How to Speak for the Indian Traditions: An Agenda for the Future
S. N. Balagangadhara is director of the Research Center for Vergelijkende Cultuuwetenschap, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
The article attempts a contrast between the process and the structure of the Christian and the Indian spirituality. Drawing attention to their dissimilarities, it attempts to reformulate the differences among the Indian traditions in a novel way. It argues that cultures and traditions are not just different; rather that they differ from each other in different ways as well. The future of religious studies, it is suggested, is dependent on developing the ability to develop new ways of describing the differences between cultures and traditions. This is the agenda for the future. As a correlate to this task, the article suggests that we replace the question "who speaks ‘for’ and ‘about’ a religion?" with a more pregnant and a more accurate reformulation: "how to speak for a religion in the Academy?"