compassion for all creatures
around him. His abha‰gs, short Marathi poems, are full of simple wis-
dom and devotion. He was a contemporary of Shivājī, the national hero of
Mahārāṣ˜ra, who was deeply impressed by the saint’s character. T™kārāma
was part of a greater Mahārāṣ˜rian bhakti movement, originally ignited by
Jñāneśvara, Ekanātha and Nāmadeva. T™kārāma upheld their legacy and
was a strong pillar of the Vārkar… sect of worshippers of Vi˜˜halanātha in
Pandharpur.
Today is a day of bliss, supreme bliss
When we recite the names of Govinda, the joy is incomparable!
Visiting the temple in Pandharpur is always bliss for us.
We sing, dance, and clap our hands to entertain Govinda.
For us devotees, every day is Diwali!
Our joy is fearless, for the Lord protects us.
T™kārāma says, Let there be no fear of birth and death!
Being with the Lord is the permanent desire of all devotees.52

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Tulasīdāsa (1532–1623) was the foremost among the poets who profess
devotion to Lord Rāma. Amongst the vernacular works permeated with the
spirit of bhakti, Tulasīdāsa’s Rāma-carita-mānasa (The Holy Lake of the
Acts of Rāma) is, at least in the Hindi speaking area, certainly the most
widely read. It is a devotional reworking of the already devotional Sanskrit
epic Rāmāyaṇa, with a charming style and simplicity of expression. In the
chapter of Rāma’s dwelling in the forest, the touching episode of His meet-
ing with the old ascetic lady, ®abarī, had always been the favourite of lis-
teners who sit spellbound in long recitations of the familiar, homely Hindi
rhymes. The so-called ‘®abarī episode’ is an epitome of the strength and
purity of bhakti.53 Lord Rāma sat down in ®abarī’s cottage and recounted
to her His definition of devotion:
“Now I tell you the nine types of devotion, listen attentively and lay
them up in your mind. The first in order is fellowship with the saints,
and the second, fondness for the legends relating to Me. The third is
selfless service to the guru, the fourth consists in the hymning of all
My virtues with a guileless heart. The repetition of My mystic Name
with steadfast faith constitutes the fifth form of adoration revealed
in the Vedas, the sixth is the practice of self-restraint, virtue and de-
tachment from manifold activities, with ceaseless pursuit of the path
of the good. He who practises the seventh type sees the entire world
filled with My presence, and regards the saints as even greater than
Myself. He who cultivates the eighth type is content with whatever
he has and never dreams of spying out faults in others. The ninth
form of devotion demands that one should be simple and straight in
one’s dealings with all and should in his heart cherish implicit faith
in Me without either exultation or depression. Whoever practises any
of these – man or woman, animate or inanimate – is, O lady, very
dear to Me.” (Rāma-carita-mānasa, Araṇya-kāṇḍa).54
Narsī Mehtā (1414–1480) was a Gujarati saint and poet. His hagiogra-
phers describe a vivid mystical vision that entranced him, and which later
on dictated the theme for many of his poems. His verses dwell on the
love of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, instructions on piety and bhakti for his fellow
countrymen, personal confessions, and gratitude at the Lord’s interven-
tions in the events of his life. Having been born in a respectable Brahmin
family, he was criticized for singing God’s praise in the company of the
untouchables.
I am what you say that I am,
If it pleases you to think that I am such a one.

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If you think I’m not fit to sing Kṛṣṇa’s praises,
Then Dāmodara’s servant I’ll become.
Of all in society, I am the lowest.
Lower than the lowest of the low.
You may call me by any bad names you like,
All I know is I’m deeply in love.
I don’t understand the talk of karma and dharma.
All these things are not near my God.
All who feel higher than these Harijanas
Have wasted their whole human life.55

The term Harijana “the people of God” which Narsī used to denote the
untouchable castes, was later adopted by Gandhi. The following poem by
Narsī, one of Mahatma Gandhi’s most beloved hymns, expresses in simple
and moving words the ideal of sanctity:
Call that one a true Vaiṣṇava who feels the suffering of others,
Who seeks to relieve others’ pain, and has no pride in his soul.
He bows respectfully to the whole world, he talks ill of no one,
He remains steadfast in mind, words and actions –
Blessed, blessed be his mother!
He is impartial to all, he has renounced all greed,
Another man’s wife is his mother,
His tongue speaks no lie, he does not touch another man’s property.
He remains unaffected by maya and moha,
In his soul is total detachment,
He is absorbed in meditation on Rāma’s name,
Within his body, all the tīrthas are found!
Without cupidity or guile is he, without lust or anger,
Says Narsaiyo, by the mere view of such a sant,
Seventy-two generations find salvation!56

Vidyāpati (1350–1460) was a court poet in Mithilā. He was a contempo-

rary of the Bengali poet Caṇḍīdāsa, and both were treading the path of their
predecessor poet Jayadeva, the author of the G…tā Govinda. Vidyāpati’s
hundreds of songs on love towards Lord Kṛṣṇa and personal supplications
to Him, collected in the Padāval…, are still current in Mithilā. He wrote in
his local dialect, Maithili.
Mādhava! Along with an offering of Tulasī and sesame seeds,
I sacrifice my whole self for You.
I know You are kind and will not reject me.
When you consider my character, you can only count faults,

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There is not even a trace of virtue in me.
You are the Lord of the Universe, this world is Yours.
And I, a poor sinner, am also within this world (so I am Yours).
Again and again, according to my past deeds,
Let me be born as a man or an animal, bird, worm or an insect.
But let my mind always rest in You!
With great remorse, Vidyãpati says,
You are the miraculous means to cross over saṃsāra!
Allow me to grasp Your tender lotuslike feet,
O friend of the poor!57
Let us now proceed to the less definable, “grey areas” of the bhakti
movement. Here we encounter poets and mystics who move freely between
the personal and impersonal conceptions of the Divine, or who are seen
as unorthodox in any other way by the Hindu society. That includes the
consideration of their eligibility for being recognized as saints and teachers,
if it so happens that their caste stands in the way and does not easily admit
adoration by the possible higher-caste followers. It also includes philo-
sophical tenets or details of devotional practice which are an admixture of
various beliefs, most often that means Islamic or yogic influences. Such
blends are usually not supported by the orthodox society, but their popular
appeal seems to be giving them a stamp of validity by itself.
Kabīr (1440–1518), a Muslim weaver and a disciple of the Vaiṣṇava
preacher Rāmānanda, moved between the Hindu and Islamic community
and attacked the weaknesses, as he perceived them, of both. His mystical
poems aimed at jerking his fellow people and making them realize the
futility of mindlessly performed traditional religiosity.
The tendency for devotees and students of Kabīr to interpret him
each in his own way has always been strong. Kabīr, like Gandhi, is
much quoted and manipulated to suit a variety of ends. One senses
in some studies of Kabīr that he is regarded as not fully present-
able and in need of a little adjustment: by Muslims to make him
more respectable in Islamic circles – they would have him a p…r;
by sectarian yog…s who must have found his lack of enthusiasm for
narrow sectarianism uncomfortable – they would have him a yog…
or more; by vedāntins who would like to rescue him from the taint
of Islam and clumsy thought and bring him into the more intellectu-
ally sophisticated streams of Indian metaphysics; by other schools
of bhakti who, finding him hard to classify, would hold that his
nirguṇa-bhakti was inconsistent and would wrongly discover the
doctrine of avatāra in his verse; by the old Christian missionary

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scholars rejoicing to detect a Christian influence on Kabīr. West-
cott hailed him as a ‘Mohammedan Saint’. R. C. Varma sees him
as the saviour of Hinduism from Islam. Recent writers depict him
as a social revolutionary comparable to Gandhi. This tendency to
use Kabīr, to win him over to one’s camp, instead of studying him
and understanding him, has retarded Kabīr studies for a long time,
though it is losing ground in recent scholarly circles.58
Sometimes, Kabīr’s point could be just as orthodox as that of any other
Vaiṣṇava poet, while at other times, his social satire prevails. Often, he
dismisses just about any way or path he has seen or heard about, to make
a strong point about his own mystical relation to God:
O brother, Kabīr has only a small circle of friends; so to whom
shall I repeat this truth? I leave the disposition of all my life to
Him who holds sway over destruction, creation and preservation.
I have combed through the whole creation and have discovered
that without Hari ignorance reigns; the six Hindu philosophies,
the ninety-six prescriptions of the Buddhists, all make this their
concern, but know nothing. Reciting prayers, austerity, mortifica-
tion, idol-worship, astrology, these have driven the world insane;
they have written their treatises and led the world astray; but they
have omitted to retire into the innermost recesses of the heart. Kabīr
says: Yogīs and mendicants are all raising false hopes. Imitate a
thirsty bird, cry out the name of Rāma and you will assuredly find
rest in divine love (bhakti).59
Ravidāsa (b. 1376) was a lucid devotee-poet from Vārāṇasī, born in
a family of cobblers. His presence among the bhakti poets has consider-
ably slackened the previous rigid boundaries between the higher and lower
castes, as well as the idea of absolute ranking of qualification via one’s
birth.
O well-born of Vārāṇasī, I too am born well-known.
My labour is with leather. But my heart can boast of the Lord.60
His biographers describe the impact of Ravidāsa’s poetry and personal-
ity in glowing terms; he was able to attract a large gathering of high-caste
listeners who readily admitted the truth of his simple arguments.
I’ve never known how to tan or sew
Though people came to me for shoes.
I have not the needle to make the holes
Or even the tool to cut the thread.

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Others stitch and knot, and tie themselves up,
While I, who do not knot, break free.
I keep saying Rāma and Rāma, says Ravidāsa,
And death keeps his business to himself.
The personalities described above do not limit or exhaust the compo-
site whole of the bhakti movements across India. For example, much like
Tulasīdāsa, another representative of the stream of Rāma-bhakti was
Tyāgarāja (1767–1847), a native of Tamil Nadu, who has left behind a veri-
table mine of bhakti poetry as well as a polished style of performance (the
so-called Carnatic music). And yet he is often excluded from the accounts
of the bhakti movement, probably because of not fitting exactly within its
imagined chronological borders. Moreover, while it may be misleading
to do so, history forces us to study only the leading poets and teachers of
a particular tradition who are represented by their lyrics or philosophical
writings, while many of their followers, in fact whole lineages, and many
other saints who were not so eloquent, remain in the background. Another
dimension closely related to the bhakti movements was the boom of ver-
nacular translations and retellings of the ancient Sanskrit texts, especially
the two epics. Again, this is a pan-Indian phenomenon and a theme in itself.
The bhakti movements with their Brahmanical philosophy and insistence
on internal and external purity have triggered a social phenomenon called
sanskritization, or unification of culture according to the roles and example
of the higher castes.
Another movement intricately connected with the bhakti movement is
Sikhism, a religious group established in Punjab by Guru Nānak (1496–
1539). In the Sikh scripture, the Guru Granth Sāhib, a few poems by the
bhakti poets (there called bhagats) have been included, for example, those
by Nāmadeva, Ravidāsa, Kabīr, S™radāsa and Rāmānanda. The Sikh re-
ligion, although showing traces of Islamic influence in its breaking away
from ritual worship, highly values the recitation of God’s name, and in
many of the poems of the Guru Granth Sāhib we find notions familiar to
us from the poetry of the bhakti movement. Following Kabīr, the names
of God in their poems are often of Vaiṣṇava origin.
So many scriptures, I have searched them all.
None can compare to the priceless Name of God.
Better by far than any other dharma
Is the act of repeating the perfect Name of God.
Better by far than any other rite
Is cleansing one’s heart in the company of the devout.
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Better by far than any other skill
Is endlessly to utter the wondrous Name of God.
Better by far than any other place is the heart wherein
God is infinite, beyond all comprehending.
Yet he who repeats the Name will find himself set free.
Hear me, my friend, for I long to hear
The tale which is told in the company of the free.61

5. Conclusion

A considerable amount of critique was addressed at the sants of the

nirguṇa-bhakti school, especially Kabīr and Dādu Dayāl, for their un-
conventional views about the orthodox Vaiṣṇava practices such as ritual
worship of the images of Viṣṇu. One of the persons not agreeing with their
scathing satire, and often writing in defense of the orthodox social order
was the famous Gosvāmī Tulasīdāsa. Some scholars argue that if Kabīr
would have been exposed to the meticulous devotional theology of the
Vaiṣṇava ācāryas and their justification behind the saguṇa worship, his
views might have been different, but since he grew up among the people
where lower forms of superstitious Hinduism were in proliferation, and
was in contact with Islam, this might have led him to deny all ritual as an
inadequate practice.
The bhakti movement was an arena of contesting religious performances
where scriptural authority, social acceptability, and mystical authenticity
emerged in various alliances amongst each other. While the sants derided
outward showy saintliness and sectarian symbols, the Vaiṣṇavas chose
to improve from within without giving up the externals. The sants spoke
against the worship of “idols”, while the Vaiṣṇavas saw the worship of their
beloved Deity as an unprecedented help in the deepening of their devotion.
Some deprecated mere outward purity when the mind remained impure,
while others laughed at lofty contemplation as being a mere excuse of lazy
ascetics. Some reviled the incompetent Brahmins, while others complained
of low-caste opportunist saints who usurped the position of teachers and
were bold enough to receive respect. Some strands of the bhakti movement
decried frenzied pilgrimages and ritual bathing, proposing a personal bond
with the Lord instead, while others considered the formal pious practices
as part of their routine of purity and an expression of devotion.

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

The vignettes of the bhakti movement presented in the article perhaps

give an inordinate stress on originality, breaking away from established
norms, or religious syncretism. The saints presented are often an exception
more than a rule, a few extremely intuitive individuals with great integrity
and a purified desire of attaining God which pierces through layers of pos-
sible internal obstacles in their way. Rather than encouraging whimsical
“search of God” on one’s own, the majority of the bhakti traditions have
an exhaustive and developed scriptural backing, usually the Bhagavad-g…
tā and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, along with later expositions by the gurus
of their particular lineage. Submission and fidelity to one’s preceptor is
stressed to an extraordinary degree, and leaving one’s chosen teacher in
search of “deeper truths” is an inexonerable sin. In general, bhakti is quite
uniformly understood as a genuine attempt of a connection with the Lord
which should be free from all blemishes. The deliberation on what is to be
given up and which practices are to be upheld is based rather strictly on
the scriptures of the devotional path and the exemplary models of previ-
ous saints.
O my prayers three times a day, all glory to you. O bathing, I offer
my obeisances unto you. O demi-gods! O forefathers! Please excuse
me for my inability to offer you my respects. Now wherever I sit, I
can remember my Lord Kṛṣṇa, and thereby I can free myself from
all sinful bondage. I think this is sufficient for me.62

Notes

1 A reliable overview can be found in: Susmita Pande, Medieval Bhakti Movement
(Meerut: Kusumanjali Prakashan, 1989). A collection of articles on the bhakti move-
ments across India is available in N. N. Bhattacharya (Ed.) Medieval Bhakti Move-
ments in India (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1999). Bhakti from
the Vaiṣṇava point of view is dealt with exhaustively in: Raghu Nath Sharma, Bhakti
in the Vaiṣṇava Rasa-śāstra (Delhi: Pratibha Prakashan, 1996).
2 An expression sometimes used, ‘late medieval bhakti movements’, is a slight mis-
nomer. First of all, the medieval phase in its strict historical sense is a concept to
describe the cultural, economic and political development in Europe, having not much
relation to or influence on the happenings in Asia. Nor does its ending date, 1486,
have any bearing on the history of India. Western historians of India, considering
these facts, usually avoid using the term ‘medieval’ in their accounts of the bhakti
movements, while the native Indian historians – perhaps not so acutely aware of the
difficulty involved in the term – use it rather broadly even up to the break-up of the
Moghul era. The term ‘late medieval’ has come to be used even for bhakti movements

