Get started
Work

McGovern, Nathan: The Snake and the Mongoose: The Emergence of Identity in Early Indian Religion

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The purpose of this monograph, based on the author's doctoral thesis (McGovern 2013), is to critique a received "metahistorical" model for interpreting the origins of Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism, which "implicitly posits an essential characteristic" that explains the development of the three traditions throughout history: "an intrinsic dichotomy between the 'Brahmanical' and the 'non-Brahmanical'" (2019: 3-4).The model is based on the narrative of a conflict between two categories of philosophical-religious person in ancient India: brāhmaṇa and śramaṇa.Brāhmaṇas were householders who were born into the priestly class (bráhman), educated in the Vedas, and represented Brahmanism.Śramaṇas were non-Brahmanic celibate ascetics -the leaders of renunciant communities, like Śākyamuni, Mahāvīra, and Gośāla, and their followers -who rejected the Vedic-Brahmanic tradition and created "the śramaṇa traditions": Buddhism, Jainism, and Ājīvikism.Hinduism developed from orthodox Brahmanism, but only after Brahmanism had absorbed certain śramaṇic elements, including the concept of saṃsāra and the practice of renunciation/asceticism for liberation, which were alien to Brahmanism (cp.Bronkhorst 2007).The narrative derives in part from interpretations of texts that date from a century or more after Śākyamuni, Mahāvīra, and Gośāla had passed away.Ancient Greek authors (late 4th century BCE onwards) mention brāhmaṇas (brakhmanas) and śramaṇas (sarmanai, samanaioi, garmanas) as two distinct groups of "philosophers" (philosophoi) or "naked wise men" (gumnosophistai).The inscriptions of king Aśoka (3rd century BCE) designate as brāhmaṇa and śramaṇa (in Middle Indo-Aryan = MIA) those who are worthy of receiving gifts, without indicating an opposition between them.Some scholars have claimed that already in ancient times the antagonism between brāhmaṇas and śramaṇas was likened to the natural enmity between the snake and the mongoose, 1 but McGovern points out that although Patañjali (2nd century BCE) gives śramaṇa-brāhmaṇa as an example of a Pāṇinian 'oppositional compound' (virodha-dvandva), it is only much later (7th century CE) that grammarians identify 'snake and mongoose' (ahi-nakula) as a compound of that kind.The compound śramaṇa-brāhmaṇa and the phrase "śramaṇa and/or brāhmaṇa" appear in early Buddhist and Jaina literature, but often as a single class of ascetics/philosophers, against which one's own identity can be constructed, rather than as two groups opposed to one another.McGovern argues that the formula "brāhmaṇa and śramaṇa" was wide enough to include all those whom one wished to criticise: those who saw themselves as both brāhmaṇa and śramaṇa, and those who saw themselves as brāhmaṇa only (2019: 131-132).1 "An important feature of the heterodox texts" is the use of the "expression śramaṇa-brāhmaṇa to denote the two opposing religious systems […].While the śramaṇas were against Vedic tradition and were upholders of renunciation, the brāhmaṇas were upholders of the Vedic tradition and the householder status.This is evident in […] Patañjali's use of the example of śramaṇa-brāhmaṇa to illustrate an 'antagonistic compound' where he remarks that the opposition of the two was eternal like that of the snake and the mongoose" (Chakravarti 1983: 72-73).In Thapar's collection of articles we find this claim several times (2000: 223-224, 423, 460, 848, 918, 967).Cp.Flood 1996: 82.
DOI: 10.33063/os.v74.655
Language: English
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4409172142
FWCI:
Cites:
Cited by:
Related to: 10