My professors are always shouting (okay, only one shouts), “What’s in the text!” “Go back to the text!” With some finger pounding and some heavy book waving, we students scramble for whatever it is that she/he is wanting us to get “from the text.”
The trouble is, these deep understandings we are prodded to grasp from inside the mind of someone in the text is not usually in the text at all. In fact, sometimes these insights we struggle to grasp seem to be counter to the text to this particular reader.
Two examples come to mind, one from last quarter, Ancient Civilizations, and one from the current quarter- Greek and Roman Culture. Let me illustrate my interpretation frustration, and should a careful reader of pre-classical Indian studies or Axial age Greece happen upon my blog–please, do tell, what did you read in the texts?
In the Mahabahrata, the great Indian Classic, there is a scene where the three young Pandava princes are being trained by their mentor to shoot a bow and arrow. And this is completely from memory, so excuse my miswording. Lining the first boy up, the mentor asks him what he sees when he looks at the bird in the tree. The prince says, “I see you, and the bird, and the tree, and myself.’
With a huff, the mentor turns to the second young prince and asks the same question. The boy replies, “I see you and the bird, and the tree, and myself, sir.” The frustrated mentor makes his way to the youngest of the Pandava princes, Arjuna.
Lining Arjuna up for the shot at the bird, the mentor asks the same question, “Tell me, what do you see?” Arjuna looks down his bow and says, “I see a bird, sir.” Arjuna cries, “Then Shoot!” The bird becomes a pile of feathers, and Drona, the mentor, is obviously pleased.
This much is simply read, directly from the text, no interpretations or assumptions. Later in the stories, Drona turns out to be on the side of the arch enemies of the Pandava brothers, their blind uncle (who has reigned as King since the Prince’s father died) and his cohorts.
Later in the next book, the Bagavhad Gita, Arjuna is the central character who Krishna, revealing himself as his god self, spends much time lecturing on the battle field about the nature of the universe and his proper place in it. Essentially, Krishna must impress upon Arjuna that he must go to war (even though many of the opposing side are family) because it is his duty and because only Krishna can slay others. All humans are simply acting out the reality that the gods put before them, and all notions of selfhood and individual conceptions are to be put aside.
So, through the entirety of the Mahabarata and the Bagavad Gita, I, as a reader, am getting the sense that Arjuna, great as he is, needs to learn some things about the universal order. Meanwhile, in class, suddenly all of our literature and all of our conversations are studded with the idea, “Be like Arjuna, with his amazing singular concentration!” But to my reading of the texts, that singular concentration of his made him susceptible to manipulation by Drona and in need of a good talking-to by Krishna. In fact, my take on the entirety of Indian literature, and many of its schools of philosophy, was emphasizing the universal connectedness of all things– exactly what the other Pandava princes were illustrating when they looked at that bird down their arrows and saw all things.
Hmmm… That’s my reading, I would love to know yours.
The second time I have been told to “go back to my text” that struck me as odd was during our conversation about the Odyssey- specifically, Penelope’s role and the social circumstances of her suitors. I read, throughout the epic, that when she chose a suitor she was to go to the suitors home and manage their estate. Her son, Telemachos, speaks of this as well as the fact that he will inherit Odeysseus’ property when his mother remarries. The suitors make it clear in statements regarding her future managing their estates, and it is a given when circumspect Penelope herself mourns the idea of leaving her home to go to a new husbands place.
I swear I am not making this up, I read it. But in class during discussion I was told time and time again, by both professors, that the suitors wanted to marry her so that they would get her property- Odysseyes’ property. I was told to find it “in the text” where it was stated that Penelope would leave the estate.
I have more readings than I can shake a stick at this week, plus a speech to give and an argument to craft for or against the Irag war given the Peloponesian arguments, and pages upon pages of essay and reflection to write on Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian war.
I read those texts. I think my reading is valid. I think more than one reading from a text is nearly a given. I think we should be introduced to various types of interpretations, so that we do not plow through 42,000 years of mankind with one oblique perspective followed by another. That, to my way of thinking, is not what we mean when we speak of “diverse perspectives.”
Tags: Bhagavad Gita, interpretation, Mahabharata, Odyssey, reading history, social customs, texts