Crisis and Knowledge: The Upanishadic Experience and Storytelling.

• Author: Lindquist, Steven E.
• Position: Book review

Crisis and Knowledge: The Upanishadic Experience and Storytelling. By YOHANAN GRINSHPON. New Delhi: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2003. Pp. xii + 160. Rs. 395.

Upanisadic narratives have often been relegated to a subordinate position in the analysis of Upanisadic literature. In the academy (with notable exceptions) these stories have been largely analyzed for textual layering, linguistic particularities, and their relation to history and philosophical doctrine. Grinshpon, in Crisis and Knowledge, argues that these means of "under reading" the narratives do not do justice to the narratives as narratives. According to Grinshpon, they also do not take into account that such narratives are fundamentally about self-transformation, both for the characters in the narrative and to a receptive audience.

Grinshpon's book begins with a chapter on method, followed by four chapters that are not only expansions upon his methodological concerns, but are also case studies in reading particular Upanisadic narratives (ch. 2 Upakosala and Satyakama; ch. 3 Maitreyi and Yajnavalkya; ch. 4 Naciketas and Usan; ch. 5 Svetaketu and Uddalaka). Other Upanisadic narratives are also mentioned in relation to these case studies, such as Janasruti/Raikva and Balaki/Ajatasatru. A short epilogue returns to the larger issue of how Upanisadic narratives can be read.

Grinshpon begins chapter one with an interesting interpretation of Janasruti to highlight his methodological approach. To Grinshpon, all Upanisadic narratives are based on a movement from non-knowing to knowing, or "inferiority" to "superiority/completion." Janasruti learns from two geese that his knowledge is incomplete. The two geese are taken by Grinshpon as representative of Janasruti's own split and incomplete self, an incompleteness Janasruti must try to overcome with the help of Raikva. If Upanisadic narratives are read with this general structure in mind, Grinshpon argues, they can serve a therapeutic function for the audience as they do for the characters in the stories: Janasruti's move from incompleteness to completeness mirrors the Upanisadic audience's own attempt towards completeness. The following four chapters then analyze a series of Upanisadic narratives in a similar fashion, probing what Grinshpon calls the "deep text." He quite rightly points out various difficulties in understanding these texts, forcing the reader to rethink common assumptions about their meaning while creatively reinterpreting...