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 Eva Cesar
of the16th 17th
and century, although the addition of the word ‘late’ then excludes the
bhakti revivals happening much earlier. In the article they will be referred to specifi-
cally, to avoid the common grouping under a problematic title.
3 See for example, an exhaustive, peculiar work (which lacks referencing though) of
Prakashanand Saraswati, The True History and the Religion of India (New Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1999).
4 N. N. Bhattacharya, Indian Religious Historiography, Vol. 1 (New Delhi: Munshiram
Manoharlal Publishers, 1996), pp. 273–75.
5 A convincing argument to include the nirguṇa-bhakti in the spectrum of bhakti
movements is presented by Mrs. Krishna Sharma in her work Bhakti and the Bhakti
Movement – A New Perspective (New Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers,
Second Ed. 2002).
6 Steven Rosen, Essential Hinduism (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2006),
p. 24.
7 The translations I use are from the Bhagavad-g…tā As It Is by A. C. Bhaktivedanta
Swami Prabhupada (Los Angeles: Bhaktivendanta Book Trust, 1976), whose work is
traditionally accurate from the bhakti point of view. In case some less known phrases
or thought formations appear in his translation, I simplified it for the sake of easier
understanding. The verse quoted here appears on pages 838–39. I retain the use of
capital letters for words denoting divinity, i.e. God, Supreme Lord, and personal
pronouns related to it. My justification is that a religious tradition should be allowed
to present itself in a full, confident way, without being watered down by so-called
academic objectivity and ice-cold faithlessness.
8 Ibid., pp. 848–50.
9 Ibid., p. 717.
10 For these parallels I am indebted to an article on the subject by William Deadwyler,
“Religion and Religions”, published in the ISKCON Communications Journal No.
1.1, January-June 1993. The article is based on the author’s lecture delivered at the
Conference on Religious Education for Dialogue at the University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, April 1989.
11 It should be noted here that the word karma in Sanskrit simply means action, or ac-
tivity, or in its more particular sense, it means religious or pious acts leading one to
heaven. It should not be confused with the meaning that the word karma has obtained
in western “spiritually enlightened” circles under the influence of Hindu philosophy,
namely, karma as one’s fate, “Whatever happened to me was my karma.”
12 Cf. the following verses: “Men of small knowledge are very much attached to the
flowery words of the Vedas, which recommend various religious activities for eleva-
tion to heaven, resultant good birth, power, and so on. Being desirous of opulent
life, they say that there is nothing more than this.” (Bhagavad-g…tā 2.42–43), p. 129.
Later on in the Bhagavad-g…tā, Lord Kṛṣṇa declares that those who worship lesser
gods subordinate to Him attain the worlds of these gods (i.e. the impermanent Hindu
heaven), but those who worship Him exclusively with devotion, bhakti, attain His
spiritual abode to live with Him forever. He is nevertheless kind to those on the lower
levels, stating that He himself supplies them the necessary faith in worshipping the
lesser gods, and that actually He is the one from whom they ultimately receive their
rewards. (Bhagavad-g…tā 7.20–23), pp. 394–99.
13 Evelyn Underhill, The Essentials of Mysticism (Oxford: Oneworld Publications,
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
2007), pp. 12, 32, 112.
14 Some three hundred years after Al-Hallāj (who was persecuted for heresy), another
Sufi saint, Jalāl ud-dīn R™mī (1207–1273) defended the insights of his predecessor,
saying that those who say they are servants of God are actually presumptuous, for
they retain their own ego, and those who say “There is nothing else but God” are
actually the most humble – they sacrifice their ego completely and become one with
the Lord. The point is taken from: Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi (New York:
Harper Collins Publishers, 1996), p. 129.
15 Bhagavad-g…tā, pp. 611–19.
16 I use the translation of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (Ma-
nila: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1982, One Volume Edition) since it is by far the most
comprehensive of all available English translations. The Sanskrit text is fairly fixed
so that the Sanskrit version of the Gita Press does not differ substantially at all from
the text which I am working with.
17 The four goals of life or puruṣārthas in Hinduism are dharma (religiosity), artha
(economic development), kāma (enjoyment) and mokṣa (liberation). Some authors
include bhakti or prema, devotion to God, in the scheme of the four, either subsum-
ing it under dharma or mokṣa, while it is most often understood as standing above
the four as the fifth, last puruṣārtha.
18 Ibid., p. 13.
19 I use an edition without any translation, by Acharya Baladeva Upadhyaya, ®āṇḍilya-
bhakti-s™tram Bhakti-candrikayā samanvitam (Varanasi: Sampurnananda Sanskrit
University Press, 1998), p. 4.
20 The Nārada-bhakti-s™tra is also included in the abovementioned publication by Ach-
arya Baladeva Upadhyaya, p. 75.
21 Ibid., pp. 75–76.
22 I work with a Hindi translation, Janardan Shastri Pandey, ®r… Madhus™dana Sarasvat…
viracitaṁ ®r… Bhagavad-bhakti-rasāyanam (Varanasi: Chowkhamba Vidya Bhavan,
1998), p. 130.
23 By now a few English translations of the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu have been pub-
lished, one is the work of David L. Haberman (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass
and Indira Gandhi Centre for the Arts, 2003), another of Bhanu Swami (Chennai:
Vaikuntha Enterprises, 2006). Numerous studies exist as well, in English and Hindi. I
use the translation by Bhanu Swami, although I simplify the translations. The defini-
tion of bhakti appears on pp. 29–40.
24 Quoted in an article by Bimanbehari Majumdar, “Religion of Love: The Early Medi-
eval Phase”, in N. N. Bhattacharya (Ed.), Medieval Bhakti Movements in India (New
Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1999), pp. 6–7.
25 I quote from a lively book, David L. Haberman, River of Love in an Age of Pollution
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), pp. 25–26. The author goes on to
argue that such a move of the Orientalists was also politically useful, for by denying
authenticity to the many bhakti sects across the country which had considerable social
and political strength at the time, and by relegating all importance to a distant past
of abstract philosophy and an escape from the world, the British have in effect made
it easy for themselves to assume the role of order-making politicians in India.
26 The first western indologists have often portrayed the Vedas as simplistic and child-
ish texts, and even knowingly mistranslated them to make the Vedas appear primi-
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 Eva Cesar
tive. The antiquity assigned to the Vedas was never in line with traditional Hindu
understanding, but calculated to fit the current notions of the age of the human race
according to the history in the Bible. One of the most candid accounts of the history
of indology can be found in Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami, Readings in Vedic Literature
– The Tradition Speaks for Itself (Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1985). A
related issue is that of the indigenous nature of Indian culture, as opposed to early
Orientalist ideas about the Aryan homeland outside India and their subsequent im-
migration. Slowly the native Indian scholars of indology, especially those in the
diaspora, are becoming influential enough to reverse the old wrongs. I quote: “If one
explores the history of the Aryan Invasion Theory, it becomes clear that it arose due
to colonial-missionary prejudices. It was largely the brainchild of foreign conquer-
ors, who could not imagine the ‘primitive’ Hindoos giving rise to such a complex
and noteworthy culture. (...) A significant number of archaeologists, both Indian and
Western, have insisted that there is no archaeological evidence to support the theory
of external Indo-Aryan origins. And the Vedas themselves, written at a time when
the invasions would have been fresh in people’s memories, do not mention anything
resembling an invasion of India. Moreover, the philological and linguistic evidence
that had originally been brought forward to support the theory of invasions has been
called into question and reinterpreted. Respected scholars, such as B. B. Lal of the
Archaeological Survey of India, and Edwin Bryant from Rutgers University, have
shown that the Aryan Invasion Theory is based on rather flimsy evidence.” Steven
Rosen, Essential Hinduism (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2006), pp.
10–11.
27 For example, K. Bharadvaj in his work The Concept of Viṣṇu in the Purāṇas (New
Delhi: Pitambar Publishing Company, 1981) argues about the antiquity of the Purāṇas
and supplies textual references about the eighteen Purāṇas in the so-called “earlier
works”, the Vedas, Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas, Upaniṣads, and other Smṛtis. On pp.
9–13 of his work.
28 Insightful reading about the ®aiva bhakti poets of the Tamil land is available in Karen
Pechilis Prentiss, The Embodiment of Bhakti (New York – Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999). Comparisons of ®aiva and Christian mysticism have been published by
Bettina Bäumer (Ed.), Mysticism in Shaivism and Christianity (New Delhi: D. K.
Printworld, 1997).
29 For example, an article by Jeanine Miller, “Bhakti in the ¬g Veda – Does It Appear
There or Not?” in Karel Werner (Ed.) Love Divine – Studies in Bhakti and Devotional
Mysticism (Durham, Curzon Press, 1993), pp. 1-36. Many overviews of the bhakti
movement begin with the survey of the Vedic material, cf. Susmita Pande, Birth of
Bhakti in Indian Religions and Art (New Delhi: Books & Books, 1982), or, Bhagavata
Kumar Shastri, The Bhakti Cult in Ancient India (Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit
Series Office, 3rd Ed. 2002).
30 Extensive research on the topic of relations between darwinism and the Vedic cos-
mogony has been done by Michael A. Cremo in his last work, Human Devolution
(Badger, California: Torchlight Publishing, 2003). His work is provocative to such an
extent that it generated a new expression in anthropological studies, Vedic creation-
ism.
31 Arthur A. Macdonell, A History of Sanskrit Literature (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass
Publishers, 1997), p. 256.
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
32 The work of Macdonell where the above quote comes from has been published origi-
nally in London in 1900 and is now being reprinted in India itself again and again,
by its greatest indological publisher.
33 For example, Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Ed.), Religions of India in Practice (New Delhi:
Princeton University Press and Munshiram Manonarlal Publishers, 1998), or works
like John Stratton Hawley, At Play With Krishna – Pilgrimage Dramas from Vrin-
davan (Delhi: Princeton University Press and Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1992).
The spirit of faith and bhakti comes through in these works because the practitioners
themselves are finally given a voice in the presentation of Hinduism.
34 Suvira Jaiswal, The Origin and Development of Vaiṣṇavism (New Delhi: Munshiram
Manoharlal Publishers, 1980), pp. 188–228.
35 That is, the Bhakta-māl of Nābhādās, a collection of short biographical sketches of
bhakts, or sants.
36 His reasoning was that, considering the fact that the Vedānta-s™tras originally include
the doctrine of vy™ha, which is considered to be a Vaiṣṇava concept, it is quite prob-
able that Rāmānuja is closer than ®a‰kara to the original tradition of understanding
the Vedānta-s™tras. George Thibaut (Tr.), Vedānta-s™tras with the Commentary of
®a‰karācārya, Sacred Books of the East Series, Vol. 34, 38 (Delhi: Oxford Univer-
sity Press and Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1904). Introduction appears on pages
IX-CXXVIII.
37 Vol. 48 of the Sacred Books of the East Series.
38 The most handy overview is available in Swami Tapasyananda, Bhakti Schools of
Vedānta (Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 2003).
39 Selected from: P. N. Srinivasachari, The Philosophy of Viśiṣ˜ādvaita (Chennai: The
Adyar Library and Research centre, 1978), and S. M. Srinivasa Chari: Vaiṣṇavism
– Its Philosophy, Theology and Religious Discipline (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass
Publishers, 2005).
40 In the early times of the British acquaintance with the Tamil bhakti movements,
the proposition of the influence of the Nestorian Christians who settled in South
India during the first millennium A.D. was often debated. Such theories have been
dismissed as soon as the chronology of works on bhakti such as the Bhagavad-g…tā
was moved back beyond the beginning of the Christian era. It became obvious that
Vaiṣṇavism predated Christianity, although the traditional date of the Bhagavad-g…tā,
cca. 3000 B.C., is still not acceptable to many.
41 In his study of South-Indian bhakti, Friedhelm Hardy openly declares that the chro-
nology is simply too complicated: piles of studies and arguments – textual, astrologi-
cal, and other – have not arrived at any satisfactory conclusion. Friedhelm Hardy,
Viraha Bhakti – The Early History of Kṛṣṇa Devotion in South India (New York
– Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983).
42 V. K. Subramanian, Sacred Songs of India (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1996)
p. 25 (Tiruppāvai of Āṇḍāl, poem no. 5).
43 Ibid., p. 207.
44 M. Sivaramkrishna, Sumita Roy (Ed.), Poet Saints of India (New Delhi: Sterling
Publishers, 1996), p. 184.
45 Some Bengali scholars working only with the works of the Bengal school of Vai
ṣṇavism have doubted the connection to the Mādhva line through Mādhavendra Purī,
on the grounds that Purī is usually a sannyāsa title of the ®a‰karite monks. But the
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 Eva Cesar
biographical material on Vallabha (who was a contemporary of both Mādhavendra
and Caitanya) proves that Mādhavendra was indeed a sannyās… of the Mādhva line.
Informative, but skeptical is the work of S. K. De, Early History of the Vaiṣṇava
Faith and Movement in Bengal (Calcutta, KLM Publishers, 1986).
46 ®ikṣāṣ˜aka, verse 2.
47 Poet Saints of India, p. 54.
48 Many details of these poets’ lives are often contested and subjects of protracted
research and debate: dates, the blindness of S™radāsa and historicity of many poems
attributed to him may be issues that we simply have no final settlement about. See
Krishna P. Bahadur, The Poems of S™radāsa (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications,
1999).
49 Sacred Songs of India, p. 225.
50 The issue is tackled in: John Stratton Hawley, Three Bhakti Voices: Mirabai, Surdas
and Kabir in Their Times and Ours (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005)
51 Shanta Subba Rao, “Mirabai”, in Poet Saints of India, p. 117.
52 Sacred Songs of India, p. 277.
53 ®abarī is an uneducated lady who escaped her home village because she did not ap-
prove of the killing of animals going on there, and found shelter in the hermitage of
an elderly sage Mata‰ga. The sage predicted Rāma's arrival and, before himself leav-
ing the world, instructed the ®abarī to wait for Rāma and welcome Him in the empty
forest āśrama. The old ®abarī obeys him wholeheartedly, preparing every single day
for the arrival of the Lord. When Lord Rāma finally arrived, He found the old lady
anticipating His visit, with a plate of half-chewed berries in her hands. Picking the
wild berries, she was afraid they would be sour, and so she bit into each and every one
of them to test their sweetness. Only the sweet ones wound up on the plate, and they
were now offered to her Lord Rāma. As if not noticing that they are all half-chewed,
Rāma took a handful off the plate and tasted them, praising their sweetness. At this
point in the recitation, the audience is lost in appreciation of Rāma’s reaction, and
those who know the Hindu rules of purity, or just how inappropriate it is to offer half-
eaten articles to such an honoured guest, will understand the depth of the story.
54 I use the English translation by R. C. Prasad (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers,
1988), p. 497.
55 Swami Mahadevananda, Devotional Songs of Nars… Mehtā (Delhi: Motilal Banarsi-
dass Publishers, 1985), p. 128.
56 Quoted in Karine Schomer, W.H. McLeod (Ed.), The Sants – Studies in a Devotional
Tradition in India (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987), p. 39–40.
57 Sacred Songs of India, p. 128–9.
58 William J. Dwyer, Bhakti in Kab…r (Patna: Associated Book Agency, 1985), p. 19
59 Ibid., p. 54.
60 Poet Saints of India, p. 85.
61 Sukhman…, 1.7, quoted in “Sikh Hymns to the Divine Name”, in Donald S. Lopez
(Ed.), Religions of India in Practice (New Delhi: Princeton University Press and
Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1998).
62 A verse traditionally attributed to Mādhavendra Purī, a sixteenth-century mystic.

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Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
 The use of Augmented Past Verbal Tenses
in Old Indian
Nataša Terbovšek Coklin

In view of the linguistic changes that it underwent during its 2700-year

history, the Old Indian language is roughly divided into the Vedic and the
subsequent classical Sanskrit. The formal difference between the two is sli-
ght. The phonological differences, related to the sandhi, the morphological,
involving the reduction of inflectional forms, and the lexical differences,
in terms of the intrusion of words of non-Indian origin, have already been
treated in detail while the difference between the Vedic and classical San-
skrit from the point of view of the syntax, the verbal system in particular,
is still a quite poorly studied topic.
The functions of past verbal tenses – the subject of the present article
– were first dealt with by Delbrück in his work Altindische Tempuslehre.1
His conclusions that in the Vedic Old Indian the imperfect denoted the
distant past and the aorist the actual past were adopted in their grammars
by Brugmann,2 Macdonell,3 Renou,4 Thieme5 and others, and represent
even to contemporary linguists the starting point for studying the func-
tional image of the Old Indian verbal tenses on a synchronic level. The
issue concerning the function of the verbal tenses in the classical Sanskrit
period has been most thoroughly studied by Speyer,6 who called attention
to certain differences in the use of the past verbal tenses, differences which
numerous authors of Sanskrit grammars (Whitney,7 Stenzler,8 Mayrhofer,9
Perry10) had neglected, emphasising instead their complete equality. They
claimed, in fact, that the imperfect and the aorist (listing in addition the
perfect) were used indiscriminately in the classical Sanskrit period and
represented merely two tenses referring to past actions.
In studying the functions of individual verbal tenses the older lingu-
ists, Speyer,11 Whitney12 and Thumb,13 in particular, limited themselves
primarily to the question of which time slot the tenses placed the actions
they denoted. However, it can be established from examples taken from
the extensive corpus of Sanskrit texts that the Old Indian augmented tenses
also possessed functions extending outside the time slot system, namely
functions related to particular modes of communication. Two younger re-
searchers, Hoffmann14 and Tichy,15 wrote about this and claimed that the
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

Vedic aorist was used for statements and the Vedic imperfect for narration.
There have also been attempts at ascribing the Old Indian verb the category
of aspect as a defining characteristic,16 analogous to that found in some
other languages, for example the Greek.
The present article deals with a contrastive analysis of the functions of
the Vedic and classical Sanskrit augmented past verbal tenses, trying to
provide answers to the questions regarding whether the Vedic imperfect
or aorist always denote, respectively, the distant and actual past, as was
asserted by the older linguists; whether it is legitimate to maintain that
the imperfect is tied to narration and the aorist to statements; which the
differences are between the classical past verbal tenses that were merely
indicated by Speyer; how the uses of the imperfect and the aorist in the
Old Indian changed between the Vedic and the classical Sanskrit periods;
and whether the usages of augmented past verbal tenses in Sanskrit texts
confirm their aspectual conditionality.

1 The Vedic Period

1.1 The Vedic Imperfect Indicative

1.1.1 In the Vedic Old Indian the imperfect is primarily used for expres-
sing a distant, non-immediate past, which does not imply any connection
to the present of the speaker, but instead mostly emphasises the temporal
separation from the present. The basic function of the imperfect is therefore
shifting an action of the present stem into the distant past.17 The longer the
distance from the present, the more probability there is for the writer to
use the imperfect. A fine example of this function can be found in a well-
known poem about the creation of the world.
RV18 X 129, 1: nā ́sad āsīn nó sád āsīt tadā ́nīṃ nā ́sīd rájo nó vyòmā
paró yát/
kím ā ́varīvaḥ kúha kásya śármann ámbhaḥ kím āsīd
gáhanaṃ gabhīrám//
Then was not [imperf. indic.] non-existent nor existent, there was [imperf.
indic.] no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What covered in [imperf. indic.],
and where? And what gave shelter? Was [imperf. indic.] water there, un-
fathomed depth of water?

RV X 129, 2: ná mtyúr āsīd amtaṃ ná tárhi ná rā ́tryā áhna āsīt

praketáḥ/

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 Nataša Terbovšek Coklin
ā ́nīd avātáṃ svadháyā tád ékaṃ tásmād dhānyán ná
parāḥ kíṃ canā ́sa//
Death was not [imperf. indic.] then, nor was there aught immortal, no sign
was [imperf. indic.] there, the day’s and night’s divider. That One Thing,
breathless, breathed [imperf. indic.] by its own nature, apart from it was
[perf. indic.] nothing whatsoever.

RV X 129, 3: táma āsīt támasā gūḷhám ágre ‘praketáṃ saliláṃ

sárvam ā idám/
tuchyénābhv ápihitaṃ yád ā ́sīt tápasas tán
mahinā ́ jāyataíkam//
Darkness there was [imperf. indic.], at first concealed in darkness this All
was [imperf. indic.] indiscriminated chaos. All that existed [imperf. indic.]
then was void and formless, by the great power of Warmth was born [im-
perf. indic.] that Unit.

RV X 129, 4: kmas tád ágre sám avartatdhi mánaso rétaḥ

prathamáṃ yád ā ́sīt/
sató bándhum ásati nír avindan hdí pratṣyā kaváyo
manīṣ//
Thereafter rose [imperf. indic.] Desire at the beginning, Desire, that was
[imperf. indic.] the primal seed and germ of Spirit. Sages who searched
with their heart’s thought discovered [imperf. indic.] the existent’s kinship
in the non-existent.

RV X 129, 5: tiraścno vítato raśmír eṣām adháḥ svid ās3d upári

svid āsī3t/
retodhā ́ āsan mahimā ́na āsan svadhā ́ avástāt práyatiḥ
parástāt//
Transversely was their severing line extended, what was [imperf. indic.]
above it then, and what was [imperf. indic.] below it? There were [imperf.
indic.] begetters, there were [imperf. indic.] mighty forces, free action here
and energy up yonder.

It is quite clear from the example that the role of the imperfect is not
merely to place events in the distant past, but that it has a narrative func-
tion as well. The imperfect presents the remote events so picturesquely,
vividly and accurately that they enable the listener to travel to the very

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

core of the action through the power of their own imagination. The listener
is thus “with the use of the imperfect invited to form, on the basis of the
speaker’s words, a mental picture of how a determinate event in the past
took place.”19

1.1.2 Less frequently the imperfect can be ascribed a side function in

addition to the main one. In an actual-past non-narrative context – i.e., next
to the aorist indicative denoting immediate past actions – the imperfect
denotes anteriority.

RV III 29, 16: yád adyá tvā prayatí yajñé asmín hótaś cikitvó
’vṇīmahīhá/
dhruvám ayā dhruvám utā śamiṣṭhāḥ prajānán vidv
úpa yāhi sómam//
As we, o Priest observant, have elected [imperf. indic.] thee this day, what
time the solemn sacrifice began [pres. part.], so surely hast thou worshi-
pped [aor. indic.], surely hast thou toiled [aor. indic.], come thou unto the
Soma, wise and knowing all.

RV X 53, 1: yám áichāma mánasā sò ‘yám āgāt

́
He hath arrived [aor. indic.], he whom we sought [imperf. indic.] with
longing.

In these cases, in which the main emphasis of the narration lies on the
immediate past expressed by the aorist indicative, the imperfect has the
task of placing the events into the time slot preceding the main past action
in order to better explain the latter; therefore the descriptive and illustrative
feature of the imperfect is unnecessary. Such an imperfect has no narra-
tive function, but rather performs a fact-stating function. It summarizes
and reminds of events that are more distant from the actual present than
the main events around which the narration revolves. The describing is
unnecessary also because such an imperfect in most cases presents the
participants to the speech act with a well-known past fact, usually one
that occurred just before the beginning of the immediate past action and
which could, according to the reader’s subjective feeling, still belong to
the actual past. Precisely in order to emphasise the chronological order of
events that are not separated from the actual present by a long temporal
distance, another grammatical means is used for the actions of electing

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and seeking (in the examples above), which occurred before the actual past
events – namely, the imperfect.

1.2 The Vedic Aorist Indicative

1.2.1 Tichy (1997) states several functions of Vedic indicative aorist:
most often the aorist indicative appears in the function of denoting im-
mediate, actual past; i.e., that which has from the speaker’s viewpoint just
taken place. This is its main function. Contrary to the imperfect, the aorist
implies a close relation with the present, expressing an action that has just
taken place and somehow falls into the present, or an action taking place
simultaneously with the utterance of the verb denoting it. The aorist denot-
ing actual past actions is most frequently found in morning and evening
prayers, in rituals performed by priests at dawn and sunset.

RV I 46, 10: ábhūd u bh u aṃśáve híraṇyam práti sryaḥ/

vy àkhyaj jihváyā ́sitaḥ//
Light became [aor. indic.] the Soma plant, the Sun appeared as it were
gold, and with its tongue shone [aor. indic.] forth the dark.

RV X 107, 1: āvír abhūn máhi mghonam eṣāṃ víśvaṃ jīváṃ támaso

nír amoci/
máhi jyótiḥ pitbhir dattám gād urúḥ
pánthā dákṣiṇāyā adarśi//
This men’s great bounty hath been manifested [aor. indic.], and the whole
world of life set free [aor. indic.] from darkness. Great light hath come [aor.
indic.], vouchsafed us by the Fathers. Apparent was [aor. indic.] a spacious
path of Guerdon.

As can be seen from the examples, “the aorist ind. expresses that an
action has occurred in the past with reference to the present. It neither de-
scribes nor indicates, but simply states a fact.”20 Originally, therefore, the
aorist indicative has no narrative function, rather it introduces a statement.
Describing is not necessary, as the speakers and other participants to the
speech act were present at the event taking place. In such circumstances a
description could even be annoying.

1.2.2 “The moment of the action expressed by the aorist is [or can be]
set as anterior to the speaker’s present and also as anterior to another past

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action.”21 If the aorist indicative is found in a narrative context, among

imperfect indicative verbs denoting a distant past, its function is, generally,
to express anteriority.

RV V 2, 7: śúnaś cic chépaṃ níditaṃ sahásrād yū ́pād amuñco

áśamiṣṭa hí ṣáḥ
Thou from the stake didst loose [imperf. indic.] e’en Śunaḥśepa bound [vb.
adj.] for a thousand; for he prayed [aor. indic.] with fervour.

In this case, the main clause containing the imperfect narrates a past
event, and since it is necessary to call attention to the action that took place
before it, this anterior action is expressed by another grammatical means,
namely the aorist indicative.

The aorist indicative does not only express anteriority within the context
of the past, but also in timeless statements, which comprise unequivocal
commonly-accepted truths, knowledge, experiences, customs, religious
rituals, etc. The general statement of the main clause is in such cases most
frequently expressed with the present indicative while in the subordinate
clauses the aorist indicative denotes a past action ending before the general
action of the main clause took place.

RV III 30, 13: víśve jānanti mahin yád gād índrasya kárma
súktā purū ́ṇi//
And all acknowledge [pres. indic.], when she came [aor. indic.] in glory,
the manifold and goodly works of Indra.22

1.2.3 According to Tichy, the aorist indicative is also used for a repeated
mention or recap of an action originally expressed by the imperfect. In such
a case we are probably dealing with a statement of well-known facts that
have been narrated in detail previously.

RV X 72, 4: áditer dákṣo ajāyata dákṣād v áditiḥ pári//

áditir hy ájaniṣṭa dákṣa y duhit táva/
tṃ dev ánv ajāyanta bhadr amtabandhavaḥ//
Dakṣa was born [imperf. indic., narration] of Aditi, and Aditi was Dakṣa’s
Child. For Aditi, o Dakṣa, she who is thy Daughter, was brought forth
[aor. indic., recap]. After her were the blessed Gods born [imperf. indic.,

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narration] sharers of immortal life.

1.2.4 The aorist indicative expresses an extended actual past action. This
category comprises actions lasting for a very long time. They started in
a distant past, continuing up to and ending just before the present time in
which the moment of speaking takes place. Next to such aorist forms the
temporal adverb jyók , ‘long, too long’, can usually be found.

RV X 124, 1: imáṃ no agna úpa yajñám éhi…/

áso havyavā ḷ́ utá naḥ purogā ́ jyóg evá dīrgháṃ
táma ā ́śayiṣṭhāḥ//
Come to this sacrifice of ours, o Agni ... Be our oblation-bearer and
preceder, thou hast lain [aor. indic.] long enough in during darkness.

1.2.5 The aorist indicative can express an action separated from the
present moment by a longer time interval. As usual, the aorist indicative in
this case does not narrate, but only states the action. The reporting moment
and the need for a denotation and description of the past are absent,23 as
in these cases the central emphasis of the narration lies on the actual mo-
ment in which the speech act takes place. To better explain the latter it is
sometimes necessary to remind of some distant event that the participants
to the speech act have witnessed, or a generally known event that does not
need describing.

RV X 95, 2: kím et vāc ́ kṇavā távāhám prkramiṣam uṣásām

agriyéva/
púrūravaḥ púnar ástam párehi durāpanā ́ vta
ivāhám asmi//
What I am now to do with this thy saying? I have gone [aor. indic.] from
you like the first of Mornings. Pururava return thou to thy dwelling, I, like
the wind, am difficult to capture.24

1.2.6 When the central emphasis of the narration is on the distant past
expressed by a series of imperfect forms, the aorist indicative can also
express posteriority. In this case the aorist indicative does not present the
actual past, but rather an event that is, compared to the central action,
closer to the present in which the speech act takes place. The length of the
time interval between the present and the action expressed by the aorist is

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irrelevant.
RV I 33, 13: abhí sidhmó ajigād asya śátrūn ví tigména vṣabhéṇa
púro ‘bhet/
He went [imperf. indic.] straight to his enemies, with his sharp bull he rent
[aor. indic.] their forts in pieces.

1.3 The Verbal Aspect in Vedic

It would be expected that the imperfect, as is the case with the Greek
language, expresses an action in progress and the aorist denotes an action
of limited duration. However, in Vedic texts, at least with past verbal tenses,
no opposition between terminative and non-terminative actions can be de-
tected. The example below should, according to Tichy, clearly demonstrate
the use of perfective and imperfective verbal aspect, as it contains verbal
actions of differently restricted duration.

RV V 30, 10: sám átra gā ́vo ‘bhíto ‘navantehéha vatsáir víyutā

yád san/
sáṃ t índro asjad asya śākáir yád īṃ sómāsaḥ súṣutā
ámandan//
Divided from [imperf. indic. + vb. adj.: parallel action as a basis for the
central event] their calves the Cows went lowing [imperf. indic.] around, on
every side, hither and thither. These Indra re-united [imperf. indic.: central
event] with his helpers, what time the well-pressed Soma made him joyful
[imperf. indic., anterior].

At the beginning the imperfect denotes two co-extensive actions that

should possess an imperfective verbal aspect. These two parallel actions
serve as a direct basis for the central event of the re-uniting of cows, which
requires a perfective verbal aspect. The last action took place before the
central action, and here, too, a perfective verbal aspect would be expected.
This example demonstrates that the Vedic Old Indian knew no opposition
of verbal aspects like the Greek and some Slavic languages do. All verbal
actions are here expressed by the imperfect, which therefore does not in-
dicate a non-terminative character of the verbal action, but only describes
and reports an event belonging to a distant past.

RV X 98, 7 yád devpiḥ śáṃtanave puróhito hotrya

vtáḥ kpáyann ádīdhet/

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devaśrútaṃ vṣṭivániṃ rárāṇo bhaspátir vā ́cam
asmā ayachat//
When as chief priest for Śaṃtanu, Devāpi, chosen for Hotar’s duty, prayed
[imperf. indic.] beseeching, Graciously pleased Bhaspati vouchsafed [im-
perf. indic.]him a voice that reached the Gods and won the waters.
If aspect were a relevant element in Vedic, we could have expected to
find in the above example the aorist in place of the second imperfect for
expressing a perfective verbal aspect.
In the example below, the aorist indicative, which we would expect to
convey a perfective verbal aspect, is used to express an action that is not
limited in duration:

RV I 33, 15: jyók cid átra tasthivṃso akran

Long lingered [aor. indic.] they there immovably.

The decisive features in Old Indian were thus the affiliation of the verbal
action to time slots and the mode of communication. The opposition be-
tween the aorist indicative and the imperfect indicative is not “perfective”
vs. “imperfective”, with respect to the primary denotation of verbal aspect,
but rather “statement” vs. “narration.” Even such opposition, though, is not
completely satisfactory and clear cut.
As we have seen, the task of the aorist, both in its main and side func-
tions, is introducing a statement;25 on the other hand, the main task of the
imperfect in its main function is narration while in its side function it is
not limited to that. When denoting anteriority, the Vedic imperfect always
presents a statement. There is one more type of the stating imperfect; it
is used for presenting to the listener, from the point of view of the actual
present, a well-known fact from the distant past that needs no particular
description or explanation.26

RV X 95, 11: áśāsaṃ tvā vidúṣī sásminn áhan ná ma śṇoḥ

kím abhúg vadāsi//
I knew [imperf. indic.] and warned thee that day. Thou wouldst not hear
[imperf. indic.] me. What sayest thou, when naught avails thee?

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2 The Classical Period

The classical period sees the tendency of replacing the augmented ver-
bal tenses by other grammatical means which can express past actions,
such as the present tense with or without the sma particle, participles in
-ta and -tavant, the absolutive and other non-augmented past tenses. In the
Kirātārjunīya27 the imperfect and the aorist are more limited with respect
to the frequency and position in the sentence than in the Ṛgveda, though
their basic functions are still the most comparable to those found in the
Vedic texts.

2.1 Kirātārjunīya
2.1.1 In the Kirātārjunīya the imperfect can be found indicating the
distant past, but with the restriction that it is only used in direct speech for
indicating events witnessed by the speaker. The Ṛgveda knows no such
limitations.

Kir XI 51: tāmaikṣanta kṣaṇaṃ sabhyā duḥśāsanapuraḥsarām/

abhisāyārkamāvttāṃ chāyāmiva mahātaroḥ//
The people gathered looked down at her [imperf. indic.], as she dragged
behind Duḥśāsana, resembling the shadow of a tall tree in the evening
sun.

2.1.2 The imperfect is also used for stating events from the distant past
when these are mentioned from the point of view of the actual present.

Kir I 35: vijatya yaḥ prājyamayacchaduttarānkurūnakupyaṃ

vasu vāsavopamaḥ/
sa valkavāsāṃsi tavādhunāharankaroti manyuṃ
na kathaṃ dhanaṃjayaḥ//
How is it that a plight of Dhanaṃjaya, who, comparable to Vāsava, ha-
ving conquered the Northern Kurus brought [imperf. indic.] ample wealth,
consisting of silver and gold to you, but who has now to carry your bark
garment, does not excite your anger?

