TY - JOUR
AU - Lipner,, Julius
AB - Abstract The term ‘classical’ is routinely used in reference to Hindu tradition, as also to other long-standing cultures for which there is a long literary history, and an established tradition of study. This essay explores the implications of that term in scholarship on Hinduism and other Indian contexts, and suggests how its use can be better refined to highlight the themes of maturity, universality, and continuity. The essay also distinguishes three functions of the term ‘classical’ in literary usage—the periodising, the evaluative, and the programmatic—and seeks to demonstrate how these apply in the context of Hindu tradition. In an essay entitled, ‘Intimations of the Classical in Early Greek Mousikē’, Armand D’Angour (2006) observes, ‘[N]o ancient Greek term corresponds to the complex of qualities connoted by our [modern] words “classical” and “classic.”’2 Yet we use these terms frequently not only in academia, but also in everyday discourse, with a familiarity that belies their semantic elusiveness. In what follows, I shall not pursue the distinction between these two words—though distinctions can be made, of course. Nor shall I deal with the issue of ‘classicization’, viz., the making or remaking of a ‘classical’ tradition in the domain of one sustained endeavour or other.3 I propose to focus, with an emphasis on ‘classical’, on the meaning they share in common, and on whether they can be made to serve a semantically useful function, not least in the transactions of cross-cultural usage (with Hinduism in mind4). Tracing the roots of ‘classics’ and the ‘classical’ Since, to put it somewhat crudely, ‘classical/classic’ are Western terms, our beginning lies in contexts of antique Greek and Latin writing. Mario Citroni (2006), in an essay in the book edited by James Porter cited earlier, notes that it is commonly held that the word classici (the Latin masculine plural of classicus) was used in antiquity as the ‘equivalent of the Greek egkrithentes, that is to say, the technical expression of the Greek language of literary criticism, which indicated the writers included in the lists of model authors’.5 But he goes on to dispute this view, arguing that ‘in the only truly relevant case, classicus has a meaning rather different from the Greek expression, and consequently also from our concept of canonical’ (2006, p.205). He notes various exceptional, uncertain, figurative uses of the term in Latin antiquity to indicate ‘first class’, ‘sure’, ‘reliable’ (2006, pp. 205–6), before concluding that ‘the adjective classicus, which was archaic and rare in the sense of primae classis [viz. “of the first class”] was probably used with reference to writers for the first time by Fronto [a second-century Roman man of letters], as an elegant archaic-sounding stylistic preciosity’ (2006, p.207). In other words, Fronto’s was not a meaning that was generally accepted by his peers. Citroni concludes Extant documents thus lead us to believe that the term [in this sense] was only used in antiquity by Fronto, and possibly by a limited circle of Fronto’s pupils, friends, and cultural heirs, who … quoted his teachings and imitated his language; and we are thus led to believe that the Renaissance usage (and subsequently, the modern usage) derives from the ancient Latin term, not through a continuity of use … from antiquity to the Renaissance, but as a learned reuse, in the humanistic context, of a specific metaphorical expression used by an ancient author (2006, p.209, emphasis added). We are confronted, then, by a word shrouded in semantic uncertainty in antique usage, with meanings that range from ‘sure’ and ‘reliable’ to ‘model’ and ‘first class’. In fact, the term in its European vernacular variants emerges with significance again only it seems from the sixteenth century onwards, apparently in French and English first, and then later, in the eighteenth century, in German.6 This disjunction between ancient and modern meanings of ‘classical’ must dent the confidence of those who believe (i) that they are implementing a clear-cut use of an antique concept; (ii) that such deployment was widespread in ancient times; and (iii) that we are reprising the past linguistically and conceptually in some obvious or incontrovertible way. Indeed, if such lack of confidence is well-grounded so that by current usage we are to some extent being innovative in the use of these terms, then we have scope, it seems, to innovate even further when we speak today of the ‘classical’ and the ‘classic’, as I hope to indicate in this essay—if, in fact, it is a good idea to continue to use these terms at all, not least cross-culturally (which I think it is, as I also hope to demonstrate). Now I suppose that our use of these signifiers is all the more suspect when we import them, qua Western terms, into a cross-cultural context. Dr Michael Loewe who lectured for many years in Chinese studies at the University of Cambridge, and who is a doyen of Sinologists not only in the UK but further afield, wrote that The term ‘Classics’ appealed to the Sinologists of the western world of the nineteenth century whose intellectual background was that of Greece and Rome, and which they applied to their studies of Chinese literature and history.7 … [The expression] ‘Chinese Classics’ … really came into use with the Reverend James Legge’s publication of his second edition of translations of certain basic Chinese texts, in 1895. These texts formed the primary writings of Confucian thinking and education, as adopted and promoted officially. They started as a mere five … in 136 BCE; eventually, by the seventeenth century, they included thirteen texts, which had attracted and would attract an enormous volume of commentaries. In this way, ‘Classics’ translated the Chinese term jing, which a few scholars even translated as ‘scriptures’, seeing the role of these writings as like that of the Bible. There is a further complication in terminology, as different decisions were taken during the centuries regarding the choice of writings to be treated in this highly privileged way; and we also find talk of that process as ‘establishing a canon’. There is a further way, again rather loose and imprecise … in which the term ‘Classical’ has been used, to denote a particular period of time. Usually China’s ‘Classical Age’ refers to the golden years of the Western Zhou Dynasty (1045-771 BCE); or it may extend to the years of Eastern Zhou (up to 481) in which Confucius lived and taught.8 We seem to be dogged, even in a transcultural context, by what Dr Loewe refers to as a ‘rather loose and imprecise’ use of the words ‘classical’ and ‘classic’ in modern times. But though Dr Loewe has not adverted to it, so far as I see, this passage contains reference to the functional use (by the literati of the west) of the words ‘classical’ and ‘classic’, either severally or collectively, in three ways, in all the contexts in which I have encountered these terms. We can distinguish these functional uses as follows: (i) as periodising, that is, as sorting their referents into some segment of time or other; (ii) as evaluative or valorising—note the reference to the formation of a ‘canon’ or standardising norm of some kind in the Loewe quotation; and (iii) as programmatic or directive, viz., as prescriptive of some course of action. We shall explain these three functions of the classical, with illustrations drawn from the Hindu (Sanskritic) tradition, in due course. First, let us revert to the study of ancient Greece and Rome. Here, to single out in the first instance the term ‘classical’s’ periodising function, the pundits seem to have arrived at a fairly clear consensus. In the Introduction to his edited book cited earlier, James Porter writes: Conventionally, classical [Graeco-Roman] antiquity comprises not one comprehensive classical expanse but two isolated classical moments: fifth- and fourth-century Athens, and Augustan Rome. Nor are these strictly symmetrical: most of the prestige gets handed … to Athens, while Roman culture, at least in the modern era, has often been felt to