REL 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Chandogya Upanishad, Crass, Social Text
8 Oct 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Religious texts are characteristically connected explicitly or implicitly to a sphere of knowledge of transcendent or metaphysical nature, which they provide revelation, inspiration, and unbroken primordial tradition. Religious texts are human products, and thus are capable of high moral purpose and crass self promotion, spiritual longing, and material interest. We must inquire about the humans responsible for the text"s production, reproduction, dissemination, consumption, and interpretation: case 1: passage from the chandogya upanisad. This text attempts to identify esoteric patterns in the arcane details of sacri cial practice and to forge from these a uni ed understanding of the cosmos, the self, and the nature of being. The variation of analysis and understanding provides an example of how texts can be interpreted in many di erent ways. Religious texts can reinforce and reproduce social order- social conventions are given through religious status.