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As the past action is only mentioned to better explain the current event,
a description of the past event would have been superfluous. Cases of the
imperfect placing an action before another past action cannot be found in
the Kirātārjunīya. This function has been taken over by other grammatical
means.

2.1.3 As in Vedic, the aorist indicative states the actual past, but only
the past that the speakers themselves experienced. In Kirātārjunīya, the
aorist, too, is tied to direct speech.

Kir II 2: yadavocata vīkṣya māninī paritaḥ snehamayena

cakṣuṣā/
api vāgadhipasya durvacaṃ vacanaṃ tadvidadhīta
vismayam//
The speech which the lady, proud (of her Kṣatriya race), has just spoken
[aor. indic.], having taken into the consideration all points with an eye full
of affection, and which is difficult even for Bhaspati to make, is capable
of exciting the admiration of all.

2.1.4 The aorist indicative is used to state events belonging to a distant

past that is presented from the point of view of the actual present.

Kir XI 10: tvayā sādhu samārambhi nave vayasi yattapaḥ/

hriyate viṣayaiḥ prāyo varṣīyānapi māddaśaḥ//
You did right to have begun [aor. pass.] to do penance in your youth: usu-
ally, even an older man than me is drawn by the things of this world.

The two mentioned functions and others that can be found in the Vedas,
as for instance the anteriority-denoting aorist in general statements can be
expressed using other grammatical means.

2.2 Other Classical Texts

The functions of the aorist indicative and the imperfect indicative in
other selected classical Sanskrit texts are less comparable to the Vedic. It
was believed that in the classical Sanskrit “the imperfect, the perfect and
the rarely used aorist were undistinguishable, that they were tenses of the
past”28 (thus also Cappeller,29 Mayrhofer,30 Perry31) and could be mixed at
will with other grammatical means for denoting the past. This would mean
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that no interdependence between the use of the past tenses and the modes
of communication can be found. The writers were believed to have chosen
one or more grammatical means available for presenting past events, and
through their indiscriminate use without any difference in meaning stated
or described the past only, a past that within itself was not differentiated
into the actual and the historical. However, it can be established from the
results of analysed classical works that the imperfect and the aorist can
alternate without affecting the meaning only when they are used to state
or narrate events from the distant past, but not events from the actual past.
When they are used to present the distant past they can also alternate with
past participles and the present tense with or without sma.

2.2.1 A classical example of a mixed use of all available grammatical

means for expressing the historical past without any difference in meaning
can be found in the Pañcatantra. A whole series of remote events, arran-
ged in a chronological sequence is described therein by a diverse range of
verbal forms:

Pañc32 IV 6, 276: puṣpavāṭikāṃ praviśya brāhmaṇo

bhāryyāmabhihitavān...
When they entered [gerund] a flowergarden, the Brahman said [past act.
part.] to his wife…
... ityabhidhāya prāyāsīt /
Saying [gerund] this, he set out [aor. indic.]...
atha tasyāṃ puṣpavāṭikāyāṃ paṇgur ...
gītamudgirayati/
Then in that garden a cripple ... was singing [pres. indic. caus.]33 a song.
tacc śrutvā kusumeṣuṇārditayā tatsakāśaṃ
tayābhihitam ...
When she heard [gerund] that in vicinity, she, injured by the bow of Kāma,
said [past pass. part.] ...
paṅgurabravīt ...
The cripple answered [imperf. indic.]…

2.2.2 As we have seen, the aorist indicative found in the Vedas only in

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the function of a statement is in the classical Sanskrit one of the customary

narrative means, as in the example below:

Daś34 III, 104: svabharturantikamupatiṣṭhāsurasahāyatayā yāvā

advyākulībhavāmi
tāvanmamaiva duhitā saha yūnā kenāpi
tamevoddeśamāgamat/
And then, as I, wishing to repair to my master’s presence, was uneasy
at heart owing to my helplessness, my own daughter, accompanied by a
youth, arrived [aor. indic.] at the very place.
Thus, in addition to the functions of expressing the actual past35 and
stating the distant past, preserved from the Vedic period, in the classical
Sanskrit the aorist indicative acquires a function it did not have in the
Ṛgveda. It becomes a narrative past tense.

2.2.3 On the other hand, the actual past continues to be expressed only
by the aorist indicative (which is in this case tied exclusively to statements)
and not by the imperfect:
Buddh36 I, 67: mā bhūnmatiste npa kācidanyā niḥsaṃśayaṃ
tadyadavocamasmi//
You should have no other thought, o king, all that I have said [aor. indic.]
is certainly true.37
The aorist indicative stating the actual past can alternate with past par-
ticiples in -ta and -tavant as well as the present indicative, which, unlike
the aorist, are also able to narrate the actual past:
Śak38 V, 119: mayyeva vismaraṇadāruṇacittavttau vttaṃ rahaḥ
praṇayamapratipadyamāne/
bhedād bhruvoḥ kutilayoratilohitākṣyā bhagnaṃ
śarāsanamivātiruṣā smarasya//
For, by the parting of her raised eyebrows towards me whose state of
feeling was cruel from loss of memory and who did not acknowledge that
affection had secretly existed, it seemed as if the lady, with her eyes exces-
sively red with anger, snapped asunder [past pass. part.] the bow of the
God of love.39
The remaining functions of the aorist that can be found in the Vedas are
replaced by other grammatical means in classical Sanskrit.

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2.2.4 Unlike the aorist indicative, which in the classical period expands
its sphere of use, the imperfect, except in the Kirātārjunīya, in which it
is bound to the direct speech and expresses events from the distant past
witnessed by the speaker, preserves its meaning unaltered throughout the
linguistic development.
The main function of the imperfect continues to be narration of the
distant past:
Daś III, 105 (1): sā tu vddhā saruditaṃ pariṣvajya muhuḥ
śirasyupāghrāya prasnutastanī
sagadgadamagadat/
That old woman embraced me weepingly, smelled me on my head and with
her breasts dropping milk said [imperf. indic.] to me ...

2.2.5 Like the Ṛgveda, the classical Sanskrit also knows cases of the
imperfect appearing in a side function. As such it states actions from the
distant past if they were witnessed by the speaker or if they are generally
known:
Megh40 52: gaurīvakrabhrukuṭiracanāṃ yā vihasyaiva phenai-
śśambhoḥ keśagrahaṇamakarodindulagnormihastā//
Who, laughing as it were by her foam at the frown on Gauri’s face, seized
[imperf. indic.] the hair of Śiva, her hands in the form of waves stretching
to the moon.41
All functions of the imperfect found in the Vedas can be replaced by
other grammatical means for indicating the past.

2.3 Verbal Aspect in Classical Old Indian

In the classical Old Indian the use of the imperfect and the aorist was
not conditioned by aspect. They were both used for denoting durative and
non-durative actions. In the first example below the aorist indicative and
the imperfect indicative both denote durative actions while in the second
the imperfect expresses a non-durative action:
Daś III, 105 (2): aśiśriyaṃ cāsminmaṭhaikadeśe niśi kaṭaśayyām/
acintayaṃ ca
I lay [aor. indic.] on a mat in a part of the convent, and thought [imperf.
indic.] to myself.

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Daś III, 105 (3): harṣanirbharā snānabhojanādinā māmupācarat/
Full of excessive joy, she served [imperf. indic.] me with bath, food and
everything else.
That the Indian language has never known a tense which would denote
duration in the past is also clear from the fact that in the Vedic, but parti-
cularly in the classical Sanskrit period, the markedly durative actions are
expressed with the present tense, which is otherwise reserved for expressing
actions taking place at this moment and are consequently progressive:
RV I 32, 9: nīcvayā abhavad vtráputréndro asyā áva vádhar
jabhāra/
úttarā sr ádharaḥ putrá āsīd dā ́nuḥ śaye sahávatsā ná
dhenúḥ//
Then humbled was [imperf. indic.] the strength of Vtra’s mother. Indra
hath cast his deadly bolt against her. The mother was above, the son was
[imperf. indic.] under, and like the cow beside her calf lay [pres. indic.]
Dānu.

Same in the classical Sanskrit period:

Pañc II 1, 145: tatra ca tāmracūḍo nāma parivrājakaḥ prativasati
sma/
And there dwelt [pres. indic. + sma] a wandering religious mendicant na-
med Tāmracūḍa.

Pañc III 2, 202: asti kasmiṃścidvkṣe purāhaṃ vasāmi/

From of old I dwelt [pres. indic.] in some tree.

If the imperfect had been truly marked by the characteristic of duration

in any Old Indian period, the feeling for the language would have told the
writers there was no need for expressing markedly durative actions (lying,
dwelling, living) with some other grammatical means – the present tense
– and they would have used the imperfect instead. The fact that duration
was expressed by a tense that inherently implies continuity, suggests that
the idea of the imperfect implying duration was completely alien to the
linguistic feeling of the speaker.

2. 4 Anteriority in the Classical Sanskrit Period

As the previous examples have shown, anteriority is expressed in various
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ways in the Ṛgveda. When the aorist indicative denotes an actual past, the
anterior action is indicated by the imperfect. When the imperfect is used to
narrate a past event, the anterior action is expressed by the aorist indicative,
rarely by the imperfect (RV V 30, 10). In Vedic the need for indicating the
chronological course of events is still present while in the classical period
it wanes. The two augmented past tenses can both be used for expressing
anteriority, though no logic dictates their selection; they can also alternate
with other grammatical means for expressing the past without that affec-
ting the meaning. Similarly, posteriority can also be indicated by various
means, not only the aorist.
In classical Indian, the writer can choose from a multitude of freely in-
terchangeable grammatical means for expressing events from a distant past
to indicate anteriority. The replacement of one grammatical means within
a sentence in order to express anteriority is thus no longer consequential
and mandatory. Only from the context is it evident in which case we are
truly dealing with anteriority.
In the example below the distant past is expressed by the present tense
in connection with the sma particle, the preceding event being indicated
by the perfect.
Buddh III, 51: yadā ca śabdādibhirindriyārthairantaḥpure naiva
suto ‘sya reme/
tato bohirvyādiśati sma yātrāṃ rasāntaraṃ syāditi
manyamānaḥ//
But when in the women’s apartments his son found [perf. indic.] no ple-
asure in the several objects of the senses, sweet sounds and rest, he gave
orders [pres. indic. + sma] for another progress outside, thinking to himself,
‘It may create a diversion of sentiment’.
The first sentence below shows that the events from the distant past are
narrated through various grammatical means while in the second sentence
one of the available grammatical means has been randomly selected to
indicate anteriority.
Daś II, 86: iti nirgatya svaghe veśavāṭe dyutasabhāyāmāpaṇe ca
nipuṇamanviṣyannopalabdhavān/
Saying that, he went [gerund] home and carefully looked for [pres. part.]
him in his own house, in the street through the residence of the courtesans,
in the gaming houses, and in the market-place, but did not find [past act.
part.] him.

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Daś II, 87: sa khalu vimardako madgrāhitatvadabhijñānacihno
manniyogāttvadanveṣaṇāyojjayinīṃ
tadahareva prātiṣṭhata/
For verily that Vimardaka, fully instructed by me as to the marks for re-
cognizing your highness, had started [imperf. indic., anterior] for Ujjain,
that very day, at my command.

The same is true in expressing posteriority, which in the Vedic would

have been indicated by the aorist. This can be seen in the second part of
the sentence:
Buddh I, 43: vālmīkirādau ca sasarja padyaṃ jagrantha yanna
cyavano maharṣiḥ/
cikitsitaṃ yacca cakāra nātriḥ paścāttadātreya
ṣirjagāda//
The voice of Valmiki uttered [perf. indic.] its poetry which the great
seer Cyavana could not compose [perf. indic., anterior]; and that medicine
which Atri never invented [perf. indic.] the vise Atreya proclaimed [perf.
indic., posterior] after him.

3 Conclusion

In Vedic the two augmented past tenses are clearly defined and dis-
criminated according to their main functions. The imperfect is marked by
two distinctively relevant characteristics; not only does it denote the time
slot of the distant past, it is also characteristic of narration. Similarly, the
aorist indicative is limited to expressing events from the time slot of the
actual past and to statements. Within these basic functions the imperfect
and the aorist cannot alternate without changing the meaning of what is
expressed, nor can they be replaced in these functions by any other verbal
tense. Within certain side functions interchanges between these two verbal
forms are possible. In a narrative context the anterior past action is usually
expressed by the aorist indicative; as the Vedic Old Indian still recognised
the need for a clear and distinct expression of the chronological course of
events, in rare cases the imperfect can be found in its place. For stating an
action belonging to the distant past, viewed from the point of actual present,
the aorist indicative and the imperfect indicative can be used without any
difference in meaning. The aorist indicative can therefore be used for ex-
pressing events of the distant past while the imperfect, on the other hand,

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can never denote events of the actual past. Based on the fact that there
also exists a stating imperfect, it can be deduced that outside their main
functions the denotations ‘narrative’ for the imperfect and ‘stating’ for the
aorist in the Ṛgveda are no longer discriminating, the same holding true
in the classical Sanskrit for their main functions as well.
Although the tenses’ names might induce us to believe that the aorist
and the imperfect, by analogy to some other languages, denote terminative
and non-terminative actions, respectively, this is not the case. Both tenses
are in the Vedic as well as throughout the classical Sanskrit period used
to denote actions with the imperfective verbal aspect as well as those with
the perfective verbal aspect.
In the classical Old Indian the main functions of the aorist and the
imperfect can be taken over by numerous other grammatical means. In
addition, the function of the Vedic imperfect; i.e., narration about events
belonging to the distant past, is now performed by either of the augmented
past verbal tenses – their use is partially overlapping. On the other hand, ex-
pressing the actual past is still the exclusive domain of the aorist indicative.
As a consequence, the basic functional difference between the imperfect
and the aorist, always manifest in the Ṛgveda, is now, in the later classical
Old Indian, blurred.
The assertion made by a number of linguists that the aorist and the
imperfect are just two tenses indicating the past, and were – being indis-
criminating – in later classical Sanskrit texts used arbitrarily for denoting
any type of past event, historical and actual, has to be marked incorrect.
It is certain, though, that in time the difference between the two tenses
gradually disappeared from the awareness of the speakers of Old Indian.
The past was more and more frequently expressed by other grammatical
means; consequently, in some authors, for example Kālidāsa, the imperfect
and the aorist appear only sporadically, being replaced almost entirely by
past participles.

Summary

The essential difference between the two main functions of the imper-
fect indicative and the aorist indicative, which was evident in the Vedic
period, was not preserved entirely in the later classical period. Within the
system of time slots, in the Ṛgveda the aorist indicative expressed the actual
past while the imperfect denoted the distant past; within these functions
they were not interchangeable. In the late classical period the imperfect
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 Nataša Terbovšek Coklin

remained limited to expressing events from the distant past while the aorist
indicative expanded its sphere of use and was used for denoting events at
the boundary of the present, as well as those separated from the actual
present by a longer time interval. Thus, the main Vedic function of the
aorist indicative – the expression of events from the actual past – remained
limited to the aorist in the classical Sanskrit while the main Vedic function
of the imperfect -- expressing events belonging to the distant past -- could
be expressed either by the imperfect or the aorist.
In the framework of these main functions, the Ṛgveda shows interde-
pendence between the two verbal tenses and the particular modes of com-
munication. The imperfect indicative was used for narration, the aorist
indicative for statements. Even outside the time slot system the imperfect
and the aorist were not interchangeable within these functions. In fact, it
never happened that the aorist indicative would be used for narrating events
from the recent past, and the imperfect indicative for stating events from the
distant past, except when these were being judged from the point of view of
the actual present, but that was already a side function of the imperfect.
In the classical Sanskrit the main function of the imperfect was still
narration of events from the distant past, but it was also possible for these
to be narrated by the aorist indicative. The distant past could also be stated
with both the imperfect indicative as well as the aorist indicative but only if
the participants to the speech act were familiar with the action presented.
Within its main function of denoting the actual past, the aorist indicative
remained tied to statements and was never used to narrate events from the
recent past.
Neither in Ṛgveda nor in the works of the classical Sanskrit was the
use of verbal tenses conditioned by aspect. The imperfect and the aorist
could in all Old Indian periods denote all types of verbal actions, be they
of limited or unlimited duration.
While in the Ṛgveda the past was only exceptionally expressed by other
grammatical means than the imperfect and the aorist, in the classical San-
skrit period the tendency of the finite verbal forms to be replaced by nomi-
nal formations (e.g., past participles) or other grammatical means able to
express the past (for instance, the present-tense indicative with or without
sma) prevailed.

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Notes

* The first part of this paper follows Eva Tichy (see “Vom indogermanischen Tempus/
Aspekt-System zum vedischen Zeitstufensystem,” in Berthold Delbrück y la sintaxis
indoeuropea hoy, eds. Emilio Crespo and José Luis García Ramón, Wiesbaden: Dr.
Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1997. pp. 593–599) in describing functions of Vedic indicative
aorist.
1 Bertold Delbrück, Altindische Tempuslehre (Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des
Waisenhauses, 1876).
2 Karl Brugmann, Kurze vergleichende Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen
(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1970, 1st ed. 1904).
3 Arthur Anthony Macdonell, A Vedic Grammar for Students (Delhi: Motilal Banar-
sidass, 2000, 1st ed. 1916).
4 Louis Renou, Grammaire de la langue Védique (Lyon: IAC, 1952).
5 Paul hieme, Das Plusquamperfektum im Veda (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck-Ruprecht,
1929).
6 Jacobus Samuel Speyer, Sanskrit Syntax (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1980, 1st ed.
1886).
7 William Dwight Whitney, Indische Grammatik: Umfassend die klassische Sprache
und die älteren Dialekte (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1879).
8 Adolf Friedrich Stenzler, Elementarbuch der Sanskrit-Sprache (Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter, 1970, 1st ed. 1869).
9 Manfred Mayrhofer, Sanskrit-Grammatik mit sprachvergleichenden Erläuterungen
(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1978, 1st ed. 1965).
10 Edward Delavan Perry, A Sanskrit Primer (New York: Columbia University Press,
1936, 1st ed. 1885).
11 Speyer, Sanskrit Syntax.
12 Whitney, Indische Grammatik.
13 Albert humb, Handbuch des Sanskrit mit Texten und Glossar: Eine Einführung in
das sprachwissenschatliche Studium des Altindischen II: Formenlehre (Heidelberg:
Carl Winter, 1959, 1st ed. 1905).
14 Karl Hofmann, Der Injunktiv im Veda: Eine synchronische Funktionsuntersuchung
(Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1967).
15 Eva Tichy, op. cit., pp. 589–609.
16 Jan Gonda, he Aspectual Function of the gvedic Present and Aorist ('S-Gravenhage:
Mouton, 1962).
17 Delbrück, Altindische Syntax (Darmstadt: Wissenschatliche Buchgesellschat, 1968,
1st ed. 1888), p. 279.
18 heodor Aufrecht (ed.), Die Hymnen des igveda I–II (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassow-
itz, 1955, 1st ed. 1861–1863).
19 Delbrück, Vergleichende Syntax der indogermanischen Sprachen (Strasbourg: Karl J.
Trübner, 1897), p. 268.
20 Macdonell, A Vedic Grammar for Students, p. 345.
21 Delbrück, Vergleichende Syntax der indogermanischen Sprachen, p. 283.

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 Nataša Terbovšek Coklin
22 In Slovene, anteriority in a context of all-inclusive time would rather be expressed by
two present forms; e.g., And all acknowledge, when she comes in glory, the manifold
and goodly works of Indra.
Likewise RV I 38, 8: vāśréva vidyún mimāti vatsáṃ ná māt siṣakti yád eṣāṃ vṣṭír
ásarji
Like a cow the lightning lows [pres. indic.] and follows [pres. indic.], motherlike, her
youngling, when their rain-flood hath been loosened [aor. pass].
23 Hofmann, Der Injunktiv im Veda, p. 199.
24 his is a dialogue between two spouses, Purūrava and Urvaśī, whose subject of con-
versation not only includes the current event – their meeting – but also reaches back
into the past. heir conversation touches on common past experiences, and it would
make no sense for the couple to report and describe their common experiences to
each other. he past events therefore only function as reminders.
25 According to Eva Tichy, Vom indogermanischen Tempus/Aspekt-System zum ve-
dischen Zeitstufensystem, p. 598, there also exists the narrative aorist, supposed to
narrate an event from the actual past not witnessed by the participants to the speech
act. No such case is recorded in the Vedas, because the actual past can be viewed in
the hymns or ritual songs recited simultaneously with the performance of the ritual.
As the participants to the speech act are witnessing the events they are putting into
words, there is no need for describing them. In the classical Sanskrit, on the other
hand, the events from the actual past are narrated by means of the present indicative
and past participles, never by the aorist.
he narrative aorist is in Tichy’s opinion recorded in only one place in Vedic prose,
in the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa:

ŚB I 4, 1, 13–19: áthāsya ghtakīrtv evgnír vaiśvānaró múkhād

újjajvāla táṃ ná śaśāka
dhrayituṁ sò ‘sya múkhān níṣpede…//13//
…sá hovācāgnír me vaiśvānaró múkhe
’bhūt/ sá nén me múkhān niṣpádyātai tásmāt te ná
prátyaśrauṣam íti //18// tád u
abhūd īti / yátraivá tváṃ ghtasnav īmaha íty
abhivyhārṣīs tád evá me ghtakīrtv
agnír vaiśvānaró múkhād údajvālīt táṃ nś akaṃ
dhrayitum sá me múkhān
nírapād ti //19//

Then, during the worship of the melted butter, Agni Vaiśvānara flared up [perf.
indic.] out of his mouth. As he could not keep [perf. indic.] it, it fell out [perf. indic.]
of his mouth... He said: “Agni Vaiśvānara was [aor. indic.] in my mouth; I did not
answer you [aor. indic.], so that it would not fall out from my mouth.” — “How did
it happen [aor. indic.] then?” — “When you recited [aor. indic.]: ‘Please, bear the
melted butter on your back,’ then, at the (word) worship of the melted butter, Agni
Vaiśvānara flared up [aor. indic.] from my mouth. I could not keep it [aor. indic.], so
it fell [aor. indic.] out of my mouth.”

This prose example shows that the question how it happened requires an answer that
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
tells as much as possible about the action that the person asking is not familiar with.
The action has to be brought closer to them by describing all phases or sets of events
leading to it.
26 For expressing well-known facts from the distant past stated from the point of view of
the moment of the speech act, Vedic writers could, as we have seen, also use the aorist
indicative. he stating imperfect and the stating aorist were therefore interchange-
able in such circumstances. It depended on the writers themselves which tense they
would use in given circumstances.
27 Carl Cappeller (trans.), Bharavi’s Poem Kiratarjuniya or Arjuna’s Combat with the
Kirata (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1912).
28 Whitney, Indische Grammatik, p. 195.
29 Cappeller, Bharavi’s Poem Kiratarjuniya or Arjuna’s Combat with the Kirata, p. 179.
30 Mayrhofer, Sanskrit-Grammatik mit sprachvergleichenden Erläuterungen, p. 84.
31 Perry, A Sanskrit Primer, p. 188.
32 Jibananda Vidyasagara (ed.), Panchatantram by Vishnu Sharma (Calcutta: Dwei-
payana Press, 1872).
33 Historical present with a durative meaning.
34 M. R. Kale (ed., trans.), Daśakumāracarita of Daṇḍin (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1997).
35 he aorist indicative in classical Sanskrit can indeed express the actual past, but
only with past actions that the speaker witnessed while the actual past events that
the speaker did not witness are presented by two other means for expressing actual
past events; i.e., the present tense or the past participle.
36 Irma Schotsman (ed., trans.), Aśvaghoṣa’s Buddhacarita: he Life of Buddha (Sarnath,
Varanasi: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, 1995).
37 Since the past events at the boundary of the present, expressed by the aorist, have not
yet lost their current nature and their course is still clearly present in the awareness
of the participants to the speech act, any narration about them would be superluous.
It is suicient to be reminded of them.
38 A. B. Gajendragadkar (ed., trans.), he Abhijñāna-Śākuntala of Kālidāsa. (Surat: he
Popular Book Store, no date).
39 When actions from the actual past take place out of sight of the participants to the
speech act, or remain concealed to them in case of internal cognitive or psychological
processes, they have to be presented to the interlocutors in more detail, described.
In the case above the past participle does not remind of an action, because the lat-
ter did not take place in front of our eyes, but rather follows the stream of thought,
describing the action as it goes along.
40 H. H. Wilson (ed., trans.), he Megha Dūta or Cloud Messenger: A Poem in the San-
skrit Language by Kālidāsa (Varanasi: Vidya Vilas Press, 1961, 1st ed. 1843).
41 When the Ganga irst descended from heaven to the Earth, Śiva stopped it with his
immensely long matted hair to prevent it from causing too much damage, as the
Earth was not yet strong enough to bear its charge. his is a generally known past
mythological fact.

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 The Upaniṣads,
Hermeneutics and Indian Tradition1
Lenart Škof

1. Dimensions of intercultural philosophy

In his Intercultural Philosophy, R. A. Mall branches the reach of

intercultural philosophy into four areas: philosophy, theology, poli­
tics and educational science.2 We shall be guided in our progression
to hermeneutic problems of interpreting the Upani™ads by the first
two approaches: in the early prose Upani™ads,3 argument tends to
remain embedded in the theological speech of Brāhma˘as, while it
is precisely these works that include (with a handful of exceptions
that shall be specified) the first examples of philosophical thought
in India. But what role can intercultural thinking play in this his­
tory? Although varying in its approaches, contemporary intercultural
philosophy is based on a fundamental precept that was grounded in
Comparative philosophy (La philosophie comparée, 1923) written
by Masson−Oursel, a ‘positivist’ of Comte’s school, as the princi­
ple of analogy, which was later upgraded by Mall – in line with the
contemporary context of hermeneutic thinking – into his method of
‘analogical hermeneutics’: we may compare different philosophies (as
well as religions; here we are dealing with the ethos of interreligiosity)
without thereby taking away from them the richness of their thematic
differences. In addition, analogical intercultural hermeneutics is char­
acterised by an awareness of the need to establish such intercultural
subject that not only never acts outside its own, historically mediated
reality, but also can be critical of its own tradition, and understand
or enter other traditions. In his explications, Mall does not relay on
(‘early’) Gadamer, but rather on Habermas’s criticism of Gadamer’s
universalism.4 However, there are two parallels to Mall’s intercul­
tural approach that might be of interest for our discussion of modern
hermeneutic implications of the Upani™ads. We are referring to con­
temporaneous intellectuals and pioneers in their respective fields, J.
L. Mehta (1912−1988) and W. C. Smith (1916−2000). The two used
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original methods and thematic emphases to provide important new

insights and open up new horizons to hermeneutic and comparative
or intercultural philosophy on one side, and “Theology of Compara­
tive Religion” or comparative religious studies on the other.
W. C. Smith defines the theology of religions (he reads a subjective
genitive in the phrase) as “a theology of faith in its many forms”, and
comparative religious studies as “a theology of the religious history of
us human beings on earth”.5 But why is it important that comparative
and intercultural philosophers should take Smith’s method seriously?
The answer is that religious history (or history of Christianity, to
which Smith belongs) per se commits to the ethos of ‘interreligious’
(and thereby intercultural, to be sure) understanding, as for every
Christian believer, it is precisely Jesus Christ who is that centre of
faith that calls for all people to be drawn in the domain of closeness
defined by the expression ‘we’.6 Intercultural philosophy, too, em­
braces a (hermeneutic) ethos, underlined by the desire to understand
the other. Its absence is perhaps the most conspicuous characteristic
of the early stage of European or Western Indian studies, which also
drew from the Hegelian philosophical­historical dichotomy between
the childhood and maturity of mind. Such approach, supported by
the infallibility of philological analyses, robbed the Indian tradition
of its cultural­historical context, as it completely disregarded India’s
own interpretative history. This makes it clear why J. L. Mehta, dis­
cussing Hegel, his heritage and the European Indian scholars such as
W. Jones and Th. Colebrook in his last lecture of 1988, speaks of a
total (cultural) horizon of pre­understanding, which also returns the
understanding of Indian sacred writings (what according to Indian
tradition the Upani™ads actually are) back into the domain of Indian
intellectual tradition, to which Mehta himself as a Smārta Brahmán
naturally belonged since birth.7 However, this is only true to a cer­
tain extent: it was Heidegger who opened up to Mehta the total ho­
rizon8 of philosophical thought, and precisely thereby enabled him
to read the Vedic texts philosophically and thus give to the Ťgveda
and, particularly, the Upani™ads that currently relevant hermeneutic
dimension that was to be found neither in the classical Indian nor in
the Western Indian interpretative tradition.9
Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that there has been interpretative
history (i.e. hermeneutics as the Greek skill of interpreting) in Indian
tradition, as instances of it can be found both in its beginnings in the
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 Lenart Škof

form of explanations of Vedic texts and, for example, in Śri Aurob­

indo. K. Roy illustrates this using the example of Śabara’s Bhā™ya (i.e.
a 6th­ century commentary of Jaimini, who supposedly grounded the
system of Přrva Mďmā˝sa), saying that in interpreting Vedic texts, it
is even necessary to go against tradition (which otherwise is consid­
ered sacred; Skt. ‘atikrami™yāma’, meaning ‘to transgress, to go again­
st’) in order to understand it.10 In this context, the Upani™ads in their
original form, characterized by the embedment of Vedic­Upani™adic
man in the microcosmic and macrocosmic world around him, can be
considered as an anticipation of the “existential­hermeneutic trend of
viewing man in his complexity.”11
Paradoxically, it was precisely through Heidegger that Mehta’s po­
sitioning of Indian philosophy (and religion) in the course of world
history – as an instance of Husserlian­like and Heideggerian­like
Europeanisation and planetarization of non­European intellectual
currents in the 20th century – has enabled Indian philosophy to find
inspiration for a new beginning in Vedic texts. In view of enfram­
ing (Gestell) as the predominant mode of today’s existence and the
planet­wide crisis situation of man, Mehta is convinced that “[...] there
is no other open way to us in the East, but to go along with this Eu­
ropeanisation and to go through it. Only through this voyage into the
foreign and the strange can we win back our own self­hood; here as
elsewhere, the way to what is closest to us is the longest way back.”12
Such a voyage to one’s own tradition leading through the detour of
humankind’s Europeanisation is seemingly quite contrary to methods
of intercultural or comparative philosophy sticking to the analogical
principle (which, to be true, is hermeneutically mediated) – i.e. the
juxtaposing of different traditions and the elimination of Europocen­
trisms from philosophy. At the same time, Mehta himself stresses that
the task he set out to accomplish is completely different from both
that of comparative philosophy and that of any all­uniting ‘mysticism’.
Nevertheless, the path he chose appears to be the one that leads to
intercultural philosophical awareness of the future, ipso facto opening
up new horizons to comparative philosophical thought:
If there is any hope of an ultimate unity of divergent philo­
sophies and religions, it lies not in the throwing of dubious
bridges across them, not in questionable syntheses and com­
promises, but solely, through a going back of each to its own
origins, in the leap into this swaying region, vibrant with the
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

possibility of giving voice to its primordial word in a multipli­

city of tongues.13
It was already Heidegger himself who said, referring to Valery’s
question of the future destiny of Europe and the philosophy of the
world:
“It is the great beginning. There is, of course, no return to it.
The great beiginning becomes present, as that which awaits us,
only in its coming to the humble. But the humble can no longer
abide in its occidental isolation. It is opening itself up to those
few other great beginnings which, with their own character,
belong in the sameness of the beginning of the in­finite relation
in which the earth is contained.”14
This is now the domain of ‘Thinking’, the coming about (Ereignis)
itself in the revelation of Being, which is also open to Indian philo­
sophical tradition and its origins – the Ťgveda, the Brāhma˘as, the
Upani™ads... It is the starting point of the path along which man is
touched by speech coming from the spring of truth and through the
godhood of gods. How can we, sent and destined into the suggestion
of this speech, respond to it?

2. The Upani™ads and the tradition of Indian studies

“Is there Philosophy in Asia?”, an essay by the Indian scholar and

comparative philosopher F. Staal, says of the Upani™ads: “That the
Upani™ads are full of absurdities and contradictions is not something
we did not know before.”15 Still, this characterization, supported by
quotes from the later Śrauta sřtras, in which “there are no absurdities,
no contradictions, no arbitrariness: everything is carefully formulated
and subjected to detailed and logical analysis”,16 rounds up a long pe­
riod of such interpretations of Vedic texts since the 19th century – ex­
emplified by authors like F. M. Müller, J. Eggeling, F. Edgerton, A. B.
Keith and others who, despite excellent knowledge of the entire Vedic
tradition from the Sa¤hitãs through the Brhma˘as and the ra˘yakas
to the Upani™ads, insisted on certain derogatory value judgements of
those texts. One of the more negative and scornful essays from (the
end of) this period is undoubtedly Edgerton’s “The Upani™ads: What
do they seek and why?”17 Edgerton, who had (or has) been consid­
ered an authority in Vedic studies, approaches the Upani™ads in line
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 Lenart Škof

with the anthropologic theory of developmental stages of religion(s),

i.e. through the magical and utilitarian contexts (he also applies the
latter to the Ťgveda). He characterizes the cosmic identifications of
the Brāhma˘as, the Āra˘yakas and the Upani™ads as “identifications
of one thing with another, on the slenderest possible basis”. He also
believes that they have nothing to do with philosophy, which accord­
ing to him is “a search for abstract truth” and the domain of a ‘disin­
terested’ contemplation of reality.18 He considers the various vidyas
(i.e. “areas of knowledge”) and the conclusive Upani™adic phrase ya
eva¤ veda (“who knows thus”) as simply oriented towards practical
goals of (magical) acquisition of worldly goods, without leaving space
for any alternative interpretation of how knowledge of the highest
things is related to metaphors of thus acquired man’s wealth (such
as cow herds, offspring, etc.). What is it, then, that the Upani™ads
seek? Edgerton’s answer is: “They are primarly religious rather than
abstractly philosophical. And the historic origin of their attitude, in
primitive ideas about the magic power of knowledge, is still perfectly
clear in them [...].”19
We have already mentioned the possibility that (particularly)
the Upani™ads could be understood as expressing man’s existential­
hermeneutic situation in all its complexity. The possible absence of
logical­analytical or dialectical methods in them should therefore
not be regarded as their essential deficit in relation to, for example,
Greek tradition (i.e. Plato’s great dialogues like the Sophist and the
Theaetetus). If contemporary intercultural philosophy can be tied
with various phenomenologies of the body (‘the microcosm’) and the
surrounding world (‘the macrocosm’), that which the early Upani™adic
philosophers have contributed (also in comparison with Ionic phi­
losophers and Heraclitus) may constitute an important chapter of
those investigations. But let us return one step back: some Indian
interpreters – Belvalkar and Ranade in their History of Indian Phi-
losophy (1927), for example – also speak of “weak points” of the first
Upani™adic writings in the late Brāhma˘a period:
“[...] we do occasionally meet with fanciful word­plays, redun­
dant repetitions, ritualistic conceits, threadbare symbolising,
sacerdotal rewards and cursings and prescriptions and pueri­
lities without number [...]. There are also inconsistencies and
contradictions conscious and unconscious, digressions that
largely impede the progress of the argument [...].” 20
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As Belvalkar and Ranade later position the essence of Upani™adic

thought in the domain of intuitive knowledge as opposed to the
(Greek) logic of argumentative dialectics, two things can be con­
cluded from this: firstly, that, consciously and unconsciously, they are
still struggling with the rather heavy burden of traditional Oriental
and older Indian studies joined by germs of comparative philosophy
and, secondly, that the Upani™adas, with all their mass of interpreta­
tive challenges, may now be understood within the bipolarity of the
argumentative versus the intuitive (or poetic), which, however, can
only be done if we rely on the possibilities of reinterpreting the Vedic
tradition as proposed by Mehta. The question paraphrasing the title
of the abovementioned Edgerton’s essay – Upani™ads, What are they?
–, which the Indian philosopher A. K. Mohanty asks himself,21 can
thus only be answered by a reconsideration of the hermeneutic history
of Vedic texts and their relevance for the present.
It is only thereby that we will be able to understand Mehta’s
reconception of the oldest Indian religiosity in Ťgveda and the be­
ginnings of philosophy in the Upani™ads – a reconception guided by
Heidegger’s idea of new great beginnings of ‘Thinking’ –, and his
belief in the actual power of revitalizing the content that those texts
bring into the present day. Mehta does not believe that Heidegger’s
analyses are shut within the domain of ‘Western’ man:
Is not the tradition of Indian thought one in which the lap­
se into representational thinking – of a different complection
than that in the West, to be sure – has already come under the
scrutiny of thought, is it not a tradition in which an awareness
of the ‘Difference’, of the ‘Identity’, and of the necessity of a
‘reversal’ are present from its earliest beginnings?22
Not only the Japanese or East Asian philosophies (Daoism, Bud­
dhism) in general, which Heidegger slowly and tentatively drew
in his own thought, but also – and especially – the oldest Indian,
Vedic­Upani™adic tradition, with which Western man of Husserl and
Heidegger largely shares the Indo­European linguistic and cultural
(pre)history, may thus be equal parallels to the Greek/European/
Western philosophies and their phenomenological­hermeneutic tra­
dition.23

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 Lenart Škof

3. Progression towards origins: from the ťgvedic Sa¤hitãs

to the early prose Upani™ads

So how to defend Vedic texts against the abovementioned negative

valuations by certain Indian scholars, how – which is even more diffi­
cult – to recognize texts that bring a four­thousand­year­old (Ťgveda)
or an almost­three­thousand­year­old (the oldest prose Upani™ads)
tradition as a presently relevant locus of thought touching upon mod­
ern man? Already Ťgveda, the oldest text of Vedic period, presents us
with Vedic man positioned within the fourfold (here we are following
Mehta’s philosophical intuition) — i.e. the world of man, inhabitant of
earth, a mortal (martyaż) who, however, in the capacity of inspired
poet is open to the heavenly world and its inhabitants, gods (devatāż).
Vedic Indians called the ten thousand stanzas of ťgvedic hymns man-
tras, which in Sanskrit means “instrument of thought”, prayer and the
(sacred) speech of Vedic poets. Hence, a hymn is a mental act, and
speech comes to the ť™i — poet/seer — through bráhman (n.), i.e. that
which he has grasped and expressed in the hymn. A brahmán (m.,
poet, priest; brāhma˘a, m., who knows/chants Vedic texts, priest;
brāhma˘a, n., Vedic texts) is thus one who, in his mind, ‘hears’ the
mantra and formulates it poetically. According to Thieme, the origi­
nal Vedic meaning of bráhman (which later became the Upani™adic
and Vedāntic absolute) is “poetic formulation” (dichterische Formu-
lierung), an activity in which the poet is assisted by gods: the god
Indra is the greatest ť™i, while the god Bťhaspati is the greatest master
of speech. However, by being brought and beautifully formulated
(sutak™an) into hymns (sřkta, “hymn”, “well recited”), bráhman brings
truth (ťta) into the world. Taitirďya sa¤hitā III, 5, 2, 1 says, in Indra’s
voice, to the poet Vasi™ţha: “brāhma˘a¤ te vak™ymi”, “I will reveal
bráhman to you!”, and through the divine gift of poetry, the god Indra
brings to man – the mortal – the truth, whose spring is in the highest
heaven. The guardian of truth is Varu˘a, and its spring is the origin
of both gods and humans. This truth is discerned as luminous, its
highest symbol being light.24 Thus, according to Thieme, bráhman
is an act on the borderline of being inspired with thought/intuition
(dhď) and articulating it (uktha) – first in voice and only later (after
remembering it in mind) in the written form of a text –, and Ťgveda
is an epiphany of this truth, the truth which, however, according to
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

Mehta is not grasped through the representational relation of some

correspondence theory of truth, but rather in the sense of a clearing
(Lichtung), the opening up of space and the bringing of truth (the ťta;
by bráhman) into the world.25 Bráhman is speech, and what is true
in this speech is bráhman.26
Gradually, bráhman evolved from the original ťgvedic meanings
of a power – manifesting itself as sacred speech (Gonda), ‘speaking
in riddles or enigmas’ (Renou), or the already mentioned ‘poetic
formulation’ (Thieme) – into the Upani™adic first principle and the
later Vedãntic absolute. However, for the early Vedic thought, if re­
lated to Heidegger’s and Mehta’s hermeneutic thought, the impor­
tant analyses are those made by J. A. B. van Buitenen in relation
with another important term of Vedic tradition, ak™ara (‘the sylla­
ble’): in addition to bráhman, this word can guide us towards that
locus within the course of Vedic­Upani™adic thought where we are,
as earth­inhabiting mortals, presented with speech. In Ťgveda, the
ak™ara as the syllable is the beginning and source of every speech,
of all hymns and ritual formulas while, being initial, it is also that by
which the whole world abides.27 However, the syllable as the initial
and the smallest in speech is also that which is always preserved in
that speech: in the early Sāmavedic Jaiminďya Upani™ad Brāhma˘a
(1.1), ak™ara is meant for the first time as the sacred syllable of OM,
the first principle of the entire universe, while in the later Mu˘ąaka
Upani™ad (1, 1, 4−5) it is “the hypostasized, the higher bráhman, in
contrast to the lower bráhman ‘Vedic lore’.” 28 Thus, the ak™ara as the
original syllable (most translators of the Upanishads later translate
the ak™ara as ‘the imperishable’) is what grounds and addresses all
speech, what – through bráhman as poetic formulation and, later,
truth formulation – we can recognize, along with Mehta and accord­
ing to van Buitenen, as the womb and, at the same time, the embryo
of all being. It is precisely in this closeness of the universe, and the
course of its being born and reborn at every moment beyond lapsing
into metaphysics – the closeness of the first principle as the first above
everything else – that we can sense the play of the coming about of
Being, expressed in Mehta’s words:
It may be admitted that the thinking of the Ereignis, the reaching
up to this realm, is mediated in the case of the Western man by the
history of his own metaphysical tradition. Does it follow from this
that such dwelling in the ‘Region of the regions’ must always be
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 Lenart Škof
mediated? Does not Heidegger himself admit that it is Being in its
truth that is the all empowering, in which all dispensation has its
source? And even if it is in some sense necessarily mediated, must
its mediation have the unique character of the Western metaphysical
destiny?29
If according to Indian scholarly research, bráhman in its original
sense may be understood as the mysterious power of poetic formula­
tion or hearing by the inspired Vedic poets, and if the related ak™ara
is understood as a manifestation of the formation of speech/word in
the silence of the dawn of the universe, is it not that their coming
about (Ereignis), to which Vedic poets respond when forming their
words into mantras, is the locus from which we can set off on the
long­expected hermeneutic return?
And how is this possibility related with the abovementioned West­
ern scholarly criticisms of Upani™adic philosophy posterior to the
Sa¤hitās and Brāhma˘as, criticisms that have, as we have seen, as­
cribed to the Upani™ads non­philosophical and, in the worst case,
even immature and completely ridiculous thought? What encour­
aged such valuations of the Upani™ads? According to M. Müller, the
Upani™ads as the philosophical conclusion of the Vedas have sup­
posedly overcome the Vedic polytheism, but is it possible – in view
of the hermeneutic return, i.e. the counter­movement compared with
evolutionism supposedly inherent in the Vedic texts according to M.
Müller – to still think in such categories? The meaning of the word
‘upani™ad’, which grammatically­semantically can reliably be ana­
lysed as consisting of the stem ‘*™ad­‘ (‘to sit’) with the prefixes ‘upa’
(‘near to’) and ‘ni’ (‘down’) to mean ‘sitting down’ (upani™ad, f., ‘sit­
ting down at the feet of another’, ‘secret doctrine’),30 was explained
by the Indian tradition in a completely different way than by the
Western Indian scholars. Śałkara primarily understands it in a par­
ticular sense of ‘knowledge’. Western Indian scholars, on the other
hand, understand it within the range from the original ‘sitting at the
feet of a teacher’ (Lassen and Benfey) to meanings less faithful to
grammar and arrived at on the basis of contextual meanings within
the Vedic corpus – i.e., ‘respect’ (of bráhman/ātman – the sacred fire;
Oldenberg), ‘secret formula’ (Deussen; ancient Vedic interpreters also
explained the ‘upani™ad’ as rahasyam, ‘a mystery’) and ‘connection/
equivalence’ (Renou, Falk, Olivelle). It is precisely the latter semantic
group that can be understood as expressing secret (‘mystical’) con-
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions

nections within the triangle of the spheres of ritual work (mantras,

hymns, formulas, prayers), the (macro)cosmos and the human person
(body), characteristic of the entire Vedic tradition.31 Both the inspired
authors of Sa¤hitās and the first Upani™adic philosophers of the final
period of Brāhma˘as and Āra˘yakas desired to grasp the mystery of
cosmic connections. We have seen that bráhman as the mysterious
power of poetic formulation (of mantras, i.e. stanzas and hymns) is
at the same time already the truth of the poet’s speech. However, in
the Upani™ads stress shifts from poetic – mediatory – grasping and
wording within the ritual­cosmic relation, to philosophically articu­
lated wordings – i.e. words or upani™ads of the relation between the
macrocosm and microcosm. In the Upani™ads, the highest manifes­
tation of this is the connection or identity between bráhman (the
all­permeating and all­grounding first principle of the world) and
ătman (the hidden essence and principle of the Self). An important
term (related to the word ‘upani™ad’) for the ‘connection/relation’,
used in the initial period of Indian philosophy, is ‘bandhu’. And it was
precisely the philosophy of wording cosmic connections (bandhutā)
that bothered Western Indian scholars. If this ‘philosophy’ lacks ar­
gumentative power and Greek dialectic methods, what is it then that
it brings, considered now along the hermeneutic return?
Already the period of Brhma˘as is characterised by the so­called
(proto)philosophy of microcosmic and macrocosmic relatedness or
connections (‘bandhutā’), based on the functions of gods in ritu­
als – this is the idea of a number of connections among gods and
animate and inanimate things. As here applies the Vedic thought
“parok™apriyā iva hi devāż pratyak™advi™aż”, “because gods in some
ways love the cryptic and despise the plain”,32 many of those connec­
tions are hidden to the eyes of mortals (Upani™ads as secret knowl­
edge). Thus there are not only natural or evident analogies such as
between the sun and the eye or breath and wind to be found, but also
numerous etymological and phonetical similarities as well as con­
nections made on the basis of an ‘equal’ number of syllables counted
by special methods. Although the etymological connections do not
correspond with the philological (‘scientific’) etymologies, Olivelle is
right to point out that mocking scholarly criticisms of such connec­
tions and of frequent repetitions do not allow us to enter the world
of Upani™adic philosophy, and even less to grasp the perspective of
Vedic worldview. The Bťhadāra˘yaka Upani™ad says:
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 Lenart Škof

And it is also Bťhaspati: Bťhatď, after all, is speech, and it

is the lord (pati) of speech. So it is Bťhaspati. And it is also
Brahma˘aspati. Brahman, after all, is speech, and it is the
lord (pati) of speech. So it is Brahma˘aspati. And it is also the
Sāman. The Sāman, after all, is speech. ‘It is both she (sā) and
he (ama)’ – this gave the name to and discloses the true nature
of the Sāman. Or maybe it is called Sāman, because it is equal
in size (sama) to a gnat or a mosquito, on the one hand, and to
the elephant, to these three worlds, or even to the entire uni­
verse, on the other. When anyone comes to know the Sāman
in this way, he obtains union with and residence in the same
world as the Sāman. And he is also the High Chant (udgďtha).
The ‘high’ (ut) is, after all, breath, for this whole world is held
up (uttabdha) by breath. And ‘chant’ (gďtha) is simply speech.
Since it is high (ut) and it is chant (gďtha), it is the High Chant
(udgďtha).33
The passage is filled with phonetical ‘etymologies’ that, although
not in line with grammatical or philological rules of Sanskrit, uphold
the idea of the primacy of speech (bráhman) and the chant (udgďtha)
in which it is expressed. Udgďtha is frequently identified with the
sacred syllable of OM in the Upani™ads, which is why it is of ex­
treme importance for the ritual act and thought, and for the related
cosmic­mystical connectedness of that which is, with that which is
the hypokeímenon of everything. Sound­phenomenal similarities
and connections unite phenomena and things, and gods and people
into a string of hierarchical relations, into “an integrative vision by
identifying a single, comprehensive and fundamental principle whi­
ch shapes the world.” 34 Thus, all things of the world are linked in
an all­encompassing series of microcosmic (adhyātma¤, i.e. relating
to the body) and macrocosmic relations/connections (earth – body,
waters – semen, fire – speech, breath – wind, sun – eye, sides of the
sky – hearing, moon – mind etc.), grounded either in tman – the all­
encompassing while also the innermost essence of man and other be­
ings and things – or beyond any space/time, in the sacred and eternal
play of the coming about (Ereignis) of the world, i.e. bráhman:
This earth is the honey of all beings and all beings are the honey
of this earth. The radiant and immortal person in the earth and,
in the case of the body (ātman), the radiant and immortal person
residing in the physical body — they are both one’s self (ãtman). It
is the immortal; it is bráhman, it is the Whole [...] This wind is the
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
honey of all beings and all beings are the honey of this wind. The
radiant and immortal person in the wind and, in the case of the body
(ātman), the radiant and immortal person residing in breath — they
are both one’s self (ātman). It is the immortal; it is bráhman, it is
the Whole [...] This self is the honey of all beings and all beings
are the honey of this self. The radiant and immortal person in the
self and the radiant and immortal person connected with the body
(ātman) — they are both one’s self (ātman). It is the immortal; it is
bráhman, it is the Whole. This very self is the lord and king of all
beings. As all the spokes are fastened to the hub and the rim of a
wheel, so to one’s self (ātman) are fastened all beings, all the gods,
all the worlds, all the breaths, and all these bodies (ātman).35

Notes

1 The first version of the text was published in Slovene in the periodical Phain-
omena XII (2004), no. 49–50, pp. 109–122.
2 R. A. Mall, Intercultural Philosophy (Lanham/Boulder/New York/Oxford:
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000), p. 6.
3 The early prose Upani™ads include the Bťhadāra˘yaka, the Chāndogya, the
Taittirďya, the Aitareya and the Kau™ďtaki Upani™ad. According to Olivell
(Upani™ads, tr. P. Olivelle, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998, p. xxxvi), the
probable date of origin of the first two (pre­Buddhist) Upani™ads is the 7th/6th
century BC.
4 Cf. ibid., p. 16.
5 W. C. Smith: “A Reader”, in K. Cracknell (Ed.), Oneworld (Oxford, 2001), p.
215.
6 It is precisely the interreligious ethos that R. A. Mall gives as an example of
intercultural dialogue, defining it as the existence of a variety of paths leading
to the same religious truth (ibid., p. 18).
7 This is the context in which we are to understand Mehta's hermeneutic charac­
terization of Western Indian or, more precisely, Vedic scholars, given within his
discussion of Śri Aurobindo: “[...] the Western scholar is relatively indifferent
to what the Veda, as Œruti, has meant, from age to age, to the people for whom
it was and is a sacred text, and to what it may yet come to mean for them in
the future.” (E. J. Brill, J. L. Mehta on Heidegger, Hermeneutics and Indian
Tradition, W. J. Jackson (Ed.), (Leiden/New York/Köln, 1992), p. 163). Natu­
rally, contemporary Vedic scholars have come to be aware of this danger – M.
Ježić, for example, in his introduction to his translation of the Upani™ads first
gives, “out of respect for Indian tradition”, Śa³kara’s explanation of the term
‘Upani™ad’, and respectfully returns to it in the conclusion, following a detailed
and critical analysis of arguments proposed by (Western) Indian scholars. (M.
Ježić, Ťgvedske upanišadi (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 1999), p. 13 ff.).
8 This is the paraphrase used by W. Jackson in the title of his 'Prelude' to Mehta's
writings (see ibid., pp. 1­24).

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 Lenart Škof
9 P. Olivelle points to Whitney's note in Böhtlingk’s edition of the Upani™ads,
typical of the search of Western Indian scholars­philologists for the ‘true’
meaning of these writings: “And the translation is of that character which I
pointed out in a paper in this journal [i.e. American Journal of Philology, au­
thor's note] some years ago as most to be desired – namely, simply a Sanskrit
scholar’s version, made from the text itself, and not from the native comment,
and aiming to represent just what the treatises themselves say […]” (P. Olivelle,
“Unfaithful Transmitters: Philological Criticism and Critical Editions of the
Upani™ads”, in Journal of Indian Philosophy 26 (1998), p. 173). Olivelle also
stresses that despite modern approaches, interpretations of Upani™adic texts
are still somewhat marked by an unfavourable disposition towards Indian com­
mentators and therewith the more ‘conservative’ editions of the Upani™ads.
10 Cf. K. Roy, “Hermeneutics and Indian Philosophy”, in D. P. Chattopadhyaya &
L. Embree & J. Mohanty (Ed.), Phenomenology and Indian Philosophy (In­
dian Council of Philosophical Research, New Delhi and Center of Advanced
Research in Phenomenology: Boca Raton, 1992), pp. 290−301.
11 Ibid., p. 299.
12 E. J. Brill, J. L. Mehta on Heidegger, Hermeneutics and Indian Tradition, W.
J. Jackson (Ed.), (Leiden/New York/Köln, 1992) – “Foreword”, p. xii.
13 Ibid., p. 90 (Ch. 5: “The saving leap”). Naturally, Mehta warns that once this
path has been beaten, Indian philosophy should not look back anymore but
again start to think in the Indian way.
14 M. Heidegger, Elucidations of Holderlin’s Poetry (tr. Keith Hoeller) (New
York: Humanity Books, 2000), p. 201.
15 F. Staal, “Is there Philosophy in Asia?”, in G. J. Larson and E. Deutsch (Ed.),
Interpreting Across Boundaries: New Essays in Comparative Philosophy (Prin­
ceton Univ. Press: Princeton Mass., 1988), p. 221.
16 Ibid., p. 222.
17 This was Edgerton's 1929 presidential address delivered before the American
Oriental Society. Published in Journal of the American Oriental Society 49
(1929), pp. 97−121.
18 Ibid., p. 99 ff.
19 Ibid., p. 120.
20 S. K. Belvalkar, R. D. Ranade, History of Indian Philosophy, Volume Two −
The Creative Period (Poona: Bilvakuńja Publishing House, 1927), p. 141.
21 A. K. Mohanty, Upani™ads Rediscovered, Ch. 1 (“Upanishads, What are
they?”), (Cuttack: Akash Publ., 1992), pp. 9−29. Mohanty rejects both the or­
thodox (Indian) approach, which refuses to recognise any ‘external’ criticism
of Upani™adic texts, and the approach of those Western Indian scholars who
understand the Upani™ads in terms of their apparent irrational (i.e. emotive)
and thus nonphilosophical tendencies (see “Preface”).
22 E. J. Brill, J. L. Mehta on Heidegger, Hermeneutics and Indian Tradition, W.
J. Jackson, (Ed.), (Leiden /New York /Köln, 1992), p. 93.
23 On the relation between the Western and Japanese traditions in Heidegger
see M. Heidegger, On the Way to Language, tr. by Peter D. Hertz (New York:
Harper and Row Publishers, 1971): “To see it so is in its own way Greek, and
yet in respect of what it sees is no longer, is never again, Greek” (p. 39).
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
24 See P. Thieme, “Bráhman”, in his Kleine Schriften, Franz Steiner Verlag (Wi­
esbaden, 1984), pp. 91−129. The passage from TS cit. after ibid., p. 118.
25 J. L. Mehta, “Reading the Ťgveda: A Phenomenological Essay”, in Phenome-
nology and Indian Philosophy, p. 314 ff. Mehta polemicises with H. Lüders, the
author of a monograph on Varu˘a and the ťti (Göttingen: H. Lüders, Varuna
I/II, Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 1951/1959).
26 Śatapatha brāhma˘a II, 1, 4, 10 says: “vāg vai brahma tasyai vācaż satyam
eva brahma”, “The bráhman is speech: of that speech it is. The bráhman is the
truth” (the Skt. text cit. after The Śatapatha brāhma˘a, Part I (tr. J. Eggeling),
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993, p. 296): however, in this passage Thieme no
longer translates the term ‘bráhman’ as ‘poetic formulation’ (dichterische For-
mulierung) but already as ‘truth formulation’ (Wahrheitsformulierung), indi­
cating the shift that took place in the Brāhma˘as (that are no longer Sa¤hitãs
and thus mantras that were poetically formulated by ť™is) as well as in the
earliest Upani™ads. Naturally, it was already in the early Upani™ads that ideas
of bráhman made one step further towards bráhman as the principle by which
all beings are what they are, and finally the absolute.
27 Studies in Indian Literature and Philosophy: Collected Articles of J. A. B. van
Buitenen (ed. L. Rocher), Delhi: American Institute of Indian Studies/Motilal
Banarsidass, 1988, 157−179: “tataż k™araty ak™ara¤ tad viśvam upa jďvati”,
“therefrom flows the Syllable: on it lives all the world” (Ťgveda 1.164.42; Skt.
text cit. after ibid., p. 159).
28 Cf. ibid., pp. 161 and 166.
29 E. J. Brill, J. L. Mehta on Heidegger, Hermeneutics and Indian Tradition, W.
J. Jackson (Ed.), (Leiden/New York/Köln, 1992), p. 93.
30 For a detailed and critical overview of the entire history of interpreting the
term ‘upani™ad’ see M. Ježić, Ťgvedske upanišadi (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska,
1999), pp. 13−21.
31 Cf. Upani™ads (tr. P. Olivelle), (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998), p. lii ff.
32 BĀU 4, 2, 2. (Upani™ads, op. cit., p. 57).
33 BĀU 1, 3, 20−24 (Upani™ads, p. 11ff.). Bťhati is a type of metre (consisting of
36 syllables in a four­line verse), while it also means ‘extensive’, ‘large’. Sāman is
a liturgical text that, in opposition to the hymns of the ťgvedic and Yajurvedic
Sa¤hitā chanted at three pitch­levels, is sung at five or seven levels. Identity
also exists between the prefix ‘ut’ (‘up’, ‘high’) and ‘uttabdha’ (‘held up’). On
Olivelle see ibid., liv ff.
34 Ibid., p. lv (Olivelle cites from J. Brereton’s essay “The Upanishads”, in Wm.
T. de Bary and I. Bloom (ed.), Approaches to the Indian Classics (New York:
Columbia Univ. Press, 1990), p. 118).
35 The passages are from BĀU 2, 5, 1.; 2, 5, 4; 2, 5, 14−15. (Upani™ads, pp. 30—
32).

— 236 —
 Notes on contributors

Eva Cesar graduated from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, majoring

in Indoeuropean Linguistics. During her studies under the mentorship of
prof. Vlasta Pacheiner-Klander, her interest for Indian philosophy and the
Sanskrit language was aroused, and she proceeded with a Master's degree
in Sanskrit at Banaras Hindu University (Varanasi, India). She is presently
concluding her doctoral dissertation at the same university, on the topic
of devotional literature in sixteenth-century India. She has been deeply
involved in the study of the bhakti movements, the Hindu monotheistic
traditions, for the last ten years, and considers the research extremely re-
warding. Not being an adept in any of the other religious paths, Christian,
Islamic or Buddhist, she nevertheless has an intuition that what the bhakti
movements represent in India is largely comparable to the mystical devo-
tional traditions in other religions.
e-mail: [email protected]

Aleš Črnič, PhD in Sociology of Religion, is Assistant Professor and Head

of the Department of Cultural Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Univer-
sity of Ljubljana. His scientiic interest mainly focuses on new religious
movements, religious freedom, religious pluralism, Asian religions, and
the sociology of religion. In 2005 he published the book V imenu Krišne:
družboslovna študija gibanja Hare Krišna [In the Name of Krishna: A
Sociological Study of the Hare Krishna Movement].
e-mail: [email protected]

Tamara Ditrich, PhD in Indology, has been teaching and researching

in the ield of Indology for over twenty years at several universities: the
University of Ljubljana, the Australian National University and the Uni-
versity of Queensland. Currently she is lecturer in Eastern Religions and
director of the Centre for Buddhist Studies, University of Queensland,
Australia. She teaches Sanskrit, Hinduism, Buddhism and Meditation in
Eastern Religions. Her publications cover several Indological areas such
as Vedic philology and linguistics, ancient Indian religions, the position
of women in the early Hindu tradition, Buddhist meditation in theory and
practice, etc. Her current research focuses on a stylistic analysis of hymns
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
addressing dual deities in the gveda and the contemporary interpretations
of mindfulness in the Theravada Buddhist tradition of South and South-
East Asia.
e-mail: [email protected]

Ana Jelnikar was born in Slovenia and educated in Ljubljana and London
where she is currently completing a PhD at the School of Oriental and
African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She is the translator of the
irst Slovene edition of C. G. Jung's Man and His Symbols, as well as ive
collections of contemporary Slovene poetry, published in both America
and Slovenia. Her most recent publication is an anthology of Six Slovenian
Poets (Arc Publications, 2006), which she co-translated with Stephen Wat-
ts and Kelly Lenox Allan. Jelnikar is one of the founders and organizers
of the annual Golden Boat International Poetry Translation Workshop in
Slovenia. Her scholarly work is forthcoming in North America.
e-mail: [email protected]

Vlasta Pacheiner-Klander, after inishing her studies at the Department

of World Literature and Literary Theory at the Ljubljana University, got
a scholarship to study in India and specialize in Sanskrit literature. She
spent two years at B.H.U., Varanasi, where she passed a postgraduate study
programme in Indian philosophy and culture. After returning home, she
published several books of translations from Sanskrit with explanations
and introductory essays: Kālidāsa’s Šakuntala (Abhijñānaśākuntalam,
1966), Bhagavadgītā (1970 and 1990), an anthology of Sanskrit lyrical
poetry Kot bilke, kot iskre [Like the Blades of Grass, like the Sparks]
(1973), Kālidāsa’s Oblak glasnik [Cloud Messenger] and Letni časi – [The
Seasons] (1974), Zgodba o Savitri [The Story of Sāvitrī] (2002), an antho-
logy of Vedic poems Ko pesem tkem [While I am Weaving a Poem] (2005),
and wrote several articles on Indian themes. As a member of the research
institute for literary studies at the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts,
she wrote a book on ancient Indian poetics (Staroindijska poetika, 1982)
and a book on ancient Indian verse forms (Staroindijske verzne oblike,
2001). She was also engaged for some years as a part-time lecturer in
Sanskrit at the Department of Comparative Linguistics of the Faculty of
Arts in Ljubljana.
Address: Štembalova 26, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

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 Contributors
Ernest Petrič, PhD, Professor of international law and international rela-
tions, member of the International Law Commission and member of Inter-
national Law Association. In 2006-07 Chairman of the Board of Governors
of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Published over 200 articles
and opinions and 5 books on various topics related with international
law and international relations, in particular concerning the protection of
minorities, the right of self-determination, peaceful settlement of dispu-
tes and general trends and processes in the contemporary international
community. He received the highest Slovenian award for the quality of his
research in 1977. He has been accredited as Ambassador of the Republic
of Slovenia to the USA, to the United Nations in New York and to Austria,
and the UN organizations in Vienna and OSCE. In the years 1989-91 he
was Ambassador of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
in India and Nepal.
e-mail: [email protected]

Jože Pirjevec, PhD, Professor of History. He has primarily devoted his

research work to the relationship between the Italians and South Slavs at
the time of Risorgimento, and, secondly, to the history of Russia in the
19th century; in recent decades, he has been concentrating on the history
of Yugoslavia in 1918-1991, especially the war events on that territory, as
well as on the history of the Slovenes in Italy from the mid-19th century on.
As the receiver of grants awarded by various institutions, one by the Soviet
Academy of Science and Arts, one by the Wilson Centre in Washington,
one by the Alexander V. Humboldt Fund and one by the Norwegian Nobel
Institute, he worked in different archives and libraries in Russia, in the
United States of America, in Germany, in Austria, in Italy, in France and,
mainly, in Great Britain. With his scientiic papers on topics he has been
researching, he has frequently taken part in both national and international
meetings, and has given lectures at the universities in Italy, Austria and
Germany. His works include 9 monographs published in Slovene and Itali-
an, about 150 essays that were also published in German, French, Serbian
and Croatian, and numerous newspaper articles. Jože Pirjevec is the cha-
irman of the National and Student Library in Trieste, a research counsellor
of the Science and Research Centre in Koper, a member of Commission
for Higher Slavic Studies in Rome, and a corresponding member of the
Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts, within which he cooperates with
the committee for national minority questions.
e-mail: [email protected]
— 239 —
 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
Marija Sreš was born in 1943 in Bratonci, Slovenia. She joined the Soci-
ety of Christ Jesus, a religious group of sisters, and came to Gujarat, India,
to work with rural women. For thirty years, she worked with the Dungri
Garasiya Bhils, an indigenous group in Sabarkantha, north Gujarat. In
1994 she published her irst collection of short stories in Gujarati on the
lives of the tribal women of Sabarkantha, Girasma ek Dungri (Eng. tr: To
Survive and to Prevail). It was awarded the second prize for short stories
by the Gujarat Sahitya Akademi that year. In 2003, the Gujarat Sahitya
Parishad celebrated its centenary and re-published it in a special edition as
one of the “hundred most signiicant books” in Gujarat literature. In 2006,
six of these stories were ilmed and telecast by Doordarshan Ahmedabad.
A second book, Kavita sathe Samvaad (Eng. tr: Talking to Young Women)
also won a literary award from the Gujarat Sahitya Parishad three years
later. A third book, Jya maru Haiyu, tya maru Ghar (Eng. tr: Home is
where my Heart is) was published in 2005. It presents another 25 character
sketches of tribal women. Marija’s fourth book, First there was Woman
(2007), is a collection of folk tales of the Dungri Garasiya. They are femi-
nist stories of courage, inventiveness and earthy humour from one of the
oldest indigenous tribal groups. Marija’s books have been translated into
English, Slovene, Spanish and Marathi.
e-mail: [email protected]

Lenart Škof, PhD in Religious Studies, is Assistant Professor at the Facul-

ty of Humanities, University of Primorska (Koper, Slovenia). In 2005 he
translated from Sanskrit Bṛhadāraṇyaka and Iśā Upaniṣad and published
the translation under the title “Besede vedske Indije [The Words of Vedic
India]” with the publisher Nova Revija. In 2006, he visited the USA as a
Fulbright visiting scholar in the ield of American and Asian social philo-
sophy at Stanford University. He is employed at the University of Primor-
ska as the Head of the Department of Anthropology, where he also holds
the Chair of Philosophy. He teaches Anthropology of Religion, Anthropo-
logy of Asian Religions and Introduction to Intercultural Thought.
e-mail: [email protected]

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 Contributors
Zmago Šmitek is a professor at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural
Anthropology (Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana, Slovenia). His main interests
include the cultures of Asia and Asian religions, comparative mythology,
history of ethnology and cultural anthropology, and contacts of the Slove-
nes with non-European cultures.
e-mail: [email protected]

Nataša Terbovšek Coklin graduated from the Faculty of Arts in Ljub-

ljana in 2000, with the majors in Comparative Linguistics and General
Linguistics. In 2004 she obtained her M.A. degree with a thesis entitled
The Difference Between Vedic and Classical Sanskrit with Special Regard
to the Verbal System. In 2002 she started to work as Young Researcher
at the Department of Comparative Linguistics at the Faculty of Arts in
Ljubljana. Currently she is teaching Sanskrit at that department and wor-
king on her doctor’s degree. Her research work focuses on the Old Indian
verbal system.
e-mail: [email protected]

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Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
 Index Nominum

A Bhattacharya, N. N, 195.
Al-Hallāj, M., 196 Bhojarāja, 187
Alexander the Great, 82 Bhonsale, J., 11
Amancio, G., 12 Blavatsky, H. P., 83
Anaxarchus, 82 Bocarro, A., 13
Ansari, F., 20 Bode, M. H., 137, 141
Appa, C., 10, 12 Bodhidharma, 104
Aronson, A., 72 Bollée, W. B., 149
Aškerc, A., 58, 67, 91 Bopp, F., 49
Atkinson, W. W., 92 Borštnik, M.
Aurobindo, S., 90, 94, 106, 225, 234 Bragança Pereira, A. B. De, 13–14
Braun, H., 150
Ā Brereton, J. P., 155, 166, 236
Āṇḍāl, 184, 198 Brugmann, K., 201, 220
Buddha, 92–93, 104, 173, 222
B Buddhadatta, A. P., 137, 142, 148–152
Baba, M., 84 Buddhaghosa, 132, 138, 140–42
Bahadur, K. P., 199 Buitenen, J. A. B. van, 230, 236
Bailey, A., 104 Bühler, G., 50–51
Bakarić, V., 22
Baladeva, A., 196 C
Baldensperger, F., 55 Cabaton, A., 149–50
Barbusse, H., 79 Caitanya, ®. K., 87, 169, 177, 185, 199
Barker, E., 105 Cankar, I., 79, 94
Barks, C., 196 Caṇḍīdāsa, 189
Barnett, L. D. ,148, 150 Cappeller, C., 211, 222
Bartol, V., 66, 78 Castro, F., 26 –27
Basanez, M., 106 Cesar, E.,
Basham, A. L., 105 Chaudhuri, A. 77
Bāī, M., 177, 186–87 Chidambaram, P., 42
Bāṇa, V. B., 51, 60 Chinmoy, S., 97
Bebler, Aleš, 17, 21 Colebrooke, H., 179
Bebler, Anton, , 17, 28 Comte, A., 223
Bechert, H., 140, 148, 151–52 Cox, H., 105
Belvalkar, S. K., 227–228, 235 Cremo, M. A, 197.
Benfey, T., 231
Bevk, F., 64 D
Bhagora, J., 112 Danvers, F. C., 13–14
Bhagora, K., 112 Darwin, C., 180
Bhajan, Y., 84 Dayāl, D., 193
Bharadvaj, K., 197 Dāsa, Kanaka, 184–85

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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
Dāsa, Kumbhan, 186 Gandhi, R., 31–32
Dāsa, P., 184 Gautama, S., 104
De, S. D. Geiger, W., 104, 148–151
Deadwyler, W., 195. Gelberg, S. J., 105
Dedijer, V., 15–16, 28 Glaser, K., 49–54, 58, 60–61, 92
Delbrück, B., 54, 201, 220 Godakumbura, C. E., 150, 152
Democritus, 82 Goethe, J. W. von, 51, 56
Deussen, P., 231 Gomes da Silva, H., 6
Dhammakitti, 131, 135, 137, 140–41 Gonda, J., 159, 164, 220, 230
Dhammapāla, 133, 138, 141–42 Goswami, S. D., 197
Dhammaratana, H., 137, 152 Gosvāmī, ®. R.,
Diogenes, 82 Gradnik, A., 54, 64, 66–67, 91, 94
Djerdja, J., 18 Gregorčič, S., 91
Djilas, M., 21 Gujral, I. K., 34
Djurić, D., 78
Dolar, A., 60 H
Drnovšek, J., 108 Haberman, D. L., 196
Dwyer, W. J., 199 Habermas, J., 223
Hallerstein, A., 6, 7, 13
E Hallerstein, V., 13
Eckhart, J., 173 Hametz, M., 78
Edgerton, F., 226–228, 235 Hamilton, M. B., 106
Eggeling, J., 226 Hardy, F., 198
Eisenhower, D. D., 26 Hardy, T., 67
Eisenstein, S. M., 144–145 Hassan II, 27
Ekanātha. 187 Hawley, J. S., 165, 198–199
Eliade, M., 106 Hazard, P., 55-56, 61
Engineer, S., 109, 127 Hegel, G. W. F., 224
Enlai, Z., 22 Heidegger, M., 224–226, 228, 230–31,
234-236
F Heraclitus, 227
Fajdiga, V., 92 Hillebrandt, A., 154, 163
Falk, H. , 231 Hinüber, O. von, 148–150
Fanon, F., 79 Hitler, A., 22,
Fausböll, V., 149–50 Hoffmann, K., 201, 220–221
Figueira, D. M., 60 Hopkins, T. J, 105
Filliozat, J., 163 Htway, T., 133, 137, 149–152
Foulston, L., 165 Humboldt, A. von, 83, 239
France, A., 67 Husserl, E., 228

G J
Gadamer, H. G., 223 Jackson, W., 234
Gallenfells, F. G., Jaiswal, S., 182, 198
Gallenfels, K., 3–4, 14 Jakob, F. H., 3
Gandhi, I., 23 Jakob, J., 3
Gandhi, M., 22, 37, 44, 73–74, 79, Jakob, J. A., 3
189–191 Jakob, J. R., 3
— 244 —
 Index Nominum
Jakob, J. S., 3 Lal, S. K., 154, 163
Jakob, K., 3 Law, S., 10, 14
Jakob, R., 3 Lesjak, G., 106
Jarc, M., 64 Lobato, A., 13
Jayadeva, 189 Lobo de Melho, A., 7, 13
Jazwinski, P. S., 105 Lohia, R. M., 2
Jenko, S., 91 Lokar, J., 77–78
Jensen, A., 67 Luce, G. H., 133, 137, 149–152
Jesus Christ, 109-10, 118, 122, 168, 181, Luckmann, T., 82, 104
224, 240 Ludvik, C., 163–164
Ježić, M., 234, 236 Lukács, L., 12
Jñāneśvara, 187 Lüders, H., 236
Jogananda, P., 99
Jones, W., 179, 224 M
Joshi, J. R., 154, 163 Mādhavendra, P. G., 198–99
Joshi, P. C., 15 Madhvācārya, 84
Macdonell, A. A., 154, 163–65, 180, 197,
K 201, 220
Kabīr, 190-193, 199 Machado, P., 8
Kardelj, E., 16, 19–21, 25, 28 Macmillan, E., 26, 106
Karlin, A., 93 Mahadevananda, S., 199
Kālidāsa, 51–53, 56, 58, 60–61, 218, 222, Mahaprabhu, S. C., 87
238 Maharaj, T. G., 98
Keith, A. B, 163, 226, 235 Maharishi M. Yogi, 84, 97
Kennedy, J. F., 27 Mahākassapa, D., 131, 138, 148
Kenoyer, J. M., 162 Maheswarananda, P. S., 98, 107
Khrushchev, N. S., 19, 23, 26–27 Majumdar, B., 196
Kinsley, D. R., 161, 163, 165 Makarios, A., 27
Knott, K., 105 Malalasekera, G. P., 132, 134–35, 138,
Koralnik, A., 92 141, 149–52
Kosmina, I., 70 Mall, R. A., 223, 234
Kosovel, Anica, 69 Mandela, N., 34–35
Kosovel, Anton, 70 Marcus, H., 163
Kosovel, K., 68 Marcus, M., 163
Kosovel, S., 63–80 Markmann, C. L., 79
Kögler, I., 4 Marshall, J., 162
Kramrisch, S., 165 Masson-Oursel, P., 223
Krishnamachariar, M., 60 Mayrhofer, M., 201, 221, 220, 222
Krishnamurti, J., 93-94 Mehta, G., 90, 106
Kuiper, F. B. J., 164 Mehta, J. L., 223–25, 228-30, 234–35
Kulkarni, A. R., 13-14 Mehtā, N., 186, 188–89
Kurtz, L., 105 Menon, K., 22
Mićunović, V., 19, 28
L Miklošič, F., 49
Lagerlöf, S.,79 Miller, J., 197
Laimbeckhoven, G., 7, 13 Milošević, S., 36
Lal, B. B.,197 Mitterwallner, G. von, 13–14
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 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
Mohanty, A. K., 228, 235 Pizzi, K., 78
Moore, T. S., 65 Plato, 89, 227
Mother Teresa, 118 Podržaj, S., 92
Mukunda, G., 105 Polo, M., 83
Menander, 82 Poniž, D., 70, 78
Müller, F. M., 83, 226, 231 Pope Paul VI, 114
Popović, K., 21
N Popović, V., 28
Nadkarni, R. V., 14 Possehl, G. L., 162
Nagasena, 83 Prabhupada, A. C. B. S., 87, 105, 195
Nasser, G. A., 23, 24–27, 29, 79 Prasad, R. C., 26, 199
Nāmadeva, 187, 192 Premasiri, V., 144
Nānak, 192 Prentiss, K. P., 197
Nehru, J., 15–16, 18, 21–23, 25–27, 29, Prešeren, 58
31, 41, 79, 120 Pyrrho, 82
Neruda, P., 79
Nevill, H., 136–37, 142, 151 R
Nimbārkācārya, 184 Radhakrishnan, S., 21
Nkrumah, K., 26, 79 Radhakunda, S., 95
Novak, B. C., 77 Rajneesh (Osho), 85
Ramakrishna, S., 94, 198
O Ranade, R. D., 227, 228, 235
O’Connel, K. M., 79 Ranadive, B. T., 15
Ocvirk, A., 49, 55–61, 72, 78 Ranković, A., 19, 21
Ogibenin, B. L., 164 Ra‰ganātha, S., 184
Oguibénine, B., 158, 164 Rao, B, 9 –10, 12
Olcott, H. S., 83 Rau, B. N., 17
Oldenberg, H., 83, 142, 154, 164, 231 Ratnamati, 119
Olivelle, P., 231–32, 234–36 Rāmānanda, 167, 174, 176
Onesicritus, 82 Rāmānuja, 169, 183, 198
Renou, L., 163, 201, 220, 230 –31
P Rhys Davids, T. W., 83, 140, 142
Padi, P., 20 Rinpoche, S., 95
Pahi, M., 20 Rochford, B. E., 105
Pande, S., 194, 197 Rodrigues, F., 12
Pandit, V .L., 21 Rolland, R., 79
Panditha, V., 148 Rosen, S., 195, 197
Parakkamabahu I, 131-32 Rossegger, P., 65, 67
Parakkamabahu II, 131 Roth, R., 54
Parpola, A., 162 Roy, K., 225, 235
Penth, H., 152 Rubinstein, A. Z., 28–9
Pereira de São Paio, M., 6 R™mī, Jalāl ud-dīn, 196
Perry, E. D., 201, 220, 222 Ruysbroeck, J., 173
Petrović, S., 77
Piggott, S., 162 S
Pingle, P. M., 157, 164 Saddhatissa, H., 136–38, 140, 142, 149,
Pissurlenkar, P. S., 13–14 151–52
— 246 —
 Index Nominum
Said, E., 57, 77, 79 Staubinger, Z., 29
Saldanha da Gama, J., 4 Steel Olcott, H., 83
Samsa, M., 63 Steiner, R., 94
Saraswati, P., 195 Stenzler, A. F., 201, 220
Saraswati, S. N., 99 Stieff, A., 40
Saraswati, S. S., 99 Stojković, M. M., 29
Sardesai, G. S., 14 Stott, M., 100
Sastroamidjojo, A., 22 Stres, K., 68
Satsvarupa, D. G., 105, 197 Stritar, J., 91
Sathya Sai Baba, 85, 97 Stumpf, K., 4
Sāriputta, 131, 132–38, 140–42, 146–48, Svetina, J., 106
150–52 Subramanian, V. K., 198
Scherber, P., 78 Suchy, J., 92
Schomer, K., 199 Sukarno, 23, 25–27, 79
Schopenhauer, A., 83, 91 Sumedha, 148
Sciacca, A., 28–9 S™radāsa, 177, 186, 192, 199
Selassie, H., 21, 23, 27 Swami, B., 196
Senghor, L. S., 79
Silva, H. G. da, 6 Ś
Singh, V. P., 33 ®abarī, 188, 199
Sivananda, S., 99 ®a‰kara, 179, 183, 198
Shah Durrani, A., 12 Śri Aurobindo, 90, 94, 225, 234
Sharma, R. N., 194
Shastri, B. K., 197 Š
Shinn, L. D., 105 Štante, M., 60
Shri Hans Ji Maharaj, 85
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, 99 T
Shrotri, S. B., 163 Tadić, B., 29
Sluga, G., 78-9 Tagore, R., 54–55, 59, 61, 63, 64–67,
Smith, W. C., 223–223, 234 70–80
Smolej, T., 61 Tapasyananda, S., 198
Soares, G., 119 Tavčar, I., 91
Sōmadāsa, K. D., 142 Thibaut, G., 183, 198
Speyer, J. S., 201, 202, 220 Thieme, P., 201, 220, 229–30, 236
Srinivasachari, P. N., 198 Thumb, A., 201, 220
Srinivasa Chari, S. M., 198 Tichy, E., 201, 220-21
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, 97 Tieghem, D. V., 55
St. Bernard, 177 Tirtha Goswami Maharaj, 98
St. Exupery, A. de, 127 Tito, J. B., 15–17, 19–22, 24–29, 35, 44,
St. Francis Xavier, 118 79, 111, 120
St. Paul, 118 Toller, E., 79
St. Thomas, 67 Tolstoy, L. N., 79
Staal, F., 226, 235 Trubner, K. J., 163–165, 220
Staines, Gladys, 109 Truman, H. S., 17
Staines, Graham, 109 Tulasīdāsa, G., 186, 188–189, 192–193
Stalin, J., 16–23, 28 T™kārāma, 186–187
Stanovnik, M., 61 Tyāgarāja, 192
— 247 —
 Indian Studies - Slovenian Contributions
U W
Underhill, E., 195 Weber, M., 103
Upadhyaya, A. B., 196 Wheeler, M., 162
Whitney, W. D, 201, 220, 222, 235
V William, T., 83
Vajirabuddhi, S., 132–133 Witzel, M., 160, 163-65
Valery, 226 Wulff, D. M., 165
Vallabha, 177, 186, 199
Valvasor, J. V., 3 Y
Varma, R. C., 191 Yareham, V., 164
Vācissara, 131 Yeats, W. B., 64, 79
Vālmīki, 181
Venkataraman, R., 31 Z
Vidyāpati, 186, 189–90 Zilva Wickremasinghe, A. de, 148, 151-
Vilfan, J., 18–20, 28 52
Vilfan, M., 18, 20 Zogović, R., 15
Viṣṇusvāmī, 185
Vi˜˜halanātha, 187 Ž
Vivekānanda, S., 83, 92–94, 182 Župančič, O., 64, 93
Vratuša, A., 28–29
Vyshinsky, A., 17

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