Acting as a Way of Salvation: A Study of Raganuga Bhakti Sadhana. & Journey through the Twelve Forests: An Encounter with Krishna.

• Author: Wulff, Donna M.
• Position: Review

Acting as a Way of Salvation: A Study of Raganuga Bhakti Sadhana. By DAVID L. HABERMAN. New York: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1988. Pp. xv + 211. $29.95.

Journey through the Twelve Forests: An Encounter with Krishna. By DAVID L. HABERMAN. New York: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1994. Pp. xx + 244. $23.95 (paper).

With his first book, a study of Hindu bhakti, David Haberman made an impressive entry into the field of religious studies. His second book, Journey through the Twelve Forests, although contrasting in certain respects with the first one, likewise constitutes a significant contribution to our knowledge of religion in India broadly, and more particularly to our understanding of Hindu pilgrimage and Vaisnava bhakti. I shall briefly survey each book's contents and modes of argumentation, evaluate the books together in regard to method, and summarize what I regard as the distinctive achievements and limitations of each.

Haberman's Acting as a Way of Salvation is an exploration of a method of religious realization known as raganuga bhakti sadhana a technique developed by Rupa Gosvami in which the devotee enters the eternal drama of Krishna and his associates in Vraja (1) by assuming and living a particular role in that drama. After surveying several of the major views on rasa put forth by Sanskrit writers from Bharata to Visvanatha Kaviraja, Haberman analyzes Rupa's theory of bhaktirasa and its associated technique. He reviews the range of possible roles for devotees, shows that each role is defined by a mythic exemplar, and utilizes Constantin Stanislavski's "Method of Physical Actions" to shed light on the practice Rupa outlines.

Moving beyond Rupa's writings, Haberman then traces the theological debates within the Gaudiya Vaisnava community over the next two centuries, especially on the intriguing issue of whether male practitioners should outwardly embody the inner female roles they have assumed. He then devotes an entire chapter to detailing some of the ways in which raganuga bhakti sadhana is practiced in present-day Braj. He ends the book with a series of comparisons with other systems of practice, notably Cistercian monastic discipline and Theravada initiation.

On the basis of his study of raganuga bhakti sadhana, Haberman contends that sadhana, a structured practice aimed at realizing the highest goal, plays a major role in Hindu bhakti. He demonstrates convincingly that the early twentieth century interpretations of bhakti by Rudolf Otto and Nathan Soderblom, who argued that discipline has no place in bhakti, were based on the uncritical Protestant assumption that salvation by faith and salvation through works are mutually exclusive (pp. 62-64).

Haberman argues further that by identifying with a paradigmatic figure in Krishna's world, the practitioner is liberated from the ordinary constraints of society (p. 155). On the imaginative or emotional plane, he has built a good case for this position. He has not, however, addressed a key issue raised by Joseph O'Connell in his doctoral dissertation, whether the...