Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority Through Myths Of Identity (suny Series, The Margins Of Literature)

In Aryans, Brahmins, Jews, Dorothy M. Figueira provides a fascinating account of the construction of the Aryan myth and its uses in both India and Europe from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century. The myth concerns a race that inhabits a utopian past and gives rise first to Brahmin Indian culture and then to European culture. In India, notions of the Aryan were used to develop a national identity under colonialism, one that allowed Indian elites to identify with their British rulers. It also allowed non-elites to set up a counter identity critical of their position in the caste system. In Europe, the Aryan myth provided certain thinkers with an origin story that could compete with the Biblical one and could be used to diminish the importance of the West’s Jewish heritage. European racial hygienists made much of the myth of a pure Aryan race, and the Nazis later looked at India as a cautionary tale of what could happen if a nation did not remain “pure.” As Figueira demonstrates, the history of the Aryan myth is also a history of reading, interpretation, and imaginative construction. Initially, the ideology of the Aryan was imposed upon absent or false texts. Over time, it involved strategies of constructing, evoking, or distorting the canon. Each construction of racial identity was concerned with key issues of reading: canonicity, textual accessibility, interpretive strategies of reading, and ideal readers. The book’s cross-cultural investigation demonstrates how identities can be and are created from texts and illuminates an engrossing, often disturbing history that arose from these creations. ARYANS, JEWS, BRAHMINS......Page 4 Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 10 THE ARYAN CANON......Page 14 METHODOLOGY AND PLAN......Page 15 PART I: The Authority of an Absent Text......Page 20 THE ENLIGHTENMENT BACKGROUND......Page 21 VOLTAIRE AND THE SEARCH FOR AUTHORITY......Page 23 LOCUS OF POETIC INSPIRATION OR SITE OF CULTURAL DECAY?......Page 31 CONCLUSION......Page 38 ROMANTIC MYTH THEORY......Page 40 FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF ROMANTIC LINGUISTICS......Page 41 ROMANTIC MYTHOGRAPHERS AND THE UPNEKHATA......Page 44 ROMANTIC INDOLOGY: THE CASE OF MAX MÜLLER......Page 47 CONCLUSION......Page 60 INTRODUCTION......Page 63 READING NIETZSCHE READING INDIA......Page 65 MANU AS A “SEMITIZED” ARYAN SOURCEBOOK......Page 67 THE ARYAN AS ÜBERMENSCH......Page 68 CHRISTIANITY, AN ANTI-ARYAN OUTCASTE RELIGION......Page 70 THE JEW AND THE ARYAN......Page 71 CONCLUSION......Page 74 RACIAL THEORY: AN OVERVIEW......Page 77 GOBINEAU AND THE ARYAN ARISTOCRAT......Page 80 HOUSTON STEWART CHAMBERLAIN: ARYAN PUBLICIST......Page 86 ALFRED ROSENBERG AND THE NORDIC ARYAN......Page 93 CONCLUSION......Page 99 PART II: Who Speaks for the Subaltern?......Page 102 READING REFORM......Page 103 THE COMPLEXITY OF THE COLONIAL SUBJECT......Page 105 SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY AND THE HERMENEUTICS OF SATI......Page 107 MISREADING MONOTHEISM: IDOLATRY AND BRAHMIN PERFIDY......Page 109 RAMMOHAN ROY’S SYNCRETISM AND ITS CHALLENGE TO POSTCOLONIAL THEORY......Page 113 INTRODUCTION......Page 118 DAYANAND’S CANON AND HERMENEUTICAL STRATEGIES FOR READING THE ARYAN WORLD......Page 120 ARYAN MASCULINITY AND THE TELEOLOGY OF DECAY......Page 125 CONCLUSION......Page 130 INTRODUCTION......Page 133 JUSTICE RANADE AND LOKAMANYA TILAK......Page 134 SWAMI VIVEKANANDA......Page 146 CONCLUSION......Page 152 INTRODUCTION......Page 157 THE ARYAN AND ITS OTHER......Page 158 MAHATMA PHULE......Page 160 DR. AMBEDKAR......Page 163 CONCLUSION......Page 170 Afterword......Page 173 INTRODUCTION......Page 178 1. THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND ORIENTALIST DISCOURSE ON THE ARYAN......Page 179 2. THE ROMANTIC ARYANS......Page 182 3. NIETZSCHE’S ARYAN ÜBERMENSCH......Page 183 4. LOOSE CAN[N]ONS......Page 186 5. RAMMOHAN ROY......Page 189 6. TEXT-BASED IDENTITY: DAYANAND SARASWATI ’S RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ARYAN SELF......Page 191 7. ARYAN IDENTITY AND NATIONAL SELF-ESTEEM......Page 196 8. THE ANTI-MYTH......Page 198 Bibliography......Page 202 H......Page 216 V......Page 217 W......Page 218 ARYANS, JEWS, BRAHMINS 4 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction 14 SHARED MYTHS 14 THE ARYAN CANON 14 METHODOLOGY AND PLAN 15 PART I: The Authority of an Absent Text 20 1. The Enlightenment and Orientalist Discourse on the Aryan 21 THE ENLIGHTENMENT BACKGROUND 21 VOLTAIRE AND THE SEARCH FOR AUTHORITY 23 LOCUS OF POETIC INSPIRATION OR SITE OF CULTURAL DECAY? 31 CONCLUSION 38 2. The Romantic Aryans 40 ROMANTIC MYTH THEORY 40 FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF ROMANTIC LINGUISTICS 41 ROMANTIC MYTHOGRAPHERS AND THE UPNEKHATA 44 ROMANTIC INDOLOGY: THE CASE OF MAX MÜLLER 47 CONCLUSION 60 3. Nietzsche’s Aryan Übermensch 63 INTRODUCTION 63 READING NIETZSCHE READING INDIA 65 MANU AS A “SEMITIZED” ARYAN SOURCEBOOK 67 THE ARYAN AS ÜBERMENSCH 68 CHRISTIANITY, AN ANTI-ARYAN OUTCASTE RELIGION 70 THE JEW AND THE ARYAN 71 CONCLUSION 74 4. Loose Can[n]ons 77 RACIAL THEORY: AN OVERVIEW 77 GOBINEAU AND THE ARYAN ARISTOCRAT 80 HOUSTON STEWART CHAMBERLAIN: ARYAN PUBLICIST 86 ALFRED ROSENBERG AND THE NORDIC ARYAN 93 CONCLUSION 99 PART II: Who Speaks for the Subaltern? 102 5. Rammohan Roy 103 READING REFORM 103 THE COMPLEXITY OF THE COLONIAL SUBJECT 105 SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY AND THE HERMENEUTICS OF SATI 107 MISREADING MONOTHEISM: IDOLATRY AND BRAHMIN PERFIDY 109 RAMMOHAN ROY’S SYNCRETISM AND ITS CHALLENGE TO POSTCOLONIAL THEORY 113 6. Text-based Identity: Dayanand Saraswati's Reconstruction of the Aryan Self 118 INTRODUCTION 118 DAYANAND’S CANON AND HERMENEUTICAL STRATEGIES FOR READING THE ARYAN WORLD 120 ARYAN MASCULINITY AND THE TELEOLOGY OF DECAY 125 CONCLUSION 130 7. Aryan Identity and National Self-Esteem 133 INTRODUCTION 133 JUSTICE RANADE AND LOKAMANYA TILAK 134 SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 146 CONCLUSION 152 8. The Anti-Myth 157 INTRODUCTION 157 THE ARYAN AND ITS OTHER 158 MAHATMA PHULE 160 DR. AMBEDKAR 163 CONCLUSION 170 Afterword 173 Notes 178 INTRODUCTION 178 PART I. THE AUTHORITY OF THE ABSENT TEXT 179 1. THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND ORIENTALIST DISCOURSE ON THE ARYAN 179 2. THE ROMANTIC ARYANS 182 3. NIETZSCHE’S ARYAN ÜBERMENSCH 183 4. LOOSE CAN[N]ONS 186 PART II. WHO SPEAKS FOR THE SUBALTERN? 189 5. RAMMOHAN ROY 189 6. TEXT-BASED IDENTITY: DAYANAND SARASWATI ’S RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ARYAN SELF 191 7. ARYAN IDENTITY AND NATIONAL SELF-ESTEEM 196 8. THE ANTI-MYTH 198 Bibliography 202 Index 216 A 216 B 216 C 216 D 216 E 216 F 216 G 216 H 216 I 217 J 217 K 217 L 217 M 217 N 217 P 217 R 217 S 217 T 217 U 217 V 217 W 218 In Aryans, Jews, Brahmins, Dorothy M. Figueira provides a fascinating account of the construction of the Aryan myth and its uses in both India and Europe from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century. The myth concerns a race that inhabits a utopian past and gives rise first to Brahmin Indian culture and then to European culture. In India, notions of the Aryan were used to develop a national identity under colonialism, one that allowed Indian elites to identify with their British rulers. It also allowed non-elites to set up a counter identity critical of their position in the caste system. In Europe, the Aryan myth provided certain thinkers with an origin story that could compete with the Biblical one and could be used to diminish the importance of the West's Jewish heritage. European racial hygienists made much of the myth of a pure Aryan race, and the Nazis later looked at India as a cautionary tale of what could happen if a nation did not remain'pure.'As Figueira demonstrates, the history of the Aryan myth is also a history of reading, interpretation, and imaginative construction. Initially, the ideology of the Aryan was imposed upon absent or false texts. Over time, it involved strategies of constructing, evoking, or distorting the canon. Each construction of racial identity was concerned with key issues of reading: canonicity, textual accessibility, interpretive strategies of reading, and ideal readers. The book's cross-cultural investigation demonstrates how identities can be and are created from texts and illuminates an engrossing, often disturbing history that arose from these creations. Explores the construction of the Aryan myth and how it was used in India and Europe in the 18th-20th centuries. Ch. 4 (pp. 64-88), "Loose Can[n]ons", deals with the Aryan myth in Europe, where early racist thinkers began to seek their national origins in an Aryan people in order to minimize their indebtedness to the Jews' ancestors, the Hebrews. Fichte introduced antisemitism into the "völkisch" worldview by ranking peoples, with the Germans on top and the Jews on the bottom. Gobineau's racism stressed the Germans' "Aryan purity" and the importance of breeding. Houston Stewart Chamberlain also opposed racial mixing, and presented the Aryan as a foil to vilify the Jew. The Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg combined the ideas of his predecessors, including that Jesus was an Aryan, and provided the lethal ideology of Nazism that justified extermination of the Jews. Concludes that the Aryan of these racists remained an object of pure fancy, but with dire consequences. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism) In this cross-cultural study of the Aryan myth in which Brahmin Indian and European races but not Semitic ones share roots, Figueira (comparative literature, U. of Georgia) reads canons and "loose can[n]ons" in this origin myth's construction from Enlightenment and Romantic discourse to Indian reformers' anti- myths. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR