After a three-month sojourn in India, I return to State of Formations with renewed vigor.  I also return with sustained interest in the possibilities of representing Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, and other Dharmic traditions within Western institutions.  This post marks the first in a series about the pivotal, intermediary role that cultural and religious brokers from Asia and Africa play in North Atlantic universities.  At the risk of sounding too unclear, academic, or opaque, I draw upon examples from my experience as the Hindu Fellow  – otherwise known as “The Hindu Chaplain” – at Yale University.

For the past two years, I have represented Hinduism at the university level.  My professional responsibilities demand versatility in a number of college contexts: I represent Hindu interests at a monthly meeting for university-wide Yale Religious Ministries; I attend meetings at the University Chaplain’s Office with fellow chaplains from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; I serve as the informal advisor for the campus Hindu Students Council; I provide formal consultations for patients and providers on the medical campus; finally, I counsel members of the Yale community seeking a Hindu view on existential questions.

Prior to becoming the Hindu Fellow, I never critically considered the possibility of acting as an interlocutor between Hindus and non-Hindus, which in this case, entirely means Jews, Christians, and Muslims.  My religious life consisted mostly of studying religious texts personally, listening to Hindu devotional music (what those of us in the tradition would refer to as bhajans or shabads), and participating in Hindu festivals within the local community.  As the son of Indian immigrants, I often associated with the children of other immigrants from South Asia.  The socialization of most of my Hindu friends occurred in homes where a South Asian language was spoken and in a social community where other immigrants met regularly.  For South Asian Americans in urban settings, this usually entailed involvement in a temple community; for those in rural settings, parents often organized local congregations with weekly or monthly worship.  Most possessed some exposure to Hinduism through popular media such as Bollywood, Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana and Mahabharata serials, or Amar Chitra Katha comics.  For the first thirty years of my life, Hinduism occupied a deeply personal domain.

This intimacy with my religious tradition has serves me well among Hindus at Yale.  As might be expected, shared linguistic and theological concepts ease communication.  Joint participation in common festivals such as Diwali and Holi provide solid ground for community building.  A healthy respect for Sanskrit mantras and pujas cuts across the Hindus on campus, even if their families invoked alternate traditions.

My position also necessitates contact with many people who pretend no familiarity with Hinduism whatsoever.  Most frequently, this becomes a point of discussion for debates around cultural competence in campus programming.  For example, people often ask me whether Hindus refrain only from beef, whether they can eat pork, or whether they can eat from cooking materials handled with meat products.  In these instances, I respond that Hindus are not uniformly vegetarians since geography (i.e. Kashmir, Bengal, Kerala) and caste (i.e. Kshatriyas and those now known as “low castes”) influence diet more than religious sect.  I conclude by recommending that vegetarian and vegan meals be offered so that all people can eat at a minimum.  Usually, this results in food prepared in the most insipid, tasteless, and uninteresting ways that offend all people equally.

The discussion becomes more complex with social, cultural, or theological issues where Hinduism exhibits enormous diversity.  For example, many Hindus and non-Hindus alike ask about Hindu perspectives on controversies within the popular media.  What is the Hindu view on homosexuality or bisexuality?  What is the Hindu view on abortion?  If Hindus marry non-Hindus, what religion are the children?  What is the relationship between Hinduism and figures like Guru Nanak in Sikhism or Lord Buddha in Buddhism?  Are Hindus monistic, monotheistic, dualistic, polytheistic, or atheist?  What are the canonical texts of Hinduism?  Depending on sectarian affiliations, one can find diametrically opposed answers to these questions among people who classify themselves as Hindus.

In the company of friends and colleagues who are rabbis, priests, and imams, I usually reflect on the academic study of religion during these situations when interfaith conversations can venture toward mistranslations.  While the above questions raise many points, let’s take the example of God in Hinduism.  To respond to the question about Hindus being monistic, monotheistic, dualistic, polytheistic, or atheist is to virtually miss the point that Hindus believe in dharma, usually translated in English as “duty,” from the Sanskrit root dhr meaning to hold, bear, or support.  The idea of dharma posits a cosmic order to existence to which each individual – not just Hindu – must morally contribute.  Theistic questions appear secondarily as evidenced by the relatively general trend of relatives worshipping different deities within the same family.

In these occasions, I wonder how the study of religion would have changed had it originated in South Asia.  The Semitic model of religion holds belief in one God and one set of prophets with worship among one confessional community occurring around the study of one religious text usually written in one liturgical language.  Hinduism challenges the “ones” in this formula.  Given the spatial requirements in this post, I cannot yet elaborate on the similarities of the Dharmic traditions (soon to come), but I want to raise the point that interreligious dialogue is predicated on the notion that the Dharmic traditions can be classifiable according to Semitic standards.  We first generation Hindu Chaplains must therefore find a way to translate our traditions for a broad audience without apologetics or sacrificing internal diversity in return.  The enduring question: How do we do this?