Books by Jonathan Edelmann
Hindu Theology and Biology The Bhagavata Purana and Contemporary Theory (2012), Oxford University Press
Papers by Jonathan Edelmann
Religious Studies Review, 2012
This volume is by no means original, except for the introduction, but each of the essays included... more This volume is by no means original, except for the introduction, but each of the essays included address a set of concerns about the role of Sufism in medieval India as the title indicates. All of the chapters have been published previously, and there is very little that holds them together, except their collective contested nature. Given that the volume is part of a series titled "Debates in Indian History and Society," the contributions' disparate nature should not distract the reader but compel him or her to make connections between seemingly different temporal and spatial contexts that together constitute the dynamic role that Sufis played (and continue to play) in South Asian religious debates and cultural politics. The blurb claims that all of the articles in the volume are seminal, but some are obscure and very rarely cited in the literature. There are some real gems here, however,
Religious Studies Review, 2013
runaway fears or appetites in society. Based on this covenantal interpretation, he offers an expo... more runaway fears or appetites in society. Based on this covenantal interpretation, he offers an exposition of the constitution, its strengths, and flaws, concluding with a series of thoughts for strengthening the national covenant for domestic tranquility and common defense, general welfare, education, nature, healthcare, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, family, and immigration. Although May's writing reflects clear biases and assumptions that will appeal more to progressive audiences, his use of resources and insights to support his argument reflect his depth of education and experience.
International Journal of Hindu Studies, 2014
This themed issue of the International Journal of Hindu Studies is about the historical, philosop... more This themed issue of the International Journal of Hindu Studies is about the historical, philosophical, and theological factors involved in speaking about change, innovation, and newness in Hindu traditions, especially Mådhva Vai‚~ava, Gau ya Vai‚~ava, contemporary Advaita, and popular forms of contemporary Hinduism. The underlying question addressed in this issue is: In what manner did Hindu thinkers and Hindu leaders create newness and intellectual innovation? This question has lately received attention from scholars, and it is to this body of scholarship that this issue hopes to contribute. Hindu çåstras frequently say their views are timeless, immortal, or entirely lacking newness, and likewise Hindu theologians and philosophers frequently frame their own teachings as nothing but a restatement of an ancient root text's original intent and meaning or as clarifying its meaning without any substantive change to the philosophies and theologies of their own previous teachers. As demonstrated in the papers in this issue of the IJHS, from an Indological and historical perspective, these claims simply cannot be true. The acceptance of such theses would also, I believe, undermine the brilliance and fecundity of Indian intellectuals, reducing them to mere parrots rather than independently thoughtful, creative, and constructive authors. There is a real sense in which the Hindu thinkers represented here are in fact creative and constructive thinkers, even when their new philosophies and theologies are justified through exegesis of root texts, through exegesis of authoritative teachers in their tradition, or as reconstructions of a premodern or forgotten time.
Religions, 2017
This article is a reflection on a conception of death, that of karma and rebirth, and its value i... more This article is a reflection on a conception of death, that of karma and rebirth, and its value in interpreting one's life. I have thought about this conception in two ways. The first is that I can see the circumstances of my life as the result of causes of which I was the agent, and the second is that I can see my life and the relationships in my life as part of a much larger narrative that began before this life. Through an examination of Vaishnava and Advaita theology, Nyāya philosophy, and some Puranic and Epic texts, I argue for an interpretation of karma and rebirth as a rational system that allows one to see relationships as involving many layers of complexity.
Sophia: International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions, 2024
I argue that Jīva Gosvāmin's (c. 1517-1608 ad) concept of acintya and Thomas Aquinas's (1225-1274... more I argue that Jīva Gosvāmin's (c. 1517-1608 ad) concept of acintya and Thomas Aquinas's (1225-1274 ad) concept of mystery are similar. To make this case, I examine how each of them characterizes the nature of unity and plurality within the being of God, which is the issue of relations within a single object. I examine contemporary translations of acintya as it is used by Jīva, and I argue that mystery is a best translation because it addresses the ontological and epistemological senses of the word. I examine contemporary accounts of mystery as it is used by Aquinas, arguing that they reflect Jīva's use of the word acintya. This comparative study makes the case for similar approaches in Hindu and Christian scholasticism in regard to the use of reason to address the relational problem of simultaneous oneness and difference.
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Comparative Theology A Festschrift in Honor of Francis X. Clooney, SJ, 2023
has introduced a new degree of complexity into the study of religion, by which I mean a display o... more has introduced a new degree of complexity into the study of religion, by which I mean a display of the diversity and the detail that exists within and between Hindu and Christian traditions. Scholars working in religious studies can learn from Clooney's work in comparative theology since his comparative work sheds light on important areas in the history of religion. For example, Clooney (1990) made contributions to purva-mımaṃ sa, the "old theology," by offering a retrieval of ancient and orthodox approaches to Vedic ritual and language, and also to uttara-mı̄maṃ sa, the "new theology," by offering (Clooney 1993) a detailed analysis of monism or nondualism (advaita-vedanta) as a commentarial tradition that provides an explanation of how the texts should be read. On South Indian sŕıvaiṣ ṇ ava tradition, Clooney (2006) provides an examination of Vedantadeśika's commentary on Ramanuja's Gıtabhaṣ ya verse 18.66 in comparison with Christian notions of ritual and law. Regarding Indian and European interactions, Clooney (2016) examines the relationships between Jesuit and Asian philosophies of rebirth. For Indian studies, Clooney (1989, p. 548) explores the theology of karma, arguing that differences between it and other religions "make it possible for us to think across formidable boundaries of culture and experience. The specification of theories through the identification of their contexts and notice of how they cannot be extracted from those contexts makes possible a more useful summation of similarities and differences." In addition to attention to intellectual history, at the 2018 Board of Governors Dinner for the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, a center that Clooney directed, he argued that the study of religion should include an understanding of the larger communal life of religious and academic communities in which religious texts are important.
Agency in the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Tradition
Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy, 2013
When Stones Float and Mud Speaks: Scriptural Authority and Personal Experience in J vagosv min's Sarvasamv din
The Journal of Hindu Studies, 2014
A Companion to Comparative Theology, 2022
Valkenberg_17-Edelmann.indd 312 Valkenberg_17-Edelmann.
Journal of Religious Ethics, 2022
The object of this article is pre-colonial Hindu ways of distinguishing "the path of devotion" (b... more The object of this article is pre-colonial Hindu ways of distinguishing "the path of devotion" (bhakti-yoga) from "the path of knowledge" (jñāna-yoga) and "the path of work" (karma-yoga). It highlights how a developing religious group in early modern India explained and justified its path-its ethics, its ritual, its theology-while in conversation with the larger Brahminical tradition out of which it was emerging. I argue that early authors in the Chaitanya Vaishnava tradition such as Sanātana (c.1475-1554), Rūpa (c.1480-1554), Jīva (c.1510-1606), and Viśvanātha (fl. c.1650-1712) used the authority of the Bhāgavata-Purāṇa to elevate devotion to an ethical imperative by including and excluding the behaviors and the motives of the older and well-established paths like knowledge, works, and Patañjali's yoga. Their ethics is connected to an ontology of god's being in which the path of devotion is uniquely effective in revealing god's being and uniquely salvific the among paths. I argue this discourse on the three paths is a type of Hindu ethics, but it is unclear how it might be reconstructed in rational terms to deal with contemporary issues and that its primary innovation for the time was the uncoupling of ethics from the caste system.
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion, 2021
The Hindu theologian Jīva Gosvāmin (c. 1517-1608 ce) argued that God is always a single, consciou... more The Hindu theologian Jīva Gosvāmin (c. 1517-1608 ce) argued that God is always a single, conscious being, yet this God could be talked about in real and in meaningful ways using three specific-terms. This is God's inherent nature. Jīva argues for this view by saying that there is a "general definition" of God as a singular nondual awareness. This God is spoken of and it can manifest in accord with three "specific definitions": bhagavān, paramātmā, and brahma. This entry explains these terms; they are essential to Jīva's philosophy of religion. Jīva was an early Gaud .ī ya or Caitanya-Vais. n. ava theologian in the Hindu tradition who lived a large portion of his life in north-central India (modern-day Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh). He was inspired by Caitanya (b. 1486), a saint, mystic, and divinity. Jīva was the brilliant student of Sanātana and Rūpa, his uncles, who taught him and who wrote prolifically, although Jīva also received a classical education in Benares. Caitanya was from Gaud. a, or Bengal, and thus his followers are called Gaud .ī ya or Bengali-Vais. n. avas; the name distinguishes them from other Vais. n. ava traditions, like theŚrī-Vais. n. avas, Pus. t. i-Vais. n. avas, and others. Vais. n. avas are a branch of Hinduism focused on devotion (see BHAKTI) to Vis. n. u and Kr. s. n. a. Jīva is a theologian because his primary intellectual method is the justification and articulation of his views in a systematic manner by interpreting a revealed and eternally perfect scripture (Edelmann 2015; see revelation in hindu religion). This scripture is the Bhāgavatapurān. a (Tagare 1976) and related texts. My discussion here is based on a selection of Jīva's theological writings (Dasa 2005, 2014, 2015, 2016), and all translations are my own. Here Jīva provides philosophers and theologians with a linguistic system by which they can discuss God's nature: God is defined in a general manner with the definition of nondual awareness. This God is further inspected by means of specific definitions. (Dasa 2014, 5-9; Bhagavatsandarbha 1) In Jīva's theology, then, at the very least we can talk about God in "general terms" and "specific terms." Whether one should clarify the meaning of "general" and "specific" using, for example, the new logic (Navya-Nyāya) of Gaṅgeśa and Ragunāthá Siroman. i, or that of Vedāntins like Madhva, scholars whose work Jīva had read, is not explored here. I accept a general definition as something like a category with three aspects. Near to the passage quoted above Jīva further elaborates two of his essential teachings:
October , 2021
Through an examination of Bhāgavata Purāṇa X.43.17 and its interpretation by early commentators l... more Through an examination of Bhāgavata Purāṇa X.43.17 and its interpretation by early commentators like Vopadeva, Hemādri, Śrīdhara, Sanātana, Rūpa, and Jīva, I argue that they created forms of hierarchical inclusivism by the application of rasa in the interpretation of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. In doing so, I examine bhakti as a rasa, showing how rasa theory provided a vocabulary to include the characters of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and their diverse experiences of the God Kṛṣṇa within hierarchical systems of bhakti. By hierarchical inclusivism, I mean a theory, e.g., in the case of rasa, "the superiority of passionate love over fear," and that this theory provided criteria to order items, e.g., in the case of rasa again, "the character of the cowherd women is superior to the character of the king." In this case, hierarchical inclusivism is a theory for organizing and evaluating the mystical and aesthetic experiences of the ten characters mentioned in Bhāgavata Purāṇa X.43.17. I look at how commentators also used rasa for the basis for doctrines about God's being and nature.
Journal of Vaishnava Studies, 2020
https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-encyclopedia-of-hinduism/*-COM_1010068425
https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-encyclopedia-of-hinduism/*-COM_1010068427
This article is a reflection on a conception of death, that of karma and rebirth, and its value i... more This article is a reflection on a conception of death, that of karma and rebirth, and its value in interpreting one's life. I have thought about this conception in two ways. The first is that I can see the circumstances of my life as the result of causes of which I was the agent, and the second is that I can see my life and the relationships in my life as part of a much larger narrative that began before this life. Through an examination of Vaishnava and Advaita theology, Ny¯ aya philosophy, and some Puranic and Epic texts, I argue for an interpretation of karma and rebirth as a rational system that allows one to see relationships as involving many layers of complexity.
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Books by Jonathan Edelmann
Papers by Jonathan Edelmann