Approaches to the Study of Religion (Book Review)

This book presents papers originally presented at a seminar organised by Guru Gobind Singh Department of Religious Studies, Punjabi University. The seminar was held to help define the scope and methodological and curricular procedures for the study of religion as an academic discipline at university level. The title of the book is perhaps so chosen as a number of papers, though by no means the greater part, deal with the question of approach to the study of religion in the context of our universities where a student indeed may necessarily belong to the particular religion he chooses to study or may have no religious commitment at all. These authors are agreed that approaches such as in anthropology of religion, sociology of religion and history of religion that study religion from the vantage ground and with the techniques of such empirical sciences that deal with humanities, though of great advantage, fail, as it were, to enter the inner sanctum of religion and that only the method which they variously call religious, intrinsic, theological or experiential can do justice to religion. However, a new type of reductionism appears in some of the suggested approaches. For instance, according to one author, 'morality forms the core of every religion'. 'This being the very essence of religion', he continues, 'a religious approach should first try to establish what moral values are common to all major religions of the world and which ones are peculiar to each or some of them.' This approach, coupled with his suspicion of mysticism and relegation of spirituality to secondary importance, makes one wonder whether his approach is really religious and adequate enough for the study of religion. Another paper sees in religion 'man's concern to attune himself with the Supreme'. But basically all religion is only a human concern, though it might appear in different dimensions. Here too he is unlikely to meet with approval. Other approaches which take religious experience as religiously understood (not its philosophical views), or one's own faith as the starting point to understand other faiths deserve our study. Perhaps the merit of the book is not to be found in this area, nor in its giving us new insights for 'a universally acceptable methodology' for the study of religion; but, rather, in the fact that it tells us a great deal about the actual methods of these scholars of religion. This is something all those interested in inter-religious understanding ought to know for effective communication. In this sense the book is a contribution in the field. The case for the introduction of religious studies in universities is well argued from various angles, though the programme chalked out in one paper with this end in view is disappointing. There are two essays on what students of religion could profitably undertake to study, namely empirical investigation of religious attitudes and beliefs of people to find out how they relate to economic progress and concept of *seva* in different communities. Suggestions for similar scientific explorations are also found in other essays. The book contains an essay each on teaching religion in Catholic Seminaries and in Aligarh Muslim University which may be read with interest.

— A. M. A. Ayrookuzhiel Bangalore