be a shadow or knock-off of the Greek original …. (2006, p.4). This Atheno-centric classification is further divided in some analyses into ‘Early Classical’, from ca. 480 to 450 BCE, ‘High Classical’, from ca. 450 to 400 BCE, and ‘Late Classical’, from ca. 400 to 323 BCE. Note, that if one extends the parameters of this segmentation by a hunderd years or so on either side, most of the luminaries of the ancient Greek ‘philosophical schools’, from the pre-Socratics to Socrates, and through to Plato and Aristotle and on to the early Stoics, fall within its scope. According to the pundits, therefore, the core intellectual–cognitive foundation of ‘classical’ Greece and Rome can be situated in a generally agreed framework of time. This period also includes, in terms of reflected cultural norms of excellence, Augustan Rome, viz., more or less the first century before the Common Era. Now it is perhaps lamentable, on the other hand, that with regard to a primary focus of this essay, there seems to be very little consensus, if any, among Indologists about the periodising function of ‘classical’ or its equivalent(s) for calibrating the foundational intellectual–cognitive bases and systems of Sanskritic Hinduism. As in the case of their Greek counterparts where the history of Western philosophy is concerned—did not Whitehead opine that the European philosophical tradition is but a series of footnotes to Plato?—these Indian knowledge bases have long enjoyed an energising role in the development of their own impressive intellectual tradition. The concepts and their interrelations generated by these cognitive bases have been crucial for the development of this tradition. Presently, I shall try to show the lack of a consensus among Indologists about this periodising function of ‘classical’. First, however, we must address a methodological issue that arises here. ‘Classical’, ‘classic’ and their variants are, as I have noted before, Western hermeneutic terms, at home in Western contexts. We have seen from the Loewe quotation how Western experts in their studies of Chinese traditions applied the concepts these terms represent somewhat peremptorily to their objects of inquiry, some even translating certain Chinese texts which were given paradigmatic status, as ‘scriptures’, by comparing their authority to that of the Bible. Was not such cavalier usage, to use Barbara Holdrege’s (2010) words, yet another instance of European ‘epistemological hegemony’, an unwitting attempt perhaps to ‘legitimate and perpetuate colonial and neo-colonial projects’9 (such as the unfavourable comparison, in some circles, of the Daoist/Confucian ‘scriptures’ with the Christian scriptures, so as to justify aggressive missionising strategies), or, as Katherine Butler Schofield says, an attempt to use ‘signifiers of superior power and—in colonial contexts—[of] European political, scientific, and cultural [we can add “religious”] superiority’ (2010, p.485)? Shades from Edward Said’s work on Orientalism come to mind. But do we need to be trapped in this mindset? Not necessarily, I contend. Like the terms ‘Hinduism’, ‘Buddhism’, ‘Christianity’ etc. for which Wilfred Cantwell Smith and others have shown a parallel problematic,10 we cannot jettison the terms ‘Classical’, and ‘classic’; they are too deeply entrenched in our vocabularies. On the grounds of impracticality and set practice, we cannot substitute them, I believe, with other signifiers or descriptors, whatever these may be, for the latter will simply usurp the role of the former, and their use will continue regardless. Here I shall not attempt the full-blown rehabilitation of these terms but seek only to demonstrate their scope and the manner of their deployment, while remaining alert to their hegemonic hazards. These Western terms can be decolonised, provided we are methodologically vigilant. If such decontamination were not possible, what a bleak future awaits us in a globalising world of increasingly porous boundaries, not only physically but also linguistically and intellectually! And is it not the case that just ‘to be aware, helps avoid the snare’? Now to the lack of consensus, as I see it, among Indologists about the use of ‘classical’ as a periodising term with respect to the Hindu (Sanskritic) foundational intellectual–cognitive tradition. Here, a comment about our use of ‘Sanskritic’ might be helpful. ‘Sanskrit’ is the anglicised form of saṃskṛta, which can be translated as ‘perfected’, ‘refined’, ‘polished’. This term refers most properly to the language in its standardised form as based on its codification by the master-grammarian, Pāṇini, in his authoritative Aṣṭādhyāyī (ca. fifth century BCE).11 Scholars classify its developmental phases in various ways and under various names, which we need not dwell on here.12 However, there is general scholarly agreement that notwithstanding the particular designations of these phases, viz. ‘Vedic Sanskrit’, ‘Purāṇic Sanskrit’, ‘classical Sanskrit’ and so on, all may be described generically as belonging to the development of ‘Sanskrit’, and it is in this generic sense that we are using the term in this essay. Now to the matter at hand. On ‘classics’ and the ‘classical’ in study of India By looking at a few salient examples from the last four decades or so, we can go on to consider the rather indeterminate way in which ‘classical’ is used by Indologists at present—in comparative contrast to scholars of Greek antiquity—to periodise the foundational Hindu Sanskritic cognitive bases and systems. In the preface to his Classical Hinduism, Mariasusai Dhavamony provides a chronology of various phases of Hinduism. ‘The earliest phase of Hinduism’, he writes, ‘is rooted in Vedism. Vedism in its strict sense is the religion which is reflected in the Vedic Saṃhitās (1000 B.C.) …. Brāhmanaism [sic] is that form of religion which is found in the Brāhmaṇas (800-600 B.C.), in the Āraṇyakas (600 B.C.) and in the Upaniṣads (600-300 B.C.) …. Classical Hinduism proper developed from the forms of Vedism and Brāhmaṇism [sic] and lasted until the eighth century AD’ (1982, p.2). If ‘Classical Hinduism’ developed from the forms of Vedism and Brāhmaṇism (which ended in about 300 BCE) and lasted till the eighth century CE, it does not include the Saṃhitās and Upaniṣads (nor the Purāṇas, which Dhavamony ascribes to the phase of ‘Sectarian Hinduism’, viz., from ‘800 AD onwards’, p.2); thus, for Dhavamony, ‘Classical Hinduism’ extends for about a millennium, viz., from 300 BCE to 800 CE. In the preface of his Classical Hindu Thought: An Introduction, the noted philosopher of religion, Arvind Sharma, begins with a disclaimer: ‘This book does not deal with classical Hinduism in its entirety. Religions are multidimensional and Hinduism is no exception’ (p.vii). Subsequently, he continues, ‘[T]his book sets out to explore the doctrinal dimension of classical Hinduism’ (p.vii). And what might the time span of ‘classical Hinduism’ be here, we ask? In his introduction, Sharma writes that ‘Classical Hinduism’ runs from the ‘eighth century BCE to circa 1000 CE …. In textual terms this covers the period from the Upaniṣads down to the late Purāṇas, and all that comes between them’ (2000, p.xxiv). Now that is a period of nearly two millennia, and it includes the Purāṇas. It is not to the point whether the time frame given for the Upaniṣads and the ‘late Purāṇas’ is accurately represented here; that is a separate issue. It is to the point that for Professor Sharma ‘Classical Hinduism’, by which he appears to mean that part of Hinduism which grounded (Sanskritic) Hindu doctrine and thought, covers a time span of nearly two thousand years. In his essay, ‘The Bhagavadgītā and Classical Hinduism’ (in Sharma 2003), Milton Eder (2003) writes: ‘The development of classical Hinduism for most historians of India occurs from the fourth century CE. Lasting about four centuries, classical Hinduism is coterminous with the reign of the Guptas’ (pp.179–80). The length of the classical period here is only about four hundred years. Eder, like the other scholars we are considering, does not substantiate his