First Words, Last Words - New Theories for Reading Old Texts in Sixteenth-Century India (Hardcover)

First Words, Last Words charts an intense "pamphlet war" that took place in sixteenth-century South India. Yigal Bronner and Lawrence McCrea explore this controversy as a case study in the dynamics of innovation in early modern India, a time of great intellectual innovation. This debate took place within the traditional discourses of Vedic Hermeneutics, or Mimamsa, and its increasingly influential sibling discipline of Vedanta, and its proponents among the leading intellectuals and public figures of the period. Bronner and McCrea examine the nature of theoretical innovation in scholastic traditions by focusing on a specific controversy regarding scriptural interpretation and the role of sequence-what comes first and what follows later-in determining our interpretation of a scriptural passage. Vyasatirtha and his grand-pupil Vijayindratirtha, writers belonging to the camp of Dualist Vedanta, purported to uphold the radical view of their founding father, Madhva, who believed, against a long tradition of Mimamsa interpreters, that the closing portion of a scriptural passage should govern the interpretation of its opening. By contrast, the Nondualist Appayya Diksita ostensibly defended his tradition's preference for the opening. But, as this volume shows, the debaters gradually converged on a profoundly novel hermeneutic-cognitive theory in which sequence played little role, if any. First Words, Last Words traces both the issue of sequence and the question of innovation through an in-depth study of this debate and through a comparative survey of similar problems in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, revealing that the disputants in this controversy often pretended to uphold traditional views, when they were in fact radically innovative.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	AAR Religion in Translation
Release date:	October 2021
Authors:	Yigal Bronner (Associate Professor, Department of Asian Studies) • Lawrence McCrea (Professor of Sanskrit Studies, Department of Asian Studies)
Dimensions:	243 x 160 x 18mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	200
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-758347-0
Categories:	Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > History of ideas, intellectual history Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > General > General Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Non-Christian religions > Religions of Indic & Oriental origin > Hinduism Books > Religion & Spirituality > Non-Christian religions > Religions of Indic & Oriental origin > Hinduism Books > Religion & Spirituality > General > General Promotions
LSN:	0-19-758347-4
Barcode:	9780197583470

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