Vaishnava Hermeneutics in the Sri Krisna Samhitå: Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Abstract

Discerning the exact nature of the relationship between the Vedas and Vaishnavism, both historically and theoretically, is a complicated task. The question is a vexed one because the stakes are so high for Vaishnavas who have a vested interest in demonstrating that their religious traditions are linked to the Vedic tradition of the Indo-Aryans, that all-important community of religious innovators who established an elaborate and sophisticated sacrificial cult in Northwestern South Asia (and along the Gangetic plain) sometime in the latter half of the second millennium B.C.E. Vaiß∫avas of all stripes and varieties, today, recognize (at least rhetorically) the scriptural authority and revealed nature of the religious texts of the Indo-Aryans known as the Vedas.
Yet despite Vaishnava protestations to the contrary, modern historians have judged the connections between the earliest Vaiß∫ava religious sects and the religion of the Indo-Aryans to be tenuous one at best. As R. N. Dandekar, the well-respected scholar of Hinduism, once controversially quipped: “Vaishnavism is in no sense Vedic in origin.”