claim. Further, it must be borne in mind that the ‘reign of the Guptas’ is associated with the rise especially of artistic and literary excellence as occurring only in certain parts of Hindu India, and leaves out the cultural achievements of other parts of the subcontinent, e.g., peninsular India. In the light of this observation, and in the absence of any evidence from Eder as to whether ‘most historians’ actually do concur that classical Hinduism tout court is coterminous with the reign of the Guptas, we must ask: what notion of ‘classical’ does Eder have in mind, not least with reference to the Gītā, which though a powerful religious text, has little claim to literary or intellectual merit? We shall return to the Gītā in a different context in due course, but the matter I wish to draw attention to is once again the semantic imprecision lurking in the use of ‘classical’ here, not least with regard to its periodising function. But let us continue with our survey. In the distinguished philosopher, Jonardan Ganeri’s Philosophy in Classical India(2001), we read in the Frontispiece (apparently written by Ganeri himself) that the book treats of ‘the philosophical literature of ancient and classical India’. So we are dealing once more with the normative development of Sanskritic Hinduism’s cognitive tradition. This is all to the good, since, as stated earlier, that has been our focus hitherto. But Ganeri offers no clarification of the phrase, ‘ancient and classical’. Does the ‘and’ here have an inclusive or an exclusive function? Is the meaning intended to be ‘ancient as well as classical India’, or rather, ‘ancient, that is, classical India?’ The lack of clarity in the meaning of ‘classical’ is now compounded. The inquiry starts in Chapter 1 with reference to Gautama Akṣapāda’s treatise on the use of reason, the Nyāyasūtra, ‘the redaction of which took place in the first or second century AD’ (p.10), and then dwells on Vātsyāyana Pakṣilasvāmin’s (ca. A.D. 400) understanding of critical inquiry in the light of the Nyāyasūtra. This is followed in subsequent chapters by studies on a succession of Buddhist, Jaina, and Hindu thinkers, ending with the Advaita dialectician, Śrī Harṣa (‘ca. A.D. 1140’, p.156ff.). If this is the span of philosophy in ‘classical’ India (including Hinduism), we are dealing with a period of some 1100 years (without inclusion of the Upaniṣads or prior texts). Our final example is taken from the well-known philosopher of religion and theologian, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad’s Knowledge and Liberation in Classical Indian Thought (2001). In his Introduction, Ram-Prasad observes that the ‘classical schools studied here are: Bhāṭṭa Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya, Yogācāra-Mādhyamika and Advaita Vedānta’ (p.1), which, according to various dates given in the book range loosely over a period from Jaimini (ca. 200 BCE, p.7ff.) to Advaitic thinkers of 16th century (see p.192ff.) and even later (Dharmarāja in the seventeenth century; see also chronology on p.x). All in all, I make this about a couple of centuries short of two millennia.13 In our panoramic survey, the term ‘classical’, with respect to the intellectual bases of Hinduism, is used to cover usually extensive but disparate segments of time, in some cases inclusive of the Upaniṣads and in other cases, not. We could mention many more examples up to the present day, but I hope enough has been done to give a fair indication of the point we are making. Faced with the need to specify a general period for the formation of the ‘classical’ Hindu (or more comprehensively, Indian) Sanskritic cognitive–intellectual tradition, these distinguished scholars have had to come up with their own (disparate) time frames, without being able to rely on an accredited consensus for doing so. I must admit that I too have felt this lack and have on occasion referred to the ‘classical’ schools of Hinduism, to its ‘classical’ thought, to the ‘classical’ Upaniṣads, without clarifying what (I could) mean by the use of this term. Is it not time for Indological scholars to come together, perhaps during a meeting of the American Academy of Religion or some other suitable body, to debate the issue and agree on a time frame, with reasons, for designating the ‘classical’ period, collectively and perhaps also individually, of the Indian/Hindu foundational intellectual/cognitive systems—if it is thought desirable to continue to use this term as a meaningful periodiser? No doubt, to avoid the methodological pitfalls mentioned earlier, such deliberation would need to take account of matters internal and external to the Indian traditions concerned, such as the role of Sanskrit in determining the matter; for and by whom these conclusions are intended; the traditions’ own decisions of self-assessment in terms of their recognised standards of excellence and calibrating authority; the need for, and purpose of, such standards in the first place, and so on—all considerations which incorporate an understanding of the two other functions of the terms ‘classical’ and ‘classic’ which we have mentioned earlier: the evaluative and the programmatic—and it is to this that we now turn. But first, it seems, we must tackle the following questions: What is the point of thinking in terms of the ‘classical’ in the first place? Indeed, not least with the transcultural in view, can we cope with a classical at all? Or is establishing such a standard really a way of setting up a false signifier, by unhelpfully creating distinctions between elites and non-elites, say,14 or corralling certain human achievements into exclusionary preserves of some sort, or setting up tendentious, regulative or misleading criteria to achieve culturally ulterior ends? In the book cited earlier, James Porter reports that at the turn of the nineteenth century, the German scholar of Greek antiquity, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1848–1931) boasted that ‘he helped put paid to the word classical, which he found meaningless’, yet v. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff could also write to a former pupil, ‘I have an idea what classical physics is, and there is classical music. But besides that?’ (cf. Porter 2006, p.1). It is remarkable how scholars are prepared on occasion to dispense with certain iconic descriptors as meaningless for their own fields of study, but seem quite happy to retain them as meaningful for disciplines other than their own. I shall now argue that far from being ‘meaningless’, the concept of ‘classical’ (or some agreed equivalent) and its deployment is a cultural need of any civilization; that without some norm designated by the term our human achievements lack ballast and/or anchorage and/or proper measure, and/or even direction for the future by way of providing a reference point from which we may deviate creatively—and further, that proper handling of the classical can enhance social cohesiveness.15 In this respect, in the article mentioned earlier, Butler Schofield raises an interesting point with regard to transcultural contexts. Her point is made with Indian music in mind, but it clearly applies to other disciplines too. Quoting Amanda Weidman to the effect that the ‘canonical place’ accorded Indian classical music in the discipline of ethnomusicology is due to the fact that ‘its status as … classical music … [a]llowed many ethnomusicology programs in the West to argue … [t]hat their field was legitimate, indeed, commensurate with [western] musicology’, she observes that ‘Indian music’s classical status assisted its students to fight for the equal place of world cultures in the Western academy, using the discursive weaponry of [Western] musicology against itself’ (2010, p.485, emphasis added). In other words, if the classical can be imported as a signifier of excellence etc. into a transcultural context, then this implies an equal status academically for the non-Western discipline under scrutiny in respect of implementation of analogous canons of excellence. Of course, it is only by the appropriate academic study of the discipline in question that these norms of excellence—the discipline’s ‘classical’ status—can be justified. Beyond periodisation: Relevance and continuity And so we can now ask: how does the ‘classical’ do its job? How does it define an endeavour, a tradition, and an achievement? What are its uses, not only as a periodiser, but also as a valorising and programmatic concept/term? We can start with a list Porter provides purporting to give various criteria of the classical (including in its evaluative and programmatic functions), though he makes no reference to the three functional uses we have distinguished, working as a trio, each in its own way, to bear the semantic weight of ‘classical/classic’. Here is his list with our gloss in terms of these three functions: ‘Anatomies of the term classical’, writes Porter, ‘typically list the following uses: Designating or pertaining to the whole of Greek and Roman civilization in antiquity. [The “classical” as a periodizing term] As a periodizing term, designating the two periods of less than half a century each that are commonly regarded as high points with the Greek and Roman classical civilizations …. In the case of Athens, this period is sometimes extended by another half-century or more into the age of Plato, Isocrates, Demosthenes, and Aristotle. [The “classical” mainly as a periodizing term again] As a paradigmatic quality or feature or set of features of aesthetic, moral, or intellectual excellence or perfection, whether of style, content, or attitude, often modeled on phenomena from classical antiquity … and felt to exhibit qualities of measure, restraint, and order, in addition to clarity, simplicity, unity, balance, symmetry, harmony and the like. [We have here reference to the “classical” as a valorizing or evaluative term] Developments in other cultures and civilizations parallel to, but often autonomous of those meanings listed above, for instance, classical French literature produced during the period of French classicism, which need not imply a direct reference to Greek and Roman classical models …. [This is somewhat opaque—much more needs to be said regarding “often autonomous of those meanings”; however, the word “Developments” seems to imply reference to “classical” by way of its evaluative and programmatic functions—to be discussed as categories, presently] As a contrast with romantic or popular, or gothic and baroque, especially in the realm of music, often drawing upon the classical aesthetic in (3) above, and identified with specific stylistic and thematic features or qualities’ [Here all three functions are implied: the periodizing, the evaluative, and the programmatic] (2006, pp.14–15). Collectively, these criteria are orientated towards Western culture, of course, but they also contain useful generic markers of the classical per se (cf. no. 4).16 Let us now pursue our inquiry into the classical with particular reference to its evaluative and programmatic functions, in terms of items 3 and 4 above. In considering T.S. Eliot’s stark question, ‘What is a Classic?’—the title of Eliot’s Presidential Address to the Virgil Society in 1944—Frank Kermode observes that the question ‘is a very old one, for it must be asked in some form whenever there is in process any kind of secular canon-formation, any choice of authorities in matters of doctrine and style …’. He goes on to say, ‘The doctrine of classic as model or criterion entails, in some form, the assumption that the ancient can be more or less immediately relevant and available, in a sense contemporaneous with the modern—or anyway that its nature is such that it can, by strategies of accommodation, be made so …. It is a question of how the works of the past may retain identity in change, of the mode in which the ancient presents itself to the modern’ (1983, pp.15–16, emphasis added). In other words, for the classical to remain alive, it must be relevant in some way to the present, and for this to happen there must be ‘identity in change’. But how is this to happen? This can only occur by means of an ongoing dialectic between the classical of the past, and its renewal or re-embodiment in the present. To describe something of the more or less distant past as classical, is to fix it with a certain gaze—whether literary, artistic, religious, or whatever—that arises from a judgement based on its being reckoned as a model, or norm, or measure of excellence, in some way. Reckoned thus by whom? We may answer: by a recognised elite or some group (not necessarily an elite) invested with the appropriate authority. This standard is then applied, again by some recognised source, to contexts of the present. But despite ‘the rhetoric of permanence, which is the rhetoric of classicism, the classical is necessarily a moving object because it is an object constituted by its interpreters, variously and over time’ (Porter 2006, p.52, emphasis added). To dub the classical a moving target means that what is classical for me might not be classical for you, and what is valued as classical today may fall into desuetude tomorrow. Not only that, stuff from the past hitherto not deemed to be a norm of excellence, may be reappraised later as ‘classical’ under new perspectives. For standards of excellence can vary through time and circumstance, depending on the needs and perceptions of the receiving community. Despite pretensions to the contrary, then, this gives to the classical a somewhat precarious existence, though, as we shall see, the ‘traditional classical’, if I can call it that, remains a vital starting point. D’Angour observes that Plato, by his theory of forms or types, has played a major part in setting up this conception. ‘Plato’s philosophical influence … may … be considered key to the development of the notion of the classical—its effective redefinition as a set of formal ideals attributable to timeless exemplars from the past, rather than a ceaseless quest for novelty and for the creative expression of vital contemporary concerns’ (in Porter 2006, p.105). Plato has helped us establish a starting point for discerning standards of cultural excellence in the West, it is true, but though he helped regulate the ‘ceaseless quest for novelty’, he could not wish to stifle it, else there would be no going forward into newer forms of creativity. Indeed, we could say in wider context that it is the interaction of the stasis of the past with the changes of the present that keeps the classical alive and creative. Through this interaction, the classical’s periodising, evaluative and programmatic functions combine to produce continuous momentum towards ever-new embodiments of its form. In other words, the classical contains the seeds of its own innovation. Without this dynamic, the classical would wither and die. An integral part of this project is the act of self-representation whereby select, established norms reflect those criteria through which we see ourselves at our best, allowing us, by way of their mutable, material re-embodiments to legitimise continuous change and the effort to achieve perfection.17 From this flows the perception that the classical also provides us with ways to deviate creatively from benchmarks of the past as an inevitable feature of human striving—making a virtue out of necessity, so to speak, by exploring our being in continuous acts of self-renewal, artistically and otherwise, perhaps even by cocking a snoot at hallowed ideals of the past. The ‘traditional classical’ allows us to do all these things just by being there; it acts as a starting point towards a creative end (a salutary reminder for those ‘post-modernists’ who have lost sight of the very basis of their post-modern concerns). But theorising has its limits. It is time now for us to illustrate this renewing use of the ‘classical’. After all, is not a picture worth a thousand—perhaps many more—words? The revitalisation of the classical is often done by bringing the classical/classic ‘up to date’. A leading antique or subsequent trope, theme, text—generally accepted as an ideal or norm in some way—is chosen and transmogrified into a more modern form. Thus, to take examples from literary genres, we get a modern production of a work by Euripides or Shakespeare, George Eliot, or even Agatha Christie, in which, through a change of idiom or time or context etc., an attempt is made to make the play ‘relevant’ for modern times. Such ‘updating’ can also be done with the classical in non-Western cultures, of course. I shall not dwell further on this familiar course of action except to say that it is commendable if judiciously attempted. This is one important way of re-invigorating the classical, even to the point, on occasion, of altering the plot or storyline within a recognisable narratival frame. The classical must remain malleable to creative concerns of the present, and this is one way of doing it. But the classical can also be re-embodied trans-linguistically or cross-culturally, in order to keep it alive and relevant, and it is with an illustration or two of such less obvious transpositions of the classical that we shall now be concerned. An acknowledged master of the literary classical in the Sanskritic tradition is the fifth-century CE poet and dramatist, Kālidāsa.18 Our illustration is drawn from his mahākāvya or court epic, the Kumārasambhava: ‘The Birth of Kumāra’. We take up the thread in medias res. God Śiva is engaged in a prolonged bout of meditation, for this is one of the things that Śiva does really well. Microcosmically, through meditation Śiva gains control of himself, and by extension, macrocosmically, of the universe, for here the microcosmic encapsulates the macrocosmic. By means of deep meditation Śiva accumulates and centres power. Of course, this requires profound concentration with no disruption. We are in the mythic realm of Hinduism here dealing with an understanding of the Divine that operates on three levels: the theological or metaphysical, the mythic or narrative, and the liturgical or ritualistic.19 While it would be the task of the theologian to integrate the three, not least by extracting selectively what s/he may need from the mythic with which, as everyone knows, Hinduism abounds, the poet is free to deal only with the mythic. Kālidāsa, being a poet and not a theologian, is content with exploring the myth. We return to Śiva as he sits deep in meditation in a Himalayan grove. The mythic Śiva, though divine, is also irascible, so there is all the more reason not to disturb him. But there is a complication. While Śiva is thus absorbed, the demon Tāraka is busy terrorising the whole of creation, including the lesser deities. The heavenly cohort have been informed by Brahmā, the creator, that only if Śiva marries and impregnates Pārvatī, the beautiful daughter of the Himālayas personified, will their son Kumāra be born, and it is only he who will be able to bring Tāraka’s depredations to an end. So there is no time to lose. But Śiva is immersed in meditation, with sexual desire the last thing on his mind. Time for some disruption. The heavenly cohort enlist Kāma, the god of love, to come to the world’s aid. So Kāma, in the company of his wife Rati, goes to the grove where Śiva is meditating, and surveys the scene. Beholding the great God rapt in concentration, motionless ‘like a lamp not flickering when sheltered from the wind’ (nivātaniṣkampam iva pradīpam, 3.48), Kāma quails at the thought of what he is there to do. Just then Śiva emerges from his trance to take a short break—deep meditation is a tiring business—and the ravishingly beautiful Pārvatī is given leave to attend to him. Now’s the time for Kāma to do his thing. As Pārvatī attends to the great God, Kāma takes up his position, ready to release his feathery shaft of desire at Śiva in Pārvatī’s presence. But just then Śiva notices what he is about, and furious, shoots his own bolt of fire at the hapless Kāma first, from his third eye of insight in the middle of his forehead, and instantly reduces the god of love to ashes. This is the cue for Rati to embark on a prolonged and powerful lament at Kālidāsa’s hands, on behalf of her beloved spouse. Much of the fourth Canto of the poem is taken up by Rati’s lament, but the verse we shall single out is the sixth verse of this Canto. Let me give the Sanskrit first, and then my rather inadequate translation. Kva nu māṃ tvadadhīnajīvitāṃ vinikīrya kṣaṇabhinnasauhṛdaḥ/ Nalinīṃ kṣatasetubandhano jalasaṃghāta ivāsi vidrūtaḥ// O where are you—our love lost in a moment— Who’s abandoned me, even as I’ve lived for you? You’ve left me like a mass of water rushing Through a broken dam abandons a lotus flower. I shall not burden the reader with matters of meter and syntax. Consider rather the poignancy of the simile, which was not lost on its attentive audience so familiar through art, literature, and religious imagery with the multifaceted significance of the lotus flower. The sudden impact of Rati’s loss (kṣaṇabhinna-), the total dependence for life (tvadadhīnajīvitā-) on a source that has vanished away, represented by the delicate lotus flower (nalinī: a feminine noun, when masculine and neuter nouns could have been substituted) straining in vain to cling to the very source of its existence—the waters that are rushing away (vidrūta)—are collectively expressed in a masterly fusion of words and images through the aesthetic of a language (‘classical’ Sanskrit) that had by now assumed an unrivalled potency among its clientele to capture both the feelings and the imagination. As we shall note more fully later on, there is a maturity of expression in evidence here that is the mark of the classical. Various things must come together for such maturity to develop, such as the rise of an appropriate aesthetic that can be expressed through a developed verbal or artistic medium; a tradition of expertise and patronage for conveying the requisite skills, and, of course, the personal genius necessary to blend these elements innovatively together so as to bring about the desired result. It is through such maturity that the classical, whether in literary, artistic or religious contexts, can evoke time and again, in the attuned eye or ear, a re-embodiment of its original self. We can inquire now into how this re-embodiment might take place. Nearly a millennium and a half later, that pioneer of the Bengali novel, Bankimcandra Chatterji (1838–94), could include this verse in the dedication of his famous patriotic novel, Ānandamaṭh, in order to express the poignancy of his grief at the death of a close friend.20 It was hardly necessary for him to expatiate further. Those who were privy to this world of classical discourse could appreciate through the mere repetition of this verse, originally set in its classic context centuries earlier, the depth of Bankim’s sorrow. The antique original has been transposed into the context of the present. But further, through acts of literary hybridisation, Bankim has inserted the Sanskrit—the mother tongue, so to speak—into the matrix of the vernacular, in the process giving the latter a new authority in its role as receptor language. And this has been done in a transcultural context, viz., (i) the act of dedication (ii) in a novel, both essentially Western tropes, foreign to the Indic literary tradition. This also becomes an act of legitimation for the novel itself as a new literary genre in the context of the Indian vernacular. We see here the evaluative and programmatic functions of the classical in play. Bankim has valorised this verse by singling it out as conducive for his purposes, that is, as evocatively potent for expressing his sense of loss. But he has also given the verse a programmatic orientation. By taking recourse to it, he has shown that it can direct a future course of action; he has re-embodied its classical status by making it part of a drive to shoulder a new semantic weight, not least in a trans-linguistic context. But he has used the Kumārasambhava to go even further in this direction. In his final (Bengali) novel, Sītārām, some years later, Bankim has again innovatively extrapolated the text. We arrive at a moment in the narrative when Gangaram—the chief security officer, shall we say, of the eponymous Sitaram’s kingdom—succumbs to the charms of Sitaram’s innocent, junior wife, Roma, when her husband is away. Here the scene is different. It is night, and Gangaram has been called to Roma’s private quarters in secret to allay her fears over a possible attack on the kingdom. The lamplight has been playing on Roma’s loveliness, and Gangaram is smitten. In describing the scene, Bankim writes (my translation): ‘If Gangaram had the eyes to see, he would have noticed someone else lurking on the scene. [Then without more ado, to describe this hidden someone, he quotes from the Sanskrit of vr.70 from Canto 3 of the Kumārasambhava] “Love self-sprung, shoulder curved, fist held to the corner of his right eye, left foot turned in—ready to fire, his handsome bow full-circle drawn.”’ It is Kāma again, on the point of executing the fell deed, of releasing his unerring shaft of love, at Śiva in the original poem, but now at Gangaram in the novel! Again, a classic description from a classic source: ‘shoulder curved (natāṃsam)’ by the strain of drawing the tight bow, ‘left foot turned in’ (ākuñcitasavyapādam)—a wonderfully realistic description!—‘his handsome bow full-circle drawn’ (cakrīkṛtacārucāpam). Can you catch, in the clash of palatals and gutturals, the slight creak (cakrīkṛta-) of Kāma’s fully-stretched bow alerting Śiva to his clandestine presence? And do you not hear, through the plosive combination of palatal and labial in cāPAM, the anticipated twang of the bow about to release its shaft? In fact, in the novel, Kāma has released his arrow, in contrast to the action in the original, so that the die is cast in a scenario that is unexpected for both reader and the dramatis personae. Here again the classical is at work: evoking the desired reaction in the reader by turning to a standard or ideal—the literary trope of Kāma—configured first in masterly fashion by Kālidāsa in the original, and then reconfigured effectively in its new context in the novel. By this skilful valorising of the past as directive for a new present, the classical has fulfilled its evolutionary purpose. It is reborn, not only into the context at hand—the ‘local’—but also into the vernacular. And because this transformation has taken place at the hands of a master, the local, by means of its wide dissemination among the reading public, becomes ‘universalized’. We shall advert to this exocentric trait of the classical again when treating of the Bhagavad Gītā. It is obvious that many more illustrations could be given to establish our point, but we do not have the space to pursue this here. Instead, we can consolidate the point made that maturity is the underlying characteristic of the ‘classical/classic’ by adverting to Eliot’s keynote address mentioned earlier. Here he says: If there is one word on which we can fix, which will suggest the maximum of what I mean by the term “a classic”, it is the word maturity …. A classic can only occur when a civilization is mature; when a language and a literature are mature; and it must be the work of a mature mind. It is the importance of that civilization and of that language, as well as the comprehensiveness of the mind of the individual poet, which gives the universality (116) …. We may expect the language to approach maturity at the moment when men [presumably, women too] have a critical sense of the past, a confidence in the present, and no conscious doubt of the future (1975, p.119). Maturity and universality as characteristics of the ‘classical’ In post-modern circles conscious of the ruptures and tremors characterising the worlds we live in, no doubt the last few phrases can appear as somewhat optimistic, but let us focus now on the words ‘maturity’ and ‘universality’ as marks of the classical. In his well-known work, Classical Sāṃkhya (1979, second revised edition), Gerald Larson specifies that the ‘classical period’ of his subject extends from 300 to 600 CE (p.4). Later, when giving an account of the development of Sāṃkhya as an intellectual tradition, he writes that the time-frame encompassing ‘classical Sāṃkhya speculation’ (presumably to include the lead-up to its classical high-point, followed by the period that witnessed a resurgence, incidental refinements or a decline) ‘ranges from about the first century A.D. to the tenth or eleventh century A.D.’ (see pp.75, 134). What, then, sets the ‘classical period’ apart from this wider period of development? What makes it ‘classical’? Larson declares that it is ‘that formulation of Sāṃkhya found in Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s Sāṃkhyakārikā’ (1979, p.4), for this is ‘the normative system … [that] remains the authoritative interpretation for many centuries’ (p.134). Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s Sāṃkhyakārikā represents an ‘organism [sic – of thought?] that reached maturity in what we have called the third or classical period …’ (p.154, emphasis added). Here again, in an apparently independent context, reference is made to ‘maturity’ of development as a quality of the classical. This is because Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s text ‘represents a synthesis of many ancient traditions in which previously diverse and frequently contradictory doctrines are given a systematic and coherent form. From this synthesis an extremely subtle and sophisticated system of thought emerged’ (p.154). As to the programmatic and evaluative dimensions of our topic, both Ram-Prasad and Ganeri, in their works previously cited, appear implicitly to endorse our view, for Ram-Prasad writes that the order of the schools of ‘classical Indian thought’ he examines, represents a ‘progression to do with their conceptions of the content of liberation. To put it simply, each subsequent school has a richer conception of the content of liberation than the previous one’ (op.cit., pp.1–2). For us to place this development under the rubric of the classical, then, we must be conscious of a ‘progression’ in richness of content, which is to say, that we are aware of a growth in maturity. Ganeri likewise: ‘The authors I do discuss [under ‘Classical India’ - part of the title of his book] form a moderately compact network of mutual reference and criticism, influence and response. In their work one finds a broad vein of critical rationality, in which reason is used both constructively and also to put itself in question’ (p.2, emphasis added). But this ‘mutual’, ‘responsive’, ‘constructive’ interplay among the group of thinkers discussed, once again implies progression, and therefore a growing maturity, in the critical use of reason. This is something we are aware of as a key characteristic defining their ‘classical’ enterprise and status. Let us now move on from these (implied) endorsements of our analysis to consider that other feature of the classical emphasised earlier, viz. its ‘universality’. For this, we turn to our final example drawn from Hinduism—the Bhagavad Gītā, an acknowledged religious classic if ever there was one. The Gītā is a Sanskrit text, generally reckoned to consist of 700 verses in 18 Chapters, and ascribed to about the first century CE. Through the mouth of Krishna as the Supreme Deity in human form (avatāra), it purports to instruct Arjuna, Krishna’s close friend, about the nature of Deity, the world, the human condition, and how Krishna’s devotees must attain final union with him. Often interpreted, even in the past, as a text with a universal message, it has become one of the most important (religiously) devotional texts of Hinduism, and has been the subject of countless commentaries in Indian and non-Indian languages to the present day. For our purposes, let us attend to one of its best-known English translations, that by Juan Mascaró (1897–1987).21 In his doctoral thesis on Mascaró, Nuno Mourato22 notes that the first edition of Mascaró’s English rendering of the Gītā for Penguin Classics in 1962 sold 560,923 copies; the second edition (1995) sold 78,832 copies, and the third edition, issued in 2003, sold 68,142 copies23 (a publishing record that would make most academics green with envy). In his introduction, Mascaró justifies the Gītā’s universal appeal and its inclusion in the Penguin Classics series as follows: In the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna becomes the soul of man and Krishna the charioteer of the soul (p.22) …. The greatness of the Bhagavad Gita is the greatness of the universe (p.33) …. We may go to that poem in times of sorrow and joy and thus connect it with the deepest moments of our life …. The essence of the Bhagavad Gita is the vision of God in all things and of all things in God. It is the vision of Dante …. (1962, p.34) Mascaró, in fact, connects themes from the Gītā with ideas taken from other sources as well, including Homer, Socrates, Buddhism, Jesus, St. Paul, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, and the Bible.24 Irrespective of one’s view about the plausibility of any of these commentarial links, the fact that Mascaró’s English translation of the Gītā has sold in large numbers over three issues, under the brand of the Penguin Classics, speaks for itself about the wide appeal of the text’s basic message. This indicates another characteristic of the classical, particularly as a literary, artistic or religious phenomenon, in its directive mode, viz., a tendency to connect with other appropriate classical sources, including those from other cultures, that also speak to the human condition—as if there were a shared and accessible well-spring of insights into human values and wisdom that transcends more superficial barriers of culture and geography. This highlights the potential of the classical to rise above local constraints of language and culture, and to ‘universalize’ its message. From this we may derive an argument to encourage not only transcultural study and the dissemination of its fruits, but also transcultural education in our schools, to which I shall return presently. Surely the capacity for such an exocentric outreach in our rapidly globalising world is the mark of a mature approach, to revert to this defining quality of the classical. But it would be foolish to think that the classical is always bathed in a halo of virtue. The classical can also have a dark side, for it is a tool, and like all tools it can be put to the use of good or evil purposes.25 For most of human history one would think, production of the classical has been perceived as the preserve of males, on the implicit assumption that contributions by those of other genders have been neither forthcoming nor worthwhile. This implicit assumption is itself riddled with sub-assumptions that are now perceived to be prejudiced, false, or doubtful, not least because the very cultural norms in which the classical has been nurtured have been structurally skewed in favour of the male. Fortunately, we live in an age where such assumptions and structures are now being properly challenged, though there is some way to go before they are widely discounted. Still, a start has been made. Secondly, the ‘traditional’ or acknowledged classical has often been used to stifle innovation and creativity—to obstruct, if I may put it thus, the ‘new classical’ from being born by way of deviation from or innovation in respect of hallowed ideals. This means that attempts to reconfigure the classical past have not always met with success, with the result that a great deal of genuine creativity has been lost. In keeping with the way in which the human psyche seems to work, the classical should be encouraged to develop an elan that seeks rebirth in ever-new forms in the various contexts we have considered. Demonstrating this has been one of the chief objectives of this essay.26 Conclusion: Continuing the classical in modern contexts But now we can pose the following question. What of us—the vast majority who are not destined to produce a classic in their own right? What of those who inhabit the foothills rather than the peaks of a studied domain—the foot soldiers rather than the commanders of the heights? Is there a role for them in the production of the classical/classic? In another of his works, T.S. Eliot has answered with profound insight, intended in the first instance for the literary world, but relevant also for other fields of endeavour The continuity of a literature is essential to its greatness; it is very largely the function of secondary writers to preserve this continuity, and to provide a body of writings which is not necessarily read by posterity, but which plays a great part in forming the link between those writers who continue to be read. This continuity is largely unconscious, and only visible in historical retrospect.27 Even the great receive training at the hands of the not-so-great, while the latter continue to play a vital role in maintaining the mood-music, if you will, that makes it possible for the great to produce their outstanding works. They also serve who only slave away. The foundation for nurturing an appreciation of the excellence that characterises the classical must be laid in our schools and institutions of higher education. At the time of writing, the UK government has proposed a review of the norms and conditions of higher education in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences with a view to assessing the economic benefits to the students and the country of such study. We can counter this reductive way of thinking by highlighting the civilising power of studying the classics and its leavening influence for enhancing and uniting our diverse and shared cultures. I hope I have gone some way in showing that studying the classical is an indispensable cultural need. It can never be too early to try and demonstrate this, first in our schools and then throughout the undergraduate years, irrespective, of course, of differences of class, race, and gender among our students. This is how the distinction between (closed) ‘elite’ and ‘populist’—so derided by some and so feted by others—may be bridged. The classical and the classics, especially when studied transculturally, are for the benefit, education, and enjoyment of everyone, and it is the job of educators to ensure that this occurs, particularly when confronted by such short-sighted government objectives as those mentioned earlier. Not only will this result in good education, but it will also work towards uniting our increasingly polyethnic societies towards shared social values and goals. It will help re-visualise our world, and, through the process of self-representation considered earlier, our humanity. Media, such as television and film, if handled responsibly, so that classical themes are interestingly produced and contemporised, can be an effective aid, though we cannot pursue this trail here. But it is through such concerted action that we will be able to take the ‘class’ out of ‘classical’. The President of the British Academy, in a recent communication, urged the Academy’s members ‘to speak up for our subjects … to demonstrate the value of a degree in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences through our work and that of our students. We can show that the interface between our subjects and the sciences is critical to understanding our past, present and future’ (email of 27 February 2018). Many thoughtful scientists would agree. In her book, Not for Profit, Martha Nussbaum observes that the abilities of the ‘soul’ (her word for the defining feature of the human being) are ‘associated with the humanities and the arts: the ability to think critically; the ability to transcend local loyalties and to approach world problems as a “citizen of the world”; and, finally, the ability to imagine sympathetically the predicament of another person’ (2010, p.7). All these abilities: critical thinking, viewing the local in the light of the universal, empathetic imagination by the transposition and realignment of context(s), we have shown, can be developed decisively by a study of the classics and classical, provided this is pursued in a methodologically alert manner so that hegemonic and manipulative objectives do not prevail. In other words, the classical, in all three of its functions, can be subject to decolonisation and meaningful use, not least in transcultural contexts, when judiciously studied. And as educators we need to help ensure that this is both doable and done. After all, the stakes are high. Footnotes 1 This is a revised and enlarged version of the Peter Craigie Lecture delivered under the auspices of the Department of Classics and Religion at the University of Calgary on 27 March 2018. I am grateful for the insights and clarifications produced through the questions that followed the Lecture. In what follows, I have retained something of the spoken character of the original. 2 In James Porter (ed.) 2006. Classical Pasts, p.89. 3 Katherine Butler Schofield (2010) considers the question of the classicisation of Indian music in her weighty article, ‘Reviving the Golden Age Again: “Classicization,” Hindustani Music, and the Mughals’. 4 As is well known, ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hinduism’ are problematic terms. In this essay, I invoke the principle of the reader having a ‘working knowledge’ of their meaning, as exemplified by the course of the argument, as sufficient for my purposes. 5 M. Citroni. 2006. ‘The Concept of the Classical and the Canons of Model Authors in Roman Literature’, in Porter (ed.), p.204. 6 See The Complete Oxford English Dictionary, under ‘classical’ and ‘classic’; cf. also P. Vasunia (2013), Introduction: ‘The words “classical” and “classic”, which derive from the Latin, first appear in English in 1599 and 1613, respectively, and, within a few years of their initial appearances, are used to refer to the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome …. In German, the words Klassizität, Klassik, and klassisch appear first in the eighteenth century, and the conjoining of classical and antiquity seems to occur in Germany for the first time as late as 1797. In French, classique appears in 1548 …. If the history of words is any indication, the later eighteenth century seems to be the period when the application of “classical” to Greece and Rome becomes accepted in western Europe,’ pp.11–12. Citroni (2006, p.208) gives a slightly earlier chronology for the term’s European Latin reuse. 7 I may add that the same may be said, allowing for refinements of argument and circumstance in respect of the individuals concerned, of those Western scholars who studied ancient Hindu Sanskrit religious and literary texts in 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. This has been well documented. See, e.g., with regard to William Jones, a pioneer in such studies, Mukherjee (1968), especially Chapters 2 and 6. More generally, cf. W. Halbfass (1990), particularly Chapters 4 and 24, and more recently, see A. Riddiford (2013), Chapter 1, and P. Vasunia (2013). 8 Personal correspondence, September 2010. 9 See her ‘The Politics of Comparison: Connecting Cultures Outside of and in Spite of the West’, 2010, where she gives an account of the issues involved and lists some of the relevant literature. 10 See his The Meaning and End of Religion, first published in 1962, and followed by several editions. 11 Saṃskṛta has been derived from saṃskāra which evokes the sense of perfecting or refining. 12 The Sanskritist Ashok Aklujkar in his piece, ‘The Early History of Sanskrit as Supreme Language’ (in Houben 1996) starts his classification with Vedic Sanskrit, in due course goes on to Epic or Purāṇic Sanskrit, then to ‘Sanskrit proper’, and ends with the period of ‘classical Sanskrit, in which the language almost always conforms to the model provided by Pāṇinian grammar …’ (pp.64–6). As a matter of interest, he notes that ‘the earliest Brahmanical authors who can be said with certainty to use Saṃskṛta as a noun having a language as its referent do not seem to be much earlier than the beginning of the Christian era’ (p.70, note 18(b)). From this is appears that though the practice of conforming to Pāṇinian grammar may have begun earlier, it came to a head from the viewpoint of giving the language a name considerably later than Pāṇini. 13 Professor Ram-Prasad (2001) also observes on p.3 of his Introduction that ‘Virtually any work on classical Indian thought runs the danger of giving an impoverished view of the rich diversity of the product of three thousand years and many hundreds of written works’. 14 But are not open elites—those which are recognised as maintaining standards of excellence or authority to which any individual, regardless of considerations of birth, race or gender, may belong—a good thing? 15 Citroni agrees about the term’s being indispensable, though he is more pessimistic about its comprehensibility than I am, and he does not go on to consider its applicability and usefulness in the way we have done: ‘Over the centuries, the word [“classical”] has proved capable of assuming a range of nuances so complex, and with such a density of meaning, as to become highly problematic and controversial. And still it remains irreplaceable, in spite of its insurmountably complicated nature’ (2006, p.204). 16 There are other ways of listing criteria for discerning the classical, not least as specific to particular domains. Butler Schofield (2010) quotes criteria suggested by Harold Powers that are less Eurocentric and pertain to Indian music: (i) That the music is ‘purveyed by performers who a) regard themselves and are regarded as highly skilled specialists, who must be b) taught and indoctrinated into their speciality … over a long period of time’; (ii) That it is ‘said to conform to a music-theoretical norm which is part of a Great Tradition’; (iii) That it is ‘both a) connected with and supportive of cultural performances to which it is ancillary, and at the same time b) conceived as an independent domain that can stand on its own as the centerpiece of a cultural performance’; (iv) Finally, that it is ‘patronized by individuals or groups, belonging to the ruling elite, who profess connoisseurship’ (2010, p.486). These are entirely social markers. 17 Louis Wise raises the point of self-representation in relation to the classical in his article in the Culture section of The Sunday Times, 4 March 2018. 18 Thus, ‘Kalidasa is the greatest poet in classical Sanskrit’, David Smith (2005, p.15). For the Sanskrit text in what follows I have used Smith’s edition, though the translations are my own. 19 I have expanded on this idea in my book on Hindu image-worship, 2017. 20 For a full English translation of the novel with a substantial Introduction and Critical Apparatus, cf. Lipner (2005). 21 The question is not whether Mascaró’s translation is literally accurate—the subtitle has ‘Translated from the Sanskrit’—but whether he has conveyed the basic religious message of the Gītā in terms of what the text sets out to teach. That in his Introduction Mascaró extrapolates from the message of the Gītā does not invalidate the claim that he has. 22 Mourato (2010) ‘The Life and Work of Juan Mascaró (1897-1987), Mallorcan Translator of the Bhagavadgita’. 23 Cf. p.156, ftnt.8. 24 ‘The majority of the archaisms found in Mascaró’s Gita come from the King James Bible ….’, Mourato (2010, p.159). 25 A point made by Louis Wise in his article cited earlier. 26 As another example of its dark side, the classical has been used to bolster the claims of regimes or organisations that have perpetrated unconscionable evil. Consider the use, architecturally, of classical and neo-classical forms in structures patronised by the regimes of fascist Europe in the first half of the twentieth century to profile doctrines and practices that still make one shudder. We have here yet another instance of the ‘devaluation’ of the classical. 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Oxford University Press and The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Roots and Routes of the ‘Classical’ with Illustrations from Hinduism
JF - The Journal of Hindu Studies
DO - 10.1093/jhs/hiy016
DA - 2018-08-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/roots-and-routes-of-the-classical-with-illustrations-from-hinduism-2J4Q5Dj0Yu
SP - 85
VL - 11